And you know what it's like borrowing money from lending institutions. In order to get a loan, you have to provide sufficient financial documentation to show that you don't really need a loan in the first place. Also there were the detractors who said we should be like the Mormons and the Baptists and others, who never start to build anything until they have raised all the money for it up front. Well, we're Lutherans, and Lutherans live by faith. And in this case, we also lived by faithfulness to the vision God had granted us.
Faithfulness is simply faith put into practice.
Next Sunday at both services we will present our members' pledges of time, talent, and money for 1996 at the time of the offering. There are members who pledge and contribute much, and there are members who pledge and contribute little or nothing. The important thing, of course, is not the quantity of pledges, but the faithfulness that lies behind them. On every member's pledge card is a line in which the person signing the card promises to support this congregation through prayer in the coming year. I am told that as of today more than half the members of our church have chosen not to sign a pledge card for the coming year.