Turn Up The Flame – Bulletin 1

Our New “Capital Campaign”

 

This is a monumental moment in the life of our parish:  the kick-off for our new “capital campaign,” a campaign like we have never seen or experienced before.  Hopefully it will be the biggest and best capital campaign in the history of the Church of St. Stephen.

 

This is not your usual capital campaign.  It is not a fund drive, it is a spiritual drive. The goal is not to build a building, but to build our spiritual lives.  The church building is in tip-top shape.  Now it is time to give our full and undivided attention to what his happening with the people inside the church, and inside their hearts, to build and intensify our relationship with God.  We may be out of debt financially, but we are never out of debt to God. We need to pay God what God is due.

 

My primary vocation as your pastor is not fund raising, it is faith raising.  It is ironic, indeed, how much time and energy can be spent getting people to pledge money, while not nearly as much energy is given to increasing the spiritual life.  This is a wonderful opportunity to balance our priorities, to make an intentional choice to give our relationship with God the top priority that it rightfully deserves.

 

This spiritual renewal will be modeled after a capital campaign.  It will last for three years.  There will be mailings, pledges, and commitments.  But it will have many unique features too.

 

Our goal is to Turn Up the Flame, which is inspired by the Parable of the Ten Maidens (Mt 25:1-13).  When the Master arrived at midnight, the maidens got up and trimmed their lamps (Mt 25:7).  Each oil lamp has a wick, a white thread that absorbs fuel, and when lit, it burns and gives off light.  Over time the wick accumulates char or soot, a dirty substance at the end of the wick that makes the lamp give off less light. So a knife or a scissors was used to trim away the soot so that when the lamps were lit, they would give off brighter light.

 

The lamps are similar to our spiritual lives. The wick is a symbol for each of us. We are clean at the beginning, but over time, because of our sins, our edges get covered with soot and our light gets progressively dimmer.  Now is the time to trim away our sin, Turn Up the Flame, let our light shine more brightly, and give our spiritual lives the precedence that they deserve.