We launched our 2020 Stewardship campaign on Sunday, October 6. We are four weeks in. Each week we have invited those who belong to our community to share a testimony. Here is the formula we are inviting volunteers to use:
Tell a small story about BFCC.
How do you feel about this story?
Where is God in the story?
End with the unique quality of BFCC that you want to celebrate and share with the worshipping community
Finally, say: Won’t you consider joining the movement at BFCC, so that…. And tie it back to your story. This final moment is both an invitation to join the movement and give generously.
I don’t think Steve used this too closely- but that’s okay, it’s a guide and what he said was good and important. Our season of stewardship is guided by the book The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. There are a handful of people reading it along side this sacred season. This season feels like a Season of Generosity - rather than stewardship or the managment of gifts and resources. In theory “stewardship” has the potential to have great spiritual depth- in practice it feels utilitarian. Mostly, lacking Spirit. Generosity is a theme that seems to me, to be an important part of practicing our Christian faith. And we need to practice it all the time- meaning that having a season each year, called the Season of Generosity, would be good for all our souls. Some ministers are moving away from the old model of stewardship campaigns. I get it. But, like other annual events, holidays and Holy days- I can get behind a season where we tell stories, ritualize and pray about generosity- mostly about intentionally practicing giving to God- rather than the empire. We are creatures of habit and practicing is always a good idea. - Marta
Testimony by Steve Murtagh
SEEING ABUNDANCE
So then, lets have a show of hands. Who is excited to be talking about giving, stewardship, money and budgets?
Well, believe it or not, I am.
For the last year or so, I have been a member of a group that participates in something we call Wealth Wednesday.
Now this particular group is comprised of salespeople who are trying to get better at selling things, so you might assume that Wealth Wednesday was about increasing our wealth. But you’d be wrong if you are thinking of wealth in the traditional way as more money or stuff.
Wealth Wednesday is about doing a random act of kindness for a stranger that involves a financial exchange. In other words, doing something involving money for a person who cannot possibly repay – or even thank - you.
We do things like pay for the person behind us at the drive through, or maybe leave a bigger tip than you usually would. Lately slipping some cash into a diaper box at the grocery store has been popular.
So its not about getting credit. And it really isn’t about what we do. Certainly not about how much money is involved.
The point of the exercise though is really all about us.
About changing our attitude and outlook regarding scarcity and abundance.
Because it turns out that these two things are much more about us, and how we decide to look at circumstances than they are about our circumstances themselves.
That is why we do Wealth Wednesday. To change how we see abundance and scarcity. It changes us, and makes us better (sales)people.
The sad fact is that most of us live our lives looking through the lens of scarcity.
Will I be able to pay the mortgage? Feed my family? Do I have time to devote to the things that matter to me? Do I have enough saved in case something terrible happens? OMG no, if we take that vacation something terrible might happen and we will run out of money and lose the house!
If only I had just a little more, everything would be ok.
But the peculiar thing is that the rich – the ones with all the abundance – they live in an ideology of scarcity.
While the poor – the ones actually suffering from scarcity – live in an ideology of abundance.
How can that be?
The issue revolves around whether or not there is enough to go around – enough food, water, shelter, space, opportunity... enough stuff.
An ideology of scarcity says no! There’s not enough for everyone!
So hold onto what you have. In fact, don’t just hold onto it, hoard it.
Put aside more than you need, so that if you do need it, it will be there, even if that means that others have to do without.
The fact is, psychologists and financial consultants tell us that the scarcity mindset increases as wealth increases. That the more we have, the more we worry about not having enough, or losing what we do have.
The great contradiction of our time is that we have more and more money – more and more stuff - and less and less generosity.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. Remember that one?
We who are now the richest nation in the world are today's main coveters. We want it all. And we want it now.
We never feel that we have enough; we have to have more and more and more and this insatiable desire ultimately makes us very small and unhappy people. Like the little rodent in Ice Age who spent each film clinging to his precious acorn. Till in the end it killed him.
Whether we are liberal Christians or conservative Christians, we must confess that the central problem of our lives is that we are torn apart by the conflict between our attraction to the good news of God's abundance and the power of our belief in scarcity - a belief that makes us greedy, mean and unneighborly. We can spend our lives trying to sort out that ambiguity.
And its not only about money.
When you have a scarcity mindset, you acknowledge the belief that there are only so many resources available to you.
So you have to trudge along, doing what you can with what you have. All the while believing you can save your way to wealth by just working more, working harder, cutting coupons and eating Ramen noodles.
Robert Wuthnow, a sociologist of religion at Princeton University, has studied stewardship in the church and discovered that preachers do a good job of promoting stewardship. They study it, think about it, explain it well.
But we sitting here in the pews, we don't get it.
Though many, maybe most of us are well intentioned, we have invested our whole lives in consumerism and the fear of scarcity. We have a love affair with "more"- and we will never have enough.
As the Duchess said to Alice: “The moral is, the more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.”
Jesus invites us to a share in a world where there is a different mindset, where there is abundance. A scarcity mentality is not for a disciple of Jesus.
He wants us to have a stewardship mentality for all that has generously been put into our hands.
Abundance is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody.
It opens up possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity. It unmasks solutions that are just not visibly from a scarcity mindset.
Abundance is an act of faith to live with the narrative of abundance instead of the fear of scarcity.
As the Church, we are called to exist in a community, an alternative to the narratives of the world living outside the Kindom of God in our right-now lives. There isn’t scarcity, not really: there really is more than enough for everyone. Scarcity is rooted in fear. And fear is a betrayal of God.
Now often times abundance is confused with having all our material desires met. This is impossible on the face of it, since the more we have the more we want.
Scripture seems to indicate that abundance is not that, but rather being close to Jesus, giving him what we have, and trusting him to provide for what we need.
Note: I said Need. Not want. Abundance is sufficient, enough. It is not possessing everything.
So back to Wealth Wednesday.
By participating I quickly began to see several things.
First, it matters THAT you give. Not how much you give. Some weeks it might be $20, other weeks $1. It doesn’t matter. It is the mindset, the habit of giving that matters.
Second, you usually feel good about what you’ve shared – you’ve improved another person’s life in some small way, maybe made their day a little brighter, increased their faith in people.
Third, I find you don’t really miss what you’ve shared. I have plenty, so sharing isn’t really such a big deal at all.
And finally, I find that when I am generous with the world, the world seems more generous to me. Perhaps it is nothing more than how I look at it. But then that is the whole point.
And that is why I am excited to talk about giving, stewardship, money and budgets.
Because what that really is, when seen through the lens of abundance rather than scarcity, is talking about possibilities, creativity and making an impact on myself, my community and even the world.
So now I invite each of you to put aside the narrative of scarcity and see the abundance right here in our church community and in your life. It is all a mindset after all. It is all how you see it, and how you see it is a choice.
St Francis had it right. It is in giving that we receive.
I mean who was happier? The rich old Scrooge? Or the barely out of poverty Cratchets?