Stewardship

The stewardship committee asked me to speak today about Christ the King Parrish.   I’m a relatively new parishioner to Christ the King.   My wife Carol and I bought a house in this community a year ago Sept. and have been members officially since January.  While we are new to Christ the King we are not new to the Episcopal Church.  Carol was confirmed 44 years ago and I have been an Episcopalian all of my life.  We have been members of various parishes and missions on Long Island, Endicott, NY, San Angelo, Texas and Clayton, N.C.  We move around a lot and Carol promises that we are here to stay.  Long time Episcopalians are generally an independent bunch.  They are not bound to only attending the parish in their geographic area but will gravitate to a parish that meshes with their own feeling of spirituality and fellowship.

When we were looking for a new home in this area one of the factors in our decision was finding an Episcopal church that we would feel comfortable worshiping in.  In the past moves that task sometimes took a lot of visits, on Sundays, to parishes in the area.  On Long island the task was easier since you could attend a multitude of churches within a short drive of home.  In North Carolina that wasn’t the case.  We finally settled on two choices both a 25 minute drive from home.  The final decision was hard but the deciding factor was the people of the congregation.  We felt more comfortable with the people in a little mission of 50 families renting a former bank building in Clayton than in an established church in Raleigh.  The church in Raleigh was of a good size and had all the buildings and trappings.  It offered a lot of programs and activities but we didn’t feel as comfortable as in Clayton.

Christ the King parish made our decision very easy.   We first visited in the summer when you were going through a transition from Father Rob to Mother Alison.  We had been members of a parish that had gone through this process and have seen the parish life of worship and fellowship deteriate during the interim.  Our first impression was that this was not so at Christ the King parish.  We felt at home spiritually and felt welcomed into the fellowship of the parish immediately from day one.

After we moved here in October we entertained some thoughts about visiting other parishes in the area but never did.  The more we attended here the more we grew to love it here.  We were exposed to your music program which added a wonderful dimension to worshiping with you.  We saw the scope of your outreach into the community and the world beyond.  We saw a community steeped in the love of Christ doing Christ’s work.  Why look any where else?

This parish of Christ the King is eclectic and far from parochial. When someone talks about “weekenders” they are not being derogatory.  They are only talking about availability.  This congregation has such a mixture of lifestyles, talents and different outlooks about life that it invigorates and stimulates us.  But when we worship together all of the differences disappear and we become one body in the love of Christ.  I believe that coming together in love turns us outward into the world where we seek Christ in the least of them.

Enough backslapping, I’m supposed to talk about stewardship.  These are very troubling times.  We are in a recession and looking at a possible depression if our leaders in both government and business don’t come up with some good solutions.  I think it’s safe to say that all of us are extremely concerned about our financial situations and looking to cut back on our expenses.

Carol and I have served on Vestries and a parish day school board and have been involved in budgeting for them. I can tell you from these experiences that there is very little fat in these budgets.  The day school had a two million dollar budget and by the time we budgeted for plant expenses, payroll, supplies, utilities and heating we had perhaps fifty thousand dollars left  to play with.  Vestry budgets are even worse.  Usually by the time you add up all the expenses just to keep the door open you are lucky if you are not looking at a deficit.  Even if our church has the same income as last year, in these troubled times, it will be hard to keep the door open.  Look at your utility bills and heating costs for this coming year, are they coming down?  I’m sure the vestry will come up with some cost savings ideas but will they be enough?   And, is keeping the doors open all we are here for?  What about the 50 additional families we have coming to the food pantry? (Doubled since we came here)  What about the people we supplied with emergency fuel oil last year?  The list goes on and on.

Carol and I have been listening very carefully to the presidential campaign rhetoric and the talk has been about helping businesses and the middle class and very little about helping the poor and the needy.  I don’t ascribe to Bush’s “Faith Based Initiative” policy but this may, in the coming times, be the only way we insure that people don’t fall though the cracks.

We can only do this by keeping our doors open so that we can gather together as a worshiping community empowered by the Spirit to do God’s work.

Think about it when the saddle bags come to your door.