The goal in our stewardship ministry is to help God’s people grow in their relationship with Jesus through the use of time, talents, and finances God has entrusted to them.  Our strategy is to focus on the giver’s need to give, not on the church’s need to receive.  This leads us to the language of discipleship; as disciples we are to grow in knowing Jesus and telling others about Jesus.

Among other things, this means that as disciples of Jesus we are to minister (i.e., do ministry), not simply expect others to do it for us.  We have excellent leaders to help us grow as disciples and we are expected to at least become partners in the enterprise.  Living our lives in the community of the congregation is an important part of being in relationship with Jesus.  It is helpful to engage in activities such as prayer, scripture reading, worship, growth in giving, serving others, and sharing the faith story with the unchurched.

How is God calling you to respond to God’s presence in your life? Do you find anything in the previous paragraph challenging?  If not, perhaps you are already well along an interesting faith journey that your fellow disciples at Christ Lutheran would like to know about.  If you found any of the items discussed as being challenging, resources are available to help you grow into a better disciple.  You are invited to express your interest to a member of the staff or council.

Let us pray:

O Jesus, you have promised to all who follow you,
that where you are in glory, your servant shall be too.
And Jesus, I have promised to serve you to the end;
oh, give me grace to follow, my master and my friend.

–Amen.

“O Jesus, I Have Promised,” John E. Bode,
Hymn 810, Evangelical Lutheran Worship

Composed by George Ohlendorf

For those of you who attended the worship service yesterday, there might have been different thoughts or words that took on new meaning in response to the Stewardship sermon given by Pastor Haynes.   These are some of the ones that caught my attention.

God trusts us to be ambassadors for Christ.  From creation, God has entrusted us with responsibilities to take care of God’s World and God’s People.   God’s trust gives us dignity but also resources to accomplish God’s work.  God’s Holy Spirit equips, empowers, and enables us in whatever we are called to do.   To the question of “Are we willing to be obedient in carrying out God’s mission at Christ Lutheran Church?”   There was an Amen, weak at first but certainly stronger when questioned about the congregation’s conviction.  The Celebration dinner was a way to be together to hear the initial report on the pledges received during the two worship services indicating that there certainly is a commitment at Christ Lutheran Church to support the mission and ministries of God’s work.    AMEN. Let it be so.

Betty Wilkens

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.  No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection, and no pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.  We plant the seed that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.  This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning.

A step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

It is

God’s work.  Our hands.

Submitted by Betty Wilkens

A pocket full of posies

Ashes, ashes

We all fall down

Ash Wednesday comes in two days. A seemingly innocent nursery rhyme that is also a children’s playground game gets at the dreadful essence of the day, by some accounts at any rate. The rhyme may reference the Black Death in medieval Europe, thought by many to be a combination of three types of plague, or the later outbreak of plague in 17^th-century London. Victims sometimes developed a ring-shaped rash, often around boils. Sweet-smelling posies might have been carried by those who tended the sick in order to ward off the horrific stench of the disease or to cleanse the bad air that many thought transmitted the lethal illness. Ashes could betoken the mass cremations of bodies that were done in an effort to stem the further spread of plague. Not everyone fell down in premature death, but estimates run as high as 60% for the segment of the European population that died from plague.

The season of Lent thus does not have an auspicious beginning. We are reminded on its first Wednesday, by the ashes imposed on our foreheads, of our vulnerability and mortality: that we all, indeed, will fall down in death. And Lent ends even worse: with our remembrance of Jesus’ precipitous fall into unimaginable suffering that ended with a cruel and painful state-imposed execution. It is a season that advocates of positive thinking (such as Norman Vincent Peale), possibility thinking (such as Robert Schuller), and prosperity thinking (such as Joel Osteen) might well prefer to ignore. But we need the reminder and the remembrance. Easter is bright Good News only on the dark canvas of Lent, only in lush contrast to the arid reality of our human condition.

Let us pray:

Gracious God, out of your love and mercy you have breathed into dust the breath of life, creating us to serve you and our neighbors. Call forth our prayers and acts of kindness, and strengthen us to face our mortality with confidence in the mercy of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

(Collect for Ash Wednesday, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 26)

Composed by Tom Wilkens

This week we will see red and hearts – it would be hard to avoid the commercialization of Valentines’s Day and the pleas that come in the mail or to our doorsteps to support healthy heart habits and research. As Christians living in this culture of advertisements and advice, we can choose the best parts to observe. It may even be a good time to review how we are treating our hearts with the food we eat, the amount of exercise we do, but most importantly the way we live – our attitude about each and every choice we make. It is very instructive to look up Bible verses that contain the word “heart” for guidance but more importantly a discipline of prayer, Bible Study with a group, regular attendance at a worship service with Holy Communion, and most important being open to God’s Holy Spirit will lead us to how to live life abundantly.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. In Jesus’ Name. Amen. (The prayer of St. Paul in Ephesians 1:17 – 19)

by Betty Wilkens