If we imagine the canon of Scripture as a three-dimensional map, there are certain stories from the Bible that stand out in bold relief, like raised mountains towering above the plain. It’s not so much that these key stories are more important than others; it’s rather that they speak across the ages in powerful, timeless ways. Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000 is one such story. It appears in all four Gospels, signaling that there is something vastly important about it. It was in this story that I heard a clear word from the Lord during Morning Prayer this past week.
Scripture is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” as the Book of Hebrews tells us (4:12). When listening to or reading Scripture, God speaks into our lives from out of the text through the power of the Holy Spirit—at least, if we’re open to it. When I heard a word from the Lord on Wednesday of this week, it was during an ordinary service of Morning Prayer that I was leading. It was just me in the church (and anyone tuning in on the livestream). I had been musing that morning about church finances and thinking about our ongoing pledge campaign. And then, some words lit up for me. It was the story of Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000 in Luke’s Gospel (9:1-17).
A huge crowd was following Jesus, and at the end of a long day, the twelve disciples tell Jesus, “Send the crowd away, to go into the villages and country round about, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a lonely place.” And Jesus turns the tables on them. "You give them something to eat,” he says (emphasis added). The disciples don’t think there’s enough to feed the crowd. They want Jesus to do something about it. But Jesus holds them accountable. They may have only five loaves of bread and two fish, but with that, Jesus works a miracle. I don’t buy the reductionist interpretation that Jesus simply inspired everyone’s generosity so that they dug bread and fish out of their pockets, which they’d been hoarding. I believe Jesus worked a miracle. But I also believe that there’s something profound in that miracle beyond simply the multiplication of loaves and fishes. There had been enough all along, even though the disciples doubted. That was the good news that I needed to hear in Morning Prayer. When we think there isn’t enough, God shows us that we already have enough to do what he’s calling us to do because God’s abundance is miraculous. And recognizing that is also its own kind of miracle.
It should come as no surprise that we’re in the midst of our 2025 pledge campaign at Good Shepherd. Every year, this season of stewardship is intended to help us cultivate a spiritual posture to last the entire year—our whole lives, really. The message is this: there’s always enough. God is generous and has been generous with us, and so our only proper response is to be generous in return. There’s a direct correlation between generosity and trust in God’s gracious provision. Those who are grateful to God and believe in God’s goodness tend to be naturally generous with what God has given them. A pledge campaign is asking us to take a chance on generosity in a very practical way: by making a financial commitment to this parish to support its ministry, which is really God’s ministry.
Perhaps I should say a few words about the practice of pledging, as it may be unfamiliar to some of you. If it’s not, it still might be useful to understand why pledging is an essential part of our life in community. Practically speaking, sacrificial giving from all who are active in this parish is necessary to ensure that Good Shepherd can continue to thrive into the future. Other than some financial support from our diocese towards my salary, Good Shepherd is entirely self-sustaining. And each year, we’re weaning ourselves off that diocesan support. Our projected operating budget in 2025 is around $500,000. We may be a small parish (although growing!), but to maintain our substantial buildings and property, ensure that our staff are compensated fairly, and support expanding ministry, our budget can’t remain small. We rely rather heavily on rental income to support our budget, but beyond that, pledging is the primary way in which we can sustain ministry at Good Shepherd. It’s the healthiest way of supporting ministry here.
Our investments are quite limiated, to date around $450,000. But currently, we have to draw too heavily from these investments to support our budget, which is not sustainable. We are passing a deficit budget each year. The vestry and I are fully aware of this, and so, to address this issue in a responsible fashion, our five-year financial plan is intended to get us to a balanced budget by 2028. In 2020, total giving (pledge and other giving) in the parish was $52,000. In 2024, over $185,000 was pledged ($15,000 more than the 2024 goal)! You can see that we’re headed in the right direction! Our vestry has rightly understood that we need to give ourselves time to increase our own parish giving to support our budget and refrain from drawing from the capital of our investments. And at the same time, each year we must revisit our five-year plan and adjust it to account for expanded ministry, a sign that this parish is growing and not declining. A static budget would mean that we’re not growing.
Reaching our goal in 2028 of a fully balanced budget is ambitious but realizable. When I heard God giving me a word in Scripture at Morning Prayer the other day, I was gently reminded that everything we need is right before our eyes. I’m convinced that we have more than enough to reach this year’s pledge goal of $225,000. If we truly believe we’re responding to God’s call faithfully in envisioning ministry, then we must also trust that we have what we need to support it financially. Jesus is saying to us, you give them something to eat. Jesus is inviting us into ministry. Yes, we must get our hands dirty and live out the vision to which we’re called. But we must also support this ministry through our own sacrificial giving. Giving goes along with doing. They work together.
God is asking us to give to further the work of his kingdom not out of fear, but out of trust. Throughout this pledge campaign, I’ve been inviting each of you to join me in giving sacrificially as a spiritual practice of rejecting the ubiquitous narrative of fear. This might mean working towards a tithe on net income or increasing your pledge from last year. Consider prioritizing your giving to God first, and then balance everything else out.
The leadership of this parish has been recklessly generous in its own stewardship of finances over the past several years. When other parishes might have been tempted to slash budgets out of fear, Good Shepherd’s leadership has elected to trust that while we need to draw more from our investments in the short-term to be a vibrant parish, we can have confidence in God’s gracious provision. By asking you to be generous in your pledging this year, we’re asking you to echo what this parish’s leadership has already been doing. And of course, it’s what God always does for us.
Before you make your pledge, pray. Ask for God’s wisdom. A pledge can be any amount of money, $50 or $5,000 or more, so I believe that everyone can pledge. Pledging is about our life in community because we’re all in this ministry endeavor together. We need each other. Our gifts of money and time to this parish are tangible expressions of our commitment to this parish.
You give them something to eat. I believe that Christ is calling us to feed the world (not simply rely on renters or other unexpected financial gifts to enable the feeding to happen). We who are part of this community called the Church of the Good Shepherd are called to feed the world. And I believe, too, that we have what we need to feed the world. We’re already feeding others. But to ensure that Good Shepherd can feed more and more people with the good news of the Gospel, your and my financial support is crucial.
It’s not too early to pledge. In fact, I encourage you to pledge now online if you haven’t already done so. If you have, thank you! You don’t have to wait until Commitment Sunday (November 10). But on Commitment Sunday, bring your completed pledge card to Mass (even if you’ve pledged online) as a visible sign of your commitment to ministry in this parish. Why pledge? One final word: it’s the most reliable and sustainable means of giving to Good Shepherd. We welcome and are grateful for your special gifts, but I ask you, regardless, to make a pledge. It’s a way of trusting this parish’s responsible leadership to decide how your generous gifts will be a part of Good Shepherd’s thriving in the future.
How does the Gospel story end? “All ate and were satisfied. And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets of broken pieces.” There was enough. There was more than enough. That’s always the way it is with God.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle