Friends,
I cannot believe it is already stewardship season again at St. Luke’s! This is an anxiety inducing time for the leadership and staff for the Church. However, it is also an exciting time, because it forces us to imagine how we can grow more into our ministry. I thought I would take this time to give a few practical bits of information about money and St. Luke’s, and the honest reason why I tithe my salary to the Church.
First, here are some things that might help you understand how our money situation works:
Right now, we are asking you to pledge for 2025. Pledging is just telling us what you expect to give in the next calendar year, which we will use to plan and budget accordingly. In the stewardship material you can see that we hope to add two new staff positions. To accomplish this we will need to increase our pledged income by a significant sum. This is aspirational, but if we can pull it off then we will be in tremendous shape for the future.
Remember, you have to pledge every year. Even if you have auto-payments set up, that doesn’t count as a pledge. We need something from you every year with your plans or we can’t use it for the budget.
Giving is different than pledging. If you give in a way that we can track (we can track online giving or checks. If you put cash in the plate, we won’t know it’s from you!), then it will be added to your statement. If you pledged and you are giving toward your pledge, make sure to let us know in the comment section or in the check memo line.
We don’t get any money from the Diocese! The money moves the other way. We could not function without the Diocese, and giving to the Diocese is an important way of supporting the greater Church. We take an average of the last three years of income from pledges and plate offerings, and give ten percent of that to the Diocese.
On a similar note, you may have noticed that we have cell phone towers in the steeple. We cannot use those funds to support the operations of the Church, and the funds we receive from that rent only go to capital improvement, like our new parish hall.
The gist is, we don’t have a magical source of funds to pay salaries and keep the lights on, which is why we need your contributions!
You will hear us occasionally talk about tithing. Tithing is giving ten percent of your income to the Church. Those who practice it consider it a spiritual practice.
Our average pledge is about $4,800.00. Giving is not a competition, and I generally try not to know who gives what. If you give below or above that amount you will receive no guilt or special treatment. This is just for you to know how much people give for us to maintain our ministries.
This year we are doing a huge push for stewardship, not just to maintain the status quo, but fundamentally change how we do ministry. Please give to grow our ministry and help us thrive!
Ok, so now it’s time for the honest reasons why I tithe my salary to the Church. This is a symptom of my privilege, and an old insecurity about if I am giving enough. I was twenty-six years old when I started to make grown-up money, and less than a year later I got married to someone who also made money. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have omnipresent anxiety about my checking account, which up to that point was always low. I immediately did two things when those checks started to come in. First, I went out for a steak dinner almost every night, and then I felt incredibly guilty about this perceived indulgence.
Virginia Theological Seminary has its flaws, and seminary is just an innately difficult time, but I made it through debt-free because of the generosity of that institution. Then I was in my first Church being overwhelmingly and enthusiastically supported by a congregation that paid me, and helped Leandra and I get ready for our upcoming wedding. Going from a “getting by” mentality to being showered with resources and support was a shock to the system. I suddenly became aware of how privileged and fortunate I was to be in that position. The steak addiction took years and a possible act of God to break, but I started tithing my salary back to the Church right away, which changed my weird and amorphous feelings of guilt to an act of thankfulness and appreciation.
The Episcopal Church is flawed, and I love it because it doesn’t pretend that it is not, and I would not be who I am without the Church. The schools, seminaries, charities, disaster relief efforts, music programs, retreat centers and the rest of the good things that stem from the Church could not exist without vibrant local congregations. I expected to agonize every year about how much to give to the Church I worked for, but since I tithe there is no need for agonizing. I give ten percent, I feel good about it, and I go on with my life knowing that I am supporting a tiny sliver of the foundation of our big and wonderful Church.
An unexpected result of this giving habit was that I became increasingly thankful for the ministries within the Churches. Giving stopped feeling like being compelled or guilted into doing something, and it became more about being part of the team that was getting stuff done, helping people, and insisting on being a growing Church in a world that becoming increasingly ambivalent toward religion. I was “all in” with my congregation, and giving out of a spirit of thanksgiving made my giving joyful.
The Episcopal Church may or may not have affected you to the same degree that it has affected me, but if you are reading this, then St. Luke’s has undoubtedly affected you. Whether it is military family with us just for a year or two, life-long members, or stranger just peaking their heads in for the first time, we strive to give people a home.
Thank you for making St. Luke’s your home, and if you are able I encourage to give so we can grow.
Blessings,
Nick
