Saturday, June 21, 2008

What's broken and which committee will fix it?

I should start by saying that any words that I publish here are the result of my own views, and don't represent any other person or organization. Such is the case with each post regardless of the author. This blog is a soapbox or conversation starter for anyone affiliated with Northeast United Church of Christ or its members and is intended to be an open forum.

To date, our church has spent $4,532.97 for natural gas (our main source of heat in the Midwest for you East coast oil-users). I'm sure some of this cost is for our oven in the kitchen and for hot water, but the lion's share of the money went to heating the church. Considering it's not even July yet, there will be another chunk of money spent on natural gas toward the end of the year. I'm betting that the weather will continue its pattern of totally sucking and November and December will be as cold as the months of January, February, March, and April were. An optimist I am not.

Let's just say that at the end of the year we've spent around $7,000 to heat our church. Who will we say that we've warmed at the end of the year for our seven G's? At this point we'll be able to say it was our congregation on Sundays, our board meetings once per month, our staff during the week, some contractors working on our new entrance, children in our midweek (twice per month) and Vacation Bible School (four times per year), and the occasional meeting and fellowship. Only a few of those activities are truly outreach of any kind. According to our budget, we're only budgeting around $3,000-4,000 for the few outreach programs that we have including the salary for the mid-week director.

$7,000 for heating a near-empty building 365 days per year, and less than $4,000 for our own ministry and outreach? Seriously? Either our communities, neighborhoods, and city are in the best shape in their individual histories or something is dead wrong with our priorities.

Our total Christian Education budget includes the salaries of four individuals who interact with parents, children, and young adults in our church. These people share the gospel with our children and care for them while their parents are spiritually nourished. This budget is less than that of our building and maintenance budget which does not include any money for salaries or outreach at all. If we combine the amount budgeted for building and maintenance with that of administration, that amount is almost double that of our Christian Education ministry. Neglecting our ministry or considering putting it under the axe while grasping onto our physical building is wrong. If we inhabit our current building or no building our ministry and purpose remain. For the poor, for the unloved, for the marginalized, our physical building does not offer hope and healing. Our building does not call us to go and find these people and offer our love and compassion. It is our individual recognition of God's purpose that calls us to do these things, and our sense of community and pooling of our resources that makes them a reality. Oftentimes it is a reality that we never thought possible.

I think it is time for us to be a congregation that puts our own ministry and outreach at the top of our priority list. For too long, we've been content to offer our building for small usage fees and part of our finances to OCWM and have that be the extent of our outreach to the community. Yet in doing this we do not commune with the community, we offer no hope to those without hope, and we offer no love to those who are without love. We leave all of this in the hands of a small few, the diaconate and CE, and say that it must be enough because we have "bills to pay."

Yet if we read the gospel we know that we should do more. This will be our challenge in the coming years in the midst of our financial situation.

We are not called by our faith to make do in order for our building to be warm. We are called to do more in the world.

2 comments:

Pat said...

It's sad to attend church meetings and never hear the word "ministry." And when you bring ministry into the picture it's treated like a bad taste in the mouth. It seems that we, like the country, are on the wrong course.

The building is not the church; the people and the ministry are the church. It seems like you shouldn't even have to utter this.

Gene said...

Welcome and thanks for commenting!

And you are correct as usual.