I spoke to you of Stewardship this last weekend. For the sake of our spiritual health and continued growth, let us please be good Stewards! This is what stewardship is and has always been:
Stewardship is an inherent article of the Gospel, and therefore a moral imperative within the community of faith. Stewardship is how we take care of and attend to the upkeep of what our “Gospel Grandparents” have blessed us with. A place we continue to call our spiritual home these many years later. Just so, we are now writing the newest and freshest chapters of the story of Holy Trinity Church. We are living inside an unfinished story!
I am deeply grateful for your commitment to the needs of the parish. Your response to the need for the roof repair at the school is a wonderful example of that. Within days you had raised $40,000! Be joyfully amazed at yourself! But our work is not finished.
As your pastor, I am writing to you as the head of a household, the household of Holy Trinity Church! Basically, like any household we must pay our bills. Holy Trinity Church’s weekly expenses amount to $45,000. Weekly contributions average about $27,000. Since 2007, Holy Trinity has been spending down a savings account to make up its weekly deficit, a deficit amount of between $13,000 and $17,000 EVERY WEEK. This savings account that made up for this 40% deficit is now gone.
Twice a year for four years I have been telling you that things must change dramatically in this regard. Since the savings account is gone now, the day is upon us. Now is the time for our parish members to practice true Stewardship. We have, roughly, 2800 members of Holy Trinity Church. 11% of the membership of this parish provides for 60% of our weekly expenses. It is time for the other 89% to take action. Here is what I am asking of you: We need to end this ancient deficit and we need to do it now so that we can get on with the Mission of the Gospel at Holy Trinity! Only you can do it. It depends on you. I need all of you who are not giving weekly or monthly to begin to do so, today.
Let us be that faith community that is at 100% participation. Think of your resources and bless them for God’s use. There is no reason why 100% of our membership cannot practice stewardship of some kind. Many of our homebound elders continue to make their weekly or monthly contributions. Bless your stewardship to Holy Trinity so that we may participate fully in the mission of the Gospel.
The past is the past. Today is the new day. This moment is the moment. The moments that follow will be marked and sealed by this moment. There comes a day when you change your mind and that day changes the rest of your life. Make today the day that you change the rest of your life. God will act and he will act through you – I am convinced of it!
Toward the end of chapter 4 of Ephesians, St. Paul says, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind;
be renewed in the Spiritin your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness, and holiness and truth.”
We enter into the Kingdom of God by changing our attitudes. This is Wisdom. This is Spiritual Health. Embrace your true self. Salvation is about a great embrace and all we have to do is surrender.