We are on our way! Our journey has begun!
Where are we headed?
Toward a budget for next year!
How are we going to get there?
With your contributions to this year’s stewardship campaign: Growing 2030 Possibilities!
I have a secret to share with you all.
The secret is this: I love stewardship campaigns.
That might be an odd thing to hear from a member of your interim ministry team. So often, we hear that folks hate fundraising, that money stresses folks out, and that budgets are a source of angst and worry. And sure, I feel all those things too, but on balance, I love stewardship campaigns.
I love them because it continues to amaze me that groups of people can come together, pool their resources, and collectively create something that could not exist with the efforts of any one person alone. What I think is even cooler is that we’re here, today, because of the generations of people who supported this church, and who supported Unitarian Universalism. Think about that for a moment. Think about the origin of your connection to this church and this faith.
Depending on where you trace it, you’re here because people got together and supported UUCM for the last 50+ years. You’re here because people supported Unitarian Universalism for the last 50+ years. You’re here because people supported Unitarian and Universalist congregations for the last 200+ years, and if we trace our connection to this faith to the origins of the Unitarian and Universalist “heresies” in Christianity we can follow that chain of support even further back.
Put differently, the journey that we’re on here is a journey that we did not start. When we joined the stream of this faith, we drank from wells we did not dig. We came into houses that we did not furnish ourselves. We were nourished by the fruits of this faith, vineyards and olive groves we did not plant. Each generation supported this faith that it might be here for us today. Our stewardship campaign asks us to do the same. To support this church so that it might be here today to meet our needs, and tomorrow to minister to those we can’t even imagine.*
That all of this exists at all is a miracle. That we have the power and ability to help make this all happen is humbling and fills me with gratitude. At the end of the day, that’s why I love stewardship campaigns. Our joining together to ensure the financial health of the church is one more way that we shepherd our faith for today, and for the tomorrow we’re just starting to imagine. That’s an awesome responsibility, and it’s one that I’m grateful to share with you.
— Arif
*Thanks to Deuteronomy 6:11 for the inspiration, please excuse the rough paraphrasing.
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