On Being Still…

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Advent, church, consume, God, presence, quiet, resources, still, stress, the Lord, time, watch

Photo credit:  https://www.atonementfriars.org/second-week-of-advent-in-home-retreat/

One of the things I regularly try to teach and model for our family and parish is the value of reining in consumerism during Advent.  It is so easy to get caught up in all the things we want to get our loved ones – creative, funny, thoughtful gifts to show our family, colleagues, and friends how much we appreciate them.  But too often we spend too much, straining our budgets and our emotions instead of creating the spirit of joy giving the gifts intended.

This Advent, I have noticed the same pull happens with our time during Advent.  Between shopping, work parties, school-related events, performances, and community events, we could be busy from sunup to sundown every weekend in December, not to mention weeknights.  Just this past weekend in our town, there was a parade in the morning, events all day, a boat show in the evening, and fireworks on the second evening.  There is a constant invitation to allow our time to be consumed, just like there is an invitation to allow our financial resources to be consumed.

So this past weekend, we chose one thing.  Just one out of the four or five things we wanted to do.  And you know what happened?  Nothing!  We reveled in the one event, savoring and enjoying it.  And then we rested.  We came home and trimmed the hearth, spent time together, and took naps.  It was glorious!

Every year, the church invites us into a quiet, reflective Advent.  Every year it sounds awesome.  I get devotions, or activities to center the family, and about half-way through Advent we fizzle out because we are so exhausted from the running and stress.  It wasn’t until this year, having taken the quieter weekend option that I realized what the church (and yes, even me from the pulpit!) has been inviting us to do.  Be still.  Keep watch.  Take rest in the Lord.  Not just for an hour on Sunday, but the whole of Advent.  How might you make space this year, say “no” to a few things, spend less, and just be still, alert for the presence of God acting in your life?  I suspect if you do, your new favorite season might just become Advent!

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!

Finding our way through priorities…

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blessed, church, fair share, gift, God, pledge, resources, stewardship, walking the way

This year, St. Margaret’s has been Walking the Way through our Stewardship Season, praying on what giving means to us, why we give, and how our giving shapes our relationship with God and our church.  Below is a guest post from parishioner Kimberly Irvine on why she is pledging this year, and how the Holy Spirit is moving in her on her Walk.  I hope you enjoy her words.

Writing this blog post was not an easy exercise for me.  My desire to find the exact words to express to you why stewardship and pledging are vital to our church, was keeping from saying what is my heart.

The fact is I’m truly grateful to God for allowing me to be part of this community of faith.  St. Margaret’s has always been for me, a place filled with faith, joy, and love.  I believe in the good work our church is doing. I see God’s love at work in our church all the time.

Part of me is also worried because the church budget is projecting that in 2015 our church will be operating at a deficit again.  The funds our church raises through pledges, and other fund raising activities, will not generate enough revenue to cover the operating expenses of our church.  This surprises me because as a parish, I believe we are all very blessed, we are generous when asked to support special initiatives, and we share a common desire to be part of this extraordinary community.

Courtesy of http://imgarcade.com/1/christian-stewardship-clip-art/

Learning of the church’s deficit, also makes me begin to question whether or not I’m giving my fair share to our church.  God has given generously to me; am I giving back as generously as I should?  This is not an easy question to answer. We all worry about money.  We need to pay our mortgages, and other bills.  We also want to go on vacations and have nice things.  I’m remembering part of sermon we heard earlier this month, where we were reminded that all we have comes from God.  Everything we have is not ours; it is all God’s, and we must give back to God what is God’s.  Can we prioritize and give to God first?

Since I believe strongly in the mission and vision of our church, I feel responsible to use the resources God has given me to financially support the church.   I make a financial commitment to St. Margaret’s because I really want our church to thrive and grow.  I want to see the good work of our church continue to expand in our community and the world.  This year I plan to increase my pledge, and try to be more intentional about giving to God first.  I pray that all parishioners of St. Margaret’s can make similar commitments in support of our church.

We are united in faith; let’s also be united in contributing financially to our church.

I found this prayer from this year’s stewardship bulletin very meaningful:

Gracious God, giver of all we have and hold; grant the people of this church a deep and abiding awareness that all things come from you – our health, our incomes, our jobs, our talents and our generous impulse.  Send your Holy Spirit to help us as we swim against the rising tides of materialism, envy, individualism and greed I our culture. When we are tempted to think of money as a private matter, remind us that you have asked for part of what we are given, to be returned to you as a symbol of our awareness that you give all we have. And finally, assist us as we help each other to embrace the grace of giving, for you are the lover of our souls and call us to nothing less than transformation in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Respectfully submitted by Kim Irvine