Look around the various OC/IC web sites and you’ll find no shortage of synods and communities that have added a “donate” button to their home page. I ask myself is this really a good idea? Could we not be just a little bit more creative?
When I donate money I like to know where it is going, and for what part of the organisation’s programme it will be used. I must confess that I find these anonymous “donate” buttons on OC/IC sites disconcerting, as they never answer these two very important questions. Moreover, I cannot think of one instance where a community has a “donate” button, and right next to it a break down of the previous year’s income, and where that money went. Having worked as a professional fund-raiser for organisations such as Grey Panthers and PFlag – I can tell you that if that information is not available and understandable to donors and potential donors – you’ll not see much in income.
There is in the Christian community as a whole, a culture of financial giving; one which throughout my many years of ordained ministry in the OC/IC community has frustrated and baffled me. Too often our people make the mistake of believing that money somehow equates with success in ministry. This is patently false. It is an attitude we have unconsciously adopted from the “big-tent churches” that spend substantial time and resources fund-raising. Yes it is true that many of these churches are burdened with large overhead costs. We are not. Yes it is true that these other churches pay their clergy. We do not – and if priests and bishops are taking money from you or your congregation for their own pockets, you should campaign to have the practice stopped immediately as this is not the OC/IC way. It is also true that many churches support, or organise local and regional projects benefiting people in need. So do we – or rather, if your community does not, you should be campaigning for them to do so (a point that I’ll revisit shortly). God does not need your money. The priest does not need your money. The “church” does not need your money. What it needs is your time, your talent, and your commitment. I believe we should whole-heartedly dump this aberrant, inherited culture of giving, and re-think our “theology of money” and of giving.
This is not an easy thing to do, however, and for all my years of ministry I have found its ugly head popping up in the most unexpected places. People seeking ordination promising huge fund-raising and building projects (Oh Please! If I wanted that I’d have joined the big-tent church!). People offended that we don’t take a collection. Others who feel insecure about being a part of the community, not because they are not sure this is the tradition or theology for them, but because we have no money, and we don’t even ask for people to give money! In my community we have historically refused to take a regular collection. Instead when necessary we decide as a community how much is needed for a project, and we collect for that purpose. It is efficient, transparent, and more importantly everyone is involved.
Here too we come to an important characteristic of our inherited culture of giving. Members believe that by simply throwing money into a basket that they have fulfilled their commitment to the vision and values of the community; in short – throw money at it, and it will take care of itself. Once you drop those notes or coins into the basket, you don’t need to think about where the money goes or how it is spent. The Problem with this attitude is one that plagues not just our OC/IC community, but the wider church too. In this way, your “membership”, your “Christianity” becomes a passive rather than an active part of your life. More important for our OC/IC context is the fact that “membership” is not a concept that is actively developed, “identity” as an Independent is not encouraged or engaged with within many of our communities. The sad result is that even the best of our communities have a very transient membership, because “members” are not encouraged to appropriate an OC/IC identity; they are not actively challenged to let go of previous identities as “Roman Catholics” “Anglicans” or “Orthodox” and forge ahead free and renewed in faith as a full member of a vibrant tradition. There are other substantive reasons for this, some of which I’ve already explored in previous posts – but our inherited, unchallenged attitudes toward giving contribute to the problem.
There are a number of ways we can engage with this inherited culture of giving. Most of our OC/IC communities have 20 people or less. This is a great opportunity to get members engaged with the cause of Christianity – being Christ in the World – encourage people to bake bread for the eucharist. Yes, use real bread and not those ghastly “christ krispies” a.k.a “ghostie toasties”! One loaf will be used for the Eucharist, the others along with a box of other food and clothing items can then be given to a local shelter for the homeless, battered women, or refugees. The community is involved in baking the bread, choosing the shelter, and delivering the goods. So you don’t have a shelter nearby – fine. Encourage members to organise who will bake the bread, and who will bring the wine, you can throw in candles and incense for good measure. It gets the community actively involved at every level of “being” church, of being Independents. There is no money here – but there is time, talent, effort, and community. These are the very things that lie behind the initial impulse of our inherited culture of giving – these are the things we can easily reclaim, and employ as a means of introducing “members” to a real OC/IC identity.
Exploring the question “who is my neighbour” is central to the Christian message. Over the past five or six years my community has used our web page to highlight a cause or charity during Nativity/Theophany and Pascha. These are the times of year when we see a spike in our number of visitors to the site. On our own, we are too small a community to organise something as effective as these other organisations, but we can use our resources to draw attention to their work, contribute to it, and hopefully, encourage others to do the same.
Thus, twice a year we donate to the organisation(s) we’ve chosen and include a direct link to their donations page so that visitors to our site who would also like to support that work need only click and fill in the form. Obviously we don’t know how many of our 1000+ visitors actually do contribute, but if they have not, at least we have raised their awareness of what is needed, and perhaps they go and find another way to help. Hopefully too, we have raised awareness of causes that do not necessarily have the name recognition of Oxfam and Amnesty. Last year, for example, we highlighted an organisation that provides much needed counselling and housing for women (and their resulting children) in war torn regions (Kosovo, Rwanda) who were raped by men representing the opposing side. This year, we have chosen Crisis UK – an organisation that has helped the homeless for over 30 years, and whose research into homelessness and the causes of homelessness make for very startling reading.
This programme, with very little effort on our part aside from some discernment, research, and a little HTML coding, allows a small OC/IC community to make a cause that we could not possibly address on our own, part of our ministry, part of our journey of faith. It is a small way that we can all bring about the realisation of the Gospel, and our common OC/IC heritage. Our communities – big and small – have hundreds of web sites, and dozens (if not hundreds) of blogs. We are one of the fastest growing branches of Christianity. Imagine, if we all turned our internet presence into something that had impact. Imagine if 5 or 10 or more of our communities banded together and chose one cause that was under-reported and under-supported and we all supported the work of that group for a year!
We OC/IC folk are at an advantage in that we have the opportunity to re-think the culture of giving so many of us have unconsciously inherited from other churches. We are small enough, but numerous enough to do it, make a difference, and make a statement about who and what we are as OC/IC believers. It could raise our profile in a positive way, encourage us as a community to engage with one another and to be a resource to one another, and to engage with real issues (rather than the window dressing ephemera of liturgies, vestments, and apostolic lines).
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