Last week was the introduction to our special Stewardship series “A Future With Hope” where we thought together about the cycles and rhythms and movements of life; the ups and downs and how we react to those. Our framework for this thinking is the scriptural theme of exile; a difficult but central piece of the identity of ancient Israel and their descendants as the people of God. This week, we think more about times when perhaps we experienced exile; maybe not physically from our homeland, but all of us went through being pulled apart by years of pandemic and the effects of that still reverberate in communities like ours. We also have all experienced being pushed apart by societal divisions and those who would profit from those divisions. Maybe personally we have each experienced times of feeling not at home in our bodies, our relationships or our life circumstances. Exile may actually hit closer to home than we think. And so how do we get through it? And more so, what is God trying to do within it? What role does the church play, and why are communities of faith a crucial part of God’s plan for a future with hope? Let’s explore this together!
10/9/2022: Kickoff of Stewardship Campaign: A FUTURE WITH HOPE
Every Fall, we enter together into a season of stewardship. We consider where God has brought us, and we look ahead to the future. These last few years have been some of the strangest, scariest and most transformational in church history! The Covid-19 pandemic has brought countless changes to our ways of being together. It has brought difficult questions about what no longer serves us well as a community and where we might be invited to follow Jesus using what we have learned; individually and as a church. Our dream is of a FUTURE WITH HOPE! But what does that look like? How do we live in that?
This particular stewardship campaign (from 10/9-10/30) will draw from imagery of movements in human life that God has built into our story; movements that have always been there as God’s natural rhythms of creation, but which seem all the more evident now that we have been through so much upheaval and change. Movements of EXILE –> RETURN –> MISSION.
We will consider Biblical stories of exile from one’s home into unknown territory–how Israel’s exile story shaped them, but also speaks to a restless homesickness that one can feel in our culture as we try to recenter ourselves in these times. Exile stories always end with a return home as people who are never quite the same and then being sent out again from our comfort zones to participate in God’s mission in the world.
This week we dive in and confront how movement and change can be so difficult for us; so disorienting and scary. And yet, we are given promises about a future with hope even in those times from a God who never changes. Join us for this journey!
10/2/2022: WHAT DISCIPLES DO: Disciples Serve Without Expectation
This week we continue on in the Gospel of Luke, learning from Jesus’ stories and teachings about the best ways to follow in His path in our real and messy lives. This week, we come to a more famous sound byte of Jesus’: that we only need faith as small as a mustard seed and we can move mountains. We can do hard things! But He also tells this strange short story about slaves not needing thanks but just doing their duty. Is that what we are? Slaves in this life of faith? What does Jesus mean by this? But this provocative part of the Gospel does give us some helpful questions about life:
How can we give what we have to the world without resentment and depletion? How can we serve without expecting recognition, just because it is the right thing to do? How do we know when to give and when to receive service from someone else?
9/25/2022: What Disciples Do: Disciples Practice Generosity
This week, we come in this sermon series (“What Disciples Do”) to a more familiar story of a very rich man and a beggar named Lazarus, and it seems like how the one with more power and wealth treats the one with less has far reaching implications. Jesus takes the issue of our generosity towards each other (especially towards those in need) and gives that life or death importance. That’s enough to get our attention. What does this mean for us? Who are the beggars in our midst, longing for something that we might be able to provide? We are not called to give perfectly and we will not get it right every time, but every one of has something to give and we are called to PRACTICE generosity. So the question is: how? Let’s think it through together and pray about it going forward!
9/18/2022: What Disciples Do: Disciples Prioritize Relationship
This week in our new Fall sermons (“What Disciples Do”), we come to one of the most puzzling parables from Jesus that I know–the parable of the Dishonest Manager—and we ask ourselves the question: how do we live as His followers from the wisdom in this story? How did such a story inform Jesus’ leadership and ministry? On the surface, this story seems to be a lot about money, economic, jobs and shady dealings. But we are going to find out together how it actually might be calling us to give renewed priority to our relationships; our connections with one another as some of the greatest riches ever given to us.