Ten bucks a year - you're worth every penny!
The Reverend Sid Burgess
One of my first recommendations to Session when I was called to Edgewood Church as pastor was to provide every member household with a subscription to our denomination’s monthly magazine, Presbyterians Today.
We Presbyterians are a “connectional” church, meaning that we honor connections on multiple levels: biblical, historical, regional, national, international and ecumenical. Presbyterians Today is one instrument we have for maintaining these connections. What’s more, as a solo pastor, I felt it was important for our members to have access to a “second opinion” – that is, access to other pastors and theologians, as well as to elected leaders of the denomination. The news and feature stories, the book and movie reviews, the Bible studies and opinion pieces in Presbyterians Today, coming from a very diverse group of contributors, provide that access.
Another reason for providing this publication to every household stems from this reality: “It is hard to be the church on just one hour a week.” Think about it. We all spend far more time with mass media – radio, television, newspapers, magazines, the Internet – than we do with God’s Holy Word, the Bible. We spend far more time with co-workers and schoolmates than with fellow church members. Your elected leadership – the Session and Board of Deacons – work hard trying to stretch that one hour of worship together by providing Sunday classes; Fellowship Suppers; small groups for men, women, and youth; plus various mission endeavors like Angel Food and Habitat for Humanity. Providing every member household with a copy of the monthly denominational magazine is one more way we try to stretch that hour.
Finally, let me share this story. In my early years here, Margaret Humphries was one of our elderly, homebound members. She had no family in town and few friends. Margaret had never driven a car and rarely left her tiny abode. She suffered from advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease and found talking difficult. I was visiting Margaret in her home one afternoon, struggling to get a conversation going when I saw her copy of Presbyterians Today lying near her chair. “Do you read it?” I asked. “Every month,” was her terse reply, “cover to cover.”
And so, for any “Margarets” who may be among us today – or tomorrow or next year – and for all of the rest of us, too, the church’s annual budget includes $10 per year per household for a subscription to Presbyterians Today. I say you are worth every penny of it! And all the more so if you’ll take the time each month to leaf through the magazine and see what God is doing Today throughout the Presbyterian Church USA.
Shalom!