Episodes
Sunday Nov 18, 2012
Hidden Treasures
Sunday Nov 18, 2012
Sunday Nov 18, 2012
Rev. Dean Snyder Matthew 6:21
There is a life principle taught by Jesus that I have been trying to really understand for about the past 12 years. It is found in the collection of teachings in the Gospel of Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount.
Here is the principle: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Mat 6:21)
Part of the reason this verse caught my attention is because I was watching the 2000 presidential debate, the second one. And one of the candidates quoted this verse. When he did, I got out my Bible and discovered he had accidentally misquoted it.
He said: “Where you heart is, there your treasure will be also.” Jesus said the exact opposite. Jesus said that where your treasure is your heart will be also.
Al Gore said your treasure will be where your heart is. Jesus said your heart will be where your treasure is.
Al Gore’s version actually made more sense to me. It seemed more reasonable. We will invest our time, energy, and money in the things we care about. That makes sense. Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also. We give our time and money to the things we care about the most.
But Jesus taught something else. He taught that we will come to care the most about the things we invest our time and energy and money in.
Over the long haul, in the span of our lives, we will not invest ourselves in what we really care about. We will come to really care about what we invest ourselves in.
Over the long haul, we will not go to the gym because we care about our fitness. We will care about our fitness because we decide again and again to go to the gym. If we stop going to the gym or doing whatever form of exercise we do, we will find ourselves caring less and less about our health. I can personally vouch for this being true.
We don’t go to excellent restaurants because we care about superbly prepared food. We come to care about superbly prepared food because we go to excellent restaurants. I have friends who are foodies. I’m not. I am happy at Trio’s. But occasionally when staff goes out to lunch, one of our staff members say to the rest of us: You’ve got to try such and such a place. And when we go the food to the place he suggests, the food is always amazing. Because he spends time in excellent restaurants. I suspect that if I made a decision to frequent excellent restaurants, I would become a foodie. You don’t go to the restaurants because you are a foodie. It is going to the restaurants that makes you a foodie.
Over the long haul, you don’t read because you love books. You love books because you read.
Over the long haul, you don't kiss your spouse or partner because you love him or her. You love him or her because you kiss.
What you invest yourself in is what you will eventually come to care the most about. This is what Jesus taught. Your affection, your attention, your passions, your caring will follow where you invest your time, energy, and money. We decide who we will become when we decide what to do with our time and money. That’s the principle Jesus taught.
I think this is one of the reasons the Nationals work so hard to sell season tickets. There may be other financial reasons to push season tickets but one of them is that if they can get you to commit to physically showing up 20 times in a season, they will have made you a fan.
Theaters know that if they can get you to buy a subscription and commit to showing up throughout the theatre season, you will be much more likely to care about theatre.
The decisions we make about how to spend our time and energy and money shapes our hearts. And actually the word that Jesus used that we translate here heart can just as easily be translated soul.
Where your treasure is, there your soul will be also. Where you invest yourself will shape your soul, your deepest identity. That’s what Jesus taught.
This is why vocational decisions are such a big deal. Because most of us will spend 40 or 50 or even more hours a week on our vocations. Our vocations will be very influential in shaping our souls unless we manage to figure out how to do our jobs without being invested in them.
I began my life curious about the Bible. I made a vocational decision that caused me to invest a significant part of 48 weeks of every year of my life studying the Bible. I have come to love the Bible.
The next Bible class I teach will be a class for those of you who want to learn how to teach the Bible. If you want to love the Bible become a teacher of the Bible.
Household budgets are important because what we spend our money on shapes us as households.
National budgets are important because what we spend our national budget on will shape what we as a people care about. It is not that we care about young people being able to reach their full potential so we invest in education. It is that we invest in education as a society and then we come to care about every child being able to reach their full potential. If we don’t invest in education, we will not care about our nation’s children.
I’ve decided that church membership vows are more important than I’ve been treating them. Al and Dawn have been trying to convince me of this for a couple of years and I think I’m beginning to get it.
One of the questions we ask when people join Foundry is: As a member of this congregation, will you faithfully participate in its ministries, by your prayers, your presence, your witness, your gifts, and your service?
I am not big on oughts or guilt-tripping people. A number of years ago I started checking my sermons and trying to take out all oughts and shoulds. I don’t like to be scolded and I don’t like to scold people. So I replaced oughts with couldn’t and shoulds with mays and cans.
But I am starting to think that the purpose of reminding people about our membership vows is not to scold us if we don’t keep them well enough, but to remind us of the fundamental truth that if we do not invest our prayers, presence, witness, gifts and service in our community of faith we are eventually going to stop caring about the communal life of faith, discipleship, service and mission.
Just like the gym, every time we decide about church we are deciding whether we are going to care about our spiritual life in community with others, and our mission, and our growth.
Dawn has been talking to me lately about the need for more small groups and more Bible study classes and more opportunities for sharing, and praying together. We come to care about spiritual things when we invest in spiritual study, sharing and conversation and prayer. So Dawn has been telling me we need to do more of that as a congregation and she is right. Expect more Bible study and small groups and Sunday school classes.
We are inviting you today to invest in Foundry’s mission and ministry. We are asking you to commit some of your treasure to Foundry’s Mission Possible building renovation campaign.
So we are asking you to look at the treasure in your life and invest some of it to help our building become more effective and functional. And we actually believe this will be a good thing spiritually for you and me. What we invest ourselves in, is what shapes our heart and souls. We want our hearts and souls to be shaped by our church.
I’ve asked Al Hammer, our Associate Pastor for Operations, to help us think about where we can find treasure in our lives that we might consider investing in Foundry’s mission and ministry.
Al:
We have many treasures in our lives including family, friends, time, health, and talents, but the one that Jesus spent more time on than any others as exemplified in the scriptures of the New Testament is money. This will be the 6th Capital Campaign that I have had the privilege of helping to organize and implement over the last 15 years in ministry. I continue to marvel at the creativity and spiritual growth that I find in folks as they are called to sacrificial giving of their treasures. Generosity ALWAYS finds its way to the heart, to the very soul,…
I have discovered through people just like you, that there are at least four avenues to treasures that most of us have and some passionate unique ways of how to make them available to the calling of the spirit of God.
1. Cash flow - is the money that comes in every month and goes out every month, it is our budget.
Last fall I taught a class here at Foundry. It was Dave Ramsey’s “Financial Peace University”. Through that 13 week course Carol and I found ways to better budget, get out of debt and save money that we could have ever dreamed of. For example, we stopped buying cable TV, saving us on the cost AND giving us more time, which in our busy lives is quite a treasure, we now watch much less TV while saving close to $100 a month. We did other things like investing in Foundry’s green energy electricity COOP that has saved us over 15 % on our electric bills every month. Because of this and other changes in our lifestyle we are better positioned to give financially to this Mission Possible Capital Campaign.
2. Time and Talent - the ability to use our time and talent to create additional streams of income from hobbies or avocations.
This is the area where I have found folks the most creative. One family I know of wanted to give to the Capital Campaign but the dad had just lost his job and although he was optimistic for finding another one they were barely making ends meet with their current income and savings. As he was spending a lot of time searching for a job using tools on the Internet the idea of selling some of the abundance of “STUFF” the family had accumulated struck him as a good way to use his windfall of extra time. Over the next 8 months while searching for a job he managed to find books, electronics, furniture and other hidden treasure to sell via EBay and Amazon and managed to have his very own version of a “Garage Sale” online raising close to $6,000 which the family chose to give to the campaign. I actually got a thank you from the wife for helping her husband to finally get the attic and garage cleaned out. Another lady in the church I was serving used her passion for yoga and started teaching classes dedicating the class fees she charged to the Capital Campaign enabling her to donate over $3,000 during the three year campaign.
3. Appreciated Assets - typically these are stocks, bonds or real estate. To increase one's gift, these can be given to the church for their disposal in order to avoid capital gain tax.
One lady came to me back in the late 90’s saying that before she retired she had been the administrative assistant for an executive in a local Tech start up company. She had been there from the start and in fact the company hadn’t paid much in the first years but had given her generous portions of stock as incentive to stick with it while they grew the company. Well, the company did grow; SIGNIFICANTLY over the years and now the stock she own was quite valuable. She was able to give the church close to $100,000 in full value of the stock saving close to $35,000 she would have had to pay in taxes if she had cashed in the stock herself and given the church the $65,000 balance. These types of gifts should be explored with the help of a trusted financial advisor, as they are often a win-win treasure for both the donor and the church.
4. Non-cash (gifts of kind) - items that an individual owns whose value has not increased and the owner can dispose of it themselves. This can be collections, jewelry, etc.
I know of one young man that had invested himself in the Youth group at church and wanted badly to help with the building of our new church through the capital campaign. As he was preparing to go off to college he rediscovered his collection of baseball cards he and his dad had collected over the years. After much research and negotiations he managed to sell the collection for over a $1,000, which he enthusiastically donated to the church. Another example our Campaign Consultant shared with some of us was of a young man that donated the proceeds from his collection of Lunch Boxes that was worth close to $30,000. Who knew??
My wife, Carol, and I will be using a combination of several of these types of Treasures to enable us to give generously to Mission Possible; including continuing to adjust our lifestyle and monthly budget, setting aside some of our appreciated assets we were planning to use for retirement, and oh yes!!! If anyone wants to buy some used, but in very good condition, backpacking and camping equipment, I want to talk with you!
Dean:
So this is our opportunity to invest in the mission and ministry of Foundry Church. We invite you to make a commitment to the Mission Possible campaign. Where our treasure is, our hearts will be also.
We will do this as a part of our regular offering time, by presenting our pledge for the Mission Possible Capital Campaign along with our regular Tithes and Offerings
You should have received a letter from me along with a pledge card in the mail this past week for the Mission Possible Capital Campaign. I hope that you have taken the time to prayerfully consider what your commitment will be to this opportunity to strengthen our ministry and witness for God through the improvements of our facilities.
If you brought your pledge card with you, please find it now. If you did not, our ushers will provide one at this time.
I also invite you to prepare your gifts of tithes and offerings at this time.
Special Word to our guest and visitors:
If you are a guest or visitor worshipping with us this morning we are grateful for your presence among us. Although we do not expect you to pledge to this Capital Funds Campaign, we would ask that you take this time while we are making our commitments to pray for Foundry Church, for each person that will be making a commitment and for the architects and contractors who will help us to fulfill our calling by God as we move into this time of giving and building. If you have gifts of tithes or offerings you may want to take this time to prepare for our offering.
A Point of Clarification
To the Foundry Congregation we want to make sure that everyone here understands that TODAY we are making our commitments to the Mission Possible Capital Campaign. You are perhaps used to this being the time of the year that we do our annual Foundry Stewardship Campaign for the General Fund that helps to keep the lights and heat on, to compensate our staff, and to carry out the ministries God has called us to do. We are doing Mission Possible instead and have delayed our annual campaign until February. We do ask that you continue on your regular and pledged giving to the General Operating Fund through the beginning of next year when you will be given the opportunity to increase your pledge or to pledge for the first time to support the regular on going ministries of Foundry Church. Today’s pledges are commitments and second mile offerings above and beyond our normal giving to the General Fund.
The Mission Possible Project
Plan: Our Building Team and Architects have spent the last year and a half assessing Foundry’s needs and designing a facility that will best meet those needs for the future.
Pray: Over the past 6 months, thanks to a most effective Communications Team, you have heard about the Mission Possible renovation/revitalization project and how it will bring our facilities more in line with the Church’s ministry goals. You have had the opportunity to see presentations about the complete project, attend Informational Gatherings, take a tour of the current facilities in light of the renovation, review mailings about the project, hear inspirational sermons about God’s call on our community and have had access to an abundance of information on the FoundryUMC.org website. Over the last 3 months you have had the opportunity to be in prayer for the Mission Possible project and your own participation through sacrificial giving. The project will cost approximately $10.5 million dollars of which we hope to raise as much of that as possible and then seek a loan to finance the balance to enable Foundry to complete this Phase I of the project successfully.
Give: Today we come together to commit ourselves through our gifts above and beyond our normal giving to the General Operating Fund by giving to the Mission Possible Capital Campaign Fund. Over the last 3 months I have been in conversation with some of our key leaders who were willing to make their commitment in advance of today. I am pleased to announce that we already have pledges of over $1.8 million towards our goal of $4.5 million.
Build: As soon as we gather the results from your pledges and develop our final financial plan, we will begin the renovation project hopefully in late 2013 or early 2014 completing it as we move into celebrating our 200th Anniversary as a Church.
Commitment:
As you complete your pledge card this morning I invite you to take a few moments to pray for Foundry and your own commitment that will enable us to move forward with this vital improvement to our capacity for ministry. Then in a few minutes I will invite you to stand and bring your pledge card forward in order to place it in one of the baskets up front. If you are in the balcony you are welcome to come to the altar or the ushers will assist you by passing the baskets.
Invitation:
Where our treasure is, our hearts will be also. We decide what we will cherish, we shape our souls, by what we invest out time, energy and money in.
Please stand and join in singing the hymn “Marching to Zion” UMH #733 as you bring your pledges for Mission Possible forward along with your regular tithes and offerings. Please place them in one of these baskets up front and kneel at the altar for a moment of prayer or return to your seat.
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