It is always a bit strange for us ministers to talk to our congregates about money in general and the canvass in particular.

First, we know you have heard most of the arguments for giving more money a million times.  Second, we often feel like we are sort of begging for our own salary. Third, we assume you don't really want to hear anymore about it.  You have made up your mind to give what you always have and let the new members or the old members or the more well-off members assume the burden of increasing cost.

However, as I was looking through my many canvass materials, and I came across what I think is the single best thing I have ever read about raising money in a Unitarian Universalist context.  It was written by John B. Wolf, Minister Emeritus, All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

There is only one reason for being part of a Unitarian Universalist Church and that is to support it.  You want to support it because it stands against superstition and fear. Because this church points to what is noblest and best in human life. Because it is open to men and women of whatever race, creed, color, place of origin or sexual orientation.

You want to support a UU church because it has a free pulpit. Because you can hear ideas there that would cost any other minister her or his job.  You want to support it because it is a place where your children are not saddled with guilt or terrified of some celestial peeping Tom, where they can learn that religion for joy, for comfort, for gratitude and love.

You want to support it because it is a place where walls between people are torn down rather than built-up. Because it is a place for the religious displaced persons of our time, the refugees from mixed marriages, the unwanted free thinkers and those who insist against orthodoxy that they must work out their own beliefs.

You want to support a UU church because it is more concerned with human beings than with dogmas. Because it searches for the holy rather than seeking out the depraved. Because it calls no one a sinner, yet knows how deep is the struggle in each person's breast and how great is the hunger for what is good.

You want to support a UU church because it can laugh. Because it stands for something in a day when religion is still more concerned with platitudes than with prejudice and war.  You want to support it not because it buys you some insurance policy towards your funeral service, but because it insults neither your intelligence nor your conscience and because it calls you to what is truly worthy of your sacrifice.

There is only one real reason to be part of a UU church: to support to the fullest extent with your "time, talent and treasure..."

Let us all heed the words of John B. Wolf this year and sacrifice where our values lie.