11th May 2003
I want to tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a king. He decided that it would be a good idea to build a great fountain… Hang on a moment, that’s not very democratic. Where’s the communal ownership and shared responsibility for this project? This is a story based in a model of kings that doesn’t exist any more. Let’s start again.
Once upon a time, there was a village. And the villagers decided that they wanted to build a fountain to celebrate a special anniversary. So they came together and made all the plans. An important part of this fountain was how to make sure that there was enough water.
It was decided that each villager would be responsible for taking a bucket of water to the reservoir to make sure that it had enough to work. Each bucket was not asking too much, but together it would produce something wonderful.
Time passed and the day came for the grand unveiling of the fountain. The mayor came forward to push the button that would release the water and bring the fountain to life. He pushed the button and all that came out was a trickle.
After investigations it turned out that not enough of the villagers had given their bucket of water, all assuming that no one will notice if I don’t bother. Unfortunately too many of them said that and the result was not enough to do the job.
It’s a story. But this is what lies behind our stewardship programme this morning. We’re not talking about buckets and we’re not talking about a fountain. But we are talking about everyone doing their bit to support the work of the church. And just like we scrapped the outdated model of monarchy for the story, because the people needed to own and take responsibility for their village, so we have to take and own the responsibility for our church. In some ways what I am going to say today builds on what I said last week about all of us having a calling to Christian living.
There are two levels we can set our vision at. So in your mind, click a switch to the first setting. The first option is that we can look at how we are going to keep the existing show on the road. If that is the limit of our sight, then as things stand we need an extra £10,000 this year alone otherwise we won’t be able to meet our commitments. That’s an extra £192 per week or an extra 64p per week for each person on our electoral roll. So for less than the price of posting a few letters we can pay our bills.
The bad news is that this includes income from other sources, such a burial fees and income from the hall. These all fluctuate and as I have pointed out in the magazine this month the churchyard is rapidly filling up so we can’t count on the fees from that for much longer. If we take out all of the extra unrelyable income and decide that we are only going to rely on the giving on the collection plate to pay our bills, we actually need an extra £1000 each week. That is an extra £3 per person on the electoral roll each week. That is still less than a bottle of wine or couple of drinks in a pub, a meal at McDonalds or a main course in the Brown Cow, a daily paper or a coffee and cake at Sainsbury’s after doing the shopping. It is loose change for the vast majority of us.
Now clearly some can afford much more than an extra £3 per week and some will find this a challenge, though let’s be honest I think they are in the distinct minority. We are really only looking for the equivalent of a bucket of water and not a bath full.
This is just to keep the existing show on the road. But we are not called to just keep the existing show on the road. We are called to have a vision to ensure that this place is a vibrant community of Christian worship and witness. To realise that vision requires that we turn the setting to the other position, so in your mind click the switch to the second setting, that of thinking bigger; dreaming dreams and developing this church’s ministry in exciting ways.
To do that asks each of us to be honest and ask what is a realistic level of giving for me, or us because many people’s giving comes from a household rather than just on their own. To do this we have to ask what is left when we have paid for our essential cost of living bills? Rent, mortgage, gas, electric, food, that kind of thing. We then make a serious offering to God, through the church, of what we have. The standard set for this in the bible is 10%, it is called tithing. The Church of England’s general synod some years ag o reinterpreted this as 5% to the church and 5% to other good causes. If we all did this we wouldn’t have a building appeal, we would write a cheque out. If we all did this we could develop the work of this church in ways that would fill us all with excitement.
There is more information in the packs that will be going round for the next few weeks. So a word or two about these.
What is a Pass-it-on Pack?
© Ian Black 2003