Congregational Stewardship

Mike Bryant Turquoise fired wash basin and bowl

Christmas Being

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | December 26, 2018

            Being. Focusing on being versus compulsive doing. That’s what prompted me several years ago to start writing my book, Growing Generous Souls. I had experienced dozens of years of well-meaning doing in the church, dotted with periodic moments sensing our being in the presence of the Living God. My study of the spiritual disciplines…

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Congruence: Eugene Peterson

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | December 17, 2018

               There was so much more to Rev. Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message, a version of the Bible, than I had known about him, despite years spent with that volume in daily devotions. I knew he was a Presbyterian clergyman who had pastored a church for decades, but I didn’t know he…

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Being in Advent

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | December 10, 2018

This far into the pre-Christmas period, many of us may be up to our chins in busyness, whether from shopping, community holiday events, or gatherings of family and friends. And did I mention shopping? So how can we re-focus ourselves on being instead of frenetic doing? On the birth of Christ in our hearts and…

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The Spirit of Advent

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | December 3, 2018

Counting the Days to Christmas is the title of a Christian devotion-and-activity book I started some years ago for children and their parents or grandparents. Maybe someday I’ll finish it. It’s hard to believe that we’re counting those days to Christmas already this year. Advent calendars start counting on December first. They’re a favorite tradition…

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Reign of Christ Sunday

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | November 26, 2018

Yesterday millions of Christians celebrated “Reign of Christ Sunday,” the last Sunday of the Christian worship Year. At first blush, it’s odd to have one Sunday named that, since the Reign, or Kingdom, of God is a big deal in Christian faith. But it turns out that it came about in 1920s Italy, as the…

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Giving Thanks for Messy Relationships

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | November 23, 2018

Thanksgiving was a big deal in my growing-up family, since we’re Mayflower descendants. So Mom would pull out all the stops, and we kids helped in the preparations, as well. But no matter how people approach Thanksgiving, getting ready for that holiday can involve some special recipes or once-a-year dishes we save for that one…

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Grieve, Hope, Respond

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | November 19, 2018

St. Paul once wrote that we grieve, but not as those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). I saw that personally once, when I attended the funeral of a man who was the patriarch of his Hmong clan, some of whom were members of the congregation I served. The family had decided to have…

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“Teach Your Parents Well”

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | November 12, 2018

I remember the good-natured difference of opinion my dad and I had in my teen years about “nature versus nurture.” He would say that a person’s good traits were “in your genes,” and I would say, “It’s how you are raised.” – But when it comes to generosity, scientific studies have increasingly found that it’s…

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Saints and the Search for Moral Presence

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | November 1, 2018

Today is All Saints Day, so it’s appropriate to think about the saints in our lives and world. These days, every day seems to be the opposite of saintly: national brink-of-war tactics, political partisan diatribes, hate crimes, and horrendous violence. So maybe All Saints Day is really important right now, whether we ascribe to official…

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The Social Contagion of Generosity

By Betsy Schwarzentraub | October 22, 2018

Generosity is not just an individual trait; 1 it can have a huge effect on our communities. I was excited to see that scientific studies are actually documenting how generous behavior creates and builds our relationships with others. I’ve always thought of contagion as a bad thing: as in viruses, diseases, a plague. So an…

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