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St. A’s Community of Generosity

This morning I invite you to ponder and enumerate the ways you or others experience generosity in our community here at St. Andrew’s, then commit to practical support.

A hot cup of coffee in the undercroft and real half and half. A cup of herbal tea when my voice really needs it. Delightful smelling soaps in the ladies bathroom. The fact we can join in worship online if we’re ill or traveling or homebound. Finding my choir robe has been mended. Lush blooming gardens. Relentless commitment and effort in caring for our unhoused neighbors. Doesn’t your mental list go on and on?

I reluctantly admit that even though I’ve been attending church since childhood, St. Andrew’s Denver is the first church where I have pledged. I didn’t even start when I first got here, I think it was just 2 or three years ago maybe. There was a long time when I thought it wasn’t in my means, then I thought that well, I volunteer in choir, there might be some time and talent there, right? I give regularly to other organizations, so I’m covered. But it was honestly the generosity of this community — the commitment to our ministries – that sparked a change in me.

When you catch that spark of change, of generosity, how is it nurtured? For me, I turn to very practical considerations. In the pledge drive, you have to put a number on it. So I thought about a number. I started thinking of the traditional 10% tithe. Is that 10% of gross or net? That number is a little big for me. Well, how about 10% of 10%? OK I see you all doing your own mental math, that’s good. It’s practical and necessary.

In my own budget, I have a long-term goal of ten percent across all the organizations which I like to support. St. Andrew’s is part of that goal. That first year my number was tiny. But there is no number that is too small to be converted into the wealth of generosity we experience here. Maybe for you that’s one tenth of one percent. Incidentally, there is no number too large that it can’t find a project.

For those of you returning a pledge card this season, ponder the generosity, then commit to the practical. Whatever your number, 10%, 1% or one tenth of one percent. Name it, then put it on a pledge card on your way out the door, then set up your monthly checking account deduction. That’s the set it and forget it method. There, practical part? Done.

With the practical part in place let’s then observe with gratitude how generosity pours out in abundance here. Thank you, all, for you large and small acts of generosity in our St. Andrew’s community.