› Moment for Stewardship: SPC Member, Lessa Dixon
Moment for Stewardship: SPC Member, Lessa Dixon
I
am so happy to have the opportunity to speak about the 2026 stewardship campaign and its theme “love changes everything,” and to share with all of you my thanks for the ways this church has changed and shaped our family.
We relocated to Swarthmore in 2019, with a 1-year-old, a 3-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 7-year-old. We left a vibrant church in downtown Philadelphia. There was grief in leaving it, but we trusted that it had been provided for us once and could be again.
I should start this next section by saying that our first visit to SPC was clearly on the wrong Sunday. While we sat near some very kind folks who welcomed us and chatted about which house we’d moved into in town, there was no children’s programming that day, no children’s sermon, or Godly play. We sat in a pew near the back right of the church and juggled needy babies and cranky preschoolers. The message we left with that day was that this was a beautiful church full of truly wonderful people, but that we would most likely not find community here.
Two years later, post-pandemic, my parents had relocated from California to Swarthmore and joined the choir here at SPC and told us to give it another shot. What we found this time was a very different Swarthmore Pres. We sat, again, in our back right pew, but this time saw three or four families my kids knew from school. We heard about a new Children’s Pastor being called to serve, and our younger kids went to children’s programming while we sat in the service. Along with those things, we found much of what I would guess brought so many of you here – thoughtful and compassionate teaching, people willing to be challenged and convicted, and exceptional church musicians. We decided to stay and make a home here. And I am so thankful that we did.
In the last few years, we have watched the Godly playroom grow and expand; David’s children’s sermon nearly outgrow the seating area here at the front. Youth group opportunities for our older girls, a nativity pageant that is enough to make my heart explode. Our little back section of the sanctuary has grown to include a handful of other families – a different
group from those who sit up here to the left of the stage. We pass preschooler snacks and coloring pages back and forth, whisper fight over who gets to hold babies for busy moms, scoot across pews as kids climb over us to head to the children’s time. Our older girls listen as Sarah, Joyce and David talk about immigration and gun reform, invite them to serve at Chester Eastside, and wrestle with difficult questions of doubt and abiding faith. Once a baseball rolled under a pew and hit my sons’ foot, a gift from a boy sitting a few rows behind us.
I name these things because they do not happen by accident. They happen when a congregation chooses to hear wriggly babies and preschoolers who don’t yet understand what it means to whisper as a joyful noise. Who choose to laugh when a 9-year-old boy offers a preposterous answer to Pastor David’s questions nearly every Sunday in the children’s sermon. It happens when church members learn special fist bump handshakes that really speak to the under 10 crowd and spend time on YouTube learning different variations for each Sunday. It happens when choir directors make space for young voices, when the youth group is given a credit card that my kids swear says “Jesus pays” on it. It happens when a church with a congregation well north of 50 chooses to devote resources and personnel hours to growing programming for families.
Pastor David estimates that roughly 20 children participate in Sunday programming each week, and I’d argue that it’s often a different 20 kids–if they ever all show up at once we’re in trouble.
That’s 20 kids who listen and ask questions, who are loved unconditionally by the adults in the pews around them, who watch those adults living out their own faith, children who, each month, pass each other the bread and the cup and
are told again and again that, while the world is broken and sometimes frightening, they are loved and never alone, that we know the end and it is right and good.
And, while I am awed by the way God calls his people to him, I am also mindful of the commitment each of you have chosen to make that call audible and make space here for those who answer it.
I am mindful of the Stewardship choices we are asked to make with the gifts we have been given, and I would ask specifically that you commit funds in a planned pledge this year.
A pledge allows SPC to set budgets for children’s ministry so that David and Michelle have resources to provide for the children now bursting the seams in Godly play. It helps David plan outings for the Youth group where, again, “Jesus always pays.” It helps provide planning around salaries for the people who minister to our families.
Pledge forms can be found on the SPC website under the “give to SPC tab,” or in the pews in front of you. I would encourage you to spend some time thinking about what is comfortable for you, and how you might give toward these sorts of programs.
The theme for this year’s stewardship campaign is “Love Changes Everything.” And I am most mindful, as we talk about giving, of the ways this church has chosen to give to families in need of a church home, and how much that matters. We don’t take for granted this commitment to being part of the community that raises our children with us, and we are thankful for your role in their lives, and ours.
