How Hard Do You Think It Was

Sermon-year B-Proper 22, October 4, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We begin our stewardship campaign today. I have been asked to start our talks by giving my own testimony. Before I do that, I want to tell you of some great risks that we have taken here at Trinity. Before this church was erected, there was another Episcopal Church in downtown Belleville in the 1890s. Grace Episcopal Church. It closed by the late 1920s. In the 1940s another group of Episcopalians began meeting and started a second church. How hard do you think it was to begin another church in a town when one had already failed?
When I came in the 1980s we started a new youth program. It wasn’t great but it was ok. Within a few years we found out about a program just taking off called Journey to Adulthood. It was exciting. We even hired a part time priest, Rev. Sally because we knew it would take great talent and energy to get it started. That was over 15 years ago. Next weekend for the 6th time a group of our J2A youth will drive to New York City for the weekend in a special program called Nightwatch where they spend a weekend at the largest cathedral in the world-St. John the Divine. Another group, Rite 13, spent last night here learning about hunger throughout the world.
We had an ok program, but we looked at the J2A and we knew that that would be the future for us. We were really scared starting it up, because it was new and different and required a huge commitment from us to get it started. How hard do you think it was to begin a new youth program when we already had one that was working?
A couple of years later, we were at a workshop in Indianapolis and we heard about a new children’s Sunday School program called “Godly Play”. We had a good children’s program here at the time, and great leadership. But when we saw Godly Play we knew it was the future. We were really scared starting it up, because it was new and different and required a huge commitment from us to get it started. How hard do you think it was to begin a new children’s program here when we already had one that was working?
I could describe to you dozens of times, that I know of, when we looked ahead, saw something that looked like wonderful, and we decided to go all in. In the late 1990s we had a building that no longer fit our needs. We talked about it for years. YEARS. Finally, at the annual meeting one year Brenda Coman stood up and said, there’s nothing stopping us from building except ourselves. We have to do it. We were really scared, because it was expensive, and new and different and required a huge commitment from us to get it started. How hard do you think it was to go out on a limb and raise almost a million dollars , invest in a new building when we already had one that was working?
Adopt-a-Child-Size. Cropwalk. Willow Creek ministry. The new prayer book. Putting all our worship in a bulletin. The 4th Sunday special music. Having a youth on the vestry. So many times we have started out on a new venture, taking a risk when we were comfortable where we were, but we saw the future. We believed that God was leading us in a new direction. And we took the leap.
Let me skip gears for a moment. For centuries the church (not just Trinity) had a very powerful way to get people to give. We used guilt and fear. We told people that God wouldn’t love them (or more accurately He would punish them) if they didn’t give, that they wouldn’t get into heaven-or much worse.. Guilt and fear worked well. It wasn’t Christian, but it was effective. People contributed because they thought we had the power to punish them forever. We, the church, has a long history of scaring people so that we would have the resources we wanted.
The last couple of centuries a new technique has been used. We explain what we need, and hope that you will respond. This is a very rational approach. You look at the church as an organization that you think is good. You realize it needs so much to continue. You think to yourself, I can afford this much and the church will make do with what I give it. Very rational. We have used that here at Trinity since we began in the 1940s, and it, too, works. We don’t try to manipulate you through guilt or fear. You look at your bank account and give accordingly. It has worked, and we like it. It treats parishioners with respect, and we don’t feel embarrassed in asking. We could continue using this approach and that would be fine. It still works and we feel comfortable with it.
But this year we started meeting with the diocesan resource, Kristine Miller. She talked to us about taking a new leap. We have always focused on people giving here out of gratitude, but she encouraged us to take the next step. She has talked to us about giving as a life changing experience. What if, she asked us, giving actually changed our lives? What if our faith actually increased because of how we gave to God?
So this year, we have structured our campaign around the idea that giving is a tool to help faith-even more than it helps the church. This has not been easy. We were comfortable with the old way. The old way has worked for us for a long time. Simply explain what our needs are, and people will contribute what they can.
But we tell people that gathering with other Christians, reading the Bible, saying prayers helps and strengthens their faith. What if How we give, a life of giving, Also could strengthen our faith? What if becoming self-conscious stewards could change our lives as Christians-regardless of what it means to the church?
So Kristine told us her ideas. About 45 of us met last January to begin this journey. We talked about who we were, what was important to us, who we wanted to be. We were comfortable with who we were. We didn’t see any need to change. But we saw the future. And we realized that we couldn’t go back.
In the past year groups have been meeting to talk about our future together. The enormous amount of work in the basement improving the youth space, our commitment to BEACON, two new adult ed programs, the Sunday morning Adult Forum, and EFM, all have come out of this new vision. But even more, we are committed to talking about gratitude and thanksgiving as a way of life. The stewardship team worked hard on the statement that we have had in the hall for the last several weeks. They have worked on the ministry budget to be passed out today. They have great plans for the fall. But here is the bottom line, we want your faith to grow. More than our income. More than our programs. We want your faith to become different. All of our plans for this fall are to help increase our faith. We don’t know what the response will be. We don’t know if giving will increase-or drop. We don’t know if your faith will change. We don’t know if we will begin living lives that are different. But we have seen the future. We believe that God is leading us in a new direction. And we are taking the leap. Amen.