Yes. Math is required.
When it comes to pledging your financial generosity to your church, it certainly does involve calculating an anticipated income, tabulating a percentage of that income, and extrapolating that number out over the course of 12 months. To be sure, pledging involves some financial decisions.
But the kind of pledging to which I am calling us as a congregation doesn’t begin with a calculator. It can’t. It must begin some place far deeper; some place hidden.
Simply put, pledging is a spiritual decision.
Said another way: At the heart of the matter, it is a matter of the heart.
Let’s be honest.
For some, it’s a daunting prospect to identify a percentage of income they will deliberately choose to never see. That kind of sacrifice, that kind of release, is not natural or instinctive. It is counter-intuitive. It requires vision. It requires a kind of “spiritual seeing” that everything we have and everything we are belongs to God, and that this kind of giving is not loss at all, but rather a most mysterious gain.
Jesus said some things about this:
“..unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” ~John 12:24
Interesting. Even before our Lord was crucified and raised; even before demonstrating what it looked like, he taught his followers to look for evidences of resurrection all around. Everything that we release, by faith, God raises up into a glorious newness of life.
And so it is with pledging.
When we deliberately express our intent to give, we are making a statement of faith. It is as if we are saying: “What I release, I trust God to raise.”
Are you ready to make that kind of spiritual decision?
We have one more week in our “Love My Church” series. One more week to celebrate the significance of the gathered community and to envision the incredible capacity of love that is accessible within us and among us, when it is released by faith.
Here, in this last week, I am calling on you to join what my family and others have already done. Make the spiritual decision to pledge your financial support today.
And as you do, know this.
Your Pastor will be praying for you as you take this step of faith.
Shaun.
Click here to pledge your love now.
