Another Nudge

Way back on May 23rd, I did a posting entitled “God’s Nudges”.  It was about how I felt perfectly lazy one day and didn’t work on the church newsletter like I was supposed to do.  It was ok because it wasn’t due yet but it is unusual for me not to work on it the Saturday morning after the deadline.  The deadline is the 2nd Tuesday of each month.  So, the following Saturday morning, I always put it together so I can do final edits on Sunday and review it one last time on Monday evening before sending it to our church secretary so she can copy it so it can be mailed on Wednesday morning.  Since we are relying on volunteers to collate and mail the newsletter, it is imperative that I do what I am supposed to do and get it e-mailed on time.  But, as I had said in my posting, there was a very good reason why I was lazy and didn’t do it.  God was nudging me.  Pastor and the Vicar had a very important announcement that had to go in the newsletter and they didn’t meet until the week after the deadline.  Since it was the summer newsletter and it wasn’t actually being mailed until two weeks after the deadline, it was ok and the announcement was put in.  But, still, it was only by God nudging me that enabled that to happen because otherwise I would have assembled the newsletter and wrapped it up long before their meeting.

Why am I re-visiting this subject?  Because it happened again.  This past Saturday, being the Saturday after the second Tuesday of the month, I was supposed to be working on the newsletter.  But I didn’t feel like it.  Just felt lazy.  So I watched an old James Garner movie (“Support Your Local Sheriff”) which I had seen years and years ago and pretty much remembered how the movie went.  Really not the best use of my time.  Yet, there I was, being lazy and watching an old movie instead of working.

On Sunday morning, we had a budget meeting between services.  This was our second budget meeting, which was unusual, but it was important because we had all received a letter in December stating that we were facing a $30,000 deficit in the 2010 budget.  This was quite shocking since the last we had heard, at the first budget meeting in the beginning of December, was that we had an $8,000 deficit.  Bad but something we could work with. After all, we never know what will happen and God always does provide.  But $30,000 just seemed way too big.  Not that we weren’t trusting God to provide but we were more concerned about being good stewards with the gifts He has given us.  We needed to be mindful and careful not to be wasteful or ask for things we really didn’t need.

So we had another meeting.  I was expecting to receive the report that we were still at negative $30,000 but instead, due to the hard work of the Finance Committee and the Council, we had a balanced budget.  Actually we were in the black by $89. Amazing!!  Well, but sad too.  Our pastor is taking a huge pay cut, we are cutting our third service and we are letting our Associate in Minister go in March rather then when she was due to be finished in June.  There were other cuts too but those are the ones that are the most painful.  It was made pretty clear to us that, unless a miracle happened, this was the budget we were going to have to live with and, although they were sorry, it was the best that could be done.

One other thing that was mentioned was that we wouldn’t be able to pay all of our benevolences for 2009.  We were over $10,000 short.  The Finance Committee was recommending that we just write them off.  Not pay them.  This upset me because these small organizations were counting on our donation to sustain themselves.  I hate to see them suffer along with us.  So I suggested that we list the benevolences in the church newsletter so that if anyone felt so inclined, they could pay the benevolence themselves.  This was agreed to and the head of the Finance Committee sent me the information to be included.

So that is the answer to that. That is why I was so lazy on Saturday.  God knew that this was going to come up and He put it on my heart to make the suggestion.  He knew.  I didn’t know but I didn’t need to know until the moment was there.  That is how it works.

I have faith that we will come out of all this in the end.  This is a low point in the life of my church.  We know that it is because we have lost members due to the vote at the church wide assembly on homosexuality.  They didn’t agree and so they have left our church.  This can’t be helped.  But I have faith that God is leading us and He will provide what we need…not necessarily what we want.  And, in the end, what His plans are will exceed our own plans.  When we look back, years from now, we will see that this is true.