40 Acts - Give it TIME

"And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." Mark 4:8 (ESV)

‘Time is money’ – Let's be honest, whoever made up this phrase was dead wrong. I understand the intention, and it probably made sense in the original context, but logically, in our world today, this phrase is nonsense.

In my home country, if the U.S. government runs out of money, we simply print more. We can somehow find ways to make more money. Time? Not so much. We cannot earn or make more time.

The point is that time and money, while both valuable, are inherently different resources, and so must be measured on completely different scales. This is especially true when it comes to giving in these currencies.

Generally, we as Christians understand the concept of giving our money but the giving of our time, on the other hand, is often misunderstood, or at the very least, underutilised. Most of us, including myself, do not realise that the giving of our time is central to what it means to be a disciple.

Follow me here. During this season of Lent, many folks traditionally give something up in order to pursue the Lord in a more intimate way. For every activity we don’t do, we essentially free more of our time, effectively creating more time for God in our lives. On a larger scale, this is what it means to be a Christian. We give up our lives (our greatest sum of time) in order to begin a relationship with him and to serve those around us.

The Bible tells us that ‘where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. I used to think this verse was solely about money. Now I realise that perhaps we have a greater treasure, a more hefty currency than money. If we want our hearts to truly belong to God during this season of Lent, then we must start by giving Him our most precious commodity, our time.

Time is the ultimate equaliser. No one has more of it, and no one has less. The only way to be truly rich with a currency like time is to invest it in God and in others. When we do this, we receive back more than a simple interest rate; we receive 30, 60, even 100 times what was sown.

Jon Jorgenson

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Clergy - What should we pay for? [1]

The answer to the above questions, in my book,  is 'Absolutely Everything!'

Recent conversations with friends, colleagues, clergy and the bloke who stopped me and asked how long we got before the Bishop 'moved us' have all included (with varying degrees of knowledge)  the issue of the clergy vacancy. The expectations cover all stages from totally unrealistic through to, "Yeah, in your dreams," and yet some of the most unrealistic were from within the church and from those who should perhaps know better!

Some job descriptions stop just a tad short of including sending the poor cleric up the chimney and yet others, looking like a doable role, stun the poor soul reading the advert into something approaching catatonia when they see the dreaded 0.5. Just in case you think the 0.5 post is there for short clerics, let me explain:

There have been some interesting trends and some constructive thinking over the past few years. One involved asking clergy whether they'd be happy to note down the time that school work took and that which related to church schools was work and all other was effectively our hobby (I kid you not). This was repeated over a number of areas (church club = work, veteran's club = hobby and so on) and the end result was that a good idea of what should be paid for by the church and what was merely 'our personal interest' could be separated. When I was asked what I thought the Church should be paying for, the response was simple = everything!

The reasoning for my response comes from the fact that there are some who appear to be looking to reduce the role of minister to something that resembles the sessional youth worker! Where we have a service that demands the presence of a priest, which usually means that an epiclesis* is involved, we budget for one and in so doing restrict our priestly requirement to Communion, marriage and (for some places) Baptism**! So we pay for the presence of priest on Sunday and then, realising, we need one for the Wednesday midweek communion service and subsequent home communions to those who otherwise couldn't make it add another day to the pile.  This done, we add to the mix another day to enable hospital visits and other 'Vicar' type stuff (Vestry hour, meeting Wardens, parishioners and the like) and bingo, that's the 0.5 post put to bed.

I have been involved in some amazing conversations about paying our way where the mantra 'can't pay, can't have' has been paraded before an assembled clergy whose expressions said it all:

 And so, with that, I'll leave you to have a reflect on this first shot. A shot that builds nicely upon the question of giving to God that for which we have not paid and asks where is our treasure? For that is surely the key to much of this issue.

Happy Saturday :-)




* epiclesis - an invocation or calling down upon or blessing involving the Holy Spirit. This is the bit where we bless people at the end or consecrate the bread and wine or bless the rings or the couple or the water in which (or which will be poured over to enable) the rite of baptism.

** when I was ordained, baptism was not allowed until I'd been priested and so this was a 'priest's job' - that said I have found many handing this over to deacons and I've heard of some who have allowed their Lay Minister's to do the service too (which is still, as I understand it, wrong).

Church Report (2): sets low standard - fails to achieve?

Continuing with this topic with regard to church planting and pioneer ministry:

One of the worst situations I happen across is those people who are doing pioneer ministry or church planting because, almost always, what I find is a bunch of people who complain that 'the Church' should be paying for everything and that it is unfair to expect them to raise money from the new body of believers that they are raising up.

And of course they are wrong - regardless of what or how - wrong, wrong (and once more for emphasis), wrong!

My big black book tells me that where my treasure is also where my heart will be!
Experience with church (and many other groups which people join) tells me that where people put their heart, passion and belong is the place where they put their treasure to support it.

A church plant has to have a some well-defined goals which lead them into being:

a sacramental body where bread and bath are an important part of its being,

a Bible believing, orthodox faith regardless of the setting it is in,

a Christ-centred, Trinitarian body which, in company with the Son worships the Father through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit,

a place where sound, grounded and inculturated preaching, teaching and discipleship can be found,

a welcoming, inclusive* and pastorally sensitive (and able) place where all are 'family',

a body that joins with others congregations in partnership and shared mission (so many appear to want to be 'special' and remain apart from the body that planted it - it is a plant not a split!), and

a body that pays its way and supports itself (with the desire to be able to support others at some stage).

So many people tell me that they don't have enough people to pay and that asking them to cover the costs of what goes on is a deterrent when it comes to growth. Now I support this view and think that we need to accept that planting a church is indeed a costly affair. Those who send also have to fund (and some will argue that providing a paid for minister is enough evidence of that)  and this means that there has to be some casting of the sending church's bread upon the water

BUT

the goal  and (more importantly) desire has to be that the body becomes self-sustaining and mature. That the new church (that's the people) sees converts come through to maturity and become leaders and in time bring more converts - not to satisfy a desire for numbers but because they want to share the Good News and see people released into the true freedom that being a person of faith (and that faith looking to Christ and the Cross) brings.

We all have to balance our books - we all have to pay for our gas, electric, water, parish share, toilet rolls and other stuff - especially tea )which reminds me that it must be time for a final cuppa before I head out for a wonderfully full day of ministry and madness.

Happy New Year and for all those teachers out there - enjoy the new term and be of good cheer for Easter's coming!