2 Corinthians 9:1-15 

For the past three weeks Pastor HeyYoung and I have been walking with you through the first three of the four traditional ‘pillars’ of discipleship. We looked first at the importance of worship in the life of a believer. How worship is a natural response to the recognition of the presence of a Holy God in our lives – both publicly and privately. We looked next at the importance of having a plan for our Spiritual Growth – to have a clear idea of how we are going to nourish our souls through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, Bible Study, and personal accountability. 

Last weekend we followed the chain of teaching through the Bible declaring that having been created in the image of God, we are created to work; that creativity and productivity are part of who we are. And specifically, within the Body of Christ, we all have a place where God ‘sees’ us functioning. And we talked about how God has equipped us with spiritual gifts, and passions necessary to complete that work. 

These three areas, plus the fourth area (giving) which we will look at briefly this morning/ evening, can be visualized as our Spiritual breathing – we breathe in (prayer, study, worship) and we breathe out (service and giving). Just as we certainly can’t live by only inhaling [we would explode!] or by only exhaling [we would implode!] we can’t survive spiritually by ignoring this critical cycle, either. These are the four foundational areas for any disciple of Christ to address. 

In doing all of this, we have been building up to this weekend, a time to Celebrate our Discipleship by making personal covenants with God spelling out our plans on how we are going to address these four areas, again, in the year 2008. 

Last year we tried something different... instead of a Stewardship Campaign which focused simply on giving and money, in realizing that our Scriptural mandate is not to “go into all the world and make good givers”, but it is to “Go and make disciples of Jesus Christ, baptizing them and teaching to obey all that Christ has commanded of us” we took the radical step of eliminating our financial pledging and instead provided a card which many people signed, stating your intention to address those four basic areas of discipleship in 2007.

As I look back over the past year I sense a deepening of our intentional discipleship. Something that I attribute to the fact that quite a few of you have taken your that commitment seriously. That’s mostly a subjective assessment, to be honest, but not totally. For example, our Wednesday night Soup & Study has grown steadily over the past three years – but this year it has grown the fastest, both in participants and number of classes offered. We had over 220 people participate in home study groups over a period of six weeks during Lent of 2007. Sunday School attendance is up, new small groups are starting to appear – could this be because people are taking seriously their commitment to have a plan for spiritual growth? I think so. 

In a church that has a long history of a support of missions – including active involvement –  this past year produced more people who went out on short term missions from our congregation than ever in our church’s history. Volunteers have been available for every area of need in this church, and I know, as the chair of our Committee on Lay Leadership, there is an eagerness, a willingness, to serve in this church - which is exciting, fulfilling and a blessing! Could making a commitment to find a place of service have anything to do with that? Perhaps! 

I know that there have been a number of people who in the past year have set up accountability partners to meet with regularly, to encourage one another in their journeys, myself included. And I’m sure that there are many other such relationships that I’m not aware of, and I know that many of these relationships are a direct result of our promises from last Fall. 

And, I hope you know me well enough by now to know that for me, the significance in these ‘numbers’ is not the numbers, but it is what they are pointing to: we are making disciples of Jesus Christ here at First UMC. That God is being honored, that we have been and will continue, to be used for God’s glory out of this little corner of the world. And that the things we do here, because we are Spirit empowered disciples, will extend our blessing outwardly into the world like ripples in a pond. Ripples of blessing. It’s already happening! 

With all this in mind we prayerfully considered how we might encourage the same kind of thinking in you for the coming year, 2008. How could we encourage you to be even more focused on your discipleship as a congregation? And we wondered, what would happened if instead of simply asking whether you will address these areas of focus, what if we helped you be more specific and proactive in these commitments? 

And that’s where the idea of a Personal Covenant was born. Instead of asking, “Will you have a plan for spiritual growth this year?” we’re asking you, “What is your plan for spiritual growth this year?” “What’s your plan for worship?” “Where do you expect to serve God in 2008?” And what about your giving?  “What do you plan to give financially in 2008 for the work of the church?” 

Now, remember this is about discipleship, not money. Giving is part of our discipleship, and we’re convinced that we can trust you, and trust God to provide everything we need financially for this church by keeping our focus on what Christ called us to do: to teach his word and give you an opportunity to respond. That is a lot of trust! We have a budget that is creeping close to $1 million/ year, not counting the mortgage payments. There is a lot pressure, then, to ‘raise funds’. But we’re not doing that. Instead, we’re asking you a much more important question, ‘Do you want to be a disciple?’ Are you serious about that? And we are trusting that you will understand that giving is part of that commitment. 

So let me remind you that these Covenants are ‘personal covenants with God’ which means that we’re not going to read them – you have my word on that. They are between you and God. We’re going to give you an opportunity to make your Covenant in just a few minutes, and we’ll invite you to bring them here to the chancel as an act of consecration and commitment. 

[We’re going to keep these sealed Covenants in a safe place, and later in the year, we’ll mail them back to you, as a reminder of this important day. So we all can, then, measure our progress. This will be something perhaps, to talk about with our accountability partners!] 

The one portion of our covenant that we haven’t talked about yet is the fourth question, which is ‘what do I plan to give in 2008?’  It’s a simple question, but the reality is that our financial giving is probably the single most accurate descriptor of the state of our spiritual maturity that there is. And I am certainly not referring simply to an amount of money, as if the more we give, the more spiritual we are. 

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:11 that we should “Give in proportion to what [we] have.” In today’s Scripture (the next chapter), we read where Paul says ⁷You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” 

The Biblical standard for giving, which was endorsed by Jesus as a minimum, was a tithe. A tithe is 10% of our income. Now, in any day and age, regardless of the state of the economy, or the Dow Jones average, fixed or unfixed incomes, tithing requires a certain level of faith. And so, rarely do new Christians, or immature Christians tithe. It is something we learn as we grow. 

But there is an amazing freedom, there is a higher level of spiritual insight and blessing that only comes when we take certain steps of faith. I believe this is one of them. And we could have people lined up who could share their stories about this – and we still might do that someday. Working towards a tithe – and some have gone beyond this – should be a goal for our growth in Christ. If there is any one thing that will energize you in a surprising way this year, it could be to take up God’s challenge to us in Malachi 3: 10

¹⁰ Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!” 

I don’t know who tithes, or who doesn’t, in this church… I am entitled (and even encouraged by Bishop and our Conference leadership) to know what each of you give; but HeyYoung and I are in complete agreement on this, and we choose not to know, to avoid any impartiality in ministry. So I can tell you now that  I have nothing personally to gain in your stepping up in stewardship except the satisfaction of seeing you and the church as a whole, blessed, as people move out of their comfort zones and take God at his word. 

Jesus talked about matters of wealth, giving, and the like more than twice the number of any other subject, so we know it’s important. So then, any discipleship covenant would be incomplete without asking you, ‘What is your plan for giving in 2008? Is this a tithe? If not, is it a step toward a tithe?’  That’s in there because we want you to be blessed! And we want to encourage you to think about these things. 

Someone a few weeks ago asked me if they needed to be a member of this church to fill out one of these covenants. The answer to that is “No!”  I don’t know how anyone could fulfill a covenant like this without being an active participant in a congregation somewhere, but these Covenants are about your walk with Jesus Christ, which is something bigger, certainly, than just us here in this place. 

So, everyone today, is invited to participate in this.

I think we’re ready… and I’m going to ask our ushers to come forward with the documents, we have extra pens in each pew if you need them as well, spread the wealth. We’re going to take some time for this, first a couple minutes of silence, to prepare, then as you’re writing, Brian and Aileen will bless us with some beautiful music. Then we will join together in singing the Taize choruses that you see in your bulletin. [These are, in a sense, chanted prayers, and the power is in their repetition, so we’ll be singing them a number of times each.] 

As we’re singing we’ll invite you to bring your Covenant forward and leave it either on the altar, or on the communion rail if the steps are difficult for you. We’re also going to invite you, if you wish, to pause here, in prayer… to do any ‘business’ that you might have with God related to these covenants. At the end, we’ll join in our prayer of consecration. 

This is a sacred and holy moment forh our Church. Let’s recognize together that we are in God’s presence.