This Month's Newsletter Column + Preaching Schedule

Letters from the Soul: August 2013

Dear Church,

This past month, on behalf of our congregation, I attended the General Assembly of our denomination, the Disciples of Christ, in Orlando, Florida (seriously, Florida in July…worst idea ever).  It was a fantastic assembly, with lots of great work being done by our mother denomination across areas of spirituality, mission, outreach, and justice work.

While there, I used a significant portion of my time there to attend a series of seminars on giving. Walter Brueggeman, a Bible professor who delivered the initial lecture, noted that in 21^st century America, with its extremely strong allegiance to individuality, giving and stewardship seem especially counterintuitive.  After all, why would I give *my* money to God’s church?

In this way, Christianity—though it remains the majority religion in the United States, and the plurality religion in the world—can still be radical and counter-cultural.  From the beginning, the Christian church has rejected the “what’s mine is mine” mentality in favor of a “what’s God’s is God’s” worldview, and the New Testament church managed their assets accordingly, pooling everything they had into a common fund and distributing it according to need.

We do our New Testament forebears credit, then, whenever we take what is “ours” and make it the church’s, because in the end, we do not as much own our things so much as borrow them from the resources of God’s good creation.  Returning those resources back to the Body of Christ and laying them at His feet is therefore not only right, it is just.

I encourage you, then, if you haven’t already, to make deliberate generosity—to the church, to each other, even to strangers—a spiritual discipline, one in which your relationship with Jesus Christ can grow and mature.  For, as our own Dr. Davenport always says, God loves a cheerful giver!

Yours in Christ,
Pastor Eric

This Month in Worship: "The Gospel Gone Viral" sermon series, continued

August 4: "The Tweet of Paul to Philemon," Philemon 4-9

August 11: "Click "Like" if You Love Jesus," Philemon 10-21

August 18: "The Blog of Luke," Luke 1:1-4

August 25: "Behold the (Digital) Man," John 19:1-5