Why We Do It
If you ever wonder why youth leaders volunteer several hours per week (at least) to work with a bunch of teenagers, last night’s senior high youth group session provides the answer.
The youth director was very busy this week (Confirmation started yesterday) and didn’t really have time to plan out last night’s meeting. God stepped in.
We had music on at the beginning, and the youth who were there were grooving to it. The youth director tossed a few rhythm instruments around the room and we all jammed to the Beatles for a few minutes. Later he taught us a few songs of faith from foreign lands, and the youth loved it.
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For the rest of the meeting, we used M&M’s to talk about what happened in the last week. Red was how you experienced love, Yellow was a joy, Brown was something bad that happened, Blue was when you were sad, Orange was when you saw God, etc. This ultimately brought out some difficult issues that some of the youth were dealing with. What was most heartening to me was that when this happened, other youth jumped in to help the youth in tears before the adult advisors could. Because of our covenants the group provided the safe space required to work through the emotions.
The youth director said that this was by far the best evening he’d had since he started working here over a year ago. It was decidedly the best that I’ve had. THIS is what youth ministry is about.
Shame and the Stewardship Campaign
As I have discussed previously, I turned down the invitation to serve on the Stewardship committee this year. I did this even though they were using the Consecration Sunday curriculum – which I was assured was not about the need for the church to receive but about the need for the person to give. I was also told that it would be about more than money, but also about service.
So far this year we’ve had two “Minute for Mission” presentations at the beginning of the service. In one, a woman who has recently experienced several deaths of close family members spoke of the care that she has received from the church. She also explained how this year’s campaign is different than last year’s in that a budget is not being prepared before the campaign – we don’t know How Much We Need. I have no issues with this presentation.
The second one is the one that bothers me. Another committee member spent 5 minutes at the beginning of the service going over a sheet called “Grow One” from the Consecration Sunday curriculum. She went into detail about how to read the sheet and apply it to each of our situations.
One side of the sheet was the traditional income vs. percentage table. On the left side was your income (different this year in that it isn’t annual income but weekly income) and across the top are percentages – with groups of percentages labeled things like “Low”, “Middle” and “High”. In the center is the weekly pledge for that income and percentage. Now while I find it hard to believe that our well-educated congregation needs help dividing their income by 10 to find the 10% tithe, or can’t use a calculator, I suppose this could be helpful to someone.
It’s the other side of the sheet that bothers me. On that sheet, a stair-step graphic appeared. Under each step was a range of weekly contribution. The lowest range was 1c to $19.99 per week and the highest (of about 11) was $200 or more. (I have to wonder who is pledging 52c per year.) Above each step is the number of pledges in that group. Our congregation is concentrated in two places – a group at or slightly above midpoint and a larger group about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom. No information on incomes or situations – just how much per week.
Also included in the bulletin was a reservation form for the Consecration Sunday presentation and lunch. After the speech was completed, the ushers collected the forms before the worship service began. This again seems very coercive to me – using peer pressure.
Here’s what bothers me. This is clearly intended to shame people into making a larger pledge. This is NOT using the positive power of the Holy Spirit in order to encourage increased giving – it’s using the earthly power of peer pressure to shame people into making a larger pledge. We should NEVER be comparing ourselves to others – we should be comparing ourselves to the ideal that Jesus provides. We never ask whether or not we should avoid sin because the session thinks we should – we are to avoid sin because God wants us to.
Another troubling aspect of this method is it fails to take into account individual situations. I know that we have people of all ages who have suffered debilitating illnesses that have caused them to stop working. I know that we have families where the primary breadwinner is out of work (due to outsourcing in many cases). What do these people think and feel when they read a chart showing their pledge as being below average? Is it really a good idea to induce shame in those powerless to correct the situation?
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Something else that bothers me is confidentiality. We were told last year that only 3 people know what we pledge – the person who opens the pledge card envelopes, the Treasurer, and the person who issues our envelopes. So why then are we seeing counts of pledges at various levels? It seems that confidentiality is being broken, maybe not at the individual person level but overall.
Please note that I’m fine with hearing that the TOTAL giving is $X00,000 and that our budget last year was $Y00,000 and that we’ll have to cut some programs if we don’t make up the difference. I just don’t like making it personal. My gifts to the church are between me and God. For that matter, my gifts to the church are a whole lot bigger than the check that I put in the envelope weekly. Conservatively, I’ll estimate that outside of worship I volunteer 30 hours a month to the congregation (through youth group, committee work, and the like) and another hour or two per month on average to the church camp. And that doesn’t consider any contribution that I might make through blogging about church here and at other blogs (a highly subjective value, I suspect).
I said earlier that I was bothered by this campaign. That was a bit inaccurate. My real feelings are somewhere between bothered and infuriated. I nearly tore up my weekly check and envelope. I briefly considered the reaction if I got up and walked out.
I will not be at church on Consecration Sunday. The Monday after that Sunday is my 13th wedding anniversary and the 20th anniversary of Carolyn and my first date. We will be in NYC for the weekend celebrating. I’m lucky in that I won’t be there.
Maybe I should just find someplace else to worship during Stewardship season every fall. I’ll just go worship at another church that isn’t doing Stewardship from about the last week of September through the middle of October – whatever week the cards are turned in.
Supposedly, because I’m missing Consecration Sunday I won’t get a pledge card until AFTER that date. I’d be happy to fill it out now and make it all go away. Apparently I have to wait until I’m considered delinquent before they’ll even GIVE me a card. And it’ll come with a personal contact. More coercion.
(Lest you think I’m griping because I’m at the low end of the pool: My weekly contribution was above the midpoint on their stair chart. That is true even though I appear to the church to be a single-person household – Carolyn also gives a similar amount to her church.)
Is Shame a Sin?
Shame is an emotion that people feel. Often they are made to feel it by others.
Is shame a sin of the person who feels it? Is it a sin of the person who causes it to be felt?
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Good Weekend
I’m tired, but happy.
Friday evening I headed out to church to be the 2nd wave driver for the Sr. High retreat. There were a few youth who played football who needed to leave later than the 6pm departure time. I got there at 6:15, and the first wave in the big van didn’t leave until 6:30. Ultimately we all got to camp and settled in about 9pm.
We headed out to the waterfront and held a campfire, complete with singing and S’mores. I’m not usually a big fan of s’mores (I prefer to eat the components separately), but I had one anyway so that the vegetarian youth could roast a marshmallow (they contain gelatin, you know). After that we finally got to bed around midnight.
The next morning was quiet. After breakfast, we headed into the woods and did a trust/togetherness exercise that involved walking along a rope strung between trees with your eyes closed. It was done alone, then with a guide, then alone again. It’s sort of a “walking with Jesus” exercise. After that we had a talk about when God is and is not present in your life and the youth got into some pretty heavy topics. I was very impressed with the way that this group handled people’s difficult times without making fun – that’s pretty rare in this age group.
The rest of the morning was “free” time. A group played football in the meadow while others rested in the lodge. We ended the morning with a game of “Have you ever….” Jenga. This uses the book “Have you Ever …?” along with a Jenga game with the tiles numbered (by hand). Each participant pulls a tile out of the stack, places it on top, and the number on the tile is used to find a numbered question in the book. If tiles are recycled you just add 100, 200, etc. to the tile number. We got the stack up to 29 levels before it fell. (The record is 40 plus two tiles.)
We had lunch, and then headed home.
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Sunday was another church-packed day. The morning service included an introduction of our 3 seminary interns (with CAKE at the Fellowship Hour). After Fellowship time, Temple Micah invited us to join them in the sukkah that they’d built on the front lawn of the manse. There was also the 2nd half of an adult forum series on Presbyterian beliefs that I attended (tough choice, but I’d already done the homework for the forum). (Discussion for another post – what the heck are we doing listing people’s pledges by size for comparison when we’re doing Consecration Sunday that is supposedly NOT about the numbers?)
At the end of the adult forum I got recruited to usher at the afternoon Jazz Vespers service, which brought me back to church after a 2 hour rest. The music was provided by Presbybop, a jazz quartet founded by Presbyterian clergy. The service was attended by about 130 people, and was wonderful. Presbybop has taken some traditional hymns and jazzed them up while retaining the proper feeling and words. We sang two of those, and other music was included. Rev. Bill Carter did the homily. The service was based on the Book of Common Worship’s “Evening Prayer” order of worship – appropriate to the setting sun. The congregation was energized by the service.
After the service, dinner was provided by the choir. Excellent food was catered from Chuckles with dessert from church members and the leftovers from Fellowship Hour in the morning. Carolyn and I sat with the youth group for dinner, and met Rev. Karen Hernandez-Granzen of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Trenton.
After dinner we headed back to the sanctuary for a one-set concert by Presbybop. Folks, these guys know their jazz. You can find them on iTunes, and their CDs are for sale at CDBaby.com. The congregation was brought to their feet at the end for a standing ovation (and we did get an encore). It was hysterical to see the upright and sometimes elderly Presbyterians swaying and nodding their heads to the wonderful jazz. I saw one guy air drumming using the pens from the prayer card racks in the pews.
I’m still short on sleep, but it was a truly wonderful weekend.
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