Mike's musings

Stewardship

I have to write a sermon for Sunday. It's on the issue of stewardship, as I mentioned a couple of days ago. This is a very difficult sermon for me to write: very difficult indeed. We, as a parish, are short of our parish share - what the Diocese of Chelmsford expects us to provide - by quite a lot of money. Not so much that we can't do it - in fact, it's a fairly small amount per family per week - but it's not a subject that resonates, and it's not a subject about which I have a strong moral or emotional feeling. It's not that I don't believe that giving is important - on the contrary, I do. But I don't have a strong attachment to tithing or any particular framework for giving that I can point to theologically. I tend to preach from the heart, and if I don't have a strong feeling about something, I struggle with preaching about it.

Oddly enough, watching The West Wing helps. The quality of the writing is astonishing, and there are lots of speeches. These are guys who really know how to write, and how to write about difficult issues in ways which allow the speaker to maintain his (or sometimes her) integrity. But to speak with inspiration, and emotion. And belief. I really enjoy preaching, and I always try to speak with integrity and with emotion, and rhetoric - often a maligned art - can help with that.

So, I hope that I can come up with something for Sunday. There'll be something, but what will it be, and how well will it glorify God? That's the gold standard.

Labels: sermon