We are like the birds of the air – Stephen Wruck
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus refers to the birds of the air; how they don’t store up their food, but still the Father provides all they need.
Birds are an interesting analogy. In order to fly, they can’t afford to carry excess weight. So they are always hungry and always eating.
They are never more than a couple of steps away from starvation, but that doesn’t stop them from using their meagre energy reserves to fly and sing. They cheerfully keep doing the things they are made to do, and then return to eating the food God has provided, so they have the energy to do it again.
For more than 25 years, our Church has been a bit like these birds. We haven’t built storehouses of wealth. Over the years, our Church has been blessed with a steady flow of income. And as this income has come in, it has been spent to maintain and grow the activities and services our Church community provides for others.
We have many groups / activities within our Church that operate for the benefit of others. To name a few, there is the Family Support Network, Playgroup, Community Connect, our long-term partnership with Anglicare and St Johns Crisis Care and more recently working with Burleigh Anglican Church to support the homeless. More visible are our Op Shops and Early Learning Centre. These and other groups operate through the effort of volunteers and paid staff and are funded through a variety of income sources, all of which are becoming increasingly stretched.
The disruption caused by Covid has put a strain on our finances and people. During the periods of lockdown and when we were not able to gather in groups, there was a very real possibility that we would not have the week-to-week funds to pay our commitments for wages. Through the generosity of our staff and by drawing down on our savings, we have so far avoided major financial issues. However, we are still in a recovery phase and our regular income does not yet meet our expenses, and there are many opportunities available for people with the time to serve.
Our major expenses are property-related and staffing. Neither of these is wasteful. At the AGM in February, Andrea presented our financial statements which highlighted a tight rein on building maintenance expenses. Considering the work our staff do, their commitment and generosity, our staffing costs are not excessive.
One of the anomalies of our Church is that our congregational giving does not cover the cost of church staff wages. This is unusual, as most churches rely almost entirely on regular weekly giving by their congregations to pay for the ministry team and other staff.
Over the coming weeks we will be talking more about generosity and money. As Stewart alluded to in last week’s blog, it seems that interest rates and finances are being talked about everywhere at the moment.
Everyone has phases in their lives when they can afford to be more generous, and times when it becomes harder. For my family, with working parents and a child approaching the serious end of high school, spare time is in very short supply. There are things that we previously would gladly have spent time doing, that we can not at the moment. I’m sure this will change again for my family once we have navigated our way through Year 12, and we enter a new phase of life (I am hoping it does anyway!)
So, perhaps now is a good time to step back and review how we spend our time and money. For example, do you have the time to spend a few hours per week helping at an Op Shop? If we had 8 more people willing to serve in an Op Shop, we could open an extra day per week. That in itself would significantly boost how we serve the local community and provide significant funds to support other ministries.
Similarly, it is good to regularly review our finances – especially taking into the effect of account interest rate and cost of living rises. Setting up regular giving to our church through online banking or envelopes helps our Treasurer budget for the year. Similarly, it is important not to ‘set and forget’ our giving. Regularly reviewing how much we give, as part of a regular review of home finances is very helpful.
We will continue to be like the ‘birds of the air’ that Jesus referred to. We will continue to use what we receive to fund the outworking of our Church’s mission and not ‘store away in barns.’ We will continue to be financially brave for the benefit of others.
I am personally grateful for how our church members have given generously of their time and money for the past 25 years, and I am looking forward to seeing this continue in the years to come.