Stewardship 2011

By Dee Burkins, Stewardship Chair

November 13th, 2011

 

Each and every one of us here this morning can truly count ourselves blessed.  The reason I am absolutely sure about this is because several years ago, I was the representative for the First Congregational Church to the Council of Churches here in Albany.  Each month we would have a meeting and a dinner that was put on at a different church around the capital region.   After about 6 months, it finally dawned on me how so very blessed we are here at our church.  I came to discover, unfortunately, the terrible state of disrepair many of the churches were in.  It was apparent to me that the upkeep on many of the buildings was almost non-existent….paint was peeling, water stains were glaring on walls and ceilings, carpeting was threadbare, restrooms were lacking maintenance and kitchens were minimal.  At that point in time, I realized how truly blessed we are here at First Congregational Church.  I encourage you, after services today….go ahead, take a look, a NEW look, at our beautiful building.  Take a look inside and out….there was much work done this past summer….see if you can tell what work was done.  Look how well the building is maintained, inside and out, and remind yourself of how blessed we are in being able to maintain and keep our beautiful church in such good condition.  It is simple….because of stewardships past.  With these thoughts in mind, I decided to adopt the national Count Yourself Blessed Stewardship campaign because I knew first hand just how blessed we truly are.  

 

We today, here in the present, are blessed because of what the congregants of the past did for us.  Because of that I would like to dedicate the Stewardship Campaign of 2011 to be based in three parts on the past, the present and the future.