Doctrinal Standards

Dear Trinity Tribe,

Good morning! I am amazed at how much snow is still outside in the parsonage yard! I hope you are safe and warm this morning!

One of the critiques that the United Methodist Church has faced by some corners is that we do not have a doctrine. Now, the way that some people define doctrine, that would be a fair assessment. Some people use doctrine as a measuring stick to include or exclude people in church membership. Unlike some denominations, we do not have a list of items that we verbally agree to when we join the church. We do not have to memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism when we join a United Methodist Church. However, we do have doctrines that outline what we believe as United Methodists. They are not dictatorial and legalistic. And as Captain Barbosa says on Pirates of the Caribbean about the Code of the Brethren, "the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules." Our United Methodist doctrines sum up what we believe. However, they are living documents that we must continually reflect upon, interpret, and expand upon in light of scripture, tradition, reason, and our experience in the world today.

When John Wesley sent the first four bishops to the young United States, he gave them 25 articles to guide the church. These Articles of Religion explain what we believe about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Church, and the Bible among other topics.

In Bible study this year, we studied these Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church as contained in the 2008 Book of Discipline. These 25 articles, along with the Confession of Faith of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (the denomination that merged with the Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church in 1968), John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the New Testament and John Wesley's standard sermons form our foundation of belief.

Here is a link to our the documents that are our doctrinal standards:
http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp?mid=1648

I invite you to poke around and discover what depth and breadth our doctrinal standards have. There, of course, is language that points to the context in which the documents were written. You will not find inclusive language in these statements of faith. However, we give John Wesley charity and understand the environment in which he lived. When you read the Articles of Religion in particular, you will see in black and white, John Wesley's disdain for Roman Catholic practices again pointing to the time in which he lived. This is where we use scripture, reason, tradition, and our own experiences as a lens with which to view the documents. We know that women are an integral and important part of the church and its leadership. Therefore, we see where Wesley wrote "men" and expand the meaning of "men" to include men, women, youth and children that are active members and participants within our congregations. We bring John Wesley's words forward into 2010, almost 2011.

Even with these cultural markers of John Wesley's time period, the doctrines of our faith are amazing statements of what we believe. They point to why I choose to be United Methodist and why I feel we hold the best expression of living out the Gospel in the world as the Church. I invite you to read and be convicted in why you choose to be United Methodist as well. And for those of you who are not United Methodist who read this, I invite you to see what we believe and push back using your statements of faith and doctrine. In that conversation, perhaps we can better understand one another and our own doctrines.

Have a blessed day!

Talking it out

Good morning Trinity Tribe!


The United Methodist Church launched a redesigned website aimed at spiritual seekers on December 15th. RethinkChurch.org invites visitors to question, discuss, get involved and make a difference. They advertised this website on cable TV channels like Comedy Central and MTV over the holidays. That subset of the UMC produced the videos that we loaded on our Facebook page as well as the dramatic readings we used during the worship services in Advent. I am glad that the UMC is using media that young people use in order to engage them in conversation. I was browsing through the website and stumbled upon this post on one of the discussion boards:

I don't know what I am or who I am; just that I want to help:
by lauragurl

I'm an agnostic teenager... I was raised a presbyterian but I no longer have faith in who I am or what I belive. I want to know who to belive in but I cant seem to find a single religion that mirrors my very beliefs. I want to help people though... I want to give back to the world, i just want to know how to do it... I'm so young I can't change anything, I have to sit here helplessly when there's people out there dying. How can I change the world before I'm legal? and through this can I find my faith that I lost so long ago


So, Trinity Tribe, what would you say to lauragurl? How would you say it? How can she change the world? If this was written by one of the teenagers in our church, what would you say? What can teenagers in Red Springs do to change the world?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lQJiRztNpc

Being invitational

Good evening everyone in the Trinity Tribe!

I hope you are safe and warm tonight! With the weather, Claire's flight got postponed until tomorrow. So, I will not be in the office until later in the afternoon. I will be doing the newsletter then. So, please get me any information you want included in it by afternoon.

If you want to make a gift to the church that will be eligible for 2010 tax deductions, feel free to call and I can meet you during the week or you can drop by in the mornings.

Lots of people make new year's resolutions this time of year. I know I have made resolutions about exercising and being better about sabbath in the past. Many people assess the state of their lives at this time of year as well. I had shared tips for increasing worship attendance several weeks back. The last two bits of advice seem very applicable at this time of year:

15. Know that personal invitations are the most effective method of increasing worship attendance. Invest sixty seconds once a week to invite someone to attend worship with you.

16. Continue to invite a person every two months even if they decline your invitations. Those invited may eventually come to a season of life when they are receptive to attending worship. Regular invitations are more likely to overlap one of these seasons.

What if we all had a short list of people that we are praying for to become Christian and/or visit our church?

What if we were also be on the look out for people who are in a season of their lives that would make them open to hearing about how Jesus can change your life? We never know what one kind word could mean to someone in a difficult spot. The fact that you or I got through a difficult time might give someone else the hope that they can get through a difficult time. The way we live our lives might make someone wonder how we can be peaceful when our lives are so hectic. We just never know how God may use us to speak to someone else. So, we always have to be ready!

Blue Christmas

Good morning Trinity Tribe,

Our family has spent a lot of time listening to Christmas music on the radio in the last month. It has been a lot of fun. However, one of our jokes is that there are just some artists that have no business making a Christmas album, at least in our humble opinion. Prince and Bon Jovi really have no business in the Christmas genre.

One of my favorite musical groups in college were the Indigo Girls, folksy melodic due out of the Atlanta area. They have great lyrics and a smokey vocal quality that I just love. It turns out that one of the Indigo Girls has a father who is a professor at a United Methodist Seminary (Candler Theological at Emory University). I offer this video to you as one artist's take on turning the struggles we face at Christmas with loss into something beautiful.

http://youtu.be/qGLA3QNEyVA

This can be a very difficult time for people. Christmas is all about family and cuteness and presents. What if people you love have died? That hole in your heart gets bigger this time of year. What if you are fighting with your family or friends or spouse? Having to put on a happy face could be a huge punishment and area of stress. Just imagine what the loss of a child feels like at Christmas…that might be almost too much pain to bear.

I invite us all to take a moment from our shopping and wrapping and decorating to spend time in prayer for people who are hurting this Christmas. Do you know anyone who is hurting? This might be the perfect opportunity to reach out to them and let them know that you care and that you are willing to listen to their pain. You could be that one friend that they don't have to hide what they feel around you. What a blessing that would be.

Added bonus:

One of my new favorite TV shows is Glee. It is an odd-ball show chronicling the lives of the high school glee club in Lima, OH. This YouTube video doesn't do justice to the song, but there weren't a lot of other options.

http://youtu.be/YilUKDhBxjE --

Standing in place

Good morning Trinity Tribe!

Update: Betsy is doing better and is now in room 725 at Southeastern in Lumberton.

One of the best parts about being the pastor is that you get to stand in place of the congregation when it is unfeasible for the whole congregation to show up to something. I got the pleasure of doing that yesterday. When I went to visit Betsy in the hospital yesterday, I brought the gifts that people gave for the children that live at the Methodist Home for Children in Lumberton and stopped by there on the way back to Red Springs. Thank you for letting me have that neat experience on your behalf! Everyone was SOOOOO appreciative of our gifts. I have a card to all of us to share at worship this week.

8-10 young people live at the MHC. Most of them have had truancy issues…poor behavior…issues at school…etc. Most of what brings them there could have been avoided if their parents were better at parenting. Therefore, one of the biggest things they do there is to work with the families. Tamara took me on a tour of the facility. It is VERY clean and cared for. They have a kitchen where all the food is prepared. A teacher comes in and teaches the students there at the facility. She was very nice and had just done a math lesson on measurement using Christmas cookies. They are going visiting at another youth home and are bringing cookies. Each child has chores to do every day. They are in school from 8-3. They can only watch TV for limited time a few days a week. They play family board games and cards and things on the other nights of the week.

I was impressed by the staff and the young people I met. The young people were polite. You could tell there was a lot of structure. We are doing real good and helping people in a profound way. I don't know what the statistics are like after kids graduate from the program. However, they have been given tools to succeed in the world during their stay there.

You can be proud that the United Methodist Church does good work in the name of Jesus Christ like this. If you want to read more about the MHC, please visit their website at : http://www.mhfc.org/home/ This is one of those things that an individual church just cannot pull off by itself. It takes the hundreds of congregations in the North Carolina Conference to put our hearts, heads, and offerings together to do something of this scale and depth. In Matthew 25:45, Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." We are certainly following Jesus' command in this way. Give yourself a pat on the back and send a prayer to God for each of these young people to be transformed.


Epiphany at the Parsonage
You are cordially invited to Epiphany at the Parsonage! Come on over to see the renovations that were done this year on the parsonage and visit with your neighbors and enjoy a Christmas cookie or two. We will have Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors from 3-5pm on Sunday, January 2nd.

Music in the air

Good Morning Trinity Tribe,

I pray that you are well this morning! I am busily trying to get three bulletins together for the next week. December 26th is done. I just need two for Christmas Eve! Yay for progress!

If your children are home this week and complain of boredom, I could use some more bulletin covers for Christmas Eve and on into January. Pen and ink works best but very dark pencil seems to copy well.

If you were not in worship on Sunday, you missed a treat! The Cantata was AMAZING! Thank you to Penny and the whole choir for all their very hard work! The music was wonderful and the words were meaningful! We especially thank Joseph (Penny's grandson) for setting up a sound system that enabled everyone to hear well.

Being able to hear something makes a big difference. I know as we grow older it is so frustrating to not be able to hear like we once did. Many people we know suffer…and I mean suffer…because they cannot hear certain frequencies or certain sounds or in certain places like ones with lots of background noise. Not being able to hear causes hurt feelings, sadness, and a sense of isolation.

Sometimes we have a hard time hearing God's voice as God speaks to us. I know it has taken God hitting me with a 2x4 sometimes for me to listen to God. I find it especially hard to hear God when there is a lot going on.

In Hebrews 4:12, we find this verse: For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

I invite us all to take some time to listen to God over the Christmas holidays. It might mean that we have to get up earlier than everyone else. It might mean that we need to take a time-out from all the chaos of wrapping and shopping and cooking. However, if we take that time to listen, really listen, God has many things to tell us.

Have a blessed day and be a blessing to someone.

Christmas giving

Good morning Trinity Tribe,

I pray that you are being careful if you have to be out this morning. There is certainly ice out there, so be slow and wear golf shoes today!

One of the things I like best about being United Methodist is our connection to other churches. We are not some island of a congregation. We, instead, are connected to other United Methodists all over the world and even in our backyard. We may not all do things the same, but we are connected at a deep level because of our theology and love for Christ. Because we are connected, we can do more good than if we were just one church by ourselves. I may never go to Africa, but money I have returned to God through Trinity United Methodist Church, is in Africa right now, caring for others, allowing people to be educated at Africa University, and helping orphans develop businesses that support them and their siblings.

While some of the money that the UMC collects goes around the world, most of it stays here at home. One way we can all participate in that, is the district Christmas offering. It is traditional for churches to give the offering collected on Christmas Eve to one worthy project in the District. For example, one year in the Fayetteville District, we gave the money to help one of the pastors pay for his daughter's kidney transplant. This year, our offering will go to the restoration of St. George's UMC church. The building has become unusable for worship due to structural issues. The entire Maxton community has rallied around this church….providing a place to worship and financial support to the rebuilding effort.

Here is what our wonderful District Superintendent, Leonard Fairley, had to say about our Christmas Eve offering this year:

The 2010 Rockingham District Christmas offering is designated for St. George United Methodist Church Restoration Project. This project has been embraced by the entire Maxton Ministerial Alliance. I have had the joy of being present at each of the events sponsored by the City of Maxton Ministerial Alliance, and have come away each time with a new appreciation of how the different denominations and races have partnered together to help restore this historic African American Church. I am asking each church in the Rockingham District to prayerfully give generously, and join this effort to restore one of the district’s historic churches. Please know that my prayers are always with each of you as we continue to partner together in kingdom building.

I wanted you to be informed about what a wonderful opportunity we have to do something meaningful for a church just down the road.

“Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the urgent task of passing it on to others . . . .
You are who you are through this gift and call of Jesus Christ!”
--Romans 1:5-6, The Message

Being a welcoming church

Good morning Trinity Tribe,

I hope you are well! We had a fabulous time seeing the new Narnia movie yesterday. It was quite good! If you have a chance to see it, I recommend it. Look for the themes of self-sacrifice and temptation. This would be a great movie to take someone you know who is not a believer in Christ. It raises questions of sin and forgiveness that might the perfect jumping off place for you to share why you believe in Jesus with someone else.

Please send in any announcements as soon as possible! I would love to have the bulletin done and printed early this week. I would also like next week's bulletin printed this week as well. If there are any announcements, I would love to have them extra early.

We do have one more name of a needy middle school student that needs to be adopted. If you feel called to help someone in this way, please let me know ASAP. Remember, all gifts and food items must be at church by Wednesday. Or feel free to drop them off with Becky or on the parsonage porch.

Christmastime is a time of year when people may walk through our doors at Trinity. People are searching for a deeper meaning to life. They may have fond memories of childhood from church. They may want to sing carols. Or they may just stop by on a whim. We need to be ready. I gave each of you an invitation to use to invite someone to worship next week. If you didn't get one, stop by the church office to get one or two or ten.

Knowing that we will have visitors in the next few weeks, I thought it was important to think about how we need to be prepared for visitors. How welcoming is our church, really? Every church thinks it is a welcoming church, even the churches where the people will yell at you for sitting in "their" seat. How can we make people that walk through our doors at Trinity feel welcome?

There are some people that I can count on speaking to a visitor during our greeting time in the service. Thank you for going out of your comfort zone to do that. I pray that God gives all the rest of us courage to do that. Most visitors sit towards the back. I usually don't get that far, so thank you to you back row people for your hospitality to visitors!

I know for a fact there will be visitors in the pews this Sunday. Several of Kenna and Hanna's guests are coming are from a different denomination that doesn't worship in the same way we worship. How can we make them feel comfortable? I have tried to put more information in the bulletin that would help a newcomer…for example not everyone knows the Apostle's Creed or the Lord's prayer. So, I am intentional about page numbers. I have tried to add directions to the restroom in order to be hospitable. I try in my welcome to extend radical hospitality and be visitor friendly. Holding hands and singing "The Family of God" could be a very uncomfortable time for a visitor. Therefore, I try to explain it in my welcome. What have I missed? What made you feel comfortable or even uncomfortable the first time you came to Trinity? Or what made you feel comfortable when you have visited another church?

I visited a church at the beach many years ago. They had the visitors stand up, introduce themselves, and then they gave us a loaf of bread. I appreciated the delicious bread. However, standing up and introducing myself was VERY UNCOMFORTABLE for me! However, that was one of the church traditions. THe members liked it because they got to know a little about the visitors. I can't blame them for wanting to know who was worshipping with them. However, it was not comfortable for me, the visitor.

Here are some easy yet solid ideas about being welcoming to newcomers. I invite you to share your ideas as well! What makes you feel welcome in our church or in another church you may visit? What else could we be doing to make people feel welcome?

Welcoming Ministry
TRAINING MANUAL and PLANNING HANDBOOK
Here are some ideas that might make it easier for you to welcome others to our church. Feel free to come up with other ideas or adapt these on your own. These are just to get you thinking about welcoming as a personal ministry, right there in the pew, and a lifestyle for our church.

Circle of 10: Greet anyone, member or guest, who comes within ten feet of you. Make a special effort to greet the people you don’t already know within your Circle of 10.

Rule of Three: Please do not talk to other members for the first three minutes after the service. Talk only to those you don’t know or people you know are guests. It takes guests about three minutes to exit the church after worship and we need to make sure someone has made contact with them before they leave.

Don’t know what to say to a guest? Here are a few conversation starters:
1. Offer a handshake and say, “Hello.My name is _____________, and you are ...?”
2. Wait for a response and repeat the person’s name so you make sure that you get it right and so you can more easily remember it.
3. If you think you know the face but can’t recall the name, try this approach:
“Hello, I’m ____________________. I believe I’ve seen you here before but I don’t know that we’ve had the opportunity to meet.What is your name?”
4. Don’t be embarrassed if you’re greeting a member and don’t know that person’s name—or be offended if someone doesn’t remember yours. We need to offer grace to one another, just as we would to new people.
© 2010 United Methodist Communications. Permission is granted to reprint and distribute for use within The United Methodist Church.

Young Clergy

Good morning Trinity Tribe!

On Tuesday, I traveled to the new North Carolina Conference denominational office for a meeting of young clergy. When something with the word "young" in the title invited me, I jumped on the chance to attend! Our BIshop, Al Gwinn, addressed us, then there was a time of question and answer. We ended the discussion portion of the day with a discussion of what the United Methodist Church is doing to encourage young people to answer a call to ordained ministry as well as to support them when they have answered the call.

Our Annual Conference has around 5.5% of its clergy under age 35. The median age of clergy is 54 in the whole UMC. Why does this matter? First, it is sad that the Church is not encouraging young people to enter ministry. What are we doing as local congregations that make being a pastor so unattractive? Are we being intentional about helping young people hear God's call in their lives (whether it is a call to be an ordained minister or a godly veterinarian or a business leader who is also a crackerjack Sunday School teacher.) Secondly, younger pastors bring things to the table that a clergyperson who is 60 cannot. Besides energy, young people tend to bring more creativity and new ideas to a local congregation. While some pastors with experience are continually learning and growing and are on the cutting edge of research in the field, other older pastors left their thirst for learning in Divinity School. New tools for evangelism and church leadership are necessary in this different time in which we live. Next, younger clergy are able to identify with younger congregations more effectively. People respond when they see someone who looks like them speaking from the pulpit or even singing in the choir or praying the prayers of the people. (That applies to lay leadership and lay worship leadership as well as clergy.) Lastly, if we do not have clergy who are under 35, what will happen in 10 years when they are 45? We will not have the next generation of seasoned leadership for the church.

I am not under 35, of course. But I do care what happens to the United Methodist Church in the future. I invite you to join me as we pray for the future of our congregation at Trinity as well as the United Methodist Church as a whole. Let's pray intentionally for the young people in our congregation. How is God calling each of them? How can we, as their family through baptism, nurture them to be the wonderful godly people God has planned them to be? Let's pray intentionally for Trinity. How can we better develop leaders in the present as well as the future? Let's pray for the Church. How can we nurture and help people hear God's call on their lives?

I have attached a proposal from the young clergy of the UMC in case you want to read it. Also, here is the study looking at ages of clergy in the UMC.

http://www.churchleadership.com/research/um_clergy_age_trends08.htm

Have a blessed day!

Direct Access

Good morning everyone,

I hope you are all well and warm this morning! It in warm in the office. It looks like a snowstorm of paper has descended on my desk. However, I will be working on that momentarily. I took the Trinity Tribe on an outing on Monday to the fruitcake factory. We had a wonderful time! Please join us next trip! Email or call the office with any suggested trips that we could take. I would love to go to Seagrove and look at pottery, but that would be more fun when it is warm. So, if you have an idea for an inside trip, please let me know!

Yesterday I joined the Young Clergy Council for a general meeting with the Bishop. We had a fruitful conversation. I will write about those discussions later. I have something else burning on my fingertips today!

I was going through the mail this morning and decided to take a long hard look at our phone bill. It seems so high, as do most bills these days. I found something interesting on page 10 of 10. A third party had billed us for something that I couldn't figure out, so I called CenturyLink. They were very helpful. It was indeed for a suspicious charge, but I have it all straightened out now. However, it took me talking to four people at three different companies to get it all straightened out. Isn't it nice that God doesn't work that way? You and I can go straight to God with our prayers. You don't need me to pray for you (though, I certainly do). Priests' prayers are no more holy that yours or mind. You don't need a saint to whisper in God's ear for you. Through Jesus becoming our brother, we have full access to God.

In John 15, Jesus says 7 "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." But we find instruction in the Old Testament as well like in Jeremiah 29:13, "13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

Let's be bold today and pray what is on our hearts to God. We get direct access. We don't need third-party prayers. Through our brother, Jesus, we get direct access that is available 24/7. God is good!

Come, Holy Spirit

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful,
and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created
And you shall renew the face of the earth.
O God, who has taught the hearts of the faithful
by the light of the Holy Spirit,
grant that by the gift of the same Spirit
we may be always truly wise
and ever rejoice in his consolation.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Why do we take up the offering after the sermon?

Good morning Trinity Tribe!

Things are going well in our house this morning. I hope they are going well in yours!

Last call for Christmas at Camp!

Why offering in the place you put it in the service?

I had a great question posed to me last week. Why had I moved the time of offering from where it had always been to following the sermon? I don’t do anything related to worship lightly or without good reason. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to share with you the “why” behind the tweaking of the worship order.

When John Wesley sent the first Bishops to the United States, he sent them with an order of worship called the Sunday Service. The worship service, then and now, was to be focused on Holy Communion. However, that service could not be fully utilized in the young United States. There were not enough ordained clergy to officiate at Holy Communion at the Methodist Episcopal Churches. Instead, the ordained clergy would ride a circuit, often on a horse, and serve communion quarterly. Therefore, the tradition of having communion quarterly began. Because of the lack of ordained clergy, the service of worship focused towards the sermon because that happened every week.

That is where the discussion of where to put the offering comes in. During the communion service, the time of offering was not just a time to “pass the plate” so to speak. Instead of being placed on the Lord’s Table before the beginning of the service, the bread and the juice were actually brought in by lay people as an offering to God. Therefore, the offering time included the communion elements as well as monetary gifts. Both were brought forward after the sermon and just prior to Holy Communion. In the preaching services of the 18th and 19th centuries, there would be no time of Communion, so the offering began to be collected prior to the sermon. As time progressed, the clergy shortage ended. Seminaries were available in all parts of the United States. Therefore, an ordained elder served most congregations. Now, congregations could celebrate communion every week. However, as you know, when a tradition is engrained in a congregation, it takes time to change. At Trinity, I believe it was Peter Belec who changed communion from being quarterly to being on the first Sunday of the month.

If you turn to the front of our hymnal, you will notice John Wesley’s Sunday Service included. We gather. We hear God’s word. We respond to God’s word by an expression of faith and confession of sin. We offer of ourselves and our gifts to God. We lift up prayers of thanksgiving. We dine at the Lord’s Table. We are dismissed to love God and neighbor. Our worship order is based on century after century of Christian practice. In fact, the Early Church always included communion as well as preaching and discussion of God’s Word. However, our church and many others have kept part of the frontier style of worship for our worship order. If you compare our bulletin to that of the service in the front of the hymnal, you will notice that we do not celebrate communion every week as is suggested. And until the last couple of weeks, we collected the offering after the sermon. (I have to videotape a sermon and a worship service with communion to send to the Conference as part of my ordination process. So, I have moved the time of offering so that we are “by the book.”) I have enjoyed having the offering following the sermon. To me, it feels as if we are able to respond to God’s Word for us for the day. I would like to include elements of response to God’s Word in addition to our collecting of God’s tithes and our offerings that are linked to the scripture of the day. One day, I would like for us to carry the bread and the juice into the worship service during the offering as part of our response. I like that symbolism of us bringing God the ordinary things that God makes holy. It would be meaningful to have someone bring the water in when we baptize new members as well. I would love to know what you think. How do you best respond to God’s word? How else could we as a congregation respond to God’s word? What parts of the worship service are meaningful to you?

Giving

Good morning to the Tribe!

I hope you haven't blown away this morning! Penny and I have been working on the service of worship with the Cantata coming up on December 19th. I am excited about that day! Though, to be honest, I am excited every Sunday we get together to worship. Today, I have also been thinking about the time of the offering. So, this is a two part thought. Stay tuned tomorrow to find out why the offering is placed in the service where it is….

Tithing is one of those tricky subjects in church. I found this section of a sermon by Victor D. Pentz, which I found thought provoking…

In my years in the church I have noticed two prevailing schools of thought about the offering. The first is what I call the old realist approach. The old realist is usually some no nonsense businessperson who says, "Look, you have to pay the bills. You have to keep the ministers fed, the lights on and the building maintained. The missionaries have to be supported. And nobody's ever come up with a better way of getting it done than to call a 'time out' after the sermon and have the organist play something pretty while you pass the hat and ask everybody to dig down deep in their pockets and pitch in their fair share." The old realist sees the offering as a necessary evil.


Across the aisle from the old realist sits the young idealist. He or she sees the offering as an unnecessary evil: "Why don't we live like the lilies of the field in this church? Why don't we just have faith and trust God to make ends meet? Why don't we pray instead of having stewardship campaigns and pledge cards and fund appeals?


…In my observation in the last decade, we don’t do either of these approaches and have come up with a third approach. In the church, we try our best to avoid talking about money at all and just hope for the best. We provide a time to collect it, but we don’t do a good job of explaining why we do. That is certainly the case with some of the pastors I have known. In divinity school, they don’t officially tell you to never talk about money and tithing, but it seems to be one of those unwritten rules. Some people say that it come across to people that the pastor is a money-grubber and just wants a raise. As a result, we don’t organize a pledge drive. We avoid stewardship campaigns. Other than asking the ushers to come forward to collect it and praying over it as it sits on the Lord's table, we don't speak much about the offering at all.



In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “Regarding the relief offering for poor Christians that is being collected, you get the same instructions I gave the churches in Galatia. Every Sunday each of you make an offering and put it in safekeeping. Be as generous as you can. When I get there you'll have it ready, and I won't have to make a special appeal. Then after I arrive, I'll write letters authorizing whomever you delegate, and send them off to Jerusalem to deliver your gift.” He sounds pretty point-blank about the whole subject to me.



So, why do we take an offering? First, it is a way we participate in God’s work in the world. From having a place to gather as God’s people to worship to feeding people in our kitchen to the laughter that comes out of classrooms on Scout night…all these things are ways we participate in God’s plan. God is our creator therefore being able to participate in God’s plan for the world is a privilege we shouldn’t take lightly.



Secondly, we worship rightly when we bring something to God. In Exodus 20, God says, "Every firstborn from the womb is mine, all the males of your herds, your firstborn oxen and sheep. … No one is to show up in my presence empty-handed.” The Israelites brought pigeons and doves, calves and sheep. In today's world, we bring our financial bounty as well as bringing our acts of service or the loaf of bread for communion. We don’t have to have the priest sacrifice our firstborn goat on the altar of the Lord. When Christ came, we all became priests. Therefore, we worship by bringing generously of what we have and offering it to God.

Next, we give of ourselves to God as a means of thanking God for what we have and reminding ourselves that it wasn’t really ours. God has given us our lives and our breath. Giving God the money that we might spend at O’Charley’s or at the mall helps us remember to be grateful. It is a way to say to God, “I know that you gave me this breath that I breath…the good things in life that I enjoy from peppermint sticks to sunshine…that you have a plan for me…” Giving what we have in this life helps us remember that the almighty dollar isn’t all there is. There is heavenly treasure that has way more value than a checkbook.



I invite us all to prayerfully consider how we tithe. Are we willing to give what God asks of us? Do we lay up our treasure in heaven or at Bank of America?

Have a great day!