Extravagant Generosity

On October 7 First Church will embark on our 2012 financial stewardship emphasis. The theme has been publicized and I hope you have noticed it. Your leadership during this time will be of the greatest value. Part of the church-wide study includes use of a devotional book. The first devotion is very hard on the word stewardship. I got really defensive when I read this chapter. Cooling down a little, I realized the intent of the author, but I respectfully disagree with his premise that we need to use the word, generosity, instead of stewardship. Please pick up one of the devotional books on September 30 and think about the word use and questions at the end of the first chapter. I'd love to hear from some of you with your thoughts on the subject.

Where do we go from here?

The spiritual journey is never a straight line. We enter and leave the process at many times and places during our lives. First Church strives to provide a space for every stage of the way, when we are wandering lost in the wilderness, when we are seeking answers to our deepest questions, when we have decided to join in membership with the congregation and make our public covenant, when we are ready to share our faith as disciples, and when we reach the point of readiness to become God's stewards of our faith community and our world.  Our calling as a church is to be a place where individuals find the resources they need to take the next steps on their faith journey. Our calling as Stewards is to prepare ourselves to do whatever God needs to make that happen. I hope this little series of graphics has given you one tool to tell the story to the next person who asks the question, what does your church believe?

Living the Covenant - Practice Makes Perfect

In addition to the covenant between God and us, the members of the congregation also make agreements each time a new member is welcomed into the community. We are a covenant community. First Church strives to follow the model of a Christian covenant community described in the Bible. United Methodist Church Bishop Schnase outline those practices in a now famous book and several years ago First Church brought them into our awareness and adopted them. The form the next circle of our graphic.

Each of these practices has an inner and an outer component.  We are present for each other in our worship, and present with God in prayer. We develop Faith Forming Relationships through our small groups studies and Sunday School classes, and relationships with God through our Prayer.

Risk-taking Ministries are carried out through service, and our gifts are given individually and privately through caring for each other. Extravagant Generosity describes how we give our gifts of money, a private covenant with God, and our gifts of time and talent through Service to the First Church community and the world.  

First Church has adopted one of those practices, Extravagant Generosity, as the theme for our annual financial stewardship emphasis which begins October 7. As members of the Circle of Stewards, you are well equipped to be leaders for this congregation in the various studies and activities during that emphasis. I hope you will in particular take part in the Heart Card component that enable each of us to share our spiritual growth experiences, and our ministry dreams for First Church. 

I have a poster by my desk at the church that uses the first of each of these practices: Passionate, Risk-Taking, Radical, Extravagant, Faith Forming. These are strong words. These are bold words.  Did you think the life of a Steward should be boring and morose? I think God is calling us to have an adventure.

Living the Covenant - Stewardship Covenant

When we join the United Methodist Church we promise to uphold the church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. This is our membership covenant. Life as a Steward is how we live out that covenant. Hence the name of this exercise, Living the Covenant. 

A covenant is an agreement,  between two entities of unequal power. In a covenant there are two agreements. Each party agrees to carry out certain things, the one of lesser power agrees to do their part, the one of greater power agrees to be faithful to the covenant, and to support the one of lesser power. Our membership agreement is not just a contract or an obligation on our part, it is an agreement is which we make promises to God and God makes promises to us - a covenant.

This symbol is a representation of our membership covenant. Through the months of the church calendar and liturgy, there is emphasis on different aspects of the covenant. In this representation, there is emphasis on the prayer quadrant.  At the center is the word witness. We experience God's grace, we are witnesses. We share that grace with the world, we act as witnesses.

Living the Covenant - Quarilateral Parts 2-4

Scripture, however, is not accepted blindly or literally.Wesley did not discount the rational mind, he respected it.  Logic and reason were applied to interpretation of scripture.  For Methodists today, words spoken and transcribed through multiple languages thousands of years ago are interpreted in light of what we have learned about of linguistics, anthropology, history, biology, current scientific knowledge, all brought to bear to better understand the deep truths of the scripture. 

Direct experience of God, like Wesley’s Aldersgate experience is important to the spiritual journey, but in a vacuum, personal experience can be misinterpreted with terrible results. Evaluating personal experience in light of the Scripture, our traditions, and conferencing with other members of a faith community allows us to better receive the messages we receive from God through our personal experience. 

We benefit from the wisdom of history by examining Scripture, knowledge and experience in light of our Methodist tradition. We also examine that tradition to see when we may have collectively misinterpreted God’s messages for the church. Methodists gather annually on the regional level and every four years on the international level to examine our tradition and make adjustments. Over the years Methodists have reexamined their stance on issues such as slavery, participation of non-clergy members in ministry, and the rights of women to be ordained. Current issues continue to be reexamined in this same tradition, bringing current knowledge, experience, and Scripture to the examination.

Born in love, prepared through study, supported by community, the Christian steward accepts a role as caretaker for all of  God’s creation through actions.

Living the Covenant - Wesly's "quadrilatral"

John Wesley started his career as a minister with an emphasis on strict interpretation of rules, and that ministry was not very successful. One evening coming home from a prayer meeting, Wesley had a moment of epiphany in which he reports “his heart was strangely warmed,” and he realized the depth of God’s grace. He realized it was grace, not rule following, that allows us to draw close to God.  Grace is a total gift, it cannot be earned and cannot be lost, it can only be accepted. That realization, known as the Aldersgate experience, was to change Wesley, and the future of Protestantism.

Wesley devised a method to enable others to come to know this incredible gift of grace.  His followers so diligently followed the method that they came to be known as Methodists, and the name has stuck for several hundred years. The basics of the Methodist lifestyle are outlined in the vows Methodists take when joining the church, to uphold the church by our prayers, presence, gifts,  service and witness that in everything God may be glorified.  

Wesley also devised ways of evaluating actions and beliefs to keep Methodists on track. Modern theologians have referred to this method as the Wesleyian Quadrilateral.  Scripture refers to the words of the Bible, the basis for Christian thought. Scripture is the authority on which all things are based.

Living The Covenant - The Greatest of These is Love

When Jesus was asked what the greatest law was he responded the first was love of God and the second was love of others. All else, he said, was interpretation. 

Jesus brought a revolutionary concept to his time, a time in which kings had all power and the people none. You, Jesus said, are the light of the world, the salt of the earth. Each of you is the temple of God. Through love, God told each person they were worthy. We not only love God and others, we love and respect ourselves as the abiding place of the divine.

John Wesley, founder of the United Methodist Church,  brought the good news to the downtrodden people of Victorian England (think Oliver Twist) when he brought his philosophy  of social justice, and social action, to the factory workers and founded the spiritual fellowship that became the United Methodist Church. John Wesley not only told the people they were worthy, he gave them the tools to take their existence from one of despair to joy.

Knowing that everything is from God and is given to us only to be used for God’s glory is very liberating. We don’t have to tie ourselves to our possessions, our accomplishments, our appearance …. we are free to enjoy every gift without greed and without fear of losing. Our self-esteem is based on God’s love, not who or what we are, and God’s love is a gift.