Living the Covenant

Yesterday a guest at IHN asked me what kind of church this was. I replied, "Methodist." As we stood in the foyer chatting over a cold drink of water she said, "What do you believe?" My mind began racing, here it was, the "elevator speech" opportunity. What would you have answered? You never know when it might happen, but it's good to be prepared. I'd love to share here your suggestions.

Some of us are aural, some readers. Some of us learn best from graphs, some from symbols. For the next few weeks we're going to construct a stewardship symbol that describes my understanding of stewardship using a graphic element. For me, it helps tie things together and remember some the meaning behind some of the words. I did this first a few years ago in a series of presentations called Living the Covenant. It continues to evolve, but if anyone would like to have this shared in their small group (study group, Sunday School, whatever) let me know and we can arrange it. The title is Living the Covenant - Christian Stewards.
 

Stewardship is the word we use to describe how we live out our faith in the world. Our life as stewards is acknowledgment that all that we are and all that we have is a gift from God, given to us to be used for God’s purposes.

In the United Methodist Church, we follow a process of spiritual development that includes growth in areas of communion with God (prayer), communion with each other (presence), management of the world and its resources (gifts), management of our own time (service) and sharing with the world the good news we have learned as Christians (witness).

God’s first gift is love and all things stem from that love. 

What's Next

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.

Closing Ceremonies

And so it ends. I hope you have had some fun with this little adventure in comparing Olympian training to stewardship. One thing it did for me was bring a new perspective to my following the events. New commitments lead to new perspectives and new ways of seeing things, including myself. It's like putting a colored filter over the lens of a camera.

Today's quote is from LaBron James, US basketball team after winning the gold, "It means more than myself, it means more than my name on my back. It means everything to the name on the front."
I think I'll carry that image around for a while.

The Agony of Defeat

And then it happens - you lose. Even a proven champ like Gabby Douglas can fall short.  For some it was enough to be competing. For others that first medal, even a bronze, was a victory. For the expected champion, for the one who lost by hundredths of a second, a silver medal holds no glory.

Here's where the analogy between Olympic training and being a Steward in training ends. For the Steward - there is no defeat. That isn't to say there aren't times of feeling lost, estranged, like we are living in a spiritual desert. Those are necessary times in our spiritual growth. But the great example of the crucifixion is that what looks like defeat to the world may actually be victory. As a steward accepting my role in caring for God's church and for all of creation, I feel pretty defeated right now. That's when I need the support of my team, my coach, my sports psychologist (translate that to be my church, my God, and my pastors).

The Grace Zone

Have you ever had one of those magic moments when time seemed to stop and everything just flowed the way it should? I'm not an athlete, but I've spent a lot of years performing music. We practice and practice, rehearse and rehearse, and mostly we do a good job of performing. Most times the audience enjoys itself and we don't fall off the stage. But once in a while there is a magic moment when everything just comes together. Every note falls effortlessly into place - high notes sail, fingers effortlessly toss off those 16th note passages. You can't make those happen, you can't force them. Just sometimes, like grace, the moment arrives. You never forget, and you always hope it happens again, but you can't make it or fake it. You just have to keep practicing and wait.

Last night in the Olympics I saw an athlete will perform a personal best far beyond what she have ever done before. Her magic moment comes at the right time. You know that physically her body was capable of it all along, but for unknown reasons, only at one particular magic moment, it happened. Champions find ways to perform at that level regularly, but even champions rarely enter into that space where it all seems effortless.  There a lot of pop terms for those magic moments. I choose to call them  grace. But here's the thing, those moments of grace don't come along unless the hard work was done first, The hard work enables them, but it can't force them.

Stewards prepare mentally, spiritually, and physically so that when it's time to perform a personal best we're ready. We can't guarantee the moment of grace, but we can put ourselves in a position to receive it when it comes.

Coaching

News flash is that coaches weren't allowed to march in the Olympic opening ceremonies. They needed to cut back on the number of participants and the coaches were the ones to go. US coach Geno Auriemma is quoted as saying "To be honest the Olympics are about the athletes. No one really remembers who the coaches were. No one remembers who coached Jesse Owens." True enough coach, I certainly don't remember. But Jesse Owens did have a coach, as has every outstanding athlete in history. I was visiting the exhibit at the Blanton and saw a BCE bas-relief showing the coaches preparing young athletes in the "gymnasium." The coach is the one with the nerve to look the fastest runner on the planet in the eye and tell him/her they can run faster, and this is how to do it. Everybody needs a coach. Stewards in training need coaches as well. When I started this idea of an anonymous Steward's Circle that could exist virtually, I may have overlooked the importance of community for spiritual growth. Can we achieve that type of community virtually? Can we carry on our personal spiritual growth without a coach to call us to task? John Wesley didn't think so. That's one thing his small groups were for. Can we re-create the ethos of the spiritual coaching tradition we have inherited?

Curling is a winter sport - you won't see it this summer. It is one of the strangest sports I have ever seen. I first encountered it when I moved to Wisconsin and I thought the people playing this odd game on the ice had lost their minds. In case you don't know the sport, one person tries to slide the stone across the ice to a goal. Teammates sweep around the stone in an effort to help guide it. They are not allowed to touch the stone, only to create an environment around it that helps guide it to its goal. This sport, which you will see in the Winter Olympics, describes for me of the life of a steward. I'm not allowed to jump into anyone's life and make them experience God or carry out mission work, or act in any particular way. My task is to be a good sweeper - to create an environment in which every stone is best enabled to reach its destination. I like this analogy for a couple of reasons, one of which is it helps keep me from taking myself too seriously. When I get all tied up in knots I imagine myself sweeping away with my little broom. Watch a curling video and see what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXeXNHRPMMI