Getting Real and Giving Generously…

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budget, church, giving, journey, Living Generously, ministry, money, motivation, passion, pledge, real, resources

Photo credit:  www.associationserviceswa.com/2016/08/value-of-a-well-prepared-budget/

The year after I graduated from college, I volunteered fulltime through the AmeriCorps program at a Food Bank in North Carolina.  In addition to working in the warehouse and monitoring agencies, my fellow volunteers and I also had monthly classes on a variety of topics.  My favorite was a budgeting class.  Though most of us were scraping by our living stipend, we still had income and expenses like everyone else.   Our homework was to track our expenses and income for a month and then come back to class to talk about what we noticed.  After that month, I realized that I had picked up a terrible habit.  I had worked very hard to save money during that year.  As a reward for saving money, every week I would treat myself to something small.  But when I did the math, I realized the amount I had saved was much less than the amount with which I was treating myself.  The realization was shocking and wildly disappointing.

On Sunday, we are submitting our pledge commitments for the coming year at Hickory Neck.  Part of our Living Generously campaign has been talking about the powerful ministries at Hickory Neck that mean so much to us.  We have read parishioner reflections, biblical reflections from national church leaders, and a great narrative budget that helps us see how our finances function.  My husband and I are inspired and expectant about the future of Hickory Neck, and we are overjoyed to join the pledging effort to support our ministry.

Inspiration has not been a problem.  In fact, my husband and I talked about how we want to increase our pledge this year.  But as we looked at the numbers, we realized in order to align our budget with our passion, we were going to have to adjust some things.  For us, that means at least a few less meals out each month.  It also may mean being a bit more discerning about wants versus needs.  It will certainly mean keeping an eye on making sure that we are able to keep our pledge next year by saving the amount needed for our increase and not “treating” ourselves disproportionally to our increased pledge.

As the Vestry talked about Stewardship, the Vestry all realized our church giving was motivated by different things.  For some of us, understanding the mission of the church and how our pledge would be used was critical.  For others of us, we needed our giving to be rooted in a theological or spiritual understanding of resources and our stewardship of those resources.  While for others of us, our giving was more motivated by looking around us, taking stock of all the things we like about church, and calculating how much those things cost.  My hope is that our campaign has addressed all of those approaches and that our journey through stewardship season has inspired and rooted you.  I look forward to hearing your story of our journey together and kicking off another great year!

On Living Generously…

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abundance, commitment, conversation, discernment, generosity, God, journey, Living Generously, persistence, pilgrimage, pledge, scarcity, steward, stewardship

Photo credit:  www.tens.org

This past Sunday we kicked off our Fall Stewardship Season, “Living Generously.”  I talked about the campaign in my sermon, but we also have many invitations into this time of discernment for our parishioners.  We each received a packet of information about the ways we can support the life and ministry of Hickory Neck.  We have reflections written by national and parish-level leaders that invite us to consider their experiences around stewardship.  And we are having conversations with each other about how pledging works for each of us.

Just last night, the Vestry took on one of those conversations.  We looked at the gospel lesson for this coming Sunday (Luke 18.1-8) and talked about the challenge of persistence when it comes to stewardship.  We realized that no matter what financial situation or phase of life we are in, living generously does not come naturally or easily, but takes intentionality and persistent commitment.  In our small group, we had a person with young children – including some in childcare, a person with teens approaching college, a person who is thinking about retirement but has taken in an aging parent, and a person in retirement on a fixed income.  Despite those differences, we all have to be intentional with our commitment to stewardship because we all have commitments that can distract us from generosity and tempt us into scarcity.

There was something powerful about talking about hard keeping our commitment to stewardship is with other parishioners.  Too often we take those pledge cards home and embark on a discernment process that is very individualized.  Certainly, we all need time with our God on our own to fortify ourselves to being generous stewards.  But we also need companions on the journey – fellow parishioners who can say, “Yes, it is hard living generously!”  We need those fellow pilgrims because they also remind us of why we keep at it.  These are the same people who will remind you why you are grateful.  After the Vestry talked about the challenges of living generously, then we talked about the benefits.  Stories started pouring in about what we each get out of Church.  We talked about the ways that Hickory Neck feeds us and brings us joy.  We talked about the ways that, throughout life, God has been so faithful to us, and what an honor it is to be able to harness some of that generosity in our own lives.

On Sunday, I encouraged us to spend some time at home in discernment about our stewardship of God’s abundance.  This week, I also want to encourage us to spend some time in discernment with each other.  Share those challenges to being a steward; but also share those blessings of being a steward.  Those conversations may feed the conversation you have at home and will certainly renew your spirit.  Join us as we embark on this journey toward living generously together!