Of $$$$ and Priorities

LAst weekend at the Annual Meeting of Conference they passed a budget. Said budget included a 17% increase in assessments to Presbyteries (where it will then be handed on to Pastoral Charges). Already I can hear the complaint starting to arise in the fall. BUt maybe the problem isn't that we are asking for too much. May the problem is that we have not done a good job of developing Steward ship. Prairie Preacher writes: (that better Shawn? :) )

For the record - at Conference we were told that the annual cost of operating Conference is $12.60 per resident member and $17.84 per identifiable giver (I will leave the rant about the disconnect between the givings of members and givers for another day.). For that we get the staffing skills and resource pool that Conferences offer us as lay and clergy ... It's a tiny expense, particularly when you break it down to a weekly or daily donation ... Imagine what we could be doing if we doubled or tripled our donations??

I hunch that often the story is much the same at the congregational level. Of course we don't really break our income down into X$ per giver/family because we know that some can (do) give more than others. BUt sometimes we are talking about amounts that pale compared to some of the other discretionary spending in our lives. Education seems to be the answer, education and an infectious sense of vision/mission.