For the plant committee, paradise would be a repaved parking lot. When we work through the logistics of making our dreams come true, our dreams grow sharper. We are lifted out of our routines and, almost inevitably, inspired. We begin not merely to wish, but to hope. But it is hard to transfer that hope to a budget.
Most people grow weary just looking over the relentless columns of numbers.
The mind grows numb. Above the bottom line grows an impenetrable jungle. Yet we try. We dream our budgets and then present our dreams, carefully wrapped in numbers and logic, to the congregation. Members fill out pledge cards, and we who are designated leaders use those pledges to decide what we can do and what we cannot.