“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1)

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)

Since returning from knee surgery, I’ve had a steady stream of inquiries about weddings at Bethel. Without fail, the first question is about cost. Not theology. Not vows. Not the meaning of covenant. Cost.

We don’t actually have a formal wedding policy, so I borrow from our funeral guidelines and explain the basic fees. I also mention, gently but clearly, that we can’t accommodate large crowds, we don’t host receptions, and we don’t have a liquor license. That usually paints a fairly accurate picture.

And yet—once people hear the numbers—they’re ready to book.

Apparently, we are a “budget-friendly venue.”

So I begin to ask a different set of questions. Have you been part of the Bethel community? What draws you to be married in the Church? Are you open to meeting several times to talk about the spiritual nature of Christian marriage?

That’s usually the turning point.

Something shifts. It’s as though a quiet realization dawns: this is not just a quaint building with affordable rates. This is the Church. And a wedding here is not simply an event—it is an act of worship. A covenant made before God.

Often, that’s when the conversation ends.

And that’s alright.

I’ve officiated weddings for couples with no prior connection to the church. Some might call that outreach. But, truthfully, I’ve rarely seen those couples again. And once—memorably—I was referred to as a “vendor” by a wedding planner. A vendor. As though I were interchangeable with the florist or the caterer.

But I am not a vendor.

I am clergy.

And more importantly, the Church is not a venue.

That distinction matters.

Curiosity got the better of me after one of these conversations, so I looked up the average cost of a wedding in Ontario. The estimate for 2026 sits somewhere between $32,000 and $38,000. It’s a staggering amount of money.

Which raises an uncomfortable question: if we are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a single day, why are we searching for the cheapest possible option when it comes to the sacred heart of the ceremony?

The answer, I think, is both simple and revealing.

Resource allocation.

We spend according to what we value. Not what we say we value—but what we actually value.

Jesus tells us this plainly: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

Budgets don’t lie. They tell the truth about our priorities with a clarity that our words sometimes avoid.

If the dress, the venue, the photography, and the flowers command the majority of our resources—and the spiritual dimension is treated as an afterthought—then we have to be honest about what that says. It doesn’t necessarily make anyone a bad person. But it does reveal what is at the centre.

And that’s where I find myself needing to be clear about my own calling.

Jesus did not call me to provide religious services on demand. He called me into ministry—to walk with people in faith, to proclaim the gospel, to bear witness to God’s presence in their lives. A wedding, at its best, is one expression of that calling. But it cannot be reduced to a transaction.

Because covenant is not a commodity.

Around this time of year, churches across the United Church are holding their Annual Meetings, and with them comes the ever-familiar conversation about budgets. I have to say, Bethel continues to surprise me. Our meetings are marked more by laughter than conflict. My salary has never been seriously questioned. We pass the budget with a kind of quiet trust.

That is not the case everywhere.

I have sat in other congregations where budget discussions became battlegrounds—voices raised, accusations made, relationships strained. And when cuts are required, there is a predictable order: first the custodian, then administrative support, and finally the minister. Rarely do we begin by questioning the building itself, or the escalating utility costs, or whether we are stewarding our physical resources wisely for the sake of God’s mission.

Again—resource allocation.

One of my professors in Divinity School used to say, “Budgets are theological statements.”

At the time, it sounded clever. Now, it feels convicting.

Because if that is true—and I believe it is—then every line in a budget is a confession of faith. Not in words, but in action. It declares what we believe about God, about the Church, about our purpose in the world.

Do we believe, truly, that “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”? Or do we live as though scarcity is the defining truth, clinging tightly to what we have?

Do we trust Jesus when he says, “Do not worry about tomorrow”? Or do our spending habits reveal a deep anxiety that God will not provide?

And perhaps most importantly: are we investing in God’s work—or in maintaining our own comfort, our own preferences, our own “venues”?

It is so easy, both personally and as a church, to drift into preserving what is familiar. Buildings become central. Programs become entrenched. Traditions become untouchable. And before long, we are allocating the majority of our resources—not toward the movement of the Spirit—but toward the maintenance of what already exists.

We begin to serve the institution, rather than the mission.

But the Church was never meant to be a venue to be maintained. It is meant to be a people sent.

If the Lord is truly our Shepherd, then our security does not lie in balanced budgets or well-maintained buildings. It lies in God’s provision. And that kind of trust frees us—frees us to be generous, to take risks, to invest in ministry that does not have immediate or measurable returns.

It frees us to prioritize people over property. Mission over maintenance. Faithfulness over fear.

That kind of trust is not naïve. It is deeply practical. It asks hard questions:

What are we holding onto that God may be asking us to release?

Where are we spending out of habit rather than conviction?

What would it look like to align our resources with God’s call, rather than our comfort?

These are not easy questions. But they are faithful ones.

Because in the end, whether we are planning a wedding or passing a church budget, we are always answering the same deeper question:

What do we trust God to do?

If we truly believe that God is our Shepherd—then perhaps we can loosen our grip, just a little. Perhaps we can reimagine how we allocate what we’ve been given. Perhaps we can shift our focus from preserving our venues to participating in God’s work in the world.

And perhaps, in doing so, we might discover that we already have enough.

Blessings today and Remember you are Loved,

~Rev. Lynne

Audio File: https://audio.com/lynne-gardiner/audio/office-hours-the-lord-is-my-shepherd