Irenic Thoughts

Irenic. The word means peaceful. This web log (or blog) exists to create an ongoing, and hopefully peaceful, series of comments on the life of King of Peace Episcopal Church. This is not a closed community. You are highly encouraged to comment on any post or to send your own posts.

11/26/2007

Financial Planning Up in Smoke

Saturday and Sunday, we celebrated the Feast of Christ the King, during which we recognized those who joined King of Peace during the past year. We also received financial pledges for the coming year. The pledges were offered to God on the altar and then at the end of all three worship services this past Saturday and Sunday, they were burned unopened.

Many times I am asked how King of Peace can run a church without pledges. It is an odd question as no other financial enterprise relies on pledges as churches do. No store gets customers to pledge their support for the coming year, naming how much they will spend. Business make financial plans based on cash flow and as untheologically sound as it must sound, that's how we plan the budget at King of Peace. We can make a coming year's budget by knowing we will get what we are getting now and in faith assuming that the amount will grow. In seven years it has not failed us yet.

Being fiscally responsible, we do plan what services we would cut in order to bring the budget in line with lesser giving. But, we trust God to find the support and we never have to get to that plan B.

The sermon is now online: Who Jesus Was and Is—the Jesus of History and the Jesus of Faith.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor





Elissa
A covered dish lunch that followed the 10 a.m. service

Labels:

posted by King of Peace @ Monday, November 26, 2007  

1 Comments:

  • At 12/04/2007 10:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Back in my banking days I had a boss who wasn't happy with the year-end numbers for his division. He came up with the "clever" strategy that we managers were to call all of our best( read wealthiest) customers and ask them to pledge an amount that they would deposit before the end of the year, thereby making our bottom line look better. How embarrassing!
    On the other hand, offering a financial pledge to God so that the work of His church can continue and in thanksgiving for His many blessings is a very rewarding experience. I hope my ex-boss was able to find that out for himself.

     

Post a Comment

<< Home