The Rev. Jimmy Abbott
Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Mark 1:14-20

The year was 1920. In a way, church was simpler back then. We didn’t have internet, or website, or live-streaming services. We didn’t have Xerox machines or email addresses or databases. No, the technology in 1920 went as far as a telephone. Trinity’s number was, get this, 1779. That’s it. 

But what really captivated me about 1920, was the way the Trinity Church raised money. Today, we give to the church by cash, check, credit card, bank transfer, stock transfer, through the website, by mail, in an offering plate; pretty much, if there is a way to give the church money, we’ll take it. Not so in 1920. See, in 1920, what they would do is everybody would come to the church on the Monday after Easter and rent their pews for the upcoming year. Really. And if you rented a pew, you get your name plate on a little plaque screwed into hat pew. That’s how the church got their money. 

Now, you can see the problems with this. If you didn’t rent a pew, and you wanted to come to Trinity, well, you could find a seat. But you had to wait for the first five minutes of the service, and then if someone didn’t show up in their rented pew by then, you could take it for the day. No joke, that’s how they did it. And that was the day they did it for eighty years, from 1841 to 1920.

Until 1921. That year, Trinity Church took a huge risk. No joke, they gave a screwdriver to the assistant priest, and had him take the name plates off all the pews. Trinity Church became open seating. Now, I’ve always wandered what happened that next Sunday. Did everyone try to go to their normal spot? Or was there a mad rush for the back three pews like there is now?

But the risk was about the money. Instead of the steady supply of pew rental income, they took a risk, and simply asked the people of Trinity Church to give what they could. No more fees, no more rentals. And do you know what happened? In one year, the church budget doubled.

But more importantly, the attitude of Trinity Church changed. Because no one was required to pay, people gave because they wanted to give. The priests said that the people of the church started to have more buy in than before. It wasn’t about membership dues, it wasn’t about joining a club, it wasn’t about paying for your spot, it was about the spirit. They say the church exploded to twelve hundred people on Sundays. And the perception of Trinity changed. Long seen as the church of the aristocracy in Galveston, Trinity became a place for all people, because all people were welcome; they were welcome to worship, welcome to give, and welcome to sit anywhere they wanted. They were welcome to follow Jesus. 

“Follow me.” It’s the simplest of commands that Jesus gave to Simon and Andrew on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. “Follow me.” Perhaps that is what Trinity was getting right before. By requiring a commitment, the church did a fairly good job. If you want to follow, you have to pay up. 

But it’s the second half of that command that was lacking. And that’s what changes everything. “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Following Jesus is not about propping up the church, about status in a social club; it’s about knowing Jesus and inviting other people along to experience this kind of life. To be part of a community; to hear the words of grace, and in turn, to make our community better. And it’s only as a byproduct that the church grows stronger. 

As we gather for our Annual Parish Meeting in 2024, this is the lesson we can learn from 1921. It’s counterintuitive, I know. But when you put the church first, then the church limps along. Pew rentals worked fine, but was it actually transforming lives? But when you put Jesus and the people of God first, the people of God are transformed and the church flourishes. 

As we are today. In terms of the number of people coming to our 8 and 10:30 worship services, we are now above our pre-pandemic levels. Since 2021, financially, we have grown our budget by 28% while shrinking the dependence on our endowment by 55%. In that same time, the number of people who have made a financial commitment to Trinity has gone from 89 to 142, from $405,000 to $720,000. For you non-math people – we have been able to keep apace with inflation and do more, bringing on more staff to meet our growing needs. One of the biggest things that happened in 2023 was that we started youth group on Sunday mornings, to go along with children’s Sunday School and Adult Sunday School. Or, here’s a great story. At the end of last year, St. Vincent’s House had more children than they originally expected who needed Christmas gifts. Trinity Church was able to give them $7,600 right away, so that every kid could have a Christmas gift. They needed it. You had been generous and we had it. I’ll tell you, that was the best Outreach Committee meeting ever when we did that. Mostly because the meeting took all of five minutes. 

But I think the key to this, has been the proverbial screwdriver. For the most part, we have not spent our time and money, talking about time and money. No, we’ve put our energy on starting children’s Sunday School and youth group; we’ve put our energy into learning about the Bible, on starting the Junior Daughters of the King, on growing our acolytes, by hosting ArtWalk, by showing off the Saint John’s Bible, and on worship of the Lord God Almighty, which is the whole point. They learned this lesson in 1921, by taking the name plates off the pews, by focusing on Jesus and the people of God, the church flourished. All those numbers, all those statistics mean nothing, compared to those simple words from Jesus, “follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 

So this year, 2024, we will do both. First, we are beginning an intentional phase of life at Trinity preserve this building. Over the course of this year, we will ask all of you to consider a financial gift to Trinity specifically for preservation work. To address the crumbling walls, to fix the broken and sagging stained glass windows, to make sure this places shines for the next generation of Galveston. Of course, in a place like this, we will never get to perfect or new. That’s not the point. The point is to let the best of this church shine.

But, more importantly, we are not paying to preserve a museum or just another old building in Galveston. No, we are keeping this church alive so that anybody and everybody can come here to worship, to pray; to follow Jesus and go out fishing for people. Yes, we need to raise the money to work on this old place. But the reason for doing that, is so that our church continues to focus on the Lord God Almighty and what the Holy Spirit is up to in our lives. We all know plenty of old buildings, not far from here in downtown Galveston; they fall into disrepair, which means they have to spend more energy just trying to keep the place open, which means they don’t focus on their priority, which means they have to close. That is not who we are. We are not a historic building that happens to be a church; we are a thriving, growing, living church of people that happens to have the blessing of this historic church building. 

Our focus in 2024, just as it has been since the beginning, will be on following Jesus and fishing for people. As the church is for all people, all its people have their role to play. By coming to worship, by offering to serve, by volunteering, by giving, by stepping into leadership roles. I am not asking you to spend your money to just preserve this old building. No. I am priest, not a preservationist. Instead, I am asking you to invest yourself in this church community, so that we can help make our community a better, healthier, and holier place to live. It’s exactly what Jesus said, follow him, and he will make you fish for people.