Stewardship Thoughts Back from leave

I’m so glad to be back writing to you in this space. There were several times when I was on leave and came across something and thought, “I’d like to share that with Christ Church.” I was aware of how much I benefit from being in this community in addition to it being “just” my work. So it is good to be back. The bag of chocolate truffles that someone left on the table in my office also helped, and the Pageant on Sunday was fantastic—thanks to Jonathan Duce, our fearless organizer, all the parents and participatns, and especially the Hobins, who made a great holy family.

Having been away for stewardship season this year, it was sort of odd to see it in the newsletter how we crept towards our goal, without being part of the conversation. We are now at about $76,000—still about 9,000 below last year’s figure, and unfortunately $24,000 below our goal of $100,000. Those totals (which might seem a little discouraging) actually don’t quite tell the whole story. Of course we need to have the money, and certainly more is better, but fully 19 of those pledges were increases over last year. 5 of them were entirely new pledges. Looking at the numbers so far, there are some wonderfully generous people in our congregation, some increasing their pledges by thirty percent, even fifty percent.

Keeping the doors open here at Christ Church isn’t cheap; before we’ve even hired a priest, administrator, organist or sexton, we’ve already spent close to $87,000 on building maintenance, candles, and heat, electricity, and phone, and our share to the diocese. When you want to pay people to preach the sermon, play the organ, print the bulletin and take out the trash, it adds more than double that amount. Well, I can hear you saying, “I don’t know if I quite get thousands of dollars worth out of coming to church. Coffee hour is great, and Rev. Sara is fine, but come on, that’s a lot of money.”

It’s true—if you’re looking for personal satisfaction, a hot tub is probably a better investment than a church pledge. But that’s the thing—contributing to your church community isn’t about personal satisfaction. It’s nice when it feels good, but what you’re really doing when you support this church is making sure the doors can be open for everybody else. The Gospel is about all the people who haven’t heard it yet—it’s good news, and it needs to be shared. They haven’t had a chance to support this community yet. You have. Each of us has a wonderful story to tell about the work God is doing in our lives to heal us and allow us to share the love of Christ. Celebrating church every Sunday here in Waltham is part of the way we tell that story, all of us together.

So… thanks so much to those of you who have given from your hearts to keep this community going. There is a wonderful spirit in this place, I am so glad to be back here with you, and thrilled that my new daughter Adah will get to be part of it, too!