Today’s Readings: Psalm 100; Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Matthew 25:31-46; Ephesians 1:15-23
Fifteen months ago, I introduced a new practice into the life of the church I serve. Let me give you a little background on the situation to set up this new practice. You see early in my ministry I realized that I wanted to broaden our communal definition of stewardship. I wanted to expand our definition to include more than simply giving money. Consequently, I started putting slips of paper in the back pocket of the chairs in the sanctuary marked “My Gift of Service”. This allowed our members to record the number of hours they had given to God in service during the previous week and turn it in right along with their financial offerings. My hope was that this practice would help individuals realize that the service we give to God is every bit as important as the money we give. After we had been doing this for awhile, I then decided fifteen months ago to add a second category to that slip of paper. In addition to asking individuals to record their gift of service, I asked individuals to also fill out a section marked “My Gift of Devotion”. Here individuals were asked to record the number of hours they had given to God through activities like prayer, meditation and devotion. Some folks wondered why I added this second part to the stewardship sheets. My reason for doing this was as follows. I had been involved in progressive faith communities that consistently emphasized the importance of service. That was a good thing. Sadly, however, many of those same churches ignored the importance of having an active spiritual life to support that service. Consequently, lots and lots of people burned out in their efforts to meet every need. That’s completely understandable since we human beings only have so much energy to go around. If left to our own devices, eventually ALL of us would burn out. So how can we avoid this agonizing burn out? We can avoid it by connecting to an unlimited power source much greater than ourselves who can better sustain us. The author of today’s passage from Ephesians points us toward such a source when he wrote: “I ask – ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory – to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him – endless energy, boundless strength! All this energy issues from Christ” (Ephesians 1:19-20 from The Message). Perhaps in all of your attempts to support your social causes you too have been feeling a little burned out of late. If that’s the case, slow down and remember to devote time to your spiritual life. When you do, you’ll be surprised how much more energy you have as you go back and live a life of service to which God has called us. Til next time…
Fifteen months ago, I introduced a new practice into the life of the church I serve. Let me give you a little background on the situation to set up this new practice. You see early in my ministry I realized that I wanted to broaden our communal definition of stewardship. I wanted to expand our definition to include more than simply giving money. Consequently, I started putting slips of paper in the back pocket of the chairs in the sanctuary marked “My Gift of Service”. This allowed our members to record the number of hours they had given to God in service during the previous week and turn it in right along with their financial offerings. My hope was that this practice would help individuals realize that the service we give to God is every bit as important as the money we give. After we had been doing this for awhile, I then decided fifteen months ago to add a second category to that slip of paper. In addition to asking individuals to record their gift of service, I asked individuals to also fill out a section marked “My Gift of Devotion”. Here individuals were asked to record the number of hours they had given to God through activities like prayer, meditation and devotion. Some folks wondered why I added this second part to the stewardship sheets. My reason for doing this was as follows. I had been involved in progressive faith communities that consistently emphasized the importance of service. That was a good thing. Sadly, however, many of those same churches ignored the importance of having an active spiritual life to support that service. Consequently, lots and lots of people burned out in their efforts to meet every need. That’s completely understandable since we human beings only have so much energy to go around. If left to our own devices, eventually ALL of us would burn out. So how can we avoid this agonizing burn out? We can avoid it by connecting to an unlimited power source much greater than ourselves who can better sustain us. The author of today’s passage from Ephesians points us toward such a source when he wrote: “I ask – ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory – to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him – endless energy, boundless strength! All this energy issues from Christ” (Ephesians 1:19-20 from The Message). Perhaps in all of your attempts to support your social causes you too have been feeling a little burned out of late. If that’s the case, slow down and remember to devote time to your spiritual life. When you do, you’ll be surprised how much more energy you have as you go back and live a life of service to which God has called us. Til next time…
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