|
When it comes to church giving, I love financial transparency and I assume you do too. If you don’t, feel free to skip this monthly missive, but not before reading the next sentence. If I haven’t said it to you in person at your church yet, let me say it here in writing:
Thank you for your church’s financial support of “Our Church’s Wider Mission,” and in particular, for what we call your “Basic Support,” which funds our work in the Michigan Conference, as well as the National Setting.
Those Basic Support OCWM dollars function for us in the same way that pledges do in a congregation or any other organization. They fund our ministry to recruit the best pastors (in the midst of a historic clergy shortage), to nurture people with a call to ministry (through scholarships and vocational encouragement amidst the hardest religious landscape I can remember), to care for the pastors we already have (many of whom are preaching at more than one church, or working other demanding jobs), and to support our amazing volunteer lay leaders with practical programs that address the specific questions I hear you asking when I visit your churches.
It is your Basic Support that allows our staff to do all they do; whether it is a scheduled Sunday visit from me as your Conference Minister, or a late night call to an Associate Conference Minister who jumps in her car to provide care and a last minute sermon to a church whose pastor has passed away. This past year, I was honored to revive the Michigan Conference practice of making clergy Emergency Assistance grants for medical expenses and other crises, and also to tend to the creative spirits of our pastors with a three-day Preaching Retreat this past May.
Through your Basic Support, the Michigan Conference has connected and celebrated our shared ministry with a freshly designed website, newsletter stories about your churches, increased social media presence, and practical workshops like our upcoming Church Vitality Day September 30 on Part Time Ministry. In a brand new program I will be hosting Leadership Lunches on Zoom the first Wednesday of every month. Topics will be chosen specifically to meet the needs I hear from all of you. We already have content and special guests scheduled for the next five months! Our first session on October 4 will be about vandalism and church security, which comes straight from Michigan UCC churches who have been targeted for standing up for justice and love.
Getting back to financial transparency, like church members who take a percentage of their income to share with their local church, you, in your local churches, take a percentage of your budget to share with the Michigan Conference through your Basic Support of Our Church’s Wider Mission. Of that Basic Support, we keep 70% in Michigan and the other 30% goes to the National Setting (and to the world). This past summer when fires devastated Hawaii, or in the aftermath of the earthquake that hit Morocco, your dollars for disaster relief were already there demonstrating Christ’s love. Many of our churches are in the “Five for Five” category. These churches give generously not only to Basic Support, but also to the four other special envelope offerings that flow through the National Setting of the UCC. Every gift of the five is a blessing!
As you consider your local church budget, or even your own personal giving, I hope my description here helps you understand exactly where the money goes when you give to Basic Support, AND how much your gifts matter here in Michigan and around the world!
If our Conference ministry has touched you in any way, if there is anything we can do better, or if you have more questions about where your UCC gifts are going, just let me know. As I begin my second year as your Conference Minister, I feel blessed to equip, empower, encourage and connect our churches as together we serve God and neighbor. Thank you for your Basic Support in the past, and for prayerfully considering what you will share in the future.
Peace and Blessings,
| 
