If you were in worship last Sunday, you already know this: Community Spirit has begun a three-Sunday season focused on stewardship. (Here’s a link to the sermon in case you weren’t able to join us.) Earlier this year, our small but mighty congregation was presented with a “best guess” budget for 2023, and after reviewing it, we said to ourselves that although meeting this challenge would take some real doing, we were all in because we believe that our presence in Montrose is essential. If we should fail to flourish, no other church in town will leap to its feet to take up where we left off.
Those who have declared themselves members and “official friends” of the church will be receiving giving cards in the next several days and then praying over their financial commitment for the coming year. We will bring these promises to worship on October 23rd, where we will ask God’s blessing upon them, ourselves, and the sacred work to which we are called as a congregation.
If you are reading this as a neighbor, an interested bystander, or a former member of Community Spirit, I want to encourage you to consider making a gift (even a pledge) to Community Spirit Church. Our newsletter has a subscription list of over 200—so clearly, we have more eyes on CSC than we have bodies in worship, and more folks praying for/cheering for us than we do on any given Sunday.
If what Community Spirit brings to the world near and far matters to you, then even if you belong to another faith community, even if you live a thousand miles away, perhaps now is the time for you to make manifest your support. Yes, we need your prayers. Yes, we are grateful for your interest in our ongoing journey to bring a progressive faith perspective to this part of the world. But those of us who are here rising to the joyful challenge of being Community Spirit also need the tangible encouragement that your free-will generous donation would provide. Just as it’s said that many hands make light work, so we might also say that many open, generous pocketbooks make the challenge of being a small but mighty congregation a lighter, brighter one.
Years ago, I heard a story about a pastor whose long-time parishioner gave her alma mater a gift of $1,000,000. She had graduated from that college forty years prior and, in all those years, had never returned to campus for even a brief visit. The pastor mustered up his courage and asked the woman why she had left such a sizeable gift to her college but not to her church. “They asked,” she replied.
This is me asking. Whether you are reading this as a member-now-moved or as someone who has taken an interest in Community Spirit, I invite you to prayerfully consider how you might support this scrappy, enterprising, God-called, and God-blessed congregation. Your support would mean the world to us and will enable us to continue to take risks in our community and region for the sake of the truly Good News of Jesus Christ.
With you on the journey,
