SPEAKER_00: Karen runs like seven a year.
SPEAKER_00: And is one Boston.
SPEAKER_00: Just to give you an idea, 1% of people who run a marathon qualify for Boston.
SPEAKER_00: And Karen does it every year.
SPEAKER_00: So she's pretty amazing, and we're super excited to celebrate with her a good race in Berlin.
SPEAKER_00: Last thing I want to share with you, and some of you argued this too, I gave you your pledge materials.
SPEAKER_00: And I might have said, I have a gift for you.
SPEAKER_00: And you might have thought I was being crazy, and I think I was too, except I'm not wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Pledging to this place is a gift we get to give.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid, churches manipulated me with my money.
SPEAKER_00: They did.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to manipulate you.
SPEAKER_00: I give to this community because I believe in you.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in what we do.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in the community we have, in the learning we do, in the invitation to anybody in the world who is willing to suspend this belief and walk through the doors.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in that.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know where else to find it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where else to find you.
SPEAKER_00: And pledging is a gift to me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I was a kid, the gift the church gave was having an altar call every week so that somebody could check the same cognitive boxes as the preacher and not go to hell when they died.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a gift to us because people want to make holy commitments.
SPEAKER_00: We want to.
SPEAKER_00: We want to serve things that are good and right and lovely.
SPEAKER_00: And pledging is that gift.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we say, God, here's my intention to do a little bit of holiness in the next year through my service and my wisdom and my expertise and my gifts.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not ashamed to ask you to pledge.
SPEAKER_00: Because I know you and I know what you do, and it's a gift to you to pledge, and it's a gift to the community that you do.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to hand you a card this morning, or somebody in the vestry is.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't get it, I'll mail it to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's great.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing a handout because, you know, we save 65 cents a piece.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: I'll mail it to you if you don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm asking you, like I've done the last two weeks, and I'm not going to keep spending five minutes every week.
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting to the end of this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to ask you to pray over this so that it can be a holy commitment for you of where God might be calling you to serve and how.
SPEAKER_00: The vestry uses this to make our budgets.
SPEAKER_00: I told you in the last two weeks, we're trying to do something new.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: We are.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to offer respite care to people with dementia.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to do that.
SPEAKER_00: I know we're going to do that.
SPEAKER_00: What I don't know that I want us to do is have that person also be an associate priest.
SPEAKER_00: Not to take away things I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm fine.
SPEAKER_00: Some days are long, some days are short.
SPEAKER_00: I'm fine.
SPEAKER_00: I want another priest to do a Spanish ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I want another priest to serve veterans, who are, 22 of whom are killing themselves every day because they have PTSD.
SPEAKER_00: I want another priest to have Friday night services from time to time to better meet the needs of the community.
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we have to have a priest to do that.
SPEAKER_00: We do.
SPEAKER_00: And priests are expensive.
SPEAKER_00: How expensive are we?
SPEAKER_00: 10% more than our budget.
SPEAKER_00: So I invite you, truly, to pray.
SPEAKER_00: And remember that there is no gift too big.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes giving can be hard.
SPEAKER_00: That whole I believe helped me overcome my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: But my mentoring director taught me I give until it feels good.
SPEAKER_00: Continue to walk in love.