Maintenance or Mission
In Episcopal ecclesiastical parlance, congregations historically fall into one of two categories – they are either a “parish” or a “mission,” with the former denoting a congregation having enough members pledging to support a budget, including that of a full-time rector, while the latter has somewhat limited financial resources.
When Claude Payne, formerly Rector of St. Martin’s, was Bishop of Texas, he declared all parishes in the Diocese of Texas regardless of their size were “missionary outposts.” This allowed every church and mission to be involved in stewardship in a meaningful manner and offered the members of each congregation to be part of the responsibility, accountability and retention process. There were, however, different ways of doing stewardship. I wrote the following about two distinctive styles of stewardship that I have observed.
The maintenance style of stewardship operates out of a mode of scarcity that focuses on giving to build or meet the budget. This fosters the idea of just keeping the doors open and keeping up with the bills. The result of this is that there is not much joy or excitement in giving, and folks are inwardly focused with little or no outreach in their communities. In these “maintenance” congregations, members are not inviting others to attend worship, thus they are not growing in size or programming.
The mission style of stewardship operates out of a mode of abundance with congregation members focused on giving thanksgiving and joy for their many blessings. This fosters a desire for outreach and evangelism as they use the extra time, talent and treasure that the “missionary outpost” collectively has to offer.
The significant difference between these two styles of stewardship is how the leadership teaches and models giving sacrificially using a percentage of what they have to share for the work of our Lord in his “missionary outpost” in which they worship. Thanks go to both lay and clergy for being missionary-minded in all we do here at St Martin’s. Thanks to our members who also join in that missionary spirit so well!
