Sermon: Joyful Community

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Joyful Community - Sharing Gifts

By Charles Rush

May 6, 2001

st Sunday afternoon, I sat in Lile Hall and listened to a concert by Della Davies on violin, Katrina Loh on Piano, supported wonderfully by my colleague Wayne Bradford. Both of these girls are 15, not so long ago, I had them in Confirmation. Katrina played Chopin's Nocturne so wonderfully soft and rich with resonance. Della played a wonderful piece with Wayne, the first two movements of Dvorak's Violin Concerto without any sheet music at all. Her work is simply beautiful to behold. My daughter turned to me when she is done and said “Dad, that was 22 minutes long.” I can't remember my own phone number.

There is something deeply gratifying about seeing young women that you knew when they were kids blooming before your eyes in artistic excellence. All of that potential on its way to becoming actualized.

I'm sitting there, remembering that a couple years ago, we fixed the leak in the roof in Lile Hall, stripped the paint off the wood, replaced the ceiling and put new lights in, sanded the floors, got new carpets, and rebuilt the piano. It was a lot of money and a lot of work. And this is why we did it, so our young people could give concerts the whole town can enjoy.

I think it is important. I have long suspected that when we get to the great judgment day in the after life, the Almighty will separate the Clergy into a special room. Then, the Almighty will separate us again, with a special little room for those of us who lived our whole lives in peace and prosperity, all the social conditions for realizing our higher values that others could only dream about. The Almighty will say, I have just one question to ask you before you enter the pearly gates. All of my colleagues are hoping it will be something like, “how many people did you disciple?” or “how much money did you raise?” And the Almighty will say instead, “how many artists did your ministry nurture to excellence?”

I have a dream that one day I will be in Moscow at the Bolshoi for an opening program of music by a budding violinist or a budding pianist. The program is a stunning success, everybody is talking about it. After it is over, I will go to the reception and greet this great new musician and they will say to me, “Do you remember the first time I played at Christ Church?” It's a great dream.

On our best days, we create the space around here for our children to actualize their potential and to actualize the higher reasons for which we live: truth, goodness, and beauty.

I find it gratifying in a very grounding kind of way when our young people want to get involved directly in missions. This summer we will be sending another delegation of High School kids with a good number of interested adults. They will raise their own money and go to Nicaragua for 10 days to learn about projects that we have worked with for several years and continue to work on them this year. They come back from that experience with a visceral understanding of the ignominy of poverty and an excitement about how much could happen with just a little effort and vision.

I think of the number of kids from our congregation that have spent some time in service either while they were in college or after they graduated. Vicki Obst working in a women's clinic in the Caribbean. Blair Sachs working at a woman's clinic in Tanzania that provided pre-natal care and birthing facilities. Jim Marsh, Jr. doing a Habitat project in Mexico. Karin Keane working in special education here in New Jersey. Lindsay Clark working at a Teach America program in Newark. Kristen Salisbury who spent a year writing grant proposals for a non-profit service organization (which comes as little surprise, of course, because Kristen is a Wake Forest graduate). And there are many, many more who invest themselves in some form of service for a year. I am confident that all of them are going to be the kinds of people that serve their communities in just a few short years, likely providing a broader, more mature vision of community involvement than their neighbors would have imagined.

I was on the phone earlier this year talking to one of our mothers whose daughter is in college. The daughter wanted to drop out for a year and go to work in some place far away, someplace fairly dangerous, with very little money or support. The mother was fretting, as mothers will do. She was asking me plaintively why her daughter wants to do this. I said, “well you took her with you on the Bridges Run; you took her with you to volunteer for our homeless guests; you helped her raise money to go to Central America. Sounds like to me that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

I find those conversations deeply, wonderfully humorous. I believe in what we are trying to birth and nurture in this community. I believe in all of you.

In all humility, I want to say thank you for a job well done raising money for this capital campaign. I think a lot of you gave hard earned money because you believe in this community too. You believe in what we are trying to birth and nurture around here.

The bottom line is that, in the fund raising department, we're doing not a good job… we are doing a really great job. I am appreciative of being associated with you. I've said already how some of our leadership givers impressed me and really taught me a couple things.

But I felt from the beginning that the really important part of the campaign would be in the general campaign, the story would reside with ordinary people, who have ample but limited resources, sitting down at the kitchen table, talking with spouses about what they could do.

And that part of the story was profound. Overall, we had over 93% of the people we asked to participate. The number is really higher than that. The 7% that said no fell into two camps: 1) people that used to belong to the church a while ago that no longer have an organic connection to the Church but we asked them anyway because you just don't know 2) people that were going through job change, divorce, or sale of business that are going to give but are not in a position to commit to a number right now. At any rate, the fund raising people say that 60% participation is very strong. 70% is exceptional. Christ Church they would like to add to their lore as example of what is possible. 93+%. That is great.

And generous, which I take to mean that we committed ourselves to our Church, or we renewed our commitment to our Church. If you take out the 12 leadership gifts- 12 very large gifts that we solicited to get this Campaign started. In other words, if you look at the next 110 families- our average pledge was around $12,700. That is a lot of money and I take it to mean a lot of commitment.

What I saw out of this phase was people really stretching to give as much as they thought they could afford. Whenever you go into a campaign like this you hope for, you live for the unexpected surprises. Like people on limited budgets that give an extraordinary gift whatever that number might be, relative to their assets. I hoped for 3 or 4 surprises like that. The final number was closer to 20. In the end, the point is not how much you give, it is about generosity. What impressed me was the spirit in which people really tried to do the best that they could at every level.

At the beginning of this campaign a number of people in the congregation dropped off articles on how people under 45 are cheap when it comes to philanthropy. I too was holding my breath. Compared to the skinflints that are talked about in these articles, you guys did great. The young families with lots of projected costs and tempted by lots of other toys to buy for themselves, really came through.

All in all, we needed to raise about 3.5 million. Right now, we are nearly at 3.3 million. 2 years ago, when we started a feasibility study on this, the experts told us that we could only raise about 2.5 million. So there.

We're not done, as you know. But we are going to stop talking about it every week in the campaign. Our fundraiser has packed his bags. From a note he left me, we have about 25 families that we have contacted but they have not sent a pledge card in. Send it in. And there are still about 12-15 families that we have to contact. We will shortly. And there are a bunch of folks we haven't heard from that we recently mailed who used to go to Christ Church but have moved away.

And I can fairly well guarantee that our desires will outrun our budget and when we get closer to finished we will come back for something else. But for now, we will take a break. You are to be commended. One of my colleagues called me the other day and asked how I felt about the whole process. I said, “it's funny but right now… for me… I'm sure these are the good old days. I might serve other churches before I retire but never a better church. I am enormously grateful to lead this community. Thank you.

Let's put up something beautiful, something enduring, a space that will grow our children up with relevant spirituality.

In the movie Mr. Holland's Opus, Mr. Holland was the band teacher at the local High School. He thought he would only teach Band for a year or two and move on to become a great Director/Composer. But he found himself slowly getting more and more involved with teaching his students music. Next thing you know, he is almost ready to retire. He never does finish that composition that he started working on in his 20's but he has a bunch of it together by the time he is near retirement. The School Board decides to cut the music budget- mean, nasty people on the School Board. Wayne, Jayne Graepel and Jenny Jordan would never let the school board cut the music budget. Mr. Holland has to retire early.

In the early part of his career, Mr. Holland had one young woman who wanted to play the clarinet, but she was lousy. Mr. Holland hoped that she would quit the band because she made everyone else play off key. One day, he asks her to stay after school and explains to her that the clarinet may not be her instrument. She wells up with tears because her older brother is so much smarter and her sister is so much prettier and she has nothing in her life but music and she is horrible at that too.

“Okay, Okay”, says Mr. Holland. “Look, let's practice. If you can come half an hour before school, I'll work with you.” She beams. They practice and practice. She is never great but she has something else money can't buy- good self-esteem.

His last day of school, all his former students surprise him. They all gather again in the auditorium and ask him to direct his Opus. They have all been practicing it together. Indeed, the red headed girl that he taught actually comes up to the podium to invite Mr. Holland to the stage. She comes up with state troopers on her left and on her right. She is now the Governor of the State.

Who knows who we will nurture through our new building? I can guarantee that they are all talented, accomplished, beautiful people. And at Christ Church, we have already proved that it just might be possible that they could be the Governor one day too.

Amen.