Minister’s Letter - March 2010
On March 14 we begin our financial pledge drive. The theme this year is Creating Abundance! In the coming days you will receive information from our Pledge Drive Committee about our financial goals and our overall goal of Creating Abundance. Jean and Des Fitzpatrick are the chairs of the pledge committee. Please note their column in this Newsletter.
Our pledge drive is not merely about raising money to pay the bills. Ultimately, I believe it is our most important program for measuring how seriously we live our beliefs as embodied in our principles. In that light we ask that you give out of your abundance, great or small, “as much as ye are able.”In these days of economic recession, it is difficult for many people to relate to economic abundance. But Dwayne Dyer once said: Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into. Fortunately we are blessed with an amazing abundance of talent, service, gifts and creative thinking within our active membership! We have a lot to tune into! I marvel everyday that we have so many hard-working, giving, spirited individuals like you who give generously of your time and have helped to create a vital spiritual community. As your minister, I deeply treasure your offerings and your service.
Because of the resulting growth, our needs for more staff time, fair salaries, and improved physical space have grown proportionately. But we also have a challenging opportunity to attract many others who would join us, tune into the abundance and make our community even more vital, more abundant. Out of our abundance, we create more abundance through worship, music, art, religious education, community service and committee actions.
So as each of you decides your financial pledge, remember that you are not merely giving to a building or place. Our Fellowship is a point of contact with the Ultimate Reality, however we name it, and with those proximate people with whom we make our spiritual journey. Our Fellowship is an extension of who we are. It reflects our basic ethical values and our vision of how we want to live out the meanings of our lives. How much is that worth to us?
Ultimately I think our financial pledge is a spiritual exercise, even a spiritual discipline. We give in many ways to the Fellowship: by our time, our energy, our words and by our money. Our monetary resources are also an extension of ourselves. They are an investment in the human race. They are a statement of faith in the future, a physical embodiment of a spiritual life and a moral commitment. They endeavor to make real in the world what is imagined in the heart. As Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” So be it. Abundantly. Tune into it!
See you at the Fellowship! Jim Covington