Connecting With Zion’s Past

by Dennis Dugger

On November 9^th we concluded this year’s stewardship campaign.  Over the years, we’ve had some memorable pledge drives at Zion.  Do you remember the “Pony Express” and its “saddlebags”?  Or perhaps you recall “Bringing in the Sheaves”?  Like everything else, it takes money to operate our church and fund Zion’s many “priceless” missions.  In reality, those priceless missions do have a “price tag”, and in spite of the success of last year, a gap still exists between our income and our expenditures.

Money woes are nothing new for Zion.  Zion had financial problems right from its beginning in 1872 and they continued to crop up from time to time until about 1920.  Though we do not know how much pay he received, Zion’s first minister’s salary was paid by the Synod of the West, not by Zion’s members.  Our earliest financial records, from 1874, indicate that the average Sunday offering amounted to less than three dollars total.  Many times in Zion’s history, its leaders have been forced to borrow money from banks or from members to meet operating expenses.

It was difficult to get many of our early members to understand the importance of their financial support for the church.   John Schroeder, long time pastor of Zion, explained that this was because the German immigrants that composed our early congregation were not accustomed to the practice of supporting a church with freewill offerings.  In their native Germany, the churches were supported by the government through taxes; not by offerings and tithes.

This reluctance to support Zion with offerings was somewhat resolved by the early 1880’s when the members were expected to pay dues in order to meet the pastor’s salary.  From time to time, the Church Council or the congregation would send out delinquent notices to members who were one year behind with their dues.  They were told that failure to catch up within three months could result in their names being removed from the membership list.  There is evidence that at least sometimes this policy was enforced, and on several occasions persons lost their membership standing.  Of course, this policy occasionally created controversies within the congregation.

In January 1899 the church had to borrow $100 from the Sunday School in order to pay the departing Rev. Gebauer the $111.30 that they owed him and the $5 it owed the organist.  This money was paid back in June of that year, and in August “the secretary was asked to have 1000 subscription cards printed.”  Presumably these were used by members to make their pledges of financial support.

In 1900, total church income was $1170.17 while expenses were $1075.66.  Of this $616.66 was the salary of the pastor, the organist received $60 per year and the janitor received $72 per year.  The salary of the pastor for that year should have been $700, but it was cut due to lower than expected income.  Monthly salary payments to the pastor were often irregular amounts depending on what was in the church coffers.

About 1910, in an effort to deal with these financial problems, the preparation of an annual financial statement began.  This statement contained the name of each member and the specific amounts contributed by each person.  Such a list was prepared for several years following 1910.  Last year I found a little booklet titled “Financial Report of Zion Evangelical Church, Owensboro, KY. For the Year 1913” (It was actually about contributions for 1912).  The Financial Secretary, Edward R. Kunze, reported by amounts and names every cent given as offerings for 1912.  Amounts varied from 30 cents to $130 for the year.  It also detailed every cent given for the Easter offering, Debt Fund and for the Christmas offering.  And all of this was available for all to see.

Another effort to solve the financial problems involved the collection of “extra expense offerings”.  In January 1913 $263.30 was contributed to such an offering with the purpose of paying off a $200 loan debt made in September 1912 “to tide over the financial depression.”  Another, this time called a “deficit offering” was used in December 1913.

John Keller, a young man just out of seminary a year or two, became pastor of Zion in 1916.  Though he remained at Zion for only a year, he and five of Zion’s members undertook the first every-member canvass to solicit pledges for financial support.  The use of a church budget was not initiated until 1919.  After World War I, the financial problems of Zion largely disappeared; the exception being during the Great Depression.

In its history, Zion has been blessed with many faithful stewards, and they have left us without a mortgage, and with a sizable “emergency fund”.  Soon we’ll be able to determine the success of this year’s “Vision 10/10” campaign.  Will we be able to pull our own weight in these difficult times?  Or must we rely on the generosity of those good stewards from our past to balance our budget?