Dear Friends,
I have been put on a diet. It’s true! This is difficult to admit for a verbal guy. I have to limit
my words in this edition to fit space that’s available. This will be a challenge so here goes.
I’ve been reading far and wide about sustainability and viability for the congregation. I
found we have to look at our assets differently. Articles of insight include, “A North Carolina
nonprofit helps churches convert property from liabilities into assets”, by Yonat Shimron. It
suggests leaders of a community development corporation believe that even struggling
congregations can survive and thrive if members take stock of their assets and put them to use
as resources for their communities. While we are not a struggling congregation yet, would we,
at Plymouth, partner with a development corporation to engage how we could become more
of a resource to St. Helens/Warren/Scappoose? How could we put our resources to work for the
community?
What resources do we have to offer? Author Leslie Quander Woolridge in her article “A
church offers training in faith and finance,” recounts how Kingdom Fellowship AME Church
helps it’s members thrive through financial literacy classes that help build economic stability and
faithful generosity. Mmm, Teaching faith and finance to the congregation and community.
Other authors dig deeper in planning for a post-pandemic future. Chris Elisara and Rick
Reinhard suggest using church real estate to greet challenges. They say, “think outside the box
about the best possible uses of your property (like become a charter school or child care
center; or affordable housing built on un-used church propert); mix office, retail, housing amid
downsized worship space. Real estate is so costly right now. Ours is paid for. It’s an asset.
One article shocked me with the title, “My church is a beautiful waste of money.” Pastor
Melissa Florer-Bixler writes of her Raleigh Mennonite Church that in using “the metrics of business
management and capitalism the work of churches and pastors is redundant.” What I love in her
article is the shocking way in which she points to the core of what Christian congregations do in
church ministries as the things that confound this world and it’s values by finding and serving
“the least of these” among us. She demands that we return to our core ministries.
We have property, limited finances, and talented people. All of them are assets; let’s
think outside the box as we focus our best in order to do God’s best!
All this we do because God is continuing to do what was begun long ago. God is not
done yet!
We live in the grip of grace. (It is by grace that this article is under 500 words! I knew it
could be done!)
Pastor Peter
Pastor Peter J. Blank