Keeping our churches strong in tough times

My wife and I got a good chuckle yesterday afternoon after spending 2 hours in the parish hall for a voters assembly meeting. We had told the kids that it would only be about an hour, but lest we forget that we were there to vote on the annual budget. This is always challenging as a church is not a regular business where you sell a product and can forecast pretty accurately what your income is going to be for the coming year. It is certainly not a government where you can just dictate that people give more to support the efforts of the church (although I am 99.9% sure that churches could do much more to actually help people with the money than the government does).

No, the church is about faith. Faith that the Lord will provide for our needs in his time, knowing what is right for us at this time. Faith that members see the blessings that the church body can help to provide with the contributions given by free will. Faith that the Holy Spirit will touch the hearts of those that hear the Word of the Gospel and partake in the Sacrament of Holy Communion and have them understand that God does not need our money. God wants us to be faithful servants, helping others that may not be as fortunate, may be down on their luck, or just need some encouragement.

You see, that was a mistake I made earlier in my life. I was listening to the words being preached, but I was not hearing the message. What I heard was give us your money so we can line our pockets. What was being preached was give us a portion of what God has given to you so that we may continue to spread the Word and encourage others to come to faith. This message sometimes gets lost in the talks of budgets. We tend to look at things just on the merit of whether it is income or an expense. And we look at expenses in the wrong light.

Yes, God wants us to be good stewards and this includes responsible budgets. But He also wants us to convey to our fellow Christians that its not just that we have to pay for the utilities, but that those utilities support our mission of spreading the Word of God to those around us, in our communities, those that we may not even know yet.

So in these tough economic times, pray that God will help us all get through. But especially pray that our churches will continue to be able to preach God's words as spoken through the many authors of the Bible. Pray that our churches will be strong and not become divided over petty items. Pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to touch others when they need to be touched. Pray that all people, of all denominations will see the importance of supporting the Christian church in these rough times. Our churches need to stand strong so that we have the ability to reach out to those in need, those having difficulties getting by, and share the good news of Jesus Christ to them and His promise of eternal life.

God Bless your week!