budget – Salvaged Faith

Imagine the Possiblities

Posted on October 13, 2019Leave a comment

Text | Isaiah 55:6-11; Matthew 14:13-21
Focus Verse | Matthew 14:15-17

A few of you have been around recently as some neighbors have stopped in looking for some financial assistance.
I’ve watched as you have greeted them with kindness and respect and helped them find their way to my office.
I often sit down and visit with these new friends about what is happening in their life and how the church might be able to make an impact on their struggles.

But I have to be honest with you.
When I really listen to their stories, what I feel is overwhelmed.
Because we don’t have the kind of resources in our account to actually make a difference.
Every month I turn away folks who stop in or call and who need $250 for a utility bill…
or $700 to help make rent…
or $45 to fill up their gas tank…
Or rather, I could help one or two people one time, but certainly not the next, or the one after that.

And I started to recognize over a couple of years of providing this emergency assistance on behalf of the church is that many of our neighbors are chronically in need of help.
They have full time work, but they can’t make ends meet because their wages are too low to provide a living for themselves and their families.
Or, an illness or injury have taken them off of the job and they don’t have a backup plan in place.

The other day, a young man came in and needed some help to make rent. He had lost his job due to downsizing and had no savings built up. When he couldn’t immediately find a new opportunity, he got behind on rent.
The day he came in to see me, he had begun a new job, but had not yet received a paycheck. And that day, he had eviction proceedings and had to bring a check for two months’ worth of rent or he would be out.
I personally, and we as a church, don’t have the resources to provide two months of rent for a neighbor in need. I sat there and all I could think of was our own limitation.

Over 100,000 children in Iowa are food insecure – which means they do not have access to three meals a day.
Just under 3,000 people are homeless in our state.
37,000 of our neighbors in Iowa struggle with serious mental illness daily.
Real needs.
Real problems.
Real ministry opportunities.
And we can’t feed all of those kids.
We can’t build houses for all of those homeless neighbors.
We can’t completely turn upside down our mental health infrastructure.
We can only see our own limitations.

In the gospel of Matthew, the disciples are faced with a similar dilemma.
These multitudes that we talked about last week had flocked to the countryside to listen to Jesus… but now it was getting late.
We actually don’t know how many people were there – if you pay close attention to the story, it mentions that 5,000 men were eventually fed… 5,000 – not counting the women and the children.
Let’s pretend for just a moment that there was just one woman or child for every man who was counted… that’s 15,000 people who are hungry, tired, and out there in the middle of the wilderness.
To put that into perspective – the seating capacity for Drake’s Stadium is 14,557.
A stadium full of people are in need.
Right now.
And so the disciples kind of pull Jesus aside and whisper to him.
“Hey friend, you know, we probably can’t keep all of these people here. They are going to need to sleep, they need food, they need shelter and water. Wrap it up so that we can send them on their way.”

You see, they had already looked in their bags and they saw their own limitation.
They couldn’t take care of all of those people.
So send them off.
Bless them, say a prayer, and just hope that they’d find some sustenance somewhere else.

It’s the feeling I have often when I sit and visit with someone who is in some financial need.
I really don’t have what it will take to help you, but I can listen. I can say a prayer and give you this list of resources and hopefully someone out there can make a difference.
Surely, Jesus understand that.

Except…
Well, except Jesus has a totally different plan in mind.
“We don’t need to send them away. You take care of them. You give them something to eat!”

And those disciples, well, they look back in their bags.
“Umm… Jesus. There are twelve of us, and we barely brought enough dinner for ourselves. We’ve got five loaves and two fish. That’s it.”

The disciples saw only their limitation.
They’d already made plans.
They had budgeted and prepared and were doing their best to live and minister within those resources.
They had no capacity to imagine that this unexpected ministry opportunity would arrive on their doorstep.
And when it did, they immediately decided it was impossible.
We can’t do that.
We don’t have the resources.
We don’t have the staff.
We don’t have the bread. Literally.

But as the prophet Isaiah reminds us… God is not bound by our limitations.
God’s plans aren’t our plans.
God’s ways aren’t our ways.
And as Paul writes to the people of Ephesus… God can do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

I think in this moment in the story, Jesus is inviting the disciples…
Jesus is inviting us…
To imagine.
Imagine if we could feed all of those people.
Imagine if we could house all of our neighbors.
Imagine if we could bring mental wellness to our friends and family.
Imagine if we could stretch beyond our own capacity and limitations and tap into the gifts and resources of the divine.

Last week, when I asked you to think about what kept drawing you back here… what kept you coming back to Immanuel… one of the most frequent answers I heard was that this is home. This is family.
Imagine if we could be a place where people who have no home, have no family, have no support found that, too.

For sure, it’s not in our budget.
It’s not in what we have planned and prepared for ministry.
This plan is far bigger than anything we have the capacity to do right now.
We’ve only got five loaves and two fish.

But we have a ministry opportunity with thousands of people on our doorstep.
So imagine with me…
Dream with me…
What would we do if we weren’t limited by our own resources?

Or to put it another way…
If you were gifted $150,000 to respond to a need, any need that is right in front of us here in Des Moines… what would you do?
Take a minute and dream.
Take a minute and imagine.
If God was starting a miracle right here in Des Moines with our meager fish and loaves… what would God want us to do?
Use the paper in the insert and write down your impossible dream and your wildest imagining… and then in a few minutes I want you to give them up to God with your offering.

Count the Cost

Posted on October 19, 2014Leave a comment

I have four different apps on my phone that are designed to help me get healthy and fit and lose weight.

One of them is a weekly meal plan full of healthy, high protein, low calorie dinner options. It comes complete with a grocery store list and nutritional information for each meal.

One of them connects with a wristband to track my steps and even monitors my sleeping habits.

One is designed to track my calories eaten and burned each day. It is like a social network to connect me with others who are working on the same thing.

The last, I use when hiking or running to track my speed and distance.

I have all the tools I need. I have a goal in mind. And yet, somehow I have gained five or six pounds since I moved to Des Moines.

Fundamentally, my lack of success has nothing to do with the tools at my disposal and everything to do with the fact that this goal is not a priority in my life. I am not willing to put it above all else. I’m not willing to let this goal change other aspects of my life. I know that to succeed, this priority is going to affect the amount of sleep I get and it will mean spending more money for healthier food options. It will reduce the time I spend watching my favorite t.v. shows and even require that I cook more meals at home instead of enjoying my husband’s super delicious, fatty, carb-filled dinners.

The truth is, you can have all the tools in the world and all the best intention, but until you lay out a plan, build in some accountability, and actually make the commitment to do whatever it takes to reach that goal… then nothing about your habits or lifestyle or physical body will change.

In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus shares with us an extraordinarily difficult challenge. “Whoever comes to me and doesn’t hate father and mother, spouse and children, and brothers and sisters – yes, even one’s own life – cannot be my disciple.” He asks us to “give up all of your possessions” in order to follow him.

Jesus isn’t asking you to turn right now to your loved one and treat them badly. He’s not asking you to leave home. He’s asking each one of us to take seriously the call to be his disciple and helping us to see that our intentions don’t really matter. Until we lay out a plan, build in some accountability and actually make the commitment to do whatever it takes to follow him, then our habits and lifestyle will never change.

Last week, we were reminded that the things of this world are impermanent and shaky at best. We heard the call to place our belief and our trust firmly on God and I’m sure a whole lot of us left worship last week thinking, YES! That’s what I need to do! That’s the kind of faith I want to have.

“My Hope is Built on Nothing Less than Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness”

“Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord!”

And yet, just like all of my good intentions about exercise and health, we have to be willing to let those words move from intentions and goals into an actual concrete plan that demonstrates commitment and sacrifice.

In your bulletins each week during this series, you will find a green insert that highlight some of the lessons we cover each week in the “Enough” study. I want to invite you to take that sheet out right now.

Today’s insert invites you to think about what God is calling you to be and to do. I want us to look at the side that talks about goals.

If God is our rock and foundation…

If God is the creator of our lives…

If Jesus Christ is calling us to follow…

Then, what are you supposed to be doing with your life? What is your purpose?

For very few of us, that calling involves some sort of professional ministry. And to answer that call took planning and commitment, money and time.

Most of us here in this room today, however, have a much higher and more difficult calling. You have been called to be lay persons in the church. You have been called to live out your discipleship where you are. At the office, on the soccer field, on the production line and in the classroom.

Sometimes, the work you give yourself to matches up with that call to live out your discipleship. Some of you could share how the act of caring for patients or helping someone plan for their financial future is your ministry.

Sometimes, however, our work simply provides the resources that allow us to live out our discipleship in other ways. We spend our retirement caring for neighbors and loved ones. We teach lessons and music to our little ones at the church. We volunteer with community agencies.

What gifts has God given you?

What is your purpose?

What is God calling you to do?

And once you have figured that out…

are you willing to sit down and count the cost?

Are you willing to give whatever it takes to get there?

Will you let God’s plans trump your plans?

One of the greatest adventures of my life was to engage in the work of Imagine No Malaria over the past two years.

Answering that call was extraordinarily difficult. After all… I already had a calling – to be a pastor, serving in a church. But I also began to see how my gifts tied in with what we needed here in Iowa… what we needed to accomplish what God was calling us to do.

I also discovered that God had some lessons for me along the way: the primary lesson being that when we have a mission and a calling, we have to do whatever it takes to get there.

Henri Nouwen writes that the work of “fundraising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry. It is a way of announcing our vision and inviting other people into our mission… We are declaring, ‘We have a vision that is amazing and exciting. We are inviting you to invest yourself through the resources God has given you – your energy, your prayers, and your money – in this work to which God has called us.’”

And all along the way, I witnessed people who caught that vision and heard the calling from God to end this preventable, beatable disease. And they made sacrifices to help other people live. Some families gave up cable t.v. to make a monthly gift. A nurse quit her job to work on our grassroots campaign. Lots of people made a significant three-year commitment to give to this work. One little girl gave all of her birthday money to help save the lives of kids just like her.

And we did that, because we counted the cost and we were willing to give whatever it took to make the goal of saving 200,000 lives a reality.

What is your purpose?

What is God calling you to do?

Once we answer that question, then we think about those things that are going to help us get there. Then we can think about the spiritual goals and the financial goals and the steps along the way that will help us to say “Yes” to God and set our own plans aside.

On the other side of this green insert is a budgeting worksheet. It helps us to gain an accurate picture of the priorities in our lives based on our spending and helps us reorient our financial priorities based on those goals and that purpose that is on the other side.

I have a friend and a colleague who recently shared that he used a budget just like this to help him make some big changes in his family. As he and his wife started plugging in the numbers, they were shocked by how much they were spending on transportation. My friend had just bought a new truck and while it was beautiful, the payments were hefty and it was a gas guzzler. And he hardly ever used it as a truck. When compared with the amount of money they were giving to the church and using to help prepare for the new baby on the way, they realized that if they were going to truly give to God and set a good example for their new child, the truck had to go. They sold it and bought a more affordable car. They allowed their spiritual priorities guide their financial decisions.

But I also want to emphasize that this accounting we do in our lives needs to cover more than just our finances.

What would happen if we did this same accounting of our time?

Where are you spending your time and energy?

Does it reflect your calling?

What do you need to let go of in order to give more time to God’s purpose for your life?

Jesus knows that discipleship isn’t easy. He knows that to follow him requires sacrifice… a giving of ourselves and a letting go of our wants and desires.

Jesus knows, because he has been there.

He counted the costs. He weighed the options. And he knew what it would take.

And today, he asks you to do the same.

He’s asking each one of us to take seriously the call to be his disciple. He is asking us to count the cost, lay out a plan, and actually make the commitment to do whatever it takes to follow him. When we do so and when we hold one another accountable to the choices we have made, then our lives will truly be transformed.

Why you shouldn't share goals in fundraising

Posted on January 11, 20132 Comments

I made a rookie mistake during my first donor visit a few weeks ago. I announced, proudly and out loud, what our conference goal was.

To me, it seemed like a no-brainer. People what to know what you are trying to accomplish. They want to see the finish line and know how far we have to go. It seemed to me like folks would want to know that we had done some thoughtful work and had a direction, purpose, and plan.

But evidently, that was a mistake.

You see, as soon as someone hears a number, they start doing mental math. They start calculating how many people are involved and divide the goal by that number to figure out their piece of the pie.

I knew that was true in the local church as we set out to figure the budget each year. Rather than starting with the gifts that God has given you and what you are then called to give, people look at the bottom line, and how many people are in the church in order to figure out their share and what they need to pay to make ministry happen.

I’m definitely NOT saying that’s the way it should be. But if we just give people numbers, that is where they act from.

In the local church, we started presenting narrative budgets where we talked about the ministry that could be accomplished and asked folks to help give to support our work… we tried to “hide” the bottom line – because in reality it is not about meeting our budget, but about doing the work that God wants us to do.

In this work of fundraising, that is what we need to do as well. It’s not that the goal isn’t important, because it is… but the goal isn’t everything. Our job is to do the work of God and it’s going to take more than just ‘x’ number of dollars to do it. If we present the vision, the passion, the stories and then invite people to give as God leads them, the bottom line should hopefully take care of itself. And the goal we have set might be exceeded beyond our wildest expectations.

After all – God can do more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20)