Church realizes someone needs its "Rainy Day Fund" NOW

by Rev. Sarah Parker, Pastor

High Country United Church of Christ

At a Church Council Retreat of High Country United Church of Christ this past February, we started to think about our financial stewardship in the community. Our church has been through ups and downs in finances. As a young church–24 years old this September–we have known the stress of wondering if we could pay the bills and spending hours cutting already lean budgets. We have also seen the generosity of mortgage payoff campaigns and calls for a need to rethink staff compensation. The last few years have been stable in our finances, and we developed some savings that we hadn’t seen before.

An idea first came from our Treasurer, Kathleen: “When this CD investment comes to maturity in July, why don’t we just give it away?” We all sat in stunned silence, especially our Financial Secretary. That CD, friends, had a balance of $50,000. Our entire budget for the year is only $150,000.

By July, the shock of the initial idea started to wear off. We began to think deeply about the line between stepping out in faith and being practical, fiscally responsible leaders. We began to dream about what our generosity could do for our community. We asked for grant proposals from local organizations. We prayed that the whole congregation would see our passion for this project.

When talking to one of our nonprofit community partners, I was asked why we decided to do this. My response was, “Well, these savings have been a ‘rainy day fund’ for us for a little while, and I think we might have just realized that it’s raining somewhere else. Someone else needs it right now, and we have the ability to share it.” 

In the end, our Council recommended that we give away $40,000 of our savings to community organizations. At the Congregational Meeting where members voted to approve this spending, an anonymous donor offered another $10,000 to be added to this lump sum. We ended up funding 5 different community groups. One will provide scholarships for a daycare program that supports children from non-English speaking households to get ready for Kindergarten. Another will be able to start a brand new, free clinic to serve trans and nonbinary folks who need gender affirming care. All of them will be able to do something they would not have been able to without this funding.

The Gospel of John tells us the story of a little boy offering his own fishes and loaves to feed a crowd of people. Inspired by Jesus’s messages of love, hospitality, and justice, the crowd present there helped multiply that food to be enough to feed the 5,000 gathered. We are reminded through that story that when we give out of our abundance, we start a wave of generosity. We hope that, with this project, High Country UCC has started a wave of generosity that will spread.