Prepare Yourself for Stewardship Season
Here we go again!
Just as we were settling back into in-person worship, with or without also offering a digital version, the Delta variant of COVID is surging faster than the original version, especially among the unvaccinated.
All the questions are raised again: in-person worship? Masking? Social distancing?
What about the kids’ schools? Their Christian ed? Youth groups?
How about gathering people together again for the backlog of weddings, baptism, and memorial services?
There’s fatigue with the pandemic, and the growing impatience of the vaccinated with the unvaccinated for “holding us back,” and the unvaccinated for feeling their “rights” are being encroached upon.
Clergy will again be put in the middle of the “Open-Ups!” and the “Close-Ups!”
Just when the future was starting to feel a bit more predictable and certain, it’s even harder to put the emotional genies back in the bottle again.
Who knows what all of this will mean for parish attendance, involvement, or financial giving?
And how do we even begin to ask people to be generous with their time, talent, or treasure in a way that doesn’t sound insensitive to the very real uncertainties for the months ahead?
What’s Your Biblical Guide for This Season?
I find a lot of comfort and wisdom in Paul’s situation when he wrote his second letter to the Corinthians.
He was a beleaguered leader, much of it because the community was anxious and acting out while they were trying to find their way as best they could.
They were divided and fighting amongst themselves, however much Paul pleaded for unity. There was a serious question about whether the community could survive at all.
Paul revealed mixed emotions, hopes, desires, and vulnerabilities, while casting about for some anchor all the believers could land on.
He opens the letter with this:
“In other words, no matter how bad it looks for me personally, it’s never only about me. Others are just as scared and uncertain as I am. How would Christ like to act through me to serve them?”
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God” (2nd Cor. 1:3-4).
In Paul’s and the believers’ situations, Paul remains convicted that though we suffer and feel unsure, because of Christ, our pain and uncertainty also provide us with compassion and empathy for those afflicted by the same.
In other words, no matter how bad it looks for me personally, it’s never only about me.
Others are just as scared and uncertain as I am.
How would Christ like to act through me to serve them?
It’s through seeing their fear through their eyes, and through acts of service, kindness—and yes, financial support—I am consoled.
Having a biblical touchstone during times like this is critical for all of us, especially if we feel like we have to ask something hard of ourselves or our parishioners.
Practical Ways to Engage Scripture for Your Own Courage
If it feels hard to ask your parishioners to be generous when they feel like they’re barely hanging on, what Scripture provides the theological and pastoral courage to do so?
Do some Scripture study and pray Lectio Divina or engage Ignatian exercises on passages that speak to you.
Once you have that grounding, then get even clearer:
Who is God/Jesus/Spirit in that passage? What is God’s character? What is God asking of you/us?
What is God’s deepest hope for you? For those you serve?
What’s getting in the way of that hope?
What’s a real-life story that reveals God breaking through the barriers anyway?
The more we know how it is that we can draw our hope from Christ, the better we’ll be able to preach with integrity and authenticity in the uncertain days ahead.
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Can you continue to prep and preach the way you are now for the duration of your ministry?