ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, contributions, stewardship, church, fund raising

According to the ALS website today August 27, 94.3 million dollars has been contributed through the “ice bucket challenge.” This interests me because my grandkid has called me out to do the challenge, and who would ever want to let a grandkid down? Not me. Do I know about ALS? Yes, it has brought about a horrible demise to a good friend’s dad, ravaging the body and the mind as it progressed. Have I ever contributed to ALS causes? No, not until this challenge. And I tend to respond with contributions when personally asked, no one has ever asked me for this cause. At the same time my local church is struggling to meet it’s budget this year and actually for the last couple of years. Since I am the pastor naturally this concerns me. And I know from my reading that our church is not alone. We are all good folks. Our church members are involved in over thirty different causes around our community. Has the church been replaced on everyone’s list for causes that come up with unique challenges like the “ice bucket”? I’ve just started reading an interesting book, Not Your Parents Offering Plate, where J.Clif Christopher challenges most everything I have been taught about the offering and church. Also I have observed that many entrepreneurs and artists are fund raising for their projects on social media. I even contributed to one artist and received a free mp3 copy of their cd online when it was released. That was kinda cool. Perhaps that is something I should think about when I retire and turn my energy toward song writing and other hobbies. In the mean time I suppose I will keep trying to find ways to inspire folks to live for something greater than themselves and keep passing the plate at church on Sunday mornings. And I expect to get a really cold shower in a few hours. My plan is to hand out water to folks out exercising on the local trail system by my church, and then to take the ice bucket challenge with the ice used to cool the bottled water… With a song in my heart, SoulSongWriter