Sunday Services at St. Gregory of Nyssa

July 10, 2016

The morning Bible study group spent their time talking about a recent stewardship survey sent out by a hired consultant to assess the feasibility of running a capital campaign. The reason they focused on the survey is that the majority of the participants (4 out of 5) were offended by the survey questions and felt the need to discuss it with other members. Some of their concerns—an outside consultant was hired that doesn’t know the community, they did not know the mortgage was not paid off, they felt the questions were too personal about individual/family finances, it didn’t appear to consider volunteer work as a form of monetary support, it was asking for more than they could provide, and it was cold and impersonal.

Ah…money, the universal church concern, and the least talked about subject in any congregation. Why is that? Church is a community that resembles a family and I would assume that families have budgets that are discussed, modified, and available for review.

Our family has a monthly budget for variable household expenses (grocery, gas, music lessons, etc.) and one for fixed expenses (mortgage, water, electricity, etc.); the former I manage and the latter Ernesto manages. It is an open book in our house. Every two weeks I print a budget sheet that gives amounts of money available for various categories of household expenses and when the kids ask for something we refer to the budget to see if there is money available.

My Episcopal congregation is the most financially transparent and democratic faith community in which I’ve ever participated and I’m so appreciative of that, yet, like all congregations, it is not without its fair share of money concerns.

I told the Bible study group that stewardship is a really important aspect of church communities and necessary to discuss and be transparent about. Then I asked, “What process would have been more acceptable to you or in what format would you have liked to discuss the money issues of St. Gregory’s?” They were unprepared for my question and said they would need to think about it, which is fair.

It seems that so much of our church community budgets are tied to infrastructure, which makes me wonder if we need to reconsider where we meet and choose cheaper alternatives. No answers here, just more questions than I have time to explore.