The Questioning Christian

Pledging

Written by

D. C. Toedt III

in

Our parish’s annual stewardship campaign is kicking off this Sunday. Vestry members and other “leadership” people have been asked to get their pledges in early. That way, the rector can announce Sunday that the leadership is already 100% participating.

Our parish is also pretty conservative. That didn’t use to be a problem for us. But last December, the Vestry voted overwhelmingly to affiliate the parish with the American Anglican Council (AAC), precursor to the Network of Anglican Communion Parishes and Dioceses. I was one of only three dissenting votes.

My wife and I love our parish. We used to be significant pledgers. We disapprove of people who withhold financial support from their parishes — or from their dioceses, or from the national church — simply because they disagree with the decisions duly and prayerfully made by those bodies.

But we disapprove even more strongly of what the AAC and the Network have been doing. We’re quite unhappy about our vestry’s decision to join the AAC, which likely will entail financial support of that group.

Last year we slashed our pledge to what I estimated as our proportionate share of what it takes to keep the lights on. (We put the balance into a self-directed charitable fund.) Now it’s pledge time again. What to do?

Comments

One response to “Pledging”

  1. David Huff Avatar
    David Huff

    Now it’s pledge time again. What to do?
    Sounds like you handled it well last time. I’d just do the same.
    As an aside, one of the things I love about my vicar (and soon to be rector, the Rev. Clay Lein at St. Philips, Frisco TX) is that when he preaches on giving money, he does it the right way. Always makes it clear that the money you give belongs to God and is for God’s work, but that this doesn’t automatically mean you somehow “owe it” to his church. I used to attend another, AAC affiliated church in the area and they were always going on about giving money for their elaborate buildings, etc…so hearing the message this way is quite a relief, and a more Christian view IMHO. However, just to be clear, Clay is much more of a conservative, evangelical than I, so it’s not necessairly true that “conservative, evangelical” churches have to be focused on raising money for themselves.

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