Congregational Stewardship
I’ve been thinking a lot about water lately. That’s partly because our congregation is exploring the theme of “Creation Care and Climate Justice” in this worship season. The Holistic Stewardship Team, which I lead, initiated it. But it’s an important topic for global, more official sources, too, such as the Revised Three-Year Common Lectionary, 1…
“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 the Christian understanding of one’s “soul” as the whole of who we authentically are, living in relationship to God. Worship is our whole-person response to God’s grace. The…
I never was a fan of the word “discipline.” It sounds too much like “punishment” to me. Not that my parents disciplined me very much. But the term used to leave a bad taste in my mouth, nevertheless. But not any longer. Actually, “discipline” comes from the word for “disciple.” Ah, that makes a huge…
I didn’t grow up celebrating a bunch of special Christian days, but I’m finding some of the basics reassuring in these uncertain times. One of those is a hundred-year-old tradition called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It lasts for eight days, usually Jan. 18-25. That’s this week. Even the phrase “Christian unity” may…
Author Mark Nepo tells the story of a troubled man who asked for help from a sage.1 The wise man offered him a choice. “Do you want a map or a boat?” The supplicant looked at the many other suffering people around him and answered, “I want the boat.” So the monk told him, “Go,…
“The unforced rhythms of grace” – that’s a lovely phrase in The Message version of the Bible for Matthew 11:30. Here are the verses that lead up to it: Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to…
“You can’t go home again,” says the old adage, and most of us would agree. When we return to the old, familiar places, something has changed. We are different now from who we were back then, and the actual place of “home” is different now, as well: people there have changed from their experiences while…
Trust makes us vulnerable, but it opens the heart to the riches of each moment. A dear friend, Brenda Sue, gave me The Book of Awakening by poet Mark Nepo. In it, each day of the year has a written reflection, but sometimes I choose to range through the daily pages like a treasure hunter…
Okay so I admit, I’ve been so oriented to doing and achieving all my life that the core of my existence – my being – has felt threatened time and again as I’ve hurried through my daily personal To Do lists. But it’s the being side of living that gives meaning, joy, and a potential…
If you’re part of a congregation, no doubt people are starting to talk about program plans for the year ahead. But whatever you initiate, people will need to keep supporting it to keep it going. That requires personal investment in the idea, awareness of the purpose, commitment from volunteers, and enough money for staff time…