March, 2010
Dear Friends,
I write with the joy of anticipation as we are about to launch our Stewardship Drive for the 2010-2011 church year. Yes, I am excited. I am excited for you, for us, because you are so very clear about the church you want to be.
I am excited because you are so very close to becoming that church: a church strong in stewardship; a church faithful in relationship; a church dedicated to reaching out as a people of one particular faith, Unitarian Universalism, again and again, and again; a church in which all the gifts you offer are lovingly gathered up to help to heal a broken world.
My dear friend, Denny Davidoff, quotes Annie Dillard when she talks about stewardship:
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead – as if innocence had ever been – and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak and involved. But there is no one but us. There never has been.
The only way any church reaches its dreams is if each one of us dares to fulfill those dreams by our own efforts. And if we all do that, the dreams become our reality. If we gather our gifts together, as this year’s Stewardship Drive asks of us, then we fund the dreams. There is no one but us, there never has been.
As Annie Dillard says, we have come at an awkward time, perhaps not yet ready. Still, there is no one but us. Last year I pledged 5% of my net salary to fund this church, significantly more than I had ever pledged to any church I had served before. Actually, it was scary to make that commitment. Yet every check I have written to fulfill that pledge has filled my heart with joy. Nothing makes me feel more satisfied than knowing I’m doing my part to sing the dreams into life.
Will you share the gift of giving with me…of giving more than you ever thought you could before? Of giving at a level that asks some sacrifice of you; a sacrifice that will become a gift you will cherish, because it speaks to what this church means to you.
I know I would be lost in life without this faith. Yes, I’m sure I’d get by. But I wouldn’t thrive. This faith gets me out of bed every morning and leads me toward the best I can be and do, day after day after day. I pledge to my church as though my life depended on it, because it does. For this church to thrive, there is no one but us.
In Faith,
~ Olivia
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