Ellis Kilgore Stewardship Talk October 25, 2009

Good Morning

This This morning in our Gospel reading we find Jesus and his disciples in Jericho where they come upon a fairly determined sightless man named Bartimaeus who asks, “Jesus , son of David, have mercy on me.” The Gospel says Jesus stopped and said. “ Call him here.”

Jesus then asks the man. “What do you want me to do for you?”

The man replies, “teacher I want to see, again”

“Go” says Jesus “your faith has healed you.” And then the Gospel says, “Immediately he received his sight.”

This morning I want to talk about those key points, being called and using your faith to receive your sight or finding your way and the blessings we receive along the way.

How many times have we jumped into a new ministry, class or a situation where we feel unsure or even blind in our expectation or fear that we are not prepared to handle what is to come? I know personally I feel this way most times I venture into something new. It’s always been that way and even today when I was asked to give a stewardship talk I agreed. Then later realized “how am I ever going to come up with something insightful, inspirational or even relevant to Stewardship.”

So, I thought I might share with you how my faith has lead me to this point and have been called to ministry here and how truly blessed my family and I are to be a part of this wonderful, amazing community of faith.

This community has embraced this family, you have adopted Catie and Kelley and helped form their Christian foundation. You have provided financial support by hiring them to nurture and watch your children, and assisted them in their mission and outreach journeys. You have mentored them, prayed for them and loved them. For that Claudia and I can never say THANK YOU ENOUGH!

We came by St. Catherine’s, I am convinced, as a call from God. Or rather through a very dear devout Catholic friend who is a para Pro at Sedalia Park Elementary. She knew we were searching for an Episcopal Church as Claudia and I had both grown up there.

She at St Bede’s in Chamblee and I at St Peter’s in Rome.

Our friend mentioned that she had noticed a “Darling little Episcopal Church” that she passed every day on her way to work so the next Saturday, off we went.

As many of you remember there used to be a circle drive around the Great Oak and as we pulled around Larry Packard was just locking up the church and came over to our car to greet us. He gave us a brief tour and invited us to come back tomorrow. Well, the rest is history and 14 years later here we are.

As a child I was involved in Youth Choir, served as an Acolyte and was active in EYC. So naturally when we joined St. Catherine’s I began looking for my “place.”

I wasn’t completely comfortable just jumping in and we had been “away” from the Church for a while so I looked around at the offerings for some obscure area that I might get my feet wet and remain somewhat unnoticed. I found my calling, quite literally, in the grounds committee. One Sunday I was approached by one of the team Captains, Hoke Carter, and asked if I would join his team for ground maintenance. I could come once a month and spend some time with God and my lawn mower and weed eater and give back to the Church. What a perfect ministry to break the ice.

My next ministry involvement came about through deception, sleight of hand and downright sneakiness. I was approached by Bob Pagent who at the time was one of the Co-Acolyte masters to see if my daughters might be interested in becoming involved in that program and since I hadn’t learned to keep my big mouth shut I offered that I too had been an acolyte as a youth. I could see the wheels turning in Bob’s head in slow motion like a Sam Peckinpaw film and knew much too late I was Toast. I stepped in for Bob and worked with Molly Frost for a couple of years with a congenial but small group of young people. Even though Molly and I spent many a Sunday hanging around the vestment room and agonizing over would we have enough Acolytes show up to serve as torches and Crucifer it became a truly rewarding experience. One of my most memorable moments was being blessed to vest and process in with our team and literally hundreds of Acolytes from all over this country in our National Cathedral at the annual Acolyte festival in Washington DC. I somehow managed to hold back my emotions long enough to make the seemingly endless procession and worship in one of the most spiritually moving services I have ever experienced. This ministry is such a vital program for our church and our youth and I have had the fortunate opportunity to work with some devoted, enthusiastic and spiritual young people and seen the result of dedicated adults like Marcia, Bob and Barbara and how they have grown this vibrant ministry. We should ALL be so proud.

During that same period of time I was asked by our Youth Director if I might be interested in being a part of our J2A program. Since I was already involved with our youth it seemed like a natural progression.

The slate of leaders was full but Heather required a number of people to help out on trips, lock ins and Wednesday night programming. Once again I agreed.

Then it happened, God had other plans for me. It seems that a number of families decided to leave our Parish Family as a result of the Great Unpleasantness and a significant number of those people were J2A leaders. Now instead of helping out I was asked to be a regular Sunday School Teacher. “What could I possibly teach these young people??

I soon learned these 14, 15 and 16 year olds would teach me volumes more than I could ever have dreamed of teaching them.

For those of you unfamiliar with our J2A program, it is a youth ministry program of spiritual formation that teaches Manhood and Womanhood are free gifts from God and Adulthood must be earned. There are 4 key areas of study self, spirituality, sexuality and society.

It was also here that I became intimately familiar with the term “Herding Cats.”

We would spend diligent time planning who was teaching what lesson and who was bringing what food only to have our plans thwarted by an issue the youth felt much more threatening to their faith, lively hood or popularity at school.

You learned to go with the flow.

Another concept in J2A is finding those teachable moments and using them to help our youth find their faith. Many of these teachable moments came out of these extemporaneous discussions and out of classroom experiences.

I have so many fond and amazing memories from this journey.

On the first Sunday of our J2A pilgrimage we arrived at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh a few minutes prior to the service and were met by a multitude of Anglican parishioner’s welcoming us to their church. They were so delighted to have this many young people worship with them. We met the Provost and had a discussion about our Pilgrimage to Iona. He commented that Iona is one of Scotland’s most holy places and that we were sure to find a little rain there because of it’s proximity to Heaven. He couldn’t have been more accurate

I recall standing on the same rock strewn shoreline where St Columba landed almost 1500 years ago to establish the Christian Community of Iona and see 10 young people scattered around in various stages of meditation, thought and prayer as they too took in this most holy and spiritual place.

I have had a number of opportunities to help our youth prepare a meal at Must and see them take the time to eagerly sit down and have a deeply involved conversation with the people there.

I have just come completed another 2 year term teaching an AMAZING group of 11,12 and 13 year olds who also taught me volumes. Once again a few weeks ago I receive another phone call, this time from Amelia, asking me if I would consider rounding out the slate of youth leaders to teach this same group for another 2 year term. I quickly agreed.

I have also been blessed to be involved with 2, soon to be 3, of our incredible youth that have answered God’s call to accept the role of Rector at Happening and lead a team which seeks to bring young persons and adults to a fuller personal knowledge of and relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and to a deeper level of commitment and apostleship.

These Truly are Mastercard Moments…… PRICELESS!!

During my early years as a youth leader I received a phone call late one evening from Tom Hunter asking me if I would consider running for vestry (are you seeing a pattern here?). I told Tom I would pray about it… Translation, “what did I get my self into this time?”

But I already knew the answer as I had felt God tugging at my heart to look at other avenues within our community of faith.

As fate would have it I wasn’t elected to the full 3 year term but was chosen to fulfill the last year of an uncompleted term.

I didn’t have a CLUE about what was involved and here truly ignorance is bliss.

On Vestry we are responsible for the ins and outs of running St Catherine’s, budgets, stewardship, event planning and keeping up to date with our very active ministries. But the most treasured part of being on vestry to me is getting to spend 3-4 hours every month with a dedicated, faithful group of hard working and caring individuals, staff and Clergy.

Some incredible friendships have developed out of this experience as well as learning some interesting details about some of your fellow parishoners. Like Gail McGill has a twin, or that as some of you already know, Al Jones has a deceptively sneaky sense of humor or there really is a town in Illinois called Mantune and Bill Selby calls that his hometown.

I have run for vestry twice and been blessed to be elected both times and consider those years also some of my most memorable at St Catherine’s. In case some of you are not aware our Vestry meets monthly. We begin each meeting in the sanctuary with a brief but moving Eucharist service. Each month one vestry members provides a reading of their choice and another offers a scriptural reflection of that reading. It truly sets the tone for the meeting and unites that bond between ALL vestry members. It is a great way to wind down the day and lead into our monthly meetings.

On occasion we even get to attend some of those “special” budget meetings when the money is tight and we are nearing the end of another fiscal year where decisions need to be made and belts need to be tightened. Although these can be difficult meetings we always come together as one community and reach an agreement. The fiduciary responsibilities can be intense our faith in doing the right thing for St Catherine’s is what binds us together.

On my last stint we were going over our budget for the upcoming year and Ron Brannock had the foresight to do an analysis of our budget from a perspective I don’t believe we had ever seen. He looked at our fixed costs, salaries, benefits, building maintenance, mortgage and interest payments and pointed out the stark realization that a 5% reduction in pledges would result in a 50% reduction in programs.

This meant less money for Outreach, Pastoral Care, Liturgy and Music, Christian Nurture and Development and Fellowship. All programs and ministries would be affected.

This analysis has been imprinted on my heart and in my head and when the subject of Stewardship arises I know what God is calling us to do. Jim has spoken of his and Joan’s journey to their goal of tithing. What a great example for all of us to follow. It’s not about how successful each of our year’s has been or what unnecessary expenses we have been able to avoid or anticipate but it’s about that leap of faith to commit to the church and stick to it NO matter the amount.

In my opinion, Stewardship is NOT about success in our lives it’s about commitment to God and our Church and in return to receive God’s Blessings.

So, when you feel called to a ministry, either by that little voice in your head or an actual phone call from a fellow parishioner know much prayer and consideration has gone into that request. So PLEASE give your response the same consideration and know the success of our ministries is dependent upon the gift of everyone’s Time, Talent and Treasure.

A journalist once asked Mother Teresa “When you see how many people are hurting, how can you ever expect to be successful?”

She replied, “God hasn’t asked me to be successful.” Then she walked over to help a dying man.

Back