Erl Purnell Sermon

bEpiphany 4 ~ January 29, 2006 ~ A sermon preached by The Rev’d Erl G. Purnell at Old St. Andrew’s Church, Bloomfield, CT

Deuteronomy 18.15-20; Psalm 111; 1^st Corinthians 8.1b-13; Mark 1.21-28

On the occasion of the 266^th Annual Meeting day of the St. Andrew Society

Hallelujah!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,*
in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. (Psalm 111.1)

On this 266^th Annual Meeting day of the St. Andrew’s Society, I do give thanks to God, for all that we have and who it is we are and can be. We are blessed in so many ways.

Sunday by Sunday, for most of the eight and a half years I’ve had the privilege to be your Rector, we’ve heard a stewardship prayer at the very end of the Prayers of the People. This prayer is inserted because I believe the sentiments it expresses need to be remembered and practiced.

“Gracious God, the eternal source of Life and sustainer of all that is good: open our hearts to the infinite riches of your grace and compassion that you may guide us to responsible stewardship at this parish church; teach us to listen to your will for the collective good of our church; let our thoughts and prayers and actions strengthen and unify us for the well being of our common life together; and help us to remember that it is only from your abundant Love that we are blessed with all that we have and who it is we are and can be.”

“Open our hearts to the infinite riches of your grace and compassion…” We come to the Table seeking something that has already been given to us—God’s grace and compassion. It is this grace and compassion that leads us forward in the Spirit of Christ. Opening our hearts speaks of letting go of the personal in order to acknowledge and live into the riches of the Divine. It’s a challenge not to look at the floor all the time, but to pick up our heads and see the infinite riches that are always right in front of us. I suppose another term for this is optimism, positive thinking in the faith that God wraps us ’round in grace and compassion if only we’ll let go of our fear and accept it.

“Guide us to responsible stewardship at this parish church.” OSA is blessed by our significant endowment—about $1.6 million right now, up from $880,000 when I arrived in 1997. The unrestricted endowment affords us a backstop when we are unable to underwrite the cost of operations through pledges. My strong belief and intention, however, has always been that unrestricted endowment income should be reserved for Outreach. At OSA, we’ve been unable to fulfill this goal because pledge income has never quite reached expectations, even though it has grown from an average of about $900 in 1996 to just over $1,600 today. In 1996, we drew down $71,000 from the endowment for operational purposes, which was 37% of the budget. Pledges that year amounted to $91,000 or 48% of the budget. Our pledges now account for 64% of the budget, while the unrestricted endowment covers about 30%.

The stewardship of OSA is paramount to all of us. As such, it’s important to look carefully at where we are and where we are headed. The Chinese philosopher Confucius is purported to have said, “Unless we change direction, we’ll get to where we’re headed.”

It is with this in mind, that I enrolled in an Episcopal Church Building Fund workshop entitled Start Up/Start Over. This week I received a mailing from them which included a copy of “Congregational Life Cycles,” a classic portrayal of how a church moves from stage to stage over the years. (Copies of this short tract are available for you on the old altar in the hallway.)

I’m especially aware of the natural changes OSA has undergone because Bob McComb’s book, The Word in the Wilderness, chronicles our many ups and downs over a period of 260 years. Some things never change…and change is one of them. We have had decades when we have flourished and times when we were only a summer chapel or even near closing. This long view is important because it informs me as I consider where we are now and how we can best be stewards of our heritage and church moving forward.

“Congregational Life Cycles” recognizes that parishes change. At first is the “birthing period” when things tend to be informal and filled with the excitement of a new venture. This occurred for OSA a long, long time ago—in 1740. The risks encountered by our founders took tremendous courage to face. But they did face them, including the question of how to pay their Rector, William Gibbs, the princely sum of £50 a year and provide a Rectory.

Next, a parish goes through a “growth period.” This stage is represented by gathering new members and incorporating them into the existing group. Often a building campaign is associated with growth to accommodate new members and new programs. According to “Congregational Life Cycles,” when congregations stop growing the buildings are often blamed, although the real reason is a plateau in energy to attract and welcome new members. Institutionalization of procedures and policies, and the focus and comfort on current members pulls the church away from growth and towards stasis.

“Maturity” is the third period of the congregational cycle. Growth levels off, creativity wanes, and all income is used to support existing programs. The unrecognized theme is “business as usual,” which inevitably leads to less business as usual. Innovative action is not expected and may be frowned upon. The lure of stability, however, means not much new occurs. The enthusiasm and energy that brought the parish to this point is lost and the focus is “the way things have always been.” The great risk of the “maturity period” is resting too comfortably and so missing the opportunity for new life and a longer future. The authors of “Congregational Life Cycles” add, “Only in our discomfort do we have the energy and aspiration for change.”

The final stage is a “period of decline.” Let me quote again from “Congregational Life Cycles.” “The early signs of decline should be taken very seriously. Decline quickly becomes a powerful, vacuous black hole…An ounce of effort given to planning and redirection in the Maturity stage will require tons of effort once decline has begun.”

It’s under these conditions that congregations generally deny reality and remember as it was, not as it is or as it will be. A worry and fear—usually unspoken—is masked by “We’re OK; we’ve always been here.” The parish holds tight to what is familiar and resists risk taking. “Congregational Life Cycles” says that budgets during the “maturity period” “barely, or don’t, cover fixed expenses; [and] there’s no openness to new expenses.” The authors go on to say that “the greatest possibility for reversing decline exists in the very early stages. To be successful will require radical changes…[because] decline never gets better on its own, it just gets worse.”

So, what might all of this mean for OSA? Where have we been? Where are we? And, where do we need to go? These are the questions before us today, along with, How do we best move forward?

For most of the past year, the Vestry and I have used all the resources we could muster to do an in-depth analysis of our situation viz à viz the budget, pledges, membership, our demographics, programs, the endowments, administration, and, most important, our future. This has been a reality check and we’ve decided to be realistic instead of burying our heads in the sand and saying “We’re OK.”

None of us at OSA has done anything wrong, but we need to improve. We need to stem the beginning of any decline and jump-start a growth period once again. We’ve done it before. When Archie Cochrane became Rector in 1955 is one example. What’s happening is a natural cycle. Fortunately, we’re aware enough now to be proactive rather than waiting for decline to hobble our future and the future of our children.

In a nutshell, OSA needs more members. Wouldn’t you like some help? Help with hospitality, help with the boutique, help with the choir, help on the EWC, help for the Altar Guild, help with Inreach and especially Outreach, help with the acolytes, help with Church School? Wouldn’t you like some help raising our pledging income every year so it doesn’t fall only on your shoulders? Really, wouldn’t you like some help?

Replenishing our membership takes an added effort to communicate “who we are, where we are, and who we serve.” We have a short-term problem—reduced membership and inadequate pledge income—but the Vestry is addressing the issue with a long-term solution. We need not be afraid. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. This is a time to be excited because we’re entering a “growth period” in the congregational cycle. Jesus said to preach the Good News far and wide. In other words, ‘Go into the market place and use the best PR you have to draw people to the Gospel.’ We might not have a store-front church on Main Street in Bloomfield and we aren’t about to move this 200 year old building, like our predecessors did in 1828, to Main Street, but we can tell the community “who we are, where we are, and who we serve.” Are there any guarantees? No. The only sure thing is that if we do nothing, we’ll get to where we’re headed.

One final thought. It’s about the budget and using funds from the unrestricted endowment to underwrite the cost of operations while we grow the membership. I am a fiscal conservative and I’ve brought that philosophy to the administration of the parish for eight and a half years. To repeat myself, my goal has always been and is now to use the unrestricted endowment income for Outreach and not operations.

I am also a pragmatist. After all the work we’ve done in recent months to understand where we are, I am convinced that the best thing the parish can do is to invest in our future with a bold and creative PR/Marketing Campaign. The objective is to attract more members and so increase revenue. Meanwhile, I’m not interested in asking you again and again to boost your pledges in order to balance the budget. You did your best this year, but we fell short by $21,000.

I am confident that the Vestry has done a great job looking at the expense side of the budget. Some people may want to go back to the cutting board, but that’s just not a reasonable alternative. On a more sensitive point, though my compensation package is the largest single item in the budget, the Vestry alone and independently agreed on my initial salary in 1997 and on all subsequent raises; and, after fair and open discussion, you as a parish voted by a margin of 46-3 to sell the Rectory to my wife and me in 2004. A change in my compensation does not address the underlying need to grow the parish.

Should we use capital from the unrestricted endowment to balance the budget? No, not unless we absolutely have to. Would we be wise to borrow from the endowment with the understanding that we’ll “pay it back”? No, because there’s no mechanism to repay? So, should we have a mini-campaign to raise money to take care of the problem this year? No, I don’t think so because we’ve just completed our enhancement pledges and besides, we were $21,000 short after you had done your best making your 2006 pledges.

What to do? I am in awe of Adelaide Millea and others who have entrusted OSA with a considerable unrestricted endowment. These good Episcopalians and members of OSA chose to trust the Vestry with the administration of the funds left to the Church. There are no documents restricting the use of the unrestricted endowment which is exactly why it is referred to as “the unrestricted endowment.”

Although the Finance Committee of the Vestry has cautioned against using principal from the unrestricted endowment, and the Vestry’s intention, at least since I’ve been here, has been to preserve the purchasing power of the fund, the canons of the Diocese of Connecticut and the Episcopal Church authorize the Vestry, in its wisdom, to manage the funds. This is never to say the Vestry should act in a high-handed way, but rather carefully, prayerfully, and thoughtfully. I believe all of the OSA Vestries with whom I’ve worked have behaved in this way and I applaud them.

While generally I think it is unfortunate when unrestricted endowment monies beyond our formula are used for operations or in extraordinary circumstances, this year, and until we have more pledging members, it is necessary and prudent to invest our funds in ourselves and our future. Your Vestry is doing the very best they can in the stewardship of all of our endowment funds. They are also leading you into the future from a place of love for OSA and respect for our past.

And so, Gracious God, I pray that you “teach us to listen to your will for the collective good of our church; let our thoughts and prayers and actions strengthen and unify us for the well being of our common life together; and help us to remember that it is only from your abundant Love that we are blessed with all that we have and who it is we are and can be.”

Amen.