BEING HERE, WORSHIPING HERE AND SERVING HERE -- THE BEGINNING AND THE END

This is the last section in the series of "being here", "worshiping here" and "serving here".

Being Here

In 2007 to meet the obligations of our mortgages, maintain the property and open the campus each week will cost $376,000.  There is great value in having an attractive campus and buildings in one of the fastest growing counties in America. There is great value in being able to trace our heritage over almost three hundred years. There is great value in a church building that supports traditional worship, family services, Shepherd Groups, AA meetings, weddings, funerals, and other events.

Worshiping Here

It will take more than $444,101 in 2007 to provide the support for "worshiping here".  When we see the altar crowded with young children singing new songs of worship, there is great value here. When we gather later on a Sunday morning to worship and sing in the words that have come down to us through the generations, there is great value here.

When we celebrate the earthly lives of parishioners, comfort the families and bury our fellow parishioners in a churchyard that is almost 200 years old, there is great value here. When we welcome young children, through baptism, into this covenant community and into a relationship with God, there is great value here.

Serving Here

To provide the ministries and programs we do today will cost about $227,000 in 2007.  There is great value when ten teams of the Prayer Tree are praying for sixty to seventy persons for a wide variety of needs. A few Sunday's ago, many of us saw one child bring another to the altar and said, "Thank you for being my friend in Christ." Anyone who saw those two bringing two others, and so on until most of the church was gathered together will have readily seen the value.

What's Next?

In 2007, our Parish is again at a crossroads.  We can choose to grow in numbers and in faith, to extend our worship to new times and forms, and to expand our services to families, the community and the world. Or we can draw back, turn inward, and deny the work and the world around us.

I say "again" because we have been here before. Several times in the past under the threat of financial crisis we have generated frenzy of focus, staunched the bleeding and limped into the future. Unsurprisingly a year or two down the road we did it all over again. Each frenzy has taken its toll in lost people, alienated families, and crushed spirits.

The time has come again for this covenant community to set a clear intentional course for financial stability as one element of our growing maturity.  We have created a new vision of who we would be in the future. Now is the time for each parishioner to make explicit and intentional his or her commitment to prayer, Sabbath keeping and financial support.

What none of us can do alone, we can all do togehter.