|
|
SUNDAY MORNING from the pastor November 10, 2002 My backyard looks funny this morning. Doug and Ted and Ron were here yesterday to trim the trees around the parsonage. Between that and all the leaves falling the past few days, the place has a naked sort of feel--in an exciting way. When I was growing up, this was the time of year when we would take out all the screens and put in glass panes--and we would wash all the windows--and the house would have that clear, clean, exciting sort of feel. Today is a mild November morning, 60 degrees, wet, a slight pungent leaf odor, breezy--a snappy day so far. We still have some glorious autumn colors: reds, oranges, yellows, greens. But the earth is bullish on brown. It’s in its ascendency. We learn to like it, embrace it, befriend it--or become depressed for 5 months. But I’ve always liked brown. My daughter Mindy is home for the weekend. That usually means a meal at a good restaurant, a couple movies, the latest gossip about the rest of the relatives, laundry, shopping to restock a few supplies, and regaling ourselves with a few memories from the past. When she heard that I had baked bread for election night, she decided she wanted to do that too--last night. It had been several years since Mindy was around to help with the bread. She didn’t know whether to smile or grimace when she stuck her hands in the pasty dough to knead it. But it was quite satisfying to munch on hot sour dough, fresh out of the oven, a little before midnight. Today is Consecration Sunday. It is our time to consider what God wants us to do about supporting his Kingdom through giving to our church. But even beyond that--it is a day to consider how our handling and spending of money says something about what kind of persons we are. Even more important than my pledge to the church is the question about what kind of person God wants me to be. I cannot become the person God wants me to be unless I am open to God’s will about money: how I handle it, how I share it, and how I arrange my spending to reflect my deepest values. The degree of my hypocrisy can be measured by my under-funded values. And so Consecration Sunday is a gift, an invitation to make a ‘real’ decision to live a ‘real’ life of investing in God’s Kingdom. You may find some of the following statistics interesting: Active households in our church (families, couples, individuals living alone): 211 Number who contribute financially: 174 Percent of people who give 50% of the church’s income: 13 Average household contribution (among the 174 who give): $1,123 Number of households giving $50 a week or more: 22 Amount pledged or projected last year by our congregation: $195,402 If everyone tithed, amount that would have been given or pledged (based on our area’s mean income): $609,000 Interesting. --Mike |
