Ch
37: More Miracles
To
re-cap: From our “back to the drawing board” experience we were
re-building the church. Sociology had given us valuable insights, but
the actual details came as answered prayer to our little prayer
group. Spiritually and numerically the parish was growing. But what
the diocese needed to see was growth measured in dollars – lots and
lots of dollars.
I
had stood firm against fund-raising when people wanted to do that
instead of evangelism. But this was different, we had
previously done the evangelism very successfully: now we needed some
miracle money to convince the diocese we were on the right track. But
you know what God is like: he does so much better than we can imagine
or dare to ask!
In
our family we have a saying “For God two-birds-with-one-stone is
still wasting stones”. In this instance God raised money and
built up the morale and numbers of the congregation at the same time.
Here
is how:
Inez and Sue – but since they were
both great prayers I should say “and God” – made a formidable
team. Gala events were planned. The congregations were still small
but we had huge numbers of people in the community who would gladly
help out at grand events.
And grand they were! We believed that
these events had to be fun for the workers and give them a great
sense of achievement and being part of a winning team. This meant
grand scale, good planning, effective team and morale building and
really obvious success. People had to have fun and be proud to have
been part of the team pulling off such a big successful event.
We might spend sleepless nights, but
the team had to know they were supported, valued and they had to
believe it would work!
Our first grand event was a Gala
Fashion Show (with dinner of course). Now we had a fashion show each
year at the flower festival with local women modelling clothes from
Sparrows Emporium – a great thing but we were thinking bigger, much
bigger! One of Inez’s friends in the district, Dulcie had been a
top model in her youth: she still had contacts. We were getting real
models, actual high fashion clothes, the correct trappings of catwalk
and music. The real thing!
Next came the dinner part: we had lots
of volunteers, and all those women who had gone into other churches,
and some of the others from those churches who thought we were, as
one lady said “A breath of fresh air” cooked and baked (yes
including a Uniting Church lady who was the undisputed best sponge
baker in the district – Vera of our church was undisputed second
best)
For wait staff we put out the call and
the town young people rallied, they brushed up exceedingly well in
the natty black and white uniforms we got hold of somehow. I think
about 30 of them rolled up!
It was stunning! Financially it was
hugely successful. In team building it was amazing. In satisfaction
level for the gang … you only had to look at their faces! They were
exhausted but they had been part of something big!
We only did these really big things
annually – the next year the theme was picnic races – still in
the Lang Lang civic hall. But people got gourmet picnic hampers, a
course of hurdles (and a water hazard) was set up round the hall.
For safety riders ran behind their (human) horses with reins
connecting them. I am told the town’s real life SP (illegal
off-course) bookie was running the betting shop and everyone was
given Monopoly money to bet with. Another howling success! I even won
the “Lang Lang Cup” cup (I was the horse) elegantly made by one
of the parishioners from a jam tin and fencing wire.
In between we catered for weddings with
much smaller teams, and put on other social events. The men from the
pub who I had talked to in the old days sitting in John’s barn –
and their friends turned out to help wash up and things like that –
since we often borrowed the glasses from the hotel they had a vested
interest in getting them spotless! The barmaid I mentioned earlier
was one of the team – the first time she helped at a “do” I
remember the look on Jan’s face when she came out in her miniscule
black skirt and fishnet stockings and see-through white blouse! I
didn’t think people could really turn purple! I also thought some
of the old men were going to have heart attacks – but for the
opposite reason.
Having mentioned Jan I realise I have
been remiss. I have only described the new fundraising ventures. I
need to give due credit to Jan and the rest of the Ladies Guild who
had for years been faithfully ploughing on, and were still hard at
work doing their various fundraisings.
By
the end of six months, yes we were still in debt but we were
definitely gaining ground. In the analogy I used of a swing we were
now on the down-stroke and gathering speed! It was a success. The
diocesan bean counters were still sceptical. But we said we’d won
our bet. And continuing improvement of the financial position as the
months rolled by showed we were right. Also the church was growing,
not the rapid expansion of the early days but good solid and above
all stable growth. We had proved the sociological research findings
right! More important we had been another demonstration that God is
faithful.
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