Thief - God Strikes Spotsylvania Church!

A year ago we began a year of discernment. The financial distress of a mortgage too big for us to carry became a sharp call for us to listen to God and His plans for our ministry. A year later we can now see the fruit of the discernment process: we have heard a renewed call to move forward with our ministry to youth and families. The capital campaign that you’ll be hearing more about has been designed to help us implement that next step. It’s a step that will preserve and build upon ASH as a tool for ministry and make use of it in new, more active ways. And in enacting God’s will, it’s very likely that the parish will grow in the process. As we go about God’s work, God takes care of us.

Speaking of God taking care of us, God has, with each passing day of 2008, prepared the parish to take that next step in ministry. The preparation is very, very visible in the parish’s improved financial position. As I write this, there are two weeks left to go in 2008 and something untoward could happen. Nevertheless, let me stick my neck out and share two predictions of how our parish finances will end the year:

Instead of an $80,000 deficit we will finish this year with a significant surplus.
The 1/1/2009 parish balance sheet will show a large reversal in the steady year-by-year declines in the parish’s net worth that we have seen since 1/1/2006.

These reversals are just amazing. They result from many factors: the inspirational giving of money to the operating budget and to the building fund; the inspirational giving of time, talent and physical assets to raising funds like never before; the sudden opportunity to negotiate the sale of land and easements; the impending reduction in our mortgage payments due to an unprecedented decline in interest rates; the receipt of a diocesan grant of $12,500 to help us reduce our energy costs and another for $2,500 to defray the cost of thrift shop start-up; and last, but not least, smart financial decisions made this year by the Vestry with the assistance of the Finance Commission.

In short, God operated both within and without the parish to open the financial doors through which we walked this year. But then isn’t that just like our God? The One who comes as a thief at an unexpected hour. Not an ordinary thief, however, but One who specializes in breaking into prisons. One who loves stealing the locks off doors, the manacles from every wrist, and all manner of chains and bars. Witness his work: when He’s finished, all that’s left is you, me, a door swinging open in the wind and beyond it the road ahead.

Ray Crafton
Senior Warden