Dear Friends:

First Church has changed quite a bit since I first arrived here in 2008, but all institutions and people change with time; circumstances, both good and bad affect how we engage the world.  Those changes in turn demand our spiritual work in discerning where God’s Spirit is directing our attention.  When civil unions awakened our culture’s conscience, First Church took up the call and listened for the Spirit’s leading and over a decade ended up voting to be an Open and Affirming Church and allowing GLBTQ marriages in our sanctuary.  For 150 years, First Church has changed to answer God’s call to spread Christ’s love to the wider Essex community. 

The same is true for 2020.  To spread Christ’s love in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the percentage of our budget shifted dramatically from 2019 to 2020.  Mission spending, as a percentage of the total budget, went up from 11% in 2019 to 16 % in 2020 and that does not even include the physical food we distributed to food insecure folks in our community.  We have also taken advantage of no one being in the building during the pandemic for Building and Grounds spending as a percentage of the budget went up from 30 % in 2019 to 37 % in 2020 and that does not even include the money spend on the facility from the capital campaign! 

In addition, overall expenses have been below the budgeted amount and overall income has increased thanks to our members faithful giving throughout the year as well as the US Government’s PPP loan that totaled $ 62,135.  If we continue along these lines, then what started out as a deficit budget in January has turned into a surplus budget in October.  Good news for this year.

But next year is up for grabs.  We do not expect another PPP loan and as our church begins to open up in safe and prescribed ways, normal expenses are projected to return.  So, the key is maintaining or even increasing our income and the largest part of our income stream is our giving from members and friends.  This year, with the PPP loan, our pledges made up 66% of our income but last year without the loan it made up 80%! 

We need your help to keep our church actively spreading Christ’s love and making Essex a better place in which to live.  Look at the trifold and see where we spend our money.  Your giving supports our Worship & Spiritual Care, our Building & Grounds, our Music, our Faith Formation & Youth Groups and our Mission & Outreach.  Look at the bar graph and see where your pledge registers and see if you can nudge it over to the next higher category. If you do not pledge, seriously consider supporting our church financially…. now is the time when the need is so obviously clear.

Next week you will receive our final letter and pledge card and on October 25^th, we will celebrate everyone’s support in worship.  Think and pray about your gift and get ready to send your pledge in with some prayers for the continued well-being of our church. 

May  God’s  Blessings  Be  With  You  All

Rev. Mark & the Stewardship Team

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept, Remembering Zion.

On the poplars of that land we hung up our harps,

There our captors asked of us the lyrics of our songs and urged us to be joyful.

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” they said

How could we sing a song of Zion in a foreign land?

Psalm 137:1-4

Dear Friends:

It feels as if we are living in a foreign land.  Our culture is different since the coronavirus changed almost every aspect of our lives.  The way we interact with people, how we purchase – prepare and eat food, the birth of new political landmines, visiting our parents or our grandchildren, our new economic system and the availability of jobs, our relationship to our government……….all seem so different from a year ago. 

The words of the psalmist missing the familiar worship and songs of Zion ring particularly true these days.  Each Sunday, preaching and praying and listening to music feels lessened than when we met face to face: sharing a handshake or hug or goodies at fellowship hour or sensing the communion of the saints by just sitting in a room with like minded people of faith. 

Our bread and butter of shared life is greatly diminished and yet we are still called to sing our songs of Zion.  Our coronavirus captives are mocking us in their call to continue our song in a foreign land.  Followers of Jesus are still being asked to live out their faith to spread extravagant love to our neighbors.  And so we stream worship, Zoom the business of the church, care for our members with safe distances, e-mails, telephone calls and walks, enjoy fellowship time through the computer, distribute food and sell reasonably priced clothing, sing into microphones and let the leaders splice it together, and have our youth hike and our children experience Godly play in the parking lot.  First Church’s ministry remains strong, but only because of you.  All of you still volunteer your time, treasure, and talents to keep Christ’s song alive during these pandemic days.

The hope that kept the Israelites going is our hope: that one day we will return home where life will be normalized and we can sit in our sacred space and be with our friends, singing songs of praise to our God and living out our faith in familiar surroundings and ways. 

This year’s stewardship theme is “Singing a Song of Zion in a Foreign Land.”  Despite living in the foreign land of Corona, we still need to offer our gifts of time, talent and treasure to keep our church strong.  Keeping the church healthy is more important than ever considering what is going on in our society and we’d ask all of you to think and pray about your pledge for the church this year.  We need your support and appreciate you considering the church important enough to support financially.   Pay attention for more to come.

Blessings for the journey home.

First Church Staff,

On behalf of Church Council