It's been a while since I updated - we've been busy getting together the planning for this year's Financial Stewardship project. I promised that this Stewards Circle would have one specific aim, and that signing on to be part of the Circle would not commit you to anything else. That is still true. But if any of you are moved to be part of this year's Financial Stewardship project as part of your Stewards' journey, please let me know. I'm really excited about what we are doing this year. A few years ago we studied a book by Bishop Schnase about the 5 practices of fruitful congregations: Radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk taking mission and service, extravagant generosity. A group of pastors and lay experts created a guide for Stewardarship education based on the principles of Extravagant Generosity. That's the guide we are using this year.
In case you missed picking up a monthly newsletter at worship, I'll repeat here what we put in the August issue as a teaser. We started with a quote from author Annie Dillard. "If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions of profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go."
Afire - how well that goes with our cross and flame emblem. We are a pentecost people, at our best afire with the energy and enthusiasm of the Holy Spirit. Normally extravagance is a word with a bad rep. Paired with "generosity" it takes on a whole new meaning. Like a fish looking for water, we seek security in scarcity mentalities when all around us God is showering us extravagantly with blessings to be shared. Finding, celebrating, and passing on those blessings in acts of extravagant generosity will be our focus during October. Of course, you don't have to wait, you could start now if you like.
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