St. Andrew’s Church, Kyrenia, September 2017 Magazine

The September issue of St Andrew’s monthly magazine is available here for your viewing and we bring you below a message from the Reverend, Wendy Hough.

News from The Hermitage

Dear Friends

We are now looking forward to celebrating the harvest, when we give thanks to God for all he has given us, and share what we have with others. We should always do this, but this time of the year it has a special emphasis. The church council always have to consider the cost of much in church life, but we are currently considering how we re think our attitudes to giving. This is a good time to do it, and this year our harvest festival will also be our “Pledge Sunday,” when we consider how we give to God in order for him to develop his ministry here. What is he asking of us? becoming flesh, God himself in a tiny vulnerable way, part of his own creation, makes clear.

We can all fall into the trap of separating church finances in particular from spiritual thinking as if they were in a sealed unit. A secular, fundraising view is built on the idea that people really do not want to give, but they will if they feel they might get something, as in a raffle prize, or a church fayre. When we do this, we do not feel any real cost of giving, or contributing. By doing so, we often avoid giving of ourselves.

It can seem almost offensive to mention the character and nature of God in the same paragraph as fundraising but we need to do it to see the contrast between our idea of giving and God’s self giving and sacrificial love. As we re-think our attitudes to giving, we need to be absorbed by generosity. The way we give or the “holy” as we might say, needs to be a response to God’s generosity, and relational dimensions of life, as modelled on, or a reflection of, his generosity to us. This is summed up in the prayer we use at the beginning of each Eucharist, we are, after all, only giving back to God what is his in the first place, what he has given us.

This Harvest, if we want to see healthy church finances, we begin with a healthy relationship with God and encourage others to do the same, the answer is to draw closer to God and realise just how much He has given for us and we, out of deep thankfulness, want to give back in turn. May we reflect the generosity of God in our own personal lives and in our church that through that, others also might see and be drawn in to share in that self giving love.

Every blessing,

Wendy

To see the The St Andrew’s Team and the rest of the news please review the attached magazine Click here