Kickoff – Walk in Love
Terri Hurst, Stewardship Chair
10/6/2024

As we kick off this year’s Stewardship Campaign, I’d like to issue a challenge. Don’t worry – it has nothing at all to do with a pledge card or your checkbook. This year, I challenge you to “flip the script,” if you will. If you think Stewardship is about balancing the budget, you need to banish that notion forever.

I say this every year – Stewardship is about using the gifts God has given us to do the work to which God calls us. It’s about giving a portion of our Time, Talent and Treasure to partner with God to build His kingdom. And that means not just here, in this space. Like I said, it’s NOT about balancing the church budget.

Above all, it’s a spiritual journey.

I invite you to join us on a little journey over the next month – a journey of gratitude, prayer and faith. If we do it correctly, stewardship is Grounded in Gratitude. It’s Revealed in Prayer. And it’s Lived in Faith.

Ephesians 5:2 commands us to “Walk in love, as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

This year’s theme is Walk in Love. What does it even mean to walk in love? Conveniently, Paul explains it in the preceding verse: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children…”

That’s not too hard, right? Just be like Jesus? Easy-peasy.

On Instagram, I follow an Anglican priest named Nicky Gumbel. His “thought for the day” post popped up in my feed the other day as I was preparing this talk – God’s perfect provision and timing. He said:

• Praise is giving glory to God for who He is.
• Thanksgiving is giving glory to God for what He has done for us.
• It is the lens through which to view our entire life.

I created these cards to help us get into the correct mindset – and “heartset” – as we discern what our service to God will look like this next year. We won’t be collecting them, so you can keep yours at home, hopefully in a visible spot so you can engage with it on a daily basis. I like to post things like this on my bathroom mirror. I look at them while I brush my teeth and then ponder while I shower.

Here are a few points to pray about and ponder:

We are filled with GRATITUDE when we recognize that everything we have comes from God.

How have you been blessed by God this year?

When we PRAY, God reveals to us how to share those blessings and use our gifts.

Will you ask God to show you how to share your gifts this year?

We live in FAITH when we are willing to trust that God will equip us to share our gifts.

How is God calling you to step outside your comfort zone this year?

We WALK IN LOVE when we follow Jesus’ example of sacrificial love.

How is God calling you to walk in love this year?

I know we’re all busy, so it might be tempting to view this as “homework” to be tossed onto the “later” pile (or worse, the trash). But I encourage you to resist that impulse and actually devote a few minutes each day to this exercise. I promise you’ll be blessed.

Today’s Gospel reading ended with Jesus saying, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

The kingdom of God belongs to those who, like children, are fully dependent on God.

I think about when my kids were little. They had absolute faith that we were in complete control of any situation that presented itself.

• Shopping at Target and suggesting that we visit the “Magic Money Machine” so we could buy anything we want.
• Being stuck inside when bad weather canceled a play date at the park, asking why we can’t make the rain go away.
• Trusting that we wouldn’t let them starve even if their dinner involved vegetables.
• Knowing that Mom’s bag contained pretty much everything they needed. Books, games, band-aids for boo-boos, and snacks.

That’s what Jesus means. We should have absolute faith that God is in complete control of any situation that presents itself. We should be fully dependent on God, just like our children are on us. We should trust that He will provide for our every need.

I’m reminded of the Israelites – God led them through the wilderness for 40 years. He sent them manna every single day so they wouldn’t have to forage for or prepare their own food. And – because they were human, they behaved like children. They took it for granted and even complained because it got boring. Kind of like how I’d spend an entire day preparing my Italian grandmother’s recipe, only to hear my youngest wail, “I no like ‘Zagna, Mom!” The knife to my heart was nothing compared to what God must have felt.

Our challenge is to TRUST that God will fulfill all his promises to us. That’s called FAITH. But we’re also challenged to never take any of God’s gifts for granted. That’s called GRATITUDE.

Now, my kids are old enough to know that I can’t control most situations. That there is no such thing as a Magic Money Machine. And that we can’t make the rain go away.

They’ve learned to shop for and prepare their own meals – hopefully involving at least some vegetables.

And while they know Mom’s bag is still full of fun stuff, they’ve learned to pack their own bags.

And that’s as it should be. That’s called growing up. But I pray they never outgrow their dependence on God. Because while they’re now old enough to know that their parents don’t have all the answers, they’re also now old enough to know who does.

Today’s reading from Hebrews beautifully describes the ultimate gift of God’s grace in the form of Jesus’s sacrificial love. But I can’t help but wish that the lectionary included the very next verse: “I will put my trust in Him.” Jesus said it. The author of this letter said it. We should say it, too. It’s easier said than done, sometimes, but it’s oh so liberating.

I will put my trust in Him. True dependence on God, perfectly exemplified in Christ. In Jesus we see humanity as God intended for us to be.

Let us all WALK WITH LOVE – with Jesus, with each other, and with the rest of our world. It won’t look the same for all of us, but it will be beautiful, nonetheless.

That journey? Of Gratitude, Prayer and Faith? You just might find that you never want it to end. It’s the greatest adventure you’ll ever take – and you don’t even need a passport.

And – spoiler alert! Over the next few weeks you’ll get to hear from some of our St. Matt’s family about how they do just that.

To God be ALL the glory, AMEN.

 

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I prayed for weeks about this talk, and it occurred to me that in all these years, after inviting many people to share their stories, I’d never shared about OUR Stewardship journey.

I grew up in a family very involved in church. Service was just a way of life. My parents believed in sharing our SPIRITUAL GIFTS in service to God, country and community.

My parents pledged every year but they never told us the dollar or percentage amount. We got to put the little numbered envelope in the plate every week. But we never saw the actual check because Mom always said, “That’s between us and God.”

Bret’s family attended church sporadically, but they also instilled in him the philosophy and habit of service to one’s community.

When we were first married, we worked in hospitality, and we rarely had Sundays or even holidays off. So our church attendance was irregular at best. We did join a church in Miami while he was in engineering school, and while we never let the plate pass us by, we didn’t pledge since we viewed it as a temporary church home.

We joined Christ Church in Norcross while pregnant with Josh. When he was born, we went to one income, and a pretty tight budget. We joined Foyers and ended up in a group with an older man, Karl, who was on vestry, or chaired Stewardship – I don’t recall which. One evening he called us, opening with “We haven’t received your pledge card yet, and I’m wondering if there’s something holding you back.”

Talk about feeling called out — no pun intended. I told him that we just felt that we weren’t in “that stage of life” yet. That with a new baby and Bret’s travel schedule, our time and treasure were very limited. And to be honest, the idea of giving 10% was just impossible.

But he explained that PLEDGING was not the same thing as TITHING. That we could pledge $1 if that’s all we had – the amount wasn’t important. By pledging, we were just saying that we were going to be around for that next year. It wasn’t a contract, it was just a way to demonstrate that we believed in the mission of that church and that we’d engage.

And so at Ingathering, we placed our pledge card into the basket on the altar. It was scary because the  amount we’d written on that card was embarrassingly small. But it was also exciting because it was the next step in our “adult” Christian journey. And it was hopeful because we were trusting that God would provide enough for us to be able to fulfil that pledge.

So. Here we were, this young family, doing our best to make it to church twice a month. At 31 and 32, we were babies. We’d scrape together a little bit of treasure for the plate but we hadn’t yet figured out how to give our time or talent.

But God is infinitely better than we are at determining how and where we can use our gifts. We got to know our deacon, Nancy Yancey, who had founded Rainbow Village, a program for mothers facing homelessness. Back then, the families lived in some old houses owned by Georgia Power. After sitting vacant for years, they leased them to Rainbow Village for $1 a year. What a huge gift for those families and the fledgling ministry.

One day Nancy mentioned that the houses constantly had issues. Little things that could be repaired by anyone handy, but also bigger things like lights not working. If only she could find an electrician who would work for free.

Well. As it happened, Bret was a licensed electrician. So he became their go-to fix-it man. Any time they needed a repair, he’d go take care of it.

That was probably when we began to trust in God’s perfect provision. Because every time he had to buy something for a repair, that money would just appear. Or he’d find exactly what he needed in his workshop which he inherited from his Granddaddy –  who was a master electrician.

God is in ALL the details.

This was an answer to our prayer for a way to supplement our meager financial offering so we could feel like we were contributing in a meaningful way.

But it was also the answer to so many prayers of so many people. God wants us to share our time, talent and treasure, and Bret’s talent — and electrician’s license — were much more valuable than our treasure, because the money he saved Rainbow Village was exponentially more than any amount we could offer.

Over time, we got more involved. We found plenty of ways to give our Time and use our Talents, and as our Treasure increased, so did our pledges. We moved over here to St. Matt’s in 2006 and the rest is history.

That phone call made me uncomfortable and I would have been perfectly happy if Josh had chosen that moment to start crying and give me an excuse to hang up. But God grows us through uncomfortable moments. And that conversation changed the way we viewed the act of pledging.

I think back to when I thought “We’re just not in that stage of life yet” and I have to laugh at young me. Because we’re always in “that stage of life,” no matter where, or how old, we are. God doesn’t give us our gifts once we hit a certain age, or income bracket. We receive our gifts when we’re born. That day when Jesus fed the 5,000 – it was a CHILD whose offering was multiplied, not the comfortable empty nester.

It’s harvest time – and as far as Jesus is concerned, it’s always harvest time. In John 4, verses 35-38, Jesus told his disciples,

“Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps … harvests a crop for eternal life …One sows and another reaps. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

We all play a part in the harvest. It’s an ongoing cycle that involves the entire Body of Christ, starting way back even before those first disciples.

Today, as we celebrate All Saints, I give thanks for my parents, who prepared my soil and planted seeds, then nurtured and watered my servant’s heart. They were able to reap what they sowed with me and my brother, but weren’t able to reap the next season’s crop: my children, who are so much further along than I was at their ages.

And while that makes me a bit sad, I know that it’s as it should be, because that means they did their part in the never-ending cycle.

God meets us where we are, no matter where that is. And he loves us too much to leave us there. I wonder if Karl knew the seeds he was planting when he made that phone call over 20 years ago.

I never make phone calls like that. Fortunately for us all, God has many different ways of planting seeds.

Over the past six weeks we’ve encouraged you to think and pray about how you can use the gifts God has given you to do the work to which God has called you. I invite you to continue to talk to God about how He might want you to use your gifts to His glory. How might Jesus want YOU to participate in His Harvest?

May God continue to bless us all!

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Good morning, everyone. I want to talk about stewardship. A lot of people know who I am. My name is Jay Jones, and my family and I have been members of St. Matthew’s for ten years. When we started coming here, we sought a church home, a place to belong and contribute. You probably know my wife, Amy. She contributes her talents to the choir. She’s a musician, and she does very well.
I could’ve joined the choir, but I cannot sing. I can’t carry a tune. And this fact has been put upon me by my family many times. Like I could say that, you know, my singing is so bad. How bad is it? Okay, my singing is so bad. Autotune gave up on me.
I wanted to talk to you about how we approached stewardship. In 2015, Lynn Kiker approached me about taking over the acolyte ministry. She had been doing it for 20 years and had that ministry running like a machine. It was well run, but it was becoming physically challenging for her to keep doing it, so she was looking for someone to take it over. I was reluctant to do this because I’d never done anything like that. I also wondered if I could do it. I had reservations about sticking with one thing for 20 years. But I prayed, talked with Amy about it, and agreed.
It wasn’t easy at first. I was flailing around trying to learn what to do, but I had a lot of support. I had the families, the parents there who helped, and those acolytes who knew what to do. So, what I came out of that experience was that I learned a lot about acting, but I also learned a lot about myself.
We can all agree that personal growth is good, but to make that happen, you must be willing participants. You have got to make that leap of faith.
It was a scary time, but I eventually got used to it. And after three years, I said, okay, that’s enough. I’ve learned that I have other skills and talents to give. Today, I’m on the vestry board. I’m the youth liaison for the vestry. I’m also on the audio-visual team that’s live streams, worship, and other events. With this spirit, we also encourage our children, Katie and Ellie, to contribute. Katie is in college now, but when she was here, she was an acolyte, and she was with the youth group ministry. Ellie was also an acolyte, and she’s now in the youth ministry, too.
And I’m very proud of my girls. We watch them grow up here and come into their own, and they value friendship and always want to help. Amy and I worked to teach them these values, but being here at St. Matthew’s played a significant role. I’ve seen other children come through the doors here and watched them grow up. It’s been a gift to me to watch kids come in here crawling around, making noise and growing up and graduating high school and going to college, and some of them getting married and starting a family on their own.
As I said, it is a gift and a blessing, but like all good things, it takes work. We have created a community here at St. Matthew’s not just for the single purpose of worship, and worship is essential, but we also are here to fellowship with one another. As I was preparing for this talk, I searched the Bible to find a verse. One that stood out to me was I John 1: 6-7. It says, “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin.
That means that as a community, we have to work to make our community represent the teachings of Jesus. We can’t stand on the sidelines to watch. Thankfully, there are many roles here at St. Matthew’s for contributing time, treasure, and talent. The first is treasure, to pledge financial support to the church. The second is to give your time, and the third is to give your talent. To volunteer, to help out, to be there.
The return on stewardship is not a very finite thing. But I have come to think of it as making a positive impression, especially for our young people, that helps them navigate life as they grow up. You can’t quantify it. But you can see it when you talk to someone who grew up here at St. Matthew’s, and you pick up that spark. You can see it.
That is because of who we are. In stewardship, we support the community, which means we support each other. I recall an old newspaper saying that I think applies to what I’m talking about stewardship, especially with young people: “It’s not the splash that you make but the ripples that count.” Being here at St. Matthew’s and bringing up our children has benefited us. But you have to get involved, and you have to make it happen. Through your gifts of time, treasure, and talent, we are living Jesus’s teachings and making a difference. Thank you.

Jay Jones

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