"Comes the Harvest" by Kristine Johnson

[Memos from Rev. Barbara Merritt and Rev. Tom Schade]

G U E S T   M E M O


“Comes the Harvest”


Once again this church is challenging me to do more than I might have
otherwise chosen—this time to write a newsletter memo. It doesn’t seem so
daunting until you start browsing through past memos for inspiration. Then
you realize what exalted company you’re in and you start worrying about
expectations. But as Barbara and Tom frequently remind us, getting out of
one’s comfort zone and aiming for more generosity, more optimism, more faith
are a large part of what any religion worth its salt is about.

Yes, this is about the pledge drive. Again. But thinking why we are called
on to support this church bears repeating. Here are some of the reasons:
*   It’s only fair. If we had to pay each time for each benefit we enjoy
here (the world-class lectures, music, children’s and adult classes, meals,
childcare, counseling, home aid, etc., etc.) few could afford it and the
rest of us would be broke, bored, lonely, and depressed in scant time.
*         There’s no such thing as a free lunch. The church’s tax-exempt
status notwithstanding, all the usual costs for staff, utilities, property
maintenance, insurance, etc. for an operation of this size and scope still
apply, and there is no Mother Church underwriting our expenses.
*         We’re facing a deficit. The total cost of operating per adult
member is $1,527, but our average pledge amount per family is only $1,048.
We are blessed with an endowment that covers 35% of our costs, but that
money is there for the long term, and any organization that relies too much
on endowment becomes stagnant and inbred.

I cannot tell you what this church means to you or how much you can afford
to give, but only what is true for me. Here in this community where my soul
finds its home, I am continually inspired to aim for more than I assumed and
reassured that I have achieved more than I realize. This is where I learn to
share my gifts, and to see more clearly that even negative things like fear
and doubt and grief are gifts if I allow them to draw me further into
community.

Having procrastinated for years to act upon my dream to become a parent,
that “still small voice within” prompted me to go public about it in order
to get the motivation to act. So here I am now parenting a special-needs
eleven-year old and, no surprise, my fear and doubt quotient has gone up.
One of the great taboos in my upbringing was talking about money (the other
was talking about sex), so naturally a significant part of my parenting
anxiety shows up as worry about money.

But when I take time to look at what I felt I could afford in the past and
what my resources were then and now, I discover that I’m richer than I was
in various ways and that I’ve been giving steadily less—this is a reflection
of my fear and not of financial reality, so I have pledged to give more this
coming year. As I’ve said before, I want to live out of faith, not fear. The
most important way in which I am richer now is in belonging to this
community of faith, and that belonging transforms me. Sharing our gifts
means that we all become the harvest as well as the harvesters.


Yours in the spirit of generosity,






Kristine Johnson, Head Assessor

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.firstunitarian.com/pipermail/firstumemo_firstunitarian.com/attachments/20071113/71a03f3e/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29140 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.firstunitarian.com/pipermail/firstumemo_firstunitarian.com/attachments/20071113/71a03f3e/attachment-0001.jpe