Author: Matt Braddock

In response to our November 11 Town Hall Meeting on the budget, Rev. Aubra Love offered this response and gave permission to share …

That Town Hall Meeting

This morning, I went to the store to pick up a package of my favorite breakfast croissants. For years, the price was between $3.19 – $3.49 for a box of six. They keep for a good while because they are frozen and can be served up, flaky and tasty, in just a couple of minutes. And they are always a hit with my brunch guests! Today, they are $5.78 for a box of six. Same favorite breakfast croissants, costing about 65% more.

A couple of Saturdays ago, it was time to gas up my car for the week. So, I stopped in at my favorite gas station/convenience store place, where they are always happy to make free copies for a single document for their regulars. Just a small-town tradition they never stopped, not even during the quarantine. Keeps folks from having to go to the next town for an Office Depot. Well, my unsalted personal pack of cashews was outrageously priced! I didn’t worry too much about that because they are an essential expense. I will spare you the gouging cost of petrol…up nearly 25%. Still my favorite store in walking distance. Not likely to change much here.

After one of my favorite cousins was finally persuaded through prayer and nagging to invest in a home because, we are not getting any younger, (even if we think so), we have been forced to look in a totally different price point than we thought possible this time last year. With sharply rising mortgage lending rates, from 3.55% in November 2021 to over 7% this fall, many have been priced right out of the housing market.

Then there was this Town Hall meeting at church where the budget was languishing at somewhere around 12% from the previous year. We are in a deficit. This is the church where I come to hear the Liberating Word spoken, to thaw out with the smiles of children and elders, to wonder why folk insist on doing the things they do, and to bask in the music that is a salve to my soul. I increased my pledge by 12% as a short-term response to some of the financial matters.

I have had a good year. Surely, I know that this is not everybody’s reality. That said, our God continues to be faithful to me in each of God’s promises. Malachi 3:10 contains this promise, “Test me and prove me…and see if I won’t pour you out a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”

I am no economist, and hardly wealthy, just a former lender with a testimony. I am now listening for the “Intermediate Term Needs” response. The Call to Action is to add 12 cents to each dollar pledged and see what happens.

In grace, love and abiding peace,

Rev. Aubra