A Letter from Keaton Hill

2023 Stewardship Campaign

October 4, 2022

Dear Grace Covenant Community,

As someone who has been a part of the Grace Covenant community for just over nine years, who currently serves on Session and as co-chair of the Finance Council, I have experienced firsthand the way our faith community changes lives. GCPC is a space where we can practice relating to each other and to our resources in transformative ways.

The life of faith offers us an economy of grace. In an economy of grace, wealth grows through sharing, not by earning. A widow’s penny is worth more than wads of cash (Mark 12). In this economy, disciples inflamed by Spirit grow community through generously combining resources (Acts 2), and each family has just what they need (Exodus 16).

This economy of grace offers us a way to be in the world that is distinct from what American culture teaches us. The larger culture conditions us to valorize wealth and criminalize poverty. People are reduced to consumers and commodities whose purpose is to maximize profits. We are told that our salary is a direct reflection of our worth, and that there is never enough for everyone to have what they need. Too often in American culture you get what you pay for and money dictates what is possible.

As followers of Christ, we abide by a different logic.

We trust that authentic security doesn’t reside in the size of our bank accounts; it grows out of the quality of our relationships with our Creator, ourselves and each other. In an economy of grace we experience security not through striving but through sharing, even — especially – in the face of uncertainty and loss.

It’s an economy rooted in holy imagination and grown from the foolishness of God (1 Corinthians 1), where humans make pledges and enter covenants in a world that changes constantly. Where freedom comes not in safeguarding against uncertainty but meeting uncertainty encouraged by the Spirit. In a world where people often weaponize funds to punish those with whom they disagree, we are invited into the economy that allows us to share in the abundance of creation – not based on merit, but on grace. In an economy of grace, no one is disposable, there is enough, and all belong.

If we are open to it, pledging to Grace Covenant can be an act of faith and of connection. For those of us who pledge, we are making a faithful, vulnerable commitment in the face of uncertainty and the unknown. For those of us who rely on pledges, it is an act of faith to count on the generosity and faithfulness of others.

When we show up fully ourselves, in our generous, abundant selves, whatever we give is enough. We’ll know we’re practicing an economy of grace through our joy – our cheerful giving delights God.

2 Corinthians 9 invites us to discern around how we engage in this economy of grace. We participate willingly, not in distress or obligation. We are called not to give more, nor less, than what is ours to give.

What if this year, we accept this invitation to pledge as an invitation to grace?

I invite you into this spiritual practice and holy experiment of grace. At GCPC, one way I have been blessed to participate in this economy of grace is through Just Funding, a fund dedicated to racial repair in Asheville, where a multiracial group of both GCPC members and the larger community share resources in community. This GCPC designated fund originated in the synchronicity of grace: as the need was being named for a Black and Brown-led fund, an anonymous GCPC donor seeded a ‘reparations fund.’

This experience speaks to how pledging to GCPC is an act of faith for me. Like any faith action, in pledging I feel trepidation (where is this money going?), and joy (look at what is possible through a communal fund!). I have felt relief and healing to practice in an economy other than capitalism, and astonishment at how people and provisions come together with ease. At GCPC, I’ve been blessed to see how what I have to offer is enough in this abundant economy.

This year may our pledges support repair and healing in both our community and in ourselves. I hope we will share with each other how the Spirit moves, provokes and blesses us this Stewardship season. Together, may we delight in the blessing of gracious, faithful pledging.

Connected in Grace,