To committee or not to committee

March 23, 2007 by
Filed under: Religion 

I got a letter from my pastor last night.

He wants to invite me to join the Stewardship Committee.  Next year, the committee will apparently be using Herb Miller’s “Consecration Sunday Stewardship” program, focusing on the spiritual need to be “givers” rather than the church’s need to “receive”.

It’s nice to be asked.  However ….

When I joined the church, we were asked to fill out a stewardship questionnaire.  On the page were a list of major church committees, and we were asked to check those that we were interested in.  Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, Stewardship is one that I chose not to check.

I also have some fundamental issues with the way that the church in general goes about asking for money.  Giving is too often a demand in the church.  I feel that giving in the church should be voluntary – each gives as they feel moved (called, even) to do so.  If the church comes up short, they tell us so and we adjust our giving to make it up.  I really don’t care what other people give – it’s only important to consider my own giving.

This past year, the church (through the pastor) threw around actual numbers.  In one sermon, Pastor Vamos said:

One tangible indicator of our generosity is this–our giving to the
church. The health of this organism. We need to say that. If our
congregation is struggling to meet the bills, something is wrong. Your
giving to this church is an indicator of whether you’re living
generously. If you’re making over $90,000 and giving $50 a week–your
intent may not match with the reality. There’s something wrong with
that picture.

The use of an actual dollar amount in the sermon is what bothered me the most.  That sermon almost caused me not to pledge this year.  In a later sermon, a guest preacher exhorted us to take risks with our giving, knowing that God will make it work.  On the basis of that guest’s sermon, I increased the amount that I pledged by 25% over what I’d planned to give.

Later, Pastor Vamos compounded the error of using specific numbers.  During his “State of the Communion” sermon, he spoke about the actual pledges received:

There are some interesting statistics that you can take home and mull
over. I remember from college statistics that the mean is the average,
and so our average pledge from this past year is $2,206. And that’s a
lot more than it was last year, and so that’s terrific. But the
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are below–is $1,500. And I’ve been told that the mark of health for a
congregation is when the mean and the median are close together,
because it means that we’re not as dependent on those large pledges.
And don’t get me wrong–if you’re one of those larger givers, we hope
that you will increase your giving, because that really affects our
ministry greatly. But this really represents a challenge to those who
are below that mean and are able to, if you have the gifts, to be able
to do more. It’s a challenge for us to think about that, how we can try
to make the mean and the median match up a little more closely.

It was even worse than that.  We were given a bulletin insert that showed a bar graph with each pledge from smallest to largest (the smallest being under $100 and the largest being $20,000).  We were also given the average household income for the county, the average household income for the town that the church is in, and what a 10% tithe would be for each of those incomes.  These were compared to the average and median pledges.

The use of specific numbers in financial stewardship is the use of guilt in the church.  It’s measuring us against each other rather than measuring us against Christ.  There’s no question in my mind that the church must be funded in order to survive.  There’s also no question in my mind that giving of your time, talents, and money are required for a faithful Christian.  It’s just the use of specific numbers that bothers me.  Following Christ is not about guilt – it’s about the grace of Christ’s sacrifice and our attempt to be as Christ-like as possible to thank God for that miracle.

Lest you think that I’m griping because I’m cheap, my pledge was above the average.  It’s important to remember that I am a part of a two-church household, and Carolyn pledges a similar (probably identical, but I’m not sure) amount to her church.

So the problem for me is this:  If I’m uncomfortable with asking others to give money, if I’m uncomfortable with the way that stewardship campaigns have been handled in the past – should I join the stewardship committee?

Perhaps my presence would moderate some of the things that bother me.  On the other hand, I really don’t want to find myself at odds with the rest of the committee and my pastor on a regular basis.

What do you think?

I really wish they’d chosen me for one of the other committees.

The letter says that “in the next couple of weeks, someone from the current committee will be calling to see if you are willing to serve.”  I hope I have an answer by then.

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Comments

10 Comments on To committee or not to committee

  1. jim on Fri, 23rd Mar 2007 7:16 pm

    2. Mark,

    Do it. Contrary opinions are good for the committee, especially for them to understand what others are thinking about stewardship and what works or doesn’t.

    Having said that I’d suggest that in an ideal world if we just trusted everyone to give as they were moved I’m sure the church would be well funded…but we don’t live in that sort of world.

    Our giving (or lack of) is based on a complex mixture of motivations. I think you have to offer some fairly concrete guidelines both for what’s appropriate to give and for what the church needs for it to be about its mission.

    At the same time you do have to counterbalance the practicalities of giving people guidelines by helping people see that stewardship is a spiritual practice; something we do to help establish the right priority in our life between God and money.

    One thing I struggle with?

    I’m a pastor in a small (90 member) church with a $100K budget. Our stewardship pledge drive always come up well short (by ALOT!) which causes me to question, why do we even bother? It seems like a pointless exercise to ask people to pledge when we know they just won’t do it. I’m tempted to just do away with the whole pledge drive.

  2. Quotidian Grace on Fri, 23rd Mar 2007 8:52 pm

    3. Jim’s observation about the futility of the pledge drive is very interesting.

    The church we attend now encourages you to pledge, but you don’t sign your pledge card. You just fill in the amount and they use the pledges received as a guide to setting the budget. You get a record of what you actually gave, of course, but they don’t keep a record of how much you said you would give. The focus is on giving in gratitude for what God has already given you.

    It’s amazing to me that this system works for them. This is one of the 10 largest PCUSA churches in the country! Plus they give away a dollar to outside mission or outreach for every dollar given to the church. They’ve done this for 50 years and somehow been able to meet this challenge.

    I agree with Jim. Even if you decide not to serve, I encourage you to let the committee know your point of view.

  3. Listing Straight on Fri, 23rd Mar 2007 9:18 pm

    4. Consecration Sunday is a VERY particular format- with your disagreements, it might be a challenge for you to enthusiastically support it. On the other hand, it thrives on the knowledge that you invite people to a lunch and then do not hound them afterwards…

    I would invite you to share your thoughts, but maybe first with the minister or chair of the committee?

    And maybe to do so in carefully chosen positive examples (what did cause you to increase your pledge…). It is an incredibly difficult place to receive constructive criticism (we ministers are so delicate)

    Also, this is a fabulous place for a theological discussion- what is the theology of giving? To meet the budget? To live more faithful lives? I’ve found that when we start with the theology the methods follow nicely..

    I am incredibly thankful for someone who is so thoughtful–

  4. jodie on Sat, 24th Mar 2007 5:01 pm

    5. Mark,

    My short answer to your question is “yes, you should probably serve”.

    For several reasons: First, you care about the health of your church. Second, you think things over carefully, and third, you are always looking for better ways of doing things.

    How churches raise the money required to pay the bills varies quite a bit, I think. No matter what they do however, somebody will always walk off mad and take their frustration out on their tithing. Did I say tithing? The average American gives less than 1% of their income to charity. The more they make, it seems, the lower the percentage.

    I don’t like the term “stewardship”. It somehow comes across as meaning we need to be stewards of our church. But the word is meant to remind us of our proper attitude towards our own belongings. Lost is the sense that all of our money and all that we have is really God’s property and that we are only the stewards of that property – the executors of an assigned portion of His estate, if you will. Lost is the sense that we have no right to withhold what we have when faced with the needs of the hungry and the naked, or to pay the wages of those who labor for our benefit.

    Instead we think that we can give as we see fit from the crumbs off our tables.

    Lost is the sense that when we give, it is in gratitude for what God has already done for us and that we are only paying forward – in faith – what we have already received – in faith – as a gift. The lives of our children. The health of the environment we live in. The freedom and infrastructure we have in this great nation we were blessed to be born in.

    Lost is the sense that God wants us to throw all caution to the wind and recklessly and foolishly invest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

    What bothers >me< most in churches is when we refuse to pay our pastors salaries that are at least commensurate with the average income of the members of the church, and refuse to pay office staff salaries and benefits that are at least commensurate with the equivalent jobs outside the church. This year in my own church for example our pledges grew 10% from last year, but we didn’t even give our pastors a cost of living adjustment. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21; Luke 12:34) Jodie

  5. Mark on Sat, 24th Mar 2007 10:42 pm

    6. At our church, the pastor (we only have one – we’re about to call an Associate) does OK. Not great, but OK once you factor in the value of the housing. Right around the published average income for the township, actually.

    We also gave cost of living adjustments to all employees this year. They were either exactly the inflation rate or some round number in that neighborhood. The Church Administrator (formerly Church Secretary) was given a big adjustment in recognition of all that she does for the church – a job that really does go far beyond “secretary”. It was more a case of making her salary fit her title and responsibilities.

  6. jodie on Sat, 24th Mar 2007 11:49 pm

    7. That is a healthy sign. Don’t knock it.

    Jodie

  7. will spotts on Mon, 26th Mar 2007 3:42 pm

    8. Mark – I certainly can’t say whether or not this committee would be good for you, but there is something to be said for sharing your viewpoint. Yes, that is often difficult, and you will be dealing with the egos of those who often have a great deal invested in the way they’ve been doing things. But it still needs to be said – especially if the issue is important to you.

    That said, I personally tend to find pledges presumptuous (they assume a future set of circumstances that may not be true), I don’t like guilt motivations, and I really dislike people scrutinizing the giving of others. I tend to be more of the opinion that if you can explain the needs to a congregation, you will get a response – maybe not short term, but over the long haul. This applies to pretty much whatever you would use funds for – whether outside ministries, paying salaries, maintenance expenses, etc. I may be wrong in the effectiveness here, but some campaigns remind me far too much of, ‘when the coin in the coffer rings the soul from purgatory springs.’

  8. purechristianithink on Mon, 26th Mar 2007 4:55 pm

    9. My experience is that the (admittedly small) number of folks eager to serve on the Stewardship Committee are often those who do some kind of fundraising or money management in their “real” jobs. This is both good and bad. On the plus side, they know a lot more about raising money than I do and a whole bag of tricks for making it happen. On the down side, it can be a big challenge to encourage them to think theologically about how giving in church might be different than giving to, say, their college or to the Rotary Foundation. Maybe your pastor has you pegged as someone who can help the stewardship comm at your church do that?

  9. Mark on Wed, 28th Mar 2007 10:36 am

    10. This may have resolved itself.

    I got an e-mail from my pastor. He wants to talk after Easter about forming a task group to look into issues surrounding visitors and seekers. That fits right in with my experiences with the retreat and my writings here, so it’d be a MUCH better fit.

    And he wants us to avoid “new member overinvolvement syndrome”, so he’d prefer that I choose this new idea OR Stewardship.

    I figure either he’s reading here (Hi, Jeff) or I just got lucky or God is listening. I’ll take any or all of those.

  10. NOT to committee, at least not this one : Mark Time on Tue, 20th Jan 2009 1:25 pm

    11. […] I got a call last night on the answering machine from a member of the Stewardship committee.  This was my “contact later” mentioned in the letter from the pastor.  (I blogged this previously here). […]

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