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Rev Paige's Corner: The Value of a Church
This week, Fred Malcolm and I attended the Hampstead Select Board meeting. We had been invited along with all the other clergy and representatives of churches in town. Historically, the town has been plowing and sanding church parking lots. This is not something I have encoutered in other towns. The question that often comes up for the Selectboard is whether they are using public funds for private benefit - which is not appropriate. In order to justify the use of town funds in this way, they have to justify that the town is receiving benefits quid pro quo for the service. And so we were all asked to come and explain how our churches benefitted the town in a way that was enough to justify the plowing benefit (which probably amounts to several thousand dollars of service each year if we paid a contractor.)
In my mind, this needed to be stated in very pratical ways about public benefit. We talked about the use of the Historical Commission Museum using our parking and our land for septic. We talked about Stepping Stones serving the community and also town school busses coming through. We talked about the space we make available to community groups such as scouts, recovery groups, the 45s and more.
It was interesting to hear what other churches in town were doing and how they served the wider community. One Selectboard member commented on how helpful the survey of activity was.
But one of the other pastors brought along copies of a study about how having strong and healthy religious communities benefit and strengthen a town. This was less about ways the community uses the church property and more about how having people nurtured in faith strengthens the wider community. I find myself thinking about Jesus' parable of the yeast in the bread - how this small amount of substance transforms the entire loaf of bread in dramatic ways. How do we as God's people bring our values of loving our neighbors, practicing justice and compassion, offering welcome and inclusion, growing in our ability to forgive into our town in ways that make Hampstead better for everyone?
In some of our vision conversations over the last year, we have expressed our desire to be a church that makes a positive impact on our community. The Selectboard asked us to quantify it which for me, at least, was thought provoking.
With blessings!
Rev Paige Besse-Rankin
Some Recent References:
Global Footprint Quiz - referenced in sermon on August 3:
Global Footprint Network
Weekly Word article for July 24: The sermon has now been posted online, and you can find it here: Turf, Truth and Spirit sermon
There is also now a full report out on what happened at Synod. You can find it here: General Synod Highlights
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