Old Offering Envelopes and Other Challenges

by Peggy Haymes

It was one of my first acts of radical ministry.

Almost fresh out of seminary (a year after graduation but who’s counting), I was called to be the Associate Minister of a local church. As I settled in, I got to know our building by poking my nose into All The Places.

You know those places.

It’s where stuff gets dumped when you can’t figure out where to store it or nobody wants to deal with it. It’s where you put the hideous vase that you keep because it was given in memory of their beloved Aunt TIllie by her family, and although no family is still connected with the church and no one in the church actually remembers anything about Aunt TIllie, you fear that if you throw it out they would just know and show up asking about it.

Our education building was a 1950’s vintage design featuring classrooms with a large central (assembly) area ringed by smaller classrooms slightly smaller than the walk-in closets of new houses. I started poking around those small rooms.

Then I started getting rid of things.

There were large cartons filled with old offering envelopes. Not just from last year, but from five and even ten years ago. The families whose numbers were on those envelopes obviously had not missed them. Out they went.

One year a professional photographer took a picture of the church sanctuary at Christmas, and it was made into a holiday card, I suspect to be sold to raise money for missions. The unsold boxes of cards filled up a carton or two in this room. We might have raised a bit more money selling them for another year, had this not been on the third floor in a room that had little to no air conditioning in the summer. Every envelope was glued shut.

Out they went.

I know that ministers don’t always hear the grievances that church members are holding, but I feel reasonably sure my purge did no lasting damage.

In our churches, in our homes, and even in our lives we all need to practice such radical ministry from time to time.

Maybe that stuff was helpful at first. Maybe it wasn’t. Whatever the case, it had long outlived it’s usefulness.

It’s not just stuff we need to sort through. Beliefs about who we are and what we are can hang out in the dark corners of our hearts and minds.

Maybe we came by them honestly, the result of our experiences. Or maybe they were formed when our experiences were processed by our very young minds. They may have been formed by what someone else told us – a parent, a minister, a supervisor. Or, by a friend just having a bad day.

Whatever the genesis, faulty beliefs can hold us back. Believing that we always mess things up, we find amazing ways to sabotage ourselves. Believing we’ll never be a good (or even average) preacher we feel defeated before we ever step into a pulpit.

Believing we really aren’t good enough means deflecting and not trusting a single word of affirmation that comes to us. Feeling not good enough often means holding back, not trying that new thing, not moving in a new direction. Familiar failure feels so much safer.

Old beliefs can hinder our growth. If we believe we’re just bad at communication, we don't have a lot of incentive or energy to work at improving.

Of course, we all have different gifts and abilities. Faulty beliefs, however, tend to have a global reach. They come with words like always and never, which leave no room for something different to happen this time.

Such beliefs can be like wallpaper, so long a part of our lives that we no longer notice them even as they set the tone in the room. Working with a coach is a great way to identify beliefs that get in our way, and to work together to transform them into beliefs that are both more true and more helpful.

Where do you find a good coach?

Start HERE.