How Blessed Our Church Is!

I just wanted to mention something today that goes unremarked through most of the year.  We have the most amazing church council and we're really blessed with the leaders God has sent to our community.

Last nights meeting involved the always-difficult subject of stewardship, particularly financial stewardship, which doesn't get talked about much in most churches.  It's one of those topics that almost leaves your stomach in a knot when you consider it.  As we talked about last Wednesday night at Lenten Evening Service, our culture thinks of money in such a peculiar (and jealous) fashion that we're caught in a trap with it.  We're up the creek if we talk about it, up a different creek if we don't.  It's a topic that can blow up in your face.

So here we are, as a council, negotiating these waters and it was such a wonderful, Spirit-filled experience. No kidding!  You wouldn't have believed it!  Everybody sat together and opened up about their thoughts on money, culture, faith, stewardship, theology, and what it all means.  It was like Theology on Tap without the beer!  There was such a level of trust in the room, plus commitment, plus drive, plus compassion and understanding.  We explored us and God, reaffirming the best in each other and in our church.

The result was the beginnings of a plan going forward, not to "get more money" but to alleviate the fear of this subject...a fear that threatens the bonds we've built together.  What we're really talking about is a chance to discover that we trust each other and God in every way, that what we're doing at church is real and transforms our whole lives...a chance to be free and live as God's children the way we were meant to.

Seriously, you would not believe this was a council meeting.

The wisdom, trust, honesty, and faith of our council members is incredible.  We should all realize how blessed we are to have them.  I've seen plenty of councils and I've not seen one like this.  Thank you to all our council members.  I hope we're all excited about taking the journey forward with you over the next few years.  I know I am.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)