11/13/66

Scripture: Read Isaiah 55.

About three weeks ago, there was mailed to the houses of this parish a letter from the Christian Enlistment committee of this church. This communication from Herbert Jackson, Del Rowland and Robert Dosen reminded us that today, November 13th, is “Christian Enlistment Sunday.” It is marked on our church calendars as “Stewardship Sunday,” and the fourth page of today‘s church bulletin calls attention to its significance.

The committee enclosed, with that letter of October 20th, a tentative budget for our church’s program in 1967, and asked us to read it carefully. We were invited to attend any one of three meetings on October 24, 25 or 26 in the Church Fellowship Room to discuss and better understand the stewardship we must recognize and assume in order to underwrite our church’s program in the coming year and truly to be the church! Some few of us did attend one of those meetings -- asked questions, offered suggestions, listened to explanations. It was a profitable experience. Many more did not attend, and so missed something good.

One of the general statements in the letter was the observation that the proposed budget is increased by about 20% this year. Some of this is made necessary because we now have this commodious new church home, and we must maintain it. Fuel, utilities, maintenance and custodial care are, of necessity, considerably higher than were these items in our old church building. And we must pay substantial interest on the moneys we have borrowed until we can pay back the principal.

Some increases in the cost of the parish ministry are recommended by a subcommittee in the light of increases in the cost of living in the past two years. It is expected that program expense will be substantially the same as in the past couple of years, with some slight readjustment in that budget.

The items for our outreach beyond ourselves -- recently labeled “World Conference” -- formerly called “benevolences” -- actually almost all of it parts of our Christian World Mission --- are somewhat different from last years’ budget. Northwest Association dues remain approximately the same @ 50 cents per member. Our contribution to Interdenominational Councils of Churches is the same as in previous years. But our conference has asked us to accept a slightly higher figure for our giving to the conference support (something like $200 more); and for our giving to missions through the General Synod (approximately $125 more). These we should consider in light of the fact that our mission giving supports people whose expenses have advanced just as have our own.

There is one significant change in the proposal for our outreach giving. For several years we have declined to accept, in full, the conference suggested goal for what is called United Conference Appeal. Our giving through this appeal has been token giving until we could retire the loan we borrowed to make our $15,000 pledge to the Fairhaven home. Now we have completed that obligation in full, and are in position to accept the conference askings for United Conference Appeal. Actually, the proposed goal for this item from our church ($2,862.00) is considerably less than the $3,500 annual payment for principal and interest that we were making on our Fairhaven loan. So the total proposed figure for “World Conference” or “outreach beyond ourselves” is (despite modest increases to conference and Synod) actually less that last year’s budget figure. Surely we ought to underwrite it with confidence and vigor.

Our committee estimates that in order to subscribe the tentative budget for 1967, our giving through pledges should increase by 15%. They remind us that the consultants who guided us in our Building Fund campaign classified us as a “low giving” church. They call attention to the known higher giving level of many of our friends in neighboring churches of the community. And they remind us that, while our individual incomes vary widely in this congregation, we are above average in affluence and potential. We should have no difficulty as a congregation in meeting our goal. We could oversubscribe it if each one of us will consider soberly and carefully and prayerfully, what is our willingly-assumed responsibility.

One of the enclosures that came to our homes in the October mailing is a thought-provoking leaflet titled “How much shall I give?” Several “measuring” or “yardstick” suggestions are made. One could be content with giving “the same as last year” to the church. This does not take into account that fact that many of us have known some increase in income over previous years. And it does leave the necessary increase in the overall budget to be subscribed by others.

Some will be able to “step up” their giving in the light of increased income, or relaxed obligations, or growing appreciation of, and involvement in, the Christian church enterprise.

Some will consider a “fair share” or “proportionate” pattern of giving such as 12 day’s pay per year, or perhaps a dollar per week for each $1,000 of annual income. Some will prefer to set aside a fixed percentage of income to be given to the church: 3%, 5%, 8%, 10% or even more for the current budget and building fund of the church. Perhaps you have read and studied that pamphlet. It is a very useful tool if you are trying to establish in your own mind a satisfactory pattern for your giving. There is real, joyful, satisfaction in having a definite plan for one’s giving.

Thirty years ago I was discussing this matter with a man living in the city of Honolulu. He had married a woman whose family had considerable wealth in which she participated. For some years, she was troubled, and annoyed, over the decisions she felt she must make as to gifts she should make to church, missions, community charities, and so on. This man told me that his wife had, at length, decided on a definite percentage of her income that she would set aside solely for giving. I suspect that, in her case, it was at least 10%, though he did not say. What he did say was this: that once having set aside that definite percentage --- perhaps even in a separate account of some sort --- she found her giving a real joy. She did give some thought to how she wanted to distribute it to her church and other philanthropic enterprises. But she knew what, in the main, she had for such sharing and she gave it happily and with real zest.

Now let’s get back for a further look at the “benevolences” part of our church-given dollar. What does our giving to the Wisconsin Conference of the UCC do? Those who remember the May Church Newsletter will recall a flier enclosed which explains the matter. Nearly half the conference budget underwrites the work of conference commissions on Christian Education, our Christian World Mission, Christian Social Concerns, Christian Higher Education, Evangelism, the churches, and the Ministry. Not quite half of the conference budget maintains the conference staff -- salaries of the conference President, four Association Ministers, program staff, clerical personnel, office maintenance and supplies, annual meeting expenses and so on. And there is a smaller “miscellaneous items.” And then you may recall a flier in the June Newsletter which detailed the agencies supported in our General Synod giving. Chief among these are what we used to call the missionary enterprises. The United Church Board for World Ministries is the agency through which we support, abroad, 171 schools, 34 colleges, 15 seminaries, 62 medical institutions, 5 publishing houses, 19 social service centers, and 13 agricultural institutions. This is mission work, and these missions are located in Central and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and the Pacific Islands.

One of the pupils of our Sunday School, Bill King, is hard at work on the requirements of the God and Country award which is earned by some Boy Scouts. One of his projects has been the making of a world map showing the mission stations supported by the United Church of Christ. You will find it interesting to look at that map, which is now posted on the bulletin board just outside the church office near the Birch Street entrance to the church. In these areas abroad, our churches help to maintain 540 overseas persons. This is not a tremendous number of missionaries in light of the report that there are 25,000 Christian missionaries, of many sorts, from many countries of the world to many parts of the earth. But it is a significant number of people for whose influence we are responsible.

The United Church Board for Homeland Ministries supports campus ministries on 512 college and university campuses and 5 centers for international students; aids some 100 local churches in strategic locations; aids 75 inner city projects; helps support 11 ministries to metropolitan missions (including one recently begun in Milwaukee); 63 rural parish fields and projects; develops and prepares the United Church Curriculum for Christian Education; supports 43 residential facilities for the aging; 2 for the mentally retarded; 5 community centers; 12 hospitals; 13 homes for children; 5 city missions. This Board also joins forces with 170 other Christian bodies in ministries.

In addition to these main mission ministries abroad and at home, our General Synod giving also helps to support the Councils on Church and Ministry, Lay Life and Work, and Stewardship; the Commission of Social Concerns; the Office of Communications; Pension and Relief activities in the denomination; Higher Education concern and program; Health and Welfare ministries. All of these activities and ministries we have been supporting and expect to continue supporting.

Now we hope to support more adequately the institutions and facilities covered in the United Conference Appeal. A flier in our last church Newsletter of November 1st lists them; 3 theological seminaries (Eden, CTS, UTS); 3 liberal arts colleges (Northland, Lakeland, Elmhurst); 4 homes to meet special needs (Bensonville, Emmaus, Fort Wayne and Winnebago); 3 Holmes for Senior Citizens (Cedar Lake, Fairhaven, and New Glarus); a hospital (Deaconess Hospital of Milwaukee); 3 camping and retreat facilities (Green Lake, Moon Beach and Cedar Lake); and a mission and extension fund to help newly-established churches in our state in need of financial aid until they can get on their feet.

These, then, are areas of concern where our so-called “benevolent giving” reaches out beyond ourselves to help. This is not “charity” in any “handout” sense. It is in no way a limited effort to “convert the heathen” -- that limited concept has passed. It is, in the main, a concern to stand with others to help them help themselves. And so it becomes a two-way relationship in neighborly, brotherly concern. It reaches out over state, nation and world where we go, by our gifts, our interest and our prayers, to be with others. Christians have been scandalously divided in mission effort. But we are making some progress in cooperative, ecumenical ventures. Our American Board of missions began as a cooperative venture of more than one denomination. It has continue so, and is now merged into the United Church Board for World Ministries, which continues to join hands with others. This matter of joining hands with others extends beyond our own Christian tradition. It involves a better acquaintance with other religions of the world from whom we can learn as well as to whom we can offer of ourselves.

We Christians can learn some lessons from faiths of the Orient about how to live in a universe unthinkably vast and incredibly long-lived. For instance, we can learn something about commitment from Islam’s tough and total commitment to the will of God. An acquaintance with their example might stimulate a less mushy and firmer commitment on Christian attitudes at this point. Hindus can challenge us to re-think our often-too-narrow devotion to material and moral values. We can stand a reminder that existence ought to be a matter of enjoyment as well as effort. And yet, at the same time, we need to dig deeper into an understanding of our own faith, for this is essential to us and to those who may hope to learn from us. The only way to be Christian is to make Christian faith one’s own by discovering what it is and then, by deliberate decision, investing his life -- its aims and understandings and substance and effort -- in that way of life which confronts us in Jesus of Nazareth. We have “good news” to share, after we have heard it ourselves! A Christian should be eager to share his faith, by his witness in word and deed.

At a great ecumenical gathering, there developed a considerable discussion of the question: “Why the mission of the church, anyway?” Finally a pastor from Thailand asked for the floor to speak. “Why all this complicated argument about witnessing?” he asked. “It is simple. You witness because you must. A new baby is born; it cries. A man is born in Christ; he witnesses. The more the baby cries, the more you know it is a good healthy baby. The Christian is just like that.”

Our witness is the spirit in which we reach out to one another and to others. Our mission is to go into all the world -- near at hand and far away -- and make disciples of all nations as Jesus commissioned his followers to do. It was he who made it clear that the witness of the Christian community is not confined to a neighborhood, or even an entire nation. It is to be offered to the whole world. “Ye shall be my witnesses,” was his mandate to the early church, “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” [Acts 1: 8].

This commitment creates some changes as we learn to know each other better. It even has its effect on other religions of the world. Muslims, for instance, have been telling the story of their great Prophet for 13 centuries. But after long confrontation with Christianity, the telling of their story has shifted somewhat in emphasis. Modern biographies of Mohammed emphasize his humility, self-sacrifice, self-restraint and peaceableness. They minimize other characteristics that used to be prominent in the tradition: his military prowess, his extensive relations with women, and so on. One gets the impression that the man of the Christian gospels may have had some influence here.

In another instance, the old negative concepts of Buddhism appear to undergo reinterpretation in the spirit of the Christian faith. What were formerly mere goodwill and benevolent thoughts in Buddhism are now expounded as principles of social action completed in outgoing services to mankind. We believe that people everywhere, and whole societies, as well as ourselves, need the Christian influence. It is needed for the building, together, of an order of understanding and good will.

The Christian witness does not claim that Christians have all the truth, and others all the error. It does not assert that Christians in their church are perfect -- we are painfully aware of serious imperfections. But it does claim that God, who makes all mankind of one blood and spirit, is working to bring them into one brotherhood, reconciled with one another and Himself. And this is a challenge to us Christians to get on with our mission in a world that can not, and will not, wait forever to hear and see this gospel.

And so let us carry it. Let us set our own house in order and keep it prepared to serve our church family and our community. Let us reach out where we can help an Indian pastor teaching illiterates among his people or sending his youth to college. Let us lend our support to better forms of agriculture that will feed more of the undernourished folk of the earth. Let us put sinews and implements into the hands of a doctor treating a sick baby in Africa. Let us encourage Christian attitudes in the students of Japan International Christian College. Let us be on hand, like good Samaritans, to help otherwise helpless refugees from war’s devastation or disasters of nature. Let us stand with an Island pastor in Micronesia.

Let us be good stewards of what we have and can share with others. And let us remember that the most effective kind of assistance is that which is intelligent and sensitive, emotional and generous; that “it takes great wisdom to help a person in the way that is best for him, and not in a way that merely pleases us.”

And now we of this church and congregation have reached another annual moment of decision. Our Committee enclosed pledge cards for the coming year with their letter. Some have already filled, and a few have already returned them. Many of us will present them today. Others will turn them in, or be called upon, later.

“How much shall I give?” You talk that over with God and your conscience, in the light of your own opportunity to meet the human need. And don’t “let yourself off easy.” You’ll miss the happiness of giving if you do. Make up your mind that this is something tremendously worthwhile. Then give with all your might!

And give joyfully, as a testimony of your growing faith that the blessings you know may become the blessings of others.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, November 13, 1966.