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.
It was a moving act of worship on Sunday, All Saints Day. People chose to come forward to light votive candles in memory of those who have inspired and helped shape their lives. I thought of my parents, mother-in-law, grandmother, two teachers and two mentors, all of whom have tried to “tame this wild beast”…
Read MoreThe television news has been devastating, showing thousands of refugees running for their lives, swamping train stations to leave one country for another, cradling babies and urging their children forward, in the face of forceful military or hateful crowds. It doesn’t take much to imagine the misery they are leaving behind, along with all their…
Read MoreThis fall is an excellent time to acknowledge and affirm individuals’ spiritual gifts, with church leaders in new positions preparing to serve next year in ministry roles. When it comes to spiritual-gifts resources, the best book I’ve found is Patricia D. Brown’s SpiritGifts. The practical part is that it’s about not only gifts discovery, but…
Read MoreWhen it comes to giving (no, not just money), one message I’ve shared for some years is this: Focus not only on our response, not even on the gifts we’ve been given, but on God, the generous Giver. Yes, that’s true, to get the authentic, deep-down context for generous-hearted living. But at some point it’s…
Read MoreWritten for the CA-NV United Methodist Conference Instant Connection, 7/30/2015 Live Free, the 2015 issue of Giving magazine from the Ecumenical Stewardship Center (ESC), is now available. The center section, written by California-Nevada Conference minister, the Rev. Betsy Schwarzentraub, is the leader’s guide for a four-week worship emphasis on holistic stewardship that also helps fund…
Read MoreWritten for the CA-NV United Methodist Conference Instant Connection, 7/30/2015 The 2012-2016 U.M. Guideline, Stewardship: Nurturing Generous Living, is now available. This nuts-and-bolts booklet, written by the Rev. Betsy Schwarzentraub, former California-Nevada Conference Director of Stewardship, is written for a local church stewardship team to build a generosity plan for the congregation. The forty-page booklet…
Read MoreMy email program went haywire recently, and I finally called our computer guru to do his wizardry. Other people’s servers had been sending emails to me but weren’t getting a message back that my server had received them. So they kept sending them over again. Likewise, the same thing was happening with my emails going…
Read MoreWhat an act of generosity! Our friends were coming up to this year as their fiftieth anniversary. Having lived in Australia and the United States over the years, they had formed strong friendships with a great number of people. So they decided to spend their special anniversary money, and more, on bringing the two communities…
Read MoreThe televised segments of the World Special Olympics this week have related story after story of inspiration, persistence, and generosity. Some of the generosity was spontaneous, as when people chipped in to buy matching uniforms for one national team. But a lot of generosity was planned, for example by the thousands of volunteers who assisted…
Read MoreSpace discoveries have been thrilling these past few weeks, thanks to traveling telescopes launched many years ago. The New Horizons program, nine years on its journey, has sent back amazingly detailed photos of Pluto, the icy dwarf planet at the near edge of millions of icy-rock balls in the Kuiper Belt at the far edge…
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