Stories from our congregation about what Sharing Our Blessings means.

 

I’m Phil Gayhart. My wife Emily and I have been members of Christ Church for more than 30 years. I grew up in a small Christian church where my parents were charter members. When we joined Christ Church, I remember thinking that it would be nice to be in a bigger church because nobody really had to know who you were.

But it is really amazing the connections we have made at Christ Church. People kept crossing our path and leading us in new directions. We ran across Mike and Cynthia Simpson one night at a restaurant and they invited us to try their Sunday School class. When we gave it a try, another couple—Mike and Debbie King—befriended us and pulled us in.

 

Then one day I got a notice to come to a meeting of the Nominating Committee. Someone had put my name up—I still don’t know who—for service on that committee. I thought they had the wrong guy. But the Nominating Committee showed me some things about the people of this church. You start to see all the things that get done in the church by people giving freely and joyfully of their time and their talents and their money. So much of it doesn’t even get noticed, but it gets done. Those people are examples of what you are supposed to be doing, and they served as a challenge to me to do a little more.

At that time, I was kind of the young pup in the pack, but people were giving me opportunities and challenges to do more. So I served on the Board of Trustees and on the building committees, and I have just tried to help out where I could. Now I am no longer the young pup, and so I want to try to offer those same challenges and opportunities that were given to me to younger members of the congregation.

There’s a real direct relationship between our level of involvement in the church and our financial giving. Your involvement increases your awareness of what is being done by the church and what the church’s needs are. The church would not miss it if I stopped giving, but it feels like you have to complete the circle by giving of your time, your talents and your treasure.

About twenty years ago, Emily told me she thought we needed to start tithing. I resisted. But her Bible study and her reading told her we were moving in the wrong direction. The church needed to be the first check we wrote every month, not the last one. It was a struggle at first, but it has worked out in ways beyond my imagination. Once you make that commitment, you just kind of let go and let God provide. We never suffered and, looking back on it now, the sacrifices we had to make were really not that much.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that I can always do more and I can always give more. There are people in this church who do so much more; they are an inspiration and an example. I used to walk the building in the mornings with Bob Moore, a long-time member of the church, identifying maintenance issues and building items that needed to be addressed. Bob—who I know gave very generously of his time, his talent, and his money—would stoop down and pick up the cigarette butts lying on the ground. It was humbling to see him, when he already did so much, doing just a little bit more to make the church as good a place as it could be. That’s the challenge going forward. What am I going to do now?
When I look back on our years at Christ Church and ask how all those dots got connected, how all those people came into our lives at the right time, I know there’s only one answer. And it’s not about me, and it’s not about Emily. God has blessed us in so many ways; we need to find ways to share those blessings.

 

Hello, I’m Lynn Ashkettle.

Our daughter was born with a heart defect that required immediate surgery. I remember wondering how we were going to pay for all of it and the doctor said, “Don’t worry about it. We are going to do all we can to save her life.”  Witnessing their willingness to give of themselves, and seeing our daughter fight to survive, and knowing it was all ultimately in God’s hands--it changes your perspective. That was really a ratchet point in our lives and in our faith.

And now she is a happy first grader, active without restrictions...except for running a marathon. She really is our miracle baby.

The staff and members of this church really helped us make it through that very difficult time. They stood behind us and were always visiting us at the hospital, praying with us and for us. The friends we have made at Christ Church are an invaluable blessing to us...priceless.

That was a big step in our faith journey, but then about a year later, several other events–less dramatic, but all significant–converged in a kind of awakening for us. We had to reboot our Sunday School, our good friends Keith and Susan Spayd were heading up the stewardship campaign, and we were reading a study on giving by Andy Stanley. I also remember Kevin Parker asking the congregation, “What if we really did as we believe?”during a Moment of Ministry.
I remember one of George’s sermons that really drove home the importance of our giving and serving.   He asked us how we would answer the question God will ask us when we get to heaven, “What did you do with what I gave you?” The convergence of all those things was powerful. It made us stop and ask ourselves, “How are we going to answer that question?”

So we went from hit-and-miss givers of whatever I had in my wallet to committing 10% of our income to the church. I knew it was the right thing to do, so we just had to go ahead and do it... like a commandment and a leap of faith.  We also deepened our involvement with the church through serving as leaders in our Sunday School, Children’s Ministry, Middle School Ministry, Bible Study, and a host of committees.

Lynn is the more certain one of the two of us regarding our giving each month.  Sometimes I have to stop and ask whether we can afford to do this because in the homebuilding business we don’t have steady income each month.  But we talk about it and pray about it.   Lynn has always been the voice of certainty, “Ricki, I am sure this is what God wants us to do.”  I am so glad the church has automatic withdrawal from our bank account because it imposes discipline on us. We know that our tithe is the first line in the family budget .  God gives so abundantly and only asks for us to share a small fraction of those financial blessings with our church.  I admit, sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it even hurts a little, but knowing we are doing His will and pleasing Him, that’s what counts and ultimately makes us feel good about giving.

 

My name is Denny Howell, and my wife Laurie and I have been members of Christ Church since 1975. We had been very active in our previous church, but after moving to a new house in 1973, we wanted to find a church a little closer to home. We had some friends at Christ Church, and so we started attending here, and pretty soon we were hooked.

During those initial years, we were regular attenders on Sundays, we had a regular Sunday School class, and we participated in small groups. But I was not as involved with Christ Church as I had been in our previous church.

That changed in 1994, during the building campaign that year. The pastor at the time, Billy Ray Jennings, asked me to get involved with the project, and so I got to work with Rick Guilliaume and Bob Moore and the others who were part of that team. They put me in charge of the communications group, so we had to produce the pamphlets and the educational materials to get the word out.

What appealed to me initially about that campaign was the way that it utilized my time and talents. I am a general contractor, so participating in a building campaign was kind of a natural fit for me. It was something with which I was very comfortable.

But after working with the people on that campaign, I really came to appreciate the spirit of Christ Church. That led to steadily increasing involvement in the life of the church. I’ve served on the Board of Trustees and been on several committees. I’m still helping out with maintenance and upkeep around the church. And when the most recent building campaign to build the new sanctuary got under way, I served as the chair.

That increase in my service commitment had led to an increase in the strength of my faith. The more involved you get, the more you see your faith grow. I’ve always felt myself to be a strong Christian, but I think I’ve really grown since joining Christ Church.

Our financial giving grew along with our service to the church. Service, faith, and financial giving all fed and sustained each other. It is truly a joy to us to give financially to the church.

It is a process that involves lots of discussion between the two of us. We talk about each opportunity we have to give and we decide what we want to do. If it’s a building campaign, that requires a sacrificial gift. We are not always on the same page at first, but we can generally harmonize our thoughts if we discuss it. We don’t apply any kind of strict mathematical formula or percentage to our giving. Some years we are way above a tithe; other years we may not be. We also give financial support to several other institutions, including the Salvation Army, the Portland Center, and Wesley Manor–and our financial giving overall has gotten much stronger since we joined the church.

We understand that we need to give. The Lord has blessed us in many ways and we need to cheerfully give back.

And I’m Robert Moore, Leigh’s husband. I grew up at Christ Church and Leigh and I joined as a couple 14 years ago.

Since 2005, we have been on a journey toward a lifestyle that we did not even know we were seeking. During the church’s capital campaign that year, Dr. Strunk’s teachings on stewardship set us free to seek that new life.

Prior to that, our lives were on a typically self-serving trajectory. Three of our four parents had died, and we found ourselves in control of more assets than we really needed. We succumbed to the idea that this relative wealth was “ours.”

We were living according to our plan, but in the end we found it very hollow, a house of cards.

By indulging in a bit of wishful thinking I had convinced myself that my ambitions were aligned with God’s. I had never considered that the hand of God was upon us in giving us those resources. But in 2005, George’s sermons on stewardship, some seminars offered by a stewardship group called Generous Giving, and our daughter falling ill–all that turned the capital campaign into an opportunity for us to decide whether we wanted to live as God intended.

I think the missionary Jim Elliot said it best in the years before he was martyred, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Giving isn’t meaningful until it makes you vulnerable. Vulnerability is not easy, especially for a husband. Vulnerability leads you to discussions about “Why am I scared?” and you realize that what you thought was making you secure is not making you secure anymore.

We have learned that asking God to control our finances doesn’t magically deliver us from all of our money messes. I think I had a “Kum-Ba-Ya” vision that Robert and I would sell our former house and be delivered from any worries afterward.  But the reality is that the economy stinks and we’re still greedy.

We ask God to help us deal with sticky questions. Does a good steward sell an asset for less than its value?    Should those who are suffering have to wait out a bad economy? How much should our children feel the sacrifices we as a couple choose to make?   God uses such questions right now to strengthen our marriage as we set goals for the next few years.

We believe God wants us to give 10% to the church in addition to the other gifts we make, but we are not there yet. We may give 10% if you count all the places that we give as a whole, but we are still working toward giving 10% to the church. 

And we still have so much. Even when we feel like we are struggling to find the way God has laid for us, we look at the love He lavishes on us and it forces us to ask, “How does He want us to respond?”

My name is Linda Underwood. I have been a member of Christ Church since 2004. I am active in a handbell choir, the Tea Ministry, small group study, and I have taken several mission trips. I also tithe. I give 10% and more of my income to Christ Church.

I have always been a tithing member of my church. It was one of the things my husband and I agreed on right from the start of our marriage. It is what my parents always did, and I brought up my children to tithe. I have even now planted the seed among my grandchildren. I hope to see my family have four generations of tithing Christians.
   
It was not always easy. In 2003, when I first started attending Christ Church, my marriage had begun to dissolve, and I was on my own financially. I had a mortgage, a car payment, utility bills–I had to watch every cotton-pickin’ penny! But I remember a sermon illustration about a young single mom working a minimum-wage job who was looking for a way to give to her church. And she thought, “I can give up buying lunch every day, and I can give up buying cosmetics, and I can give that to the church. “ And I was thinking, I don’t have to give up makeup, and I can make my mortgage payment. If I can do that, I can tithe.

For many years, however, I tithed almost automatically and, to be honest, a little grudgingly. It was really through the small-group experience at Christ Church, really digging into scripture in Bible study and in the Disciple Bible Study Class and developing a personal relationship with God that made me realize tithing is not a burden. Like it says in the old hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness: “All that I’ve needed Thy hand hath provided.” So now I give out of gratitude and thankfulness and to praise God.

For me, sharing my blessings means tithing and extra-mile giving. And you know, it’s fun--especially the extra-mile giving. My favorite Sunday of the year is Commitment Sunday. I love to place my commitment card on the altar. I haven’t yet skipped down the aisle, but I’ve felt like it.

My name is Barbara Gibbs, and I want to tell you about a quiet little girl in my Vacation Bible School class. Lindsay followed our rules, raised her hand to answer questions politely, and volunteered to pray before our snacks. On the first day of VBS, a little boy came into our classroom of nearly 20 kindergarteners who did not know any of his classmates. While everyone else colored pictures or played with Legos, this little boy sat by himself and cried, saying he wanted to go home. My fellow teacher, both of our youth helpers and I all tried to engage him, invited him over to play with the other children, offered to do whatever he wanted to make him feel comfortable on his first day, but he didn’t want to do anything. Lindsay was the first child to reach out to him. She asked if he wanted to sit by her as we taught the Bible story of the day. He said no, but she was not deterred. She continued to quietly give of herself throughout the remainder of the week.

At the end of one particularly busy day, we were playing a memory game. All the children sat around us as we placed a plastic orange under one cup, accompanied by two empty cups, and moved them around, having the children focus on the cups and tell us which one they believed the orange was under. Another little boy in our class cried every time because he had difficulty remembering which cup hid the orange. The other kids asked why he was “acting like a baby,” but Lindsay leaned over to him, telling him they could watch the cup together. When we had the children guess, Lindsay told the little boy which cup she believed and celebrated with him when they were both right. She reached out to this boy when no one else would.

At that moment, I saw an angel in this little girl. Instead of thinking about how befriending both of these little boys would make her look, she thought about them, trying to invite them into her church family and make them feel welcome in God’s house.

Throughout the entire week, Lindsay lived out the idea of “sharing our blessings.” She was ready for God, she believed fully in Jesus, she remembered Jesus often, and she celebrated God, but mostly, she gave happily to God. When we asked the children what they could give to God, Lindsay said, “I can share my toys with people who don’t have any and bring in food for kids who are hungry and be nice to everyone all the time.” I have never seen a more giving child, we were so blessed to have her in our class, and I feel so lucky to have come across this littlest disciple within our church.