By Kathleen Staudt
Our church is celebrating a 50th anniversary and launching a capital stewardship campaign this year. In 1958, no one wondered whether building churches was a good idea; having a church was part of being whole as people and as families.
But people of my own generation have questions: some left church and came back when they had children; some are hovering on the edges of congregational life, wanting a sense of belonging, unsure about commitment. As buildings cry out for major maintenance, and the financial responsibility gets passed from one generation to the next, we “boomers” are emerging as the new elders, whether we like it or not. Raised in the counter-cultural, anti-institutional world of the 1960’s and 70’s, we now have to ask ourselves. “Do we think there should be churches for the next generation? Because if we don’t think so, churches as we know them will become far rarer. It depends on us. And yes, it has to do with money, among other things.
So I’ve been asking myself: Why do I think should there should be a church, a congregation worshipping in this space? Why should I, for example, continue to set aside a percentage of take-home pay for the maintenance of an institution (working toward a tithe, as the campaign encourages us to do). Why should I be encouraging others to do the same, and to give “sacrificially” to a capital campaign centered on building improvements? What does any of this have to do with Christian discipleship?
Asking around at church, I find that the elders who built this church are nervous about how we can possibly raise this kind of money, especially in these economic times. It is clear that it would take more bazaars and fundraisers than anyone can imagine launching now. And they don’t know any other way. Tithing and proportional giving were not part of the stewardship teaching in their time (though I believe this approach to stewardship, grounded in Scripture, will be necessary as we move into the future). In my generation, on the other hand, many –including committed tithers– will only continue giving to the church if our budget also sets aside a substantial portion for outreach ministries. We understand that the building is for something besides our gathered congregation at worship, and we want capital improvements that will serve mission and outreach.
Reflecting on a vision for what a churches is “for”, I’m remembering dinner at the house of some Carmelite brothers who were students in my seminary class. They proudly showed me their well-appointed, modern house, where they lived and ate together, including the beautiful chapel. When I asked them how they spent their days they reported that most of the brothers spent their days working in the community, mostly among the poor and those suffering from AIDS. They came back to the house to pray together and to be together. Their community life sustained their ministries.
This radical community life is not what most of us expect or are called to commit to in our churches. We have many demands on our resources, depending on our callings in life, and including the needs of family and often other worthy service to the poor and dispossessed in the world. But the monastic model helps me to understand what I rely on my local church for. Church is where I go to worship weekly, and where the preaching, singing, Eucharist, and worship refocus and reorient my commitment to Christian discipleship. I do sometimes encounter contention and controversy there – often over issues related to our common life. It is hard work, dealing with conflict, like the work of a family or, I am told, a monastic community. But it is also part of how church life forms me for Christian discipleship. This church building has been “my Place” for prayer and growth over the years, the place where I have both found and offered support in times of crisis, where I have prayed over and buried good friends, where we have been reminded of the persistent presence of God among us at all turning points in life.
I’ve come to see that being part of the same congregation all this time has formed me in that old-fashioned Benedictine virtue of “stability”: the commitment to stay together as best we can, even in times of contention, and to let our common life form and shape us, because of a shared faith — whether it is in adapting to changes in worship, or welcoming people different from ourselves, or reaching some kind of agreement about how to replace the dying HVAC system. As I step into “emerging elder” status, I also see that the practice of financial stewardship sustains us in this virtue of stability. In a consumer culture oriented toward “getting what we pay for,” this is an important and counter-cultural part of our formation for discipleship, and one that we need to embrace.
Churches as we know them are bound to change. But a mission-centered church of the future will continue to need an infrastructure, and the money to support that will have to come from committed people who are willing to give back a portion, out of our abundance, trusting that the church has a future, and committing ourselves to discerning the shape of that future. This is not an appeal from the pulpit, but a view from the pew. People – if we think there should be churches, it is up to us.
Dr. Kathleen Henderson Staudt (Kathy) keeps the blog poetproph, works as a teacher, poet, spiritual director and retreat leader in the Washington DC area, and teaches courses in literature, theology and writing at Virginia Theological Seminary and the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of two books: At the Turn of a Civilisation: David Jones and Modern Poetics and Annunciations: Poems out of Scripture.