One of the ways we can show our faithfulness, love and thanks to God is by giving our time, talents and money to support his Church.

TIME AND TALENTS

There are very many things that need to be done in a church and plenty of volunteers are needed, for example, servers, people who get the church ready for services and wash the altar linen, sidesmen and women who welcome people to services and give out hymn and service books, people who sing in the choir or lead the prayers or read the readings, people who clean the church and polish the brass and silver, flower arrangers, people who keep the churchyard tidy, bell ringers, people who deliver things in the parish, such as church Christmas cards and Christian Aid envelopes!  Then there are more official jobs, such as churchwardens and the church treasurer.  We can support the Church by volunteering to give some time and use our talents for some church work, and there are many things that children can do to help.

Whatever jobs we volunteer to do and however much we enjoy doing them, we should always remember that we are doing them for God, as acts of love and thanksgiving.  So we should be reliable and do everything as well as we possibly can.

MONEY

Every Sunday at the Eucharist the collecting bag comes round and you put in it the money you have brought with you.  But on one Sunday in the year you bring to church something else besides money.  That Sunday is Harvest Thanksgiving, when people bring gifts with them.  Years ago, in country churches, they used to bring fruit and flowers and vegetables that they had grown in their gardens or allotments.  These were then taken away after the service and given to people who were ill at home.  Nowadays, people may bring all kinds of gifts – like tinned food, cereals, tea and coffee – which are given to charities supporting people who are in need, such as homeless people.

In the Early Church

In the early days of the Church in the Roman Empire, the Christians used to bring with them to the Eucharist, not only the bread and wine for the service, but also other offerings such as olive oil, cheese, vegetables, fruit, flowers and so on. These were placed by each member of the congregation near the altar and were blessed during the service.  Afterwards they were given to those Christians who were sick or poor.  The Christians also gave money for those in distress.  So a writer, called Tertullian, writing in the second century A.D., said how this money was used to “support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck…”  The money was also used for any who, for the sake of the Faith, were in the mines or in exile or in prison and so needed to be cared for by the Church” (1)

During the first 200 years of the Church, the Eucharist used to be held in private houses, or in the catacombs – the underground burial tunnels.  This was in the time of the persecutions when they met in secret at the risk of their lives.  Even so, they did their best to make their worship as worthy of God as possible, and they were very generous either in giving ornaments or in giving money with which ornaments could be bought.  For example, we happen to have a list of the ornaments used by the Christians in 303 A.D. in a small town in North Africa where they still met for the Eucharist in a private house: two golden chalices, six silver chalices, six silver dishes, one silver bowel, seven silver lamps, two torches, seven short bronze candlesticks with their lamps and 11 bronze lamps with chains. (2)

When the persecutions were over, proper churches were built everywhere, and these were furnished and decorated in the most splendid and colourful way as a kind of thank-offering to God for having brought the Church safely through.  Only the best was good enough for God.

The parish churches

So too in this country, the parish churches were built and furnished in past years either by a rich landowner or from the gifts of the people themselves.  The churches of this land, too, had beautiful ornaments in honour of God until the 16th century when, in the reign of Edward VI, greedy noblemen looted them and stole all their lovely treasures.

Besides building churches, the Church people also provided for their parish priest to be paid.  Often a landowner would give some land for this purpose which the priest would either farm himself, or let it and receive rent for it.

You can see how lucky most parishes are today to have their church already built for them, and some also have land or money given by past parishioners to help support the church.  Some people think the clergy of the Church of England are paid by the State out of taxes.  This is untrue.  The only clergy who are paid by the State are Hospital and Prison Chaplains and Chaplains to the Forces.

Church expenses

There is a big difference between money contributed to Church expenses and gifts of money to the Church or to those in need.  We will think about Church expenses first.  It costs a lot of money to keep the parish church going.  There are all kinds of things to be paid for: lighting, heating, fire insurance, repairs, salaries and wages, organ tuning, bread and wine for the altar, candles, and so on.  And besides the parish expenses, there are also the expenses of the diocese which we also have to contribute to.  When members of the Church help to pay for such things, they are not giving anything to the Church.  They are merely paying for the things which they get from the Church, and then only for some of the things.  For no one could ever pay for the best gifts which the Church offers us – Holy Baptism, Confirmation, Forgiveness, the Blessed Sacrament, and the teaching of the Faith.  These things are priceless.

So money contributed to Church expenses is like the money contributed by members of a family to their housekeeping expenses.  And, of course, if the members of the Church do not support her, no one else will.

Gifts

Besides contributing to the expenses of our own parish and diocese, we should also give our money to help the mission of the Church in this country and overseas, so that many more people are drawn to love and serve God. 

We should also give to those who are less fortunate than ourselves.  One way of doing this is to have the Christingle Service before Christmas and give the collection to the Children’s Society.

And then there are the gifts we make to our own parish church so that it may be as beautiful as possible and more worthy of God whose House it is.

So we should be generous in supporting the Church with our money.  We should give a fixed amount each week, and from time to time see if we cannot give more.  And remember what St Paul tells us, “…God loves a cheerful giver” (NRSV, 2 Corinthians 9:7), for as Jesus has said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (NRSV, Acts 20:35).

SUMMARY

1. As members of the Church we show our faithfulness, love and thanks to God by giving our time and talents to the Church.  We should also help pay for the expenses of the Church, remembering that God gives us much more than we can ever pay for.

2. We should also be generous in supporting the missionary work of the Church, in giving to deserving causes and to the beautifying of our own parish church.

3. God loves a cheerful giver.

References

1. Tertullian (died c 222 AD) The Apology, chapter xxxix.  Available from: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian01.html  (Accessed 21 August 2010) (Internet).

2. Dix, G. (1945) The shape of the liturgy, Westminster: Dacre Press.