Blogs and Articles
To encourage worshipful, generous-hearted living
For the most recent blog or to see articles by dates, look down the list on the right.
Written for Giving: Growing Joyful Stewards in Your Congregation, Vol. 22, No. 1, By the Ecumenical Stewardship Center The roots of generosity are in habits of the heart, not in one’s bank balance, says Herb Miller,1 recognized authority in church effectiveness. His assertion is as true related to major gift donors as it is of…
Read MoreWritten for Giving: Growing Joyful Stewards in Your Congregation, Vol. 22, No. 1, By the Ecumenical Stewardship Center Living Closer to the Hub of the Wheel Year-round stewardship is not about repetitive, one-time church programs. It’s about helping people become more generous in many dimensions of their lives. This includes becoming more joyful and faithful…
Read MoreWorship October 13, 2019 Foothills United Methodist Church, Cameron Park, California Theme: Faith as Resistance Invocation Dear God, thank You for being with us all year long, every day, every season, even when we forget. You are the God of miracles and possibilities, and the miracle of the seasons. Fill our hearts with Your gifts…
Read MoreThis is the first week of fall, and I’m beginning to see the signs. When I lived in Europe, the seasons changed dramatically from one day to the next, and they certainly do in other parts of this nation and the world. But in Northern California it’s usually a more subtle change. The night temperature…
Read MoreWe can grow in wisdom if we reflect on and learn from our experience. After writing the chapter on “Growing as Becoming” in Growing Generous Souls, I thought about wisdom as less of an achievement or endpoint, and more as a process of becoming the wise person each of us is meant to be. A…
Read More“To worship God in truth means to worship God with our whole being,” says the pastor of the Church of the Resurrection Online Congregation. This statement fits our understanding of one’s “soul” as the whole of who we authentically are in relationship to God. Worship is our whole-person response to God’s grace. The Greek word…
Read MoreL. Roger Owens’ book What We Need Is Here (Upper Room Books, 2015) is not what my longtime-pastor side might call a “spiritual self-help” book. Its subtitle points to this: Practicing the Heart of Christian Spirituality. Not content to settle for surface religious “how-to”s, Owens seeks to reach the heart of Christian spiritual life, by…
Read MoreLenten Study on Spiritual Disciplines Text: Growing Generous Souls by Betsy Schwarzentraub Growing Generous Souls can offer an excellent small-group study and themes for the six weeks of Lent. This Lenten study focuses on five basic spiritual disciplines while encouraging six core attitudes in our Christian journey of faith. It can fit various formats…
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