Time and Talent Stewardship

Hello, I am Nancy Denton and I am here to talk to you about stewardship of Time and Talent. Tom Hunter approached me and asked me to give this talk and of course my first question was “Why ME?” The next question was “What do you want me to say?” And the answer to that was another question, “Why do you do what you do for St. Catherine’s?” The easy answer to that question is, “Because I enjoy the things I do but mostly because I enjoy the people.” Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just end there and we could all go home from church a little early today? But Jim told me he would like for the talk to be about 5 – 10 minutes. (Yikes!)

I have been attending St. Catherine’s for 25 years. The first time I came to St. Catherine’s (and many of you may have heard this story before), I had decided to visit some of the churches around Marietta. I even considered going to a Baptist church since that was my husband Kenny’s background. But I was going to start with the Episcopal Church since that is my background. I came to St. Catherine’s one Sunday in 1981, I think it was in the fall, and like many of you have said, people were so warm and friendly. I especially remember Susan Spence, our resident dog trainer; she was so open and welcoming. And then during the service, David Wayland preached the sermon just for me. It was weird, I don’t remember what it was about, but whatever I was struggling with, the sermon spoke to that issue. So I went home and the next week I thought, I’ll try St. Catherine’s one more time, just to see.

Well, it happened again the next week and then again the week after that. It was kinda weird but I figured “O. K., maybe this is where God wants me to be!” So that has been 25 years ago now.

As many of you know, I can talk a lot; just ask my daughters and Kenny. But the word that keeps coming to my thoughts is “LISTEN”. As some of you know (at least the vestry does), I have been taking yoga for the past few years and the biggest lesson I am learning from that is to be still and be present in each moment. That is an extremely challenging thing to do!!! My grandfather used to tell my sisters and me about this cartoon called Hambone. It was kind of like the “Ziggy” cartoon. The one I remember most was Granddaddy saying, “Hambone said the Lord gave us 2 ears and one mouth and ain’t nobody taken a hint yet!” When I look back on many events in my life, it seems as though the times when things went very well, were times when I tried to stop and listen to something/someone other than myself.

My journey in giving of my time, mainly, and talent started with Altar Guild. I think the reason that I started doing Altar Guild was more selfish than anything. It gave me the opportunity to spend some time alone in a quiet place, the sacristy and the church. This was when my children were small and time alone was pretty scarce. I am sure many of you can relate to that. So I did get to meet new people and enjoyed that and I really enjoyed the quiet time setting up the altar.

Then I was approached about teaching a Sunday school class and I wanted my daughter, Sarah to go to Sunday school, this was before Julia was born, I think. I wasn’t very confident that I could teach Sunday school but I figured I could give it a go. I did get to meet and become friends with Pam Phillips and that made it very enjoyable for me. I think the students really just learned to enjoy eating “Monkey Bread” since we made and brought it just about every week.

There was a period of time when I was working full time with 2 girls and all of their activities when I didn’t give as much time here at St. Catherine’s. It is always a balancing act as to which activity takes priority since each one of the organizations thinks their group should be the first priority. But I have always continued with Altar Guild that kept me coming to church on at least a monthly basis.

Both of my daughters have been involved in the church school programs. Julia was more involved than Sarah but they both developed friendships with some of you that will be lifelong relationships. The adults that have given their time for the youth groups have been outstanding. The care and friendship given to Sarah and Julia by many of the adults was definitely God’s presence in their lives. And for me, that is an incredible gift!

I was working at a dance studio as the office manager until about 6 years ago and I quit to make a change. I was going to take a few months off and then look for a new job. But things happen that we don’t expect to happen. My father was having health problems and his wife left him. He needed to have someone help him with his finances and general support. What an incredible challenge it is to take care of a parent. Having been through the Stephen Ministry training and my stewardship here at St. Catherine’s prepared me to handle the many challenges and frustrations that I faced in my commitment to my dad’s care. There were so many times I wanted to quit and turn things over to another sister, and tell someone else to handle things. But when he was gone, I have felt so grateful that I had the opportunity to spend that time with my dad. In hindsight, I know that God was with me and supporting me, like the “Footprints” poem when the writer asked what happened to the 2 sets of footprints and God said, “That’s when I was carrying you.” The support and caring by many of you, even simple questions like, “how’s your dad?” helped and carried me immensely.

Three years ago, Jim Greene came to me and asked me to run for vestry. I didn’t believe that I could possibly be a smart enough person to be on Vestry. But I said yes and figured I wouldn’t get elected anyway since I thought all the others were better candidates. But I did get elected and I will finish fulfilling my term in January. It has been an incredible learning experience and one that I am glad that I have had. I have gotten to know some of the people here in a way that I never would have had I not been on vestry. I have been amazed at the incredible and different gifts of the many people on the vestry. The care, time and sometimes passion that these people have had for St. Catherine’s and for God are so inspiring and encouraging to me.

I am a cradle Episcopalian and had a pretty idyllic childhood. My mom and dad were very involved in church activities; teaching Sunday school, choir, altar guild, and so on. They were excellent role models about giving of one’s time, especially my mom. So on some level I guess I didn’t know that you were supposed to do it any other way.

It seems as though there has always been a push of some sort (maybe God speaking to me) when making decisions to commit to something. I think we all can find excuses not to give of our time and talent; our job, the children’s activities, our parents, etc. Those excuses are easy to come up with. Saying yes is harder to do. The push that got me to agree to give this talk was on Rally Day. I had been putting off Tom Hunter for a couple of weeks. For the service we sang Hymn #528. “Lord, you give the great commission”. I was really enjoying the service that morning. The church was very full, the singing was strong, and there was an excitement about the start of the new school year. When we began singing this hymn, and we got to the words, “with the Spirit’s gifts empower us for the work of ministry”; I felt God’s presence and that push to say “yes” to giving this talk.

There have been very involved times and not so involved times but always it is the people who have kept me coming back. There were a couple of times I even considered changing churches when I thought I wasn’t happy about this or that, and God spoke to me, through my mom no less, which made it a little harder to hear! “St. Catherine’s is just as much your church as it is anybody else’s.” My life has been enriched in so many ways by making the simple commitment of just coming to church on Sunday. Out of that small commitment have come very dear relationships with many incredible people.

Thank you all for the time and talent that you already give to St. Catherine’s. YOU are the reason that St. Catherine’s is the wonderful place that it is. When it is time to pledge this year, try to stop, take that yoga breath, be still and listen to what God is calling you to do.