For What It’s Worth

a sermon preached by Rev. Khleber Van Zandt at the First Unitarian Church of Alton, March 12, 2006

 

A reading from church consultant Michael Durall:

“At times, churches are places of comfort, respite, and solace.  But not always.   Sometimes churches present great challenges.  Sometimes we may be asked to give small amounts of time, effort, or money.  But sometimes the church might ask us to make the most significant commitment we’ve made in our entire lives.  And sometimes we may be asked to make the largest charitable gift we’ve ever made.  This is the nature of churches.  Anyone coming into this church should know what’s in store—perhaps a roller-coaster ride, perhaps one of the greatest adventures of a lifetime.”

 

 

Light bulbs for the Sanctuary - $2.85 each;  electricity for lighting the whole church  - $21/day;  having a place that enhances your vision in more ways than one - priceless.

Heating the church on a wintry Sunday morning - $126/day;  gasoline to get there - $2.28/gallon;  the warmth in people ‘s eyes when you arrive - priceless.

The cost of childcare in the nursery - $10/hour;  the cost of having a professional to oversee the entire RE program - $9,000/year;  having a children’s program that your kids want to attend on a Sunday morning - priceless.

Painting the exterior wood surfaces of the building - less than $4000;  replacing the roof on the Wuerker Room - a little more than $18,000;  owning your own 100-year-old church building outright, free and clear, no strings attached - priceless.

Using a pay phone when you’re having a hard time - $.35;  printing a church directory to make phone numbers of members available - $1;  finding someone on the other end of the phone who you can trust will actually care about how you’re doing - priceless.

The price of a hymnal - $35;  the cost of a pianist each Sunday morning - $50;  the uplifting feeling of singing the old hymns, learning new ones, hearing other voices sing out next to you in joy and thanksgiving every Sunday morning - priceless.

And since I’ve outted other staff salaries, I have to include this one:

Electricity to run the sound system on Sunday morning - $.10;  annual salary for your half-time minister - $26,000;  hearing something on a Sunday morning that comforts you and challenges you and gives you something to think about and to talk with your friends about all the way into next week - priceless.

 

That’s enough of that, I think - using advertising gimmicks only goes so far in a church setting, especially a worship setting.  We could spend all day breaking down costs, accounting for pennies, worrying over the monetary minutiae.  Sometimes we have to do that to fulfill our fiduciary responsibility.  That’s mainly our treasurer’s job, with the help of the Finance Committee and the Board of Trustees, to ensure we remain on a steady financial footing.  But we each have a share in that fiscal responsibility.

As you can see using this exercise, though, if we could spend all day breaking down costs, we could also spend all day articulating the other side of the coin - what it is that this place means to us, what it is that we get out of being here, what it is that we receive for paying the price of being here.  And that is our responsibility as well - to remember the meaning of our covenant and the gifts that our being together bring to our lives and to the lives of others.

So to talk only about cost is short-sighted - we also have to talk about benefit, and not just benefit to ourselves but to all those we reach out and touch in the wider community.  When we ask ourselves, “Can we afford to do that?” then with the next breath we must ask ourselves, “But can we afford NOT to do that?”

 

The price of being here is of course not simply monetary, not simply something we can write a check for.  The things we get out of this church, we often have to give far more than money to attain - each of us also has to give of our time and our talent, resources which are limited, resources which are themselves priceless.  Try running a church without people who give their time and their talent in large measure - it’s not possible.  Try running a church without people who give generously of their treasure as well - that’s not possible, either.

We can’t run a church without a commitment on each of our parts, the commitment of our time, our talents, and our treasure for the church to survive.  It’s as simple as that.  And that’s what many churches are content to do - merely to survive.

But is it the church’s task merely to survive?  Is the point of our existence as a congregation simply to keep the doors open for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning so a few people can come meet like-minded friends?  Surely part of our mission - one of our mission objectives - is to care for and support each other, and to develop a community where religious thought may be pursued in freedom.  But the other part that we too often overlook is the need to reach beyond our doors, to carry our message of hope and religious freedom to those in the wider community who need to hear it, and to care for others outside these walls as we have the ability to do so.

 

How have we been doing lately with our mission objectives?  We have had a pretty good year together.  You may have noticed more children among us - it’s noisy here on Sunday morning again and I count that a distinct blessing.  You may have noticed the resurrection of the choir and with it a new-found energy and volume in the singing of the hymns;  another blessing.  You may have noticed that we’ve welcomed many musical guests to worship with us - these fine musicians: Sandy, Dave, Tracey, Amy, and Ann, among them - and that has added a different dimension to our worship experience.

You may have noticed that the building is being taken care of - certainly we have a long way to go, but several projects have gotten off the ground and several more are in the works for the near future.  You may have noticed the good parties we’ve had, from the square dancing each month, to the Men’s Lunches and Anna D’s, to the Cajun Dinner’n’Dance with Tom Allred’s band, to the Centennial Celebration for the Sanctuary last fall and the Ordination and Installation gala in November.  Coming soon, we’ll have a blowout for the completion of our Canvass season on April 8^th and then next fall we’ll celebrate the 170^th birthday of our congregation.  Not bad for a little church on a little bluff in a little river town.

Things you may not have noticed have occurred as well.  Our Director of Religious Education, Jamie Gross, is working more hours because of the rise in the number of kids in the classrooms.  Our Administrator, Becky Green, is being compensated for more hours because there are more copies to make, more mail to send out, more phone calls to take, more e-mail and more questions to answer, and more visitor packets to put out.  There’s just more to do in a thriving congregation, and we’re paying for it.  But remember - we can’t think only of the cost of thriving, but of the benefit as well.

As we grow, both as individuals and as a congregation, there is more that we can do together, not just for ourselves, but for others as well.  Here’s a question we ought to be asking each other: “If you could make a difference in someone else’s life, how would you most like to go about doing that?”  In other words, what is it you can do best?  What ideas do you have for reaching out and helping others?

As a thriving church, we don’t want to say to people with good ideas, “Well, no, that’s impossible.  You can’t do that.”  We don’t want to be a ‘NO’ kind of a place.  We want to be in the business of saying “YES.”  We want to be a permission-granting congregation.  If you have an idea for outreach, if you have an idea for an Adult RE class, if you want to provide hospitality or work in the kitchen or on a committee, if you want to paint a wall or be a care giver or develop your leadership skills, then we ought to be saying, “Yes.  Go to it.”

That’s what stewardship is really about - figuring out what your gifts are and then sharing them with the rest of the world.  And that can’t happen effectively unless and until we become a community of givers.  Regular, planned giving by members and friends allows us as a church to dream, to envision, and to plan toward our mission objectives in the near term;  estate planning allows the church to provide for its present and future vision and outreach, but that’s a different sermon so we’ll save it for another day.

 

There is among us a fundamental desire to make a difference in the world and to contribute to a purpose much greater than ourselves.  That leads us to commitment.  That leads us to stewardship.  That leads us to service.

And here are just a few of the ways you can serve in this church right now:  you might teach in children’s RE.  You might arrange speakers for an Adult RE Forum series.  You might play music or sing in the choir.  You might act as liturgist or reader or usher or coffee host on a Sunday morning. 

And if you need an invitation to participate in some project, here’s an invitation:  join the Little Alton Book Club or the film discussion group.  Come to Adult RE at 9:30 on Sunday morning for Bible study, the program on the Historical Jesus, or the anti-racism workshop.  Join us for a Building & Grounds work party some Saturday.  Or you could volunteer to help develop the ability to make digital recordings for our web page so people who teach in RE or miss a Sunday for some reason or anybody else in the world can still hear our worship services.

Another very new project:  if you’re interested in social justice work or interfaith and ecumenical connections, Marcia Custer and I are talking to a group called United Congregations of Metro-East, exploring what role our congregation might play in advocating for social change at the local, state, and national level that benefits families, children, and seniors.

 

One last item to mention to you before you fill out your pledge card (and this may be where you need those crash helmets that Annie Dillard talked about):

When I entered into discussions with your Search Committee earlier this year, it was understood by all concerned that the call we were discussing at the time was as a half-time minister.  But one of the strongest messages I got throughout that whole Search process was that this congregation had been seeking to move toward full-time professional ministry for many years and had not quite been able to make that leap.  Well, the time to take that leap may be quickly approaching.  And that leap will certainly have an impact on the budget for the coming year.  I hope you will consider that leap when you sit down to fill out the pledge card you’ll pick up in a few minutes.

 

I have a few last questions you might ask yourself as you fill out your pledge card:

What’s it worth to you to be able to bring your kids to church (or to see others bring their kids to church) to receive a religious education that doesn’t force them into a box, that gives them the tools to learn to decide for themselves, the tools to handle the religious freedom we want to pass along to them?

What would it be worth to you to have that religious education program grow to include dozens of kids from all around the area, one that’s exciting enough to bring friends to, one that shows kids that there is someone out there besides their parents who loves them for who they are?  What would it be worth?

What is it worth to you to have a beautiful building to come to on Sunday morning, a building that is well kept and climate-controlled and shelters you from all kinds of storms?

What would it be worth to you to know that you have given of your time and talent and treasure to keep this 100-year-old building up well enough to make it last another hundred years so that the multitudes of folk who come after us have the same sort of shelter from the storms of life?  What would it be worth?

What is it worth to you to be a part of a church community that cares for its members and friends?

What would it be worth to you to be able to effect social change that benefits families, children, and seniors among ourselves as well as others at the local, state, and national levels?  What would it be worth?

What is it worth to you to have a place that enhances your vision in more ways than one, where you see the warmth in people ‘s eyes when you arrive, where you often hear something on Sunday morning that comforts you and challenges you and gives you something to think about all the way into next week?

What would it be worth to see that place continue, not merely to survive, but to grow and flourish.  What would it be worth to share it with so many others who so desperately need it?  What would it be worth?

 

I urge you to think on those things before you make your mark on your pledge card.  You decide whether you want this place to merely survive or if you want it to thrive.  It’s up to us.  It’s up to each of us.

 

So may it be.