Making Mercy Seat Work

In the past, when pledge-time came around, Mercy Seat would take the public radio route: “supporting us is the equivalent of a latte with 3 raw sugars and a mega-depth charge a day!” But in more recent history, we’ve started thinking about things differently. Mercy Seat isn’t your typical non-profit, nor your typical church. It’s a place where people come together and make redemption happen. The tricky part is where I insert money into this equation, but in all aspects, Mercy Seat is only as much as the people who go there make of it. When we gather at the table, it is whatever 4 people who stand up first who help in the sacraments. When we put together a fundraiser, the ideas come from the congregants. And so when it comes to playing Mark and Kae or commissioning our fantastic liturgies, it is all of us who scrounge together and make Mercy Seat happen.
So here’s the pitch: every year we ask people to think about what they can afford and pledge money to make Mercy Seat work. This year the Committee of the Future and the pastors came up with an un-padded amount of what it costs to run Mercy Seat for a year. It’s $149,000 and includes paying for our music ministry, rent, childhood ministries, missions, and our pastors’ salaries (That’s right, you just read “pastors’ salaries” – plural – because this year we want to commit to paying our beloved pastor Mark a portion of the salary he has not been taking). After receiving support from other sources, we need to raise $121,000. We divided the big budget number up into what we call “shares” to make it easy to understand how an individual can do their part to help us meet our budget goal. If 130 people give a share worth $18 a week ($78 a month) we will reach our budget goal. Of course, give what you are able despite the share scale. As you might have guessed, you are more than welcome to give multiple shares or even old-school tithe!

If you have pledged shares in the past, don’t forget to renew your pledge this year so we can add your shares to our total.

Also, consider automatic giving using Thrivent Simply Giving. It just takes filling out a form and including a voided check. Automatic giving not only enables us to have a predictable budget, it has allowed us to change the way we give during our worship services.

Finally, thank you. It is not an exaggeration to say that you’re what makes Mercy Seat work. I firmly believe that this place is special and I hope you join me in making sure Mercy Seat continues to make redemption happen.