Stewardship
Imagine a World with More….
Abundance is not a result you create. It is an existing state you recognize. We ask for long life, but tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our stewardship campaign is getting ready to kick off this Sunday with the theme, “Imagine a World with More….”
“More” is sort of a funny concept. We use the word to express all manner of wants and desires: I want more cookies; I want more power; I want more stuff. But we use the same word to express our deepest needs: I need more peace; I long for more hope; I’m looking for more community; I’m called to work for more justice; I yearn to live more love. That deeper sense of “more” – that true abundance – comes not necessarily from having more, but from noticing the more we already have. From sharing the more we’ve already been given. Like love – which doesn’t deplete when we give it away. It expands. It grows. It makes more of itself.
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Did you ever notice that when we focus on what blessings we have in our lives, we see more and more of them in every moment? And when we pay most attention to what we don’t have, we only see what feels lacking,
where no amount of additions ever feel like enough? Wherever we invest our energy, our focus, our time, talents, and treasure, we notice what’s already there. Whenever we invest in those things that matter most, we see them expand and grow. However we share the blessings we have received, the more we find that they the more we find that they multiply…and carry forward…from our lives…and into the world. This year’s stewardship campaign offers us the chance to both notice the blessings in our lives and to share a little blessing with someone else. We’re bringing back a little bit of the Secret Stewards we had a few years ago. Each of you has received the name and email address for a person or family in our congregation. Your mission (and I hope you choose to accept it) is to send that person a kind note sometime in the next three weeks. (If you want to remain anonymous feel free to send it to me and I’ll forward it on.) You can write a little something yourself, or send along a poem or prayer that you particularly love. In this way, we can each imagine and create a little bit more – in our congregation and in our world. And that little bit more, when shared, almost always flows back to us.
We also have the opportunity to imagine and bring forth more in our congregation and the world. You have already been giving through your financial support of our church’s mission in our community and in our world. The Stewardship board and I would like to thank you for the contributions you have made. We have been able to do important work because of your gifts. We would like to ask each family to prayerfully consider your financial giving for the coming year. Your giving will allow us to continue and even grow our missions of
caring for our children and youth, utilizing and sharing our facilities, showing forth love and justice, and supporting our community, our world, and people in need. Together, we can imagine and create so much more.
Thank you again, so very much, for your generous support of our church’s mission and ministry.
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Blessings,
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The Reverend Kirsten Linford