Make Your Generosity Automatic!

When you go on vacation this summer, who will pay the bills while you’re gone?

If you’re like me, you probably don’t think much about your bills, because most of them are paid automatically. They are scheduled to come out of your account on a particular day of the month, for a particular amount.

The church faces a different challenge during the summer; we still have to pay the monthly bills, but so many of you are gone throughout the summer, that our income isn’t even.

A year ago, a small team of church members and I began a course on “Year-Round Stewardship” sponsored by the Texas Methodist Foundation. Missi Mulligan, Ken Kelley, Cindy McSpadden, and I spent four long Saturday mornings in Rockwall listening to perspectives on fostering generosity in congregations.

We have slowly been integrating the lessons we learned into our approach to finances, and so far, the results have been extremely positive. We are honestly grateful for your faithfulness and commitment to the ministries and people of KPUMC.

One major piece of the training was an emphasis on automated giving. Research and experience with American congregations shows that churches with a high percentage of giving that is automatic and recurring have an easier time weathering seasonal storms.

Everyone who has ever served on the finance committee of this church knows that we typically have much less income during the summer months. We always seem to make it up by the end of the year, as December tends to be a very good giving month. But the summer can be quite stressful. Sometimes this results in a cash crunch; at times, we have asked staff to hold off on making purchases until our cash flow is positive again.

One way that this summer slump can be averted is by increasing our number of givers who make recurring, automated payments. When you do this, you won’t have to think twice about your pledge, even when you know you will be on vacation or have to miss a Sunday service. And we can know with greater certainty what to expect and what we can spend.

You will be receiving a mailing shortly with more information about how you can do this, whether by setting up a bank draft through your own financial institution, or by going online through the website and setting up monthly debits on a card.

I urge you to consider your own giving habits. If you already have set up automatic payments to the church, thank you so much! If you haven’t yet, please give it a thought; click here to go to the giving page on our website. Not only does it benefit the church, but it will make things a little easier for yourself.

No, fulfilling your pledge to our church is not the same thing as paying the electric or water bill. It’s actually far more important. So why not afford it the same care and concern that you give to the other things you pay for?

How Many People Can a Pastor Pastor?

One of the most important things I do as the pastor of Kessler Park UMC is give pastoral care to members of the congregation. This involves a range of activities, including praying for people in the hospital, visiting shut-ins, and talking to people who are in various stages of distress.

But pastoral care requires physical presence. The problem is that as a congregation grows in size, it becomes more and more difficult for one person to be present for every member. I can’t get everywhere I need to be in order to do all the pastoral care that needs to be done.

I discovered recently that this a simple scientific fact. In the 1990s, a British anthropologist named Robin Dunbar discovered that “human societies contain buried within them a natural grouping of around 150 people.” This became known as “Dunbar’s number,” and led to his theory that this is the maximum number of stable social relationships which one person can maintain. Or put another way, “it’s the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them at a bar.”

In other words, the average pastor can only really have a strong pastoral relationship with about 150 people!

This finding sounds remarkably similar to the common church leadership maxim that congregations typically plateau at 200 members if there is only one pastor. “It’s simply impossible for a church to grow beyond 200 under one person’s direct care and leadership,” says one prominent church consultant.

Kessler Park UMC currently finds itself in that situation. We average far less than 200 in worship attendance on Sunday mornings, but the current number of people who attend somewhat regularly is close to 200, if not more. (We currently have 500 people on the membership roll, but are desperately in need of purging these rolls.)

Since I have been here, I have dreamed of having additional staff to assist with pastoral care, and thanks to a successful pledge campaign last fall, my dream is finally coming true!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that our new Pastor of Congregational Care starts this Sunday, Feb. 19. Ken Kelley will be commissioned in the worship service to fill this position, and I can’t wait!

The truth is that Ken is already providing pastoral care for members of the church. I happen to know that he regularly visits a number of our shut-ins, and even provides transportation for some of them. He and Colleen started worship services at a local nursing home, The Meridian, shortly after I arrived. And the two of them are responsible for Good Shepherds, a twice-monthly senior group which meets at the church.

I have observed the way he works with older adults, and I can tell that he is the perfect match for this job. He has a compassionate heart, and a willingness to learn and grow. Besides, he won’t have to learn anybody’s name, because he already knows them all!

Please join me in giving Ken a warm welcome to the church staff, and add him to your own personal prayer list. And go ahead and add him to your own list of 150 friends!