money – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

We're Afraid to Ask

Posted on November 1, 2013Leave a comment

We don’t like to talk about money.

Pastors hate to preach on it.

Finance committees only do it because they have to.

We keep our records quiet and avoid tough conversations about budgets.

And when the time comes for mission work or important projects, we pass around the white buckets and pray someone gets inspired to put more than their pocket change inside.

Why are we so afraid to ask for deep commitment, for generous gifts, for extravagant response?

Volunteers sort dairy tubs for the Terracycle/Imagine No Malaria drive.

1. We segregate finances from other types of gifts.

We do not ask those who have the ability to make music to hide their gifts or keep their names hidden. We are not afraid to praise the talents of that cook in the congregation who makes the most excellent peanut butter pie… and might even have been found once or twice on our knees begging them to make it for the next church supper. The person who gives their time to repair items around the church gets their name in the bulletin. We celebrate the gifts God has given us and the way that people have graciously given them for the Kingdom of God.

Except for when it comes to dollars and cents.

I’ve discovered that money is not some great evil. It is not the powerful, ominous thing we make it out to be. It is a resource, a gift, not unlike our voices or our hands or our creativity.

I may have shared this before, but Henri Houwen writes:

Fundraising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry. it is a way of announcing our vision and inviting other people into our mission….

We are declaring, “We have a vision that is amazing and exciting. We are inviting you to invest yourself through the resources that God has given you – your energy, your prayers, and your money – in this work to which God has called us.” (A Spirituality of Fundraising, p. 16-17)

We have segregated the almighty dollar into it’s own category, rather than understanding it as one of many ways that people are able to respond, embrace, and participate in the work of the kingdom.

Through Imagine No Malaria, I have seen people give their time, carefully crafting beautiful creations we are selling to help support our work. Folks lend their voice to the effort through being ambassadors and telling the story of our work. Kitchens are busy with those who are baking and preparing for mission dinners and pancake suppers. Runners have covered countless miles with their feet to build support across the state for our work. And people have opened their pocketbooks in response… eager to participate in the life-saving work of Imagine No Malaria.

Those dollars are vitally important. Without the financial resources we are gathering, we cannot do the life-saving work that is needed on the continent of Africa.

ALL of these gifts are kingdom work – healing the sick and preaching the gospel for hundreds of thousands of people. All of them are ways for people to respond to the vision and join in the mission of God.

2. We aren’t good at evangelism

Nouwen writes that through asking…. through inviting those individuals, families, and organizations to give… we are in reality doing the work of evangelism and conversion.

Whether we are asking for money or giving money we are drawn together by God, who is about to do a new thing through our collaboration. To be converted means to experience a deep shift in how we see and think and act… By giving people a spiritual vision, we want them to experience that they will in fact benefit by making their resources available to us. (p. 17, 19)

A young girl in Colorado experienced that transformation when she caught the vision and was invited to give. As other students added their dollars and change to the bucket at Vacation Bible School, she emptied her bank account and took the money she was saving for a doll and clothes and things she wanted and donated it instead to help save lives.

When we fail to ask… when we fail to share the vision and invite people to participate in God’s work… we are denying them the opportunity to experience that kind of transformation.

Maybe one of the reasons we are afraid to step out and talk with others about participating in this project or in others is because we are so lousy at doing evangelism in the first place.

A Barna study revealed that the average United Methodist will invite only one person to worship with them every 38 years. We just are not in the habit of talking about what our church is doing and asking people to join us in the first place. So why would we expect things to be any different when it comes to money?

This past week, I got a call from a church in Mason City that is doing some outside the box thinking and invited the local blood bank to become a partner in this effort.

Folks in Carson invited their whole community to participate in a basketball game and raised $4000.

When we carry this message, this vision, this transformative promise out into our communities – we just might be stunned at the response. God is good and the Holy Spirit is at work if we are willing to get outside of our walls and ask.

3. We are willing to settle for small gifts

One of my colleagues with Imagine No Malaria refused to accept a pledge from a church. It was a large, thriving church with a passion for mission and the ability to participate in a big way. When they turned in a goal of $1000, my friend sent it back to the pastor and said, “We need to meet.” He refused to let them sell themselves short because they had the potential for transformative ministry through Imagine No Malaria.

Most people, including myself, would be pleased as punch to get a pledge at all and wouldn’t have the guts to do such a thing. But why not?

The demands of the gospel are not small. The invitation to discipleship demands that we take up our cross and follow. And yet we allow people to get by with weak offerings: in either time, energy, or dollars.

I bet your church, right now, has five people in it who could and would be willing to invest themselves in this kingdom-work by giving $1000… either all at once, or as a pledge over the next year or three. I bet your community or your county has two businesses or organizations that would be willing to donate $2500 a piece if they were told about how this work is transforming lives in Africa and creating opportunities for community development and economic empowerment.

Too often we operate from a mindset of scarcity and cherish tiny offerings, instead of realizing that God has already abundantly provided.

Why you shouldn't share goals in fundraising

Posted on January 11, 20132 Comments

I made a rookie mistake during my first donor visit a few weeks ago. I announced, proudly and out loud, what our conference goal was.

To me, it seemed like a no-brainer. People what to know what you are trying to accomplish. They want to see the finish line and know how far we have to go. It seemed to me like folks would want to know that we had done some thoughtful work and had a direction, purpose, and plan.

But evidently, that was a mistake.

You see, as soon as someone hears a number, they start doing mental math. They start calculating how many people are involved and divide the goal by that number to figure out their piece of the pie.

I knew that was true in the local church as we set out to figure the budget each year. Rather than starting with the gifts that God has given you and what you are then called to give, people look at the bottom line, and how many people are in the church in order to figure out their share and what they need to pay to make ministry happen.

I’m definitely NOT saying that’s the way it should be. But if we just give people numbers, that is where they act from.

In the local church, we started presenting narrative budgets where we talked about the ministry that could be accomplished and asked folks to help give to support our work… we tried to “hide” the bottom line – because in reality it is not about meeting our budget, but about doing the work that God wants us to do.

In this work of fundraising, that is what we need to do as well. It’s not that the goal isn’t important, because it is… but the goal isn’t everything. Our job is to do the work of God and it’s going to take more than just ‘x’ number of dollars to do it. If we present the vision, the passion, the stories and then invite people to give as God leads them, the bottom line should hopefully take care of itself. And the goal we have set might be exceeded beyond our wildest expectations.

After all – God can do more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20)

Vision, Mission, Money and Imagination

Posted on December 26, 2012Leave a comment

I love my new ministry as the coordinator for Imagine No Malaria in our conference… but I often have a hard time explaining why.

While there are similarities with local church ministry (which I also love), so many aspects of this position are drawing upon gifts in new and different ways.

But because I am not in the local church, preaching every Sunday, it doesn’t look like ministry to some people.

I think I was having trouble myself with wrapping my head around how and why this was ministry. How and why a pastor should be in my position. The job uses my gifts; I get to engage 800 churches instead of just one; I am engaged in the work of transforming the world (a core part of our mission as the United Methodist Church). I had pieces of the answer, but was still missing something.

Until I read some Nouwen this morning and finally found a missing connection point… the words I need to really claim and explain my work.

Nouwen writes –

Fundraising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry. It is a way of announcing our vision and inviting other people into our mission…. We are declaring, “We have a vision that is amazing and exciting. We are inviting you to invest yourself through the resources God has given you – your energy, your prayers, and your money – in this work to which God has called us.”

God has called us to this work. And every day, I get to proclaim the vision of what will be realized when we answer that call. Every day, I get to send forth the invitation, the call to conversion, that will help us to answer that call with our whole lives.

We are participating in God’s good work and we imagine a world in which children no longer die from a preventable, treatable, beatable disease. We imagine communities of people working together for healing and wholeness. We imagine pregnant women who are healthy and can carry their babies to term without fear. We imagine a global partnership that is able to wipe out death and suffering from malaria.

And not only can we imagine these things, but God has shown us a way to accomplish them. You and me, working together, bringing the best of ourselves and our gifts. That is the body of Christ in action. That is the aim of discipleship. This is a living and giving ministry.

Yes, I am a fundraiser. And yes, I am doing ministry.

Best Buy Lines or the best buy you could ever make… #GivingTuesday

Posted on November 26, 2012Leave a comment

My family has often splurged on Black Friday. I remember vividly one Black Friday back in 2000 when my brothers, boyfriend and mom all got up super early and stood in line in the cold at Best Buy. Brandon and I were both building new computers and there was a large hard drive (probably only 40 GB back then) for sale for an amazing price. My brothers thought they could get one also to save for when they headed off to college. We weren’t at the front of the line, but we were there crazy early. We were huddled with layers of clothing and had a thermos of hot cocoa we kept passing around. It was fun and exciting and the best part was that we actually were spending time together as a family.

The doors opened at 6am and we rushed in to the store. Of course, there were no directions or maps, just a general sense of where things might be in the store. We headed to the computer accessories aisles and scoured the shelves for what we wanted. It was no where to be seen. But we were young and smart and had way too much caffeine for that early in the morning. One of us spotted on the super high top shelf a small little stockpile of these coveted hard drives. We called an associate over and he had to drag out one of those step ladder things. And then one by one, he started handing them down.

We made quite a commotion and so others came by to see what we had found. Soon a crowd had formed, but I was right there at the front. With people pressing in, the sales guy handed me one, and I would quickly pass it behind me to a waiting sibling. I’d grab another and pass them back. One by one, we each got the hard drives we had so coveted.

Ten years ago, a forty gig drive was stupendous. Today, my husband is investing in terabyte drives for his work computer. What we thought was so amazing is not worth anything today. We spent all of that money, probably loaded the drive with songs downloaded from Napster, and have nothing to show for it today.

On Thursday night, we started going through what has become a routine. The newspaper was purchased and the ads were laid out on the dining room table. I saw lots of things I wanted, but I realized nothing that I really needed. There was nothing there I could live without. There was nothing that I needed to spend my money on.

As parents and siblings have begun requesting Christmas lists, I have nothing to put on them.

In my new position with Imagine No Malaria, I have spent a lot of time listening to stories. Stories of people who have experienced malaria personally and stories of families who have sacrificed everything to try to save the life of a loved one.

Last week, Paul Wilcox shared with me this story:

12 years ago I visited El Salvador, a small country nestled away in the heart of Central America. I met there a young woman, named Carmen. She had lost 3 of her 4 children to phosphorescent bombs during El Salvador’s brutal civil war. Her remaining child survived only because Carmen carried him in her arms as she ran. She showed me the burns on her arms from that terrible night. Despite her heart-breaking loss, Carmen was a strong and resilient woman who was quick to smile and loved to dance! Her only son was the delight and joy of her life. Several days later my group returned to Carmen’s village and I was shocked to find Carmen sitting outside her hut, looking completely spent. She was sweating and weak and literally waiting to die! “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “Paradismo” she answered—the Spanish word for malaria. Carmen was fully expecting to die. She had already “given” her son to her sister to raise. I asked her if she had been to a doctor. At that, she pulled from her pocket a doctor’s prescriptions for quinine. She was preparing to die because she lacked the $20 to fill the prescription. It took exactly 30 seconds to raise that much money from our group to save Carmen’s life, but how many others like Carmen; strong, resilient, and ready to rebuild their families and their communities, are reduced to shadows of themselves, weak and dying by this thief called malaria. When I returned home from this place where $20 can mean the difference between life and death, I realized to my shame that I spend that much on coffee in a week. It underscores for me what incredible power even a small gift can have in a world haunted by malaria.

K8792 — Damiba Dorcas, 3, smiles at her mother, Djelita Noali, as she emerges from beneath the new insecticide-treated mosquito net at her home in Samo, Cote d’Ivoire. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

I have a roof over my head. I have family that loves me. I stuffed by belly with turkey and ham and stuffing and potatoes this week. There is nothing in this world that I need. But there are people out there who are in such need. With such a little bit of money, I can help to provide life and opportunity and health and joy to not only a child, but all of the people whom that child will one day impact as they grow and thrive and learn and share their life with others.

As I looked through those ads, I started to circle things and think about what I wanted to buy… but my heart wasn’t quite in it. Tradition was all that really kept me looking. But you know what, my hard drive has long since been recycled. And I was already spending time with my family. If instead of buying more stuff I don’t need, I give today to make a difference in the life of a family struggling to overcome a battle with malaria – that money is going to have an impact far beyond ten years… it is going to transform communities and countries and an entire continent. That is what I call a best buy.

If you are looking for something to buy me for Christmas, start here: http://nc.iaumc.org/inm . This is our conference donation portal for Imagine No Malaria and you can not only make donations, but also give gifts in honor of people that you love. Spend a little less this year… and give a whole lot more.

Willing to Yield

Posted on September 23, 2012Leave a comment

I want to start out this morning with a testimony… and I think it is very important that you understand this is not me preaching about what you should go out tomorrow and do… I am simply sharing what my experience of God was this past year.

That is an important qualification, because I’m going to be talking about money. And talking about money makes a whole lot of us uncomfortable… but it is a part of our daily lives and it is an important part our words from James this morning.

And my testimony is this: For the first time in my life, this year I tithed to the church.

Now, I have always given to the church. But for a long time, I made excuses about how much I should give.

When I was a teenager and had only part time jobs, I might have stuck a dollar or two in the offering plate – whatever pocket change I might have had that day. It was the last of my money… not the best.

When I was in college, I did not attend a church regularly on Sundays, but worshipped on campus Wednesday nights – and no one asked for a financial contribution. No one asked me to give, much less give sacrificially.

As a seminary student and an intern at a church, I was spending more money on school and travel than I was making and piling up debt. I gave my time to the church and occasionally a few bucks as well.

And then I came here. I came to be a pastor and I knew that I could not ask you, in good faith, to give faithfully to the church and to God, if I was not also giving. Having a steady paycheck for the first time in my life, I should have immediately started tithing. But I didn’t. I held back. I looked at my student loans and a bit of debt from college… I looked at how much our cable bill was going to be… I thought about how we wanted to travel a bit… I knew that taxes would take a chunk of my wages… And so I started out small. I gave to the church – but only a small portion.

And then, I became comfortable with that level of financial giving. I knew I was doing God’s ministry in other ways and so I didn’t worry about it.

But one day a year or two ago, I was having a conversation with a friend, a fellow pastor, about the things that we cling to… the things we hold close and refuse to give to God.

I realized in the midst of that conversation that I had never willingly yielded my money to God. There had been times when I had given out of guilt. I have given because it was what I was supposed to do. I have given out of habit as the offering place went around and each person in the pew pulled out a buck and dropped it in. Sound familiar?

But never had I prayerfully thought about what God wanted me to give. Never had I searched my heart to ask what I was willing to yield, what I was willing to joyfully give up in my life for the sake of our Lord and our church.

I started out last year by giving a much larger percentage on a regular basis… and this year, my heart led me to give a full 10% of my income to the church.

I joyfully give that money to God… and I have to tell you – I haven’t missed one cent. I now give to the church first… the money comes out of my paycheck before it ever comes home with me. I give God my first and my best, instead of the change in my pocket – instead of the leftovers from my own spending and desires.

I have been blessed through my giving. No, I don’t have more money in the bank than when I started… but now I am reminded that the things that money buys – cable t.v. and new clothes and name-brand cereal don’t last. What lasts is the kingdom of God. What lasts is the word of God. What lasts is the joy that I have found through letting go… through being willing to yield.

Now… I’m going to put my preacher hat back on.

Because we all have different places in our life where we have been unwilling to yield. It might be money, like me, but it might be an addiction. For others the thing they grasp is their pride. Some of us are unwilling to let go of our schedules or our desires.

Throughout the book of James, we get some harsh truths about what it means to live in Christian community. On Labor Day weekend, we heard about the source of our conflict – pride and a lack of humility. The next week we were reminded that rich and poor are all the same and we need to stop judging and stop loving. Last week, we were dished up some truth about wisdom and speech… and our tendency to ignorance and cynicism.

In each message – we have been asked to let something go. Our pride and the need to “be important”, our status and the desire to “be better”, our knowledge and the need to “be right”, and today we are asked to let go of the material things we cling to and the stuff we seek out. We need to let go of our desire to “be the joneses.”

As we read James… even though I have experienced the joy of willingly yielding and letting God have control of my money – I have to admit that each one of these admonitions still hits close to home for me also. Each of these realities is something that I continue to struggle with, even as I know I am being faithful in some ways.

1) Keeping up with the Joneses kills our souls

James is quite clear in chapter four that our desire to keep up with the ways of the world means that our heart has gone astray from God. Familiar verse from the gospels reminds us– you cannot serve both God and money. And so every time that we choose the things we want over the things of God, we have cheated on our Lord and Savior – we have been unfaithful.

It is hard to accept sometimes, but God cares about what you do and what you have. If our gracious Lord and Savior makes sure that the birds of the air and the flowers of the field are taken care of… then he’s also working to make sure that you have enough – that you have abundant life. But so often, we turn our backs on the life God has given us and want to be someone else and have other things. Verse 5 reads: Doesn’t God long for our faithfulness in the life he has given us?

This life might not be perfect. We might not have everything. But Mother Theresa once said, “grow where you are planted.” Don’t look over the fence at your neighbors and want what they have… gratefully give thanks every day for the gift of life and the wonderful things that are a part of yours. When we humble ourselves before the Lord and give thanks for who we were created to be, God is right there, ready to lift us up.

2) Keeping up with the Joneses is killing other people

James chapter 4 starts with the hard truth that war and conflict comes from our desire to have what we don’t have and our desire to keep what is already ours. As he says in verse two: “You long for something you don’t have, so you commit murder. You are jealous for something you can’t get, so you struggle and fight.”

That reality is lived out on our newspapers and television programs every single day. Bank robberies and drug related shootings. Civil wars in far off countries about the precious resources of those places. Jealous acts of violence enacted towards someone for cheating or stealing a person you loved from your life.

But there is a quiet hidden reality to these verses that we are not always ready to admit to – a truth that needs to be confessed about ourselves. The things that we have in this world – everyday, ordinary things that we buy and use and dispose of… our desire to have those things is killing people, too.

Take my cell phone, for example. This summer, I dropped my phone and cracked the screen. So I upgraded to something new. My husband upgraded at the same time, even though his old phone was just fine. But within these simple devices are resources and minerals that you can’t find everywhere. In fact, the tin inside of these devices that are used to solder the metal parts together is mined mostly in Indonesia and China. I read recently about one province in Indonesia, two little islands where nearly half of the tin for cell phones comes from.

The tin mining industry has devastated these two little islands. The mining is done in shallow pits and these pits cover the island – thousands and thousands of pits dotting the ground. Most of this mining is done by hand, rather than machine and it is not a regulated industry. Small groups of men, often boys, work in these pits and scrape the walls by hand.

The reporter who visited the sites had this to say: “these dangerous pits – the walls literally just collapse and bury people alive. In one week, while I was on BangkaIsland, there were six men and actually a boy, a 15-year-old, who were buried alive in these pit collapses…”

My heart broke when I heard that story… how our demand for smart-phones and tablets has caused an industry to explode without regulation or safety and that people are dying so that I can have 3G. Our relationship with God and our command to love our neighbor means that we need to think carefully about the purchases we make in this world. We need to pray before we buy something. And we need to be informed about the far reaching impact of the things we want.

3) Keeping up with the Joneses doesn’t get us anything but fat and dead

We are often so focused on the things that we want today, that we do not stop to think about the far reaching implications of the stuff we accumulate.

As Brandon and I start to pack up our house, we have tons of things that we do not need and will never use. We are busting at the seams with cheap trinkets and clothes that no longer fit and craft supplies we don’t have time to use. It has been a reminder that we have abundantly blessed… and so we are taking this opportunity to share and donate and repurpose some of what we have been given.

The reality is that the stuff we have will not last forever. And we won’t be alive to enjoy it forever.

As James continues in chapter five, the wealthy get one final harsh warning. In this translation from The Message, I want to invite you to hear these words… remembering that we are each wealthier than 75% of this world:

Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment.

^4-6All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse

All you’ll to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse.

The old adage says, you can’t take it with you… and its true. Our time here on earth is short and piling on pleasures and wants and desires doesn’t get us anything but a house full of stuff that someone else is going to have to sort through.

James’s advice for us: remember that you are nothing but a mist that vanishes with the sunlight. Remember that you are nothing but grass that withers and a flower that fades. What good is all of the wealth in the world when tomorrow you are gone?

Let’s take a deep breath. Because we can hear these harsh words and they cut straight to our core. We might want to give everything away when we go home because we feel so guilty.

But I need you to hear this.

God does not want your money, if he doesn’t have your heart.

God doesn’t have any use for your stuff, if he can’t have your soul.

God doesn’t care about the things that you own… even if they could be used to help other people… unless you are willing to give him your life.

Let us prayerfully ask about what God wants us to yield. Let us joyfully and freely give – not because we have to, but because we want to. And let us join with Christ in the world along paths “the Joneses” don’t often travel

Things you can't plan…

Posted on September 10, 2012Leave a comment

This Sunday, I wanted to share with the children that the gifts we have are meant to be shared. I invited them to imagine what would happen if they were given a dollar, or found a dollar on the ground. I held out four quarters in my hand.

“What can you do with a dollar?” I asked.

Would you believe that the first five answers I received were that we should save it?

Even when we started thinking about things to buy, one of the children wanted to buy a piggy bank.

So smart, those kids.

So we put one quarter aside to save. God wants us to be wise.

Then we talked about the people that we could help with our money. We talked about how God gave us this gift so that we can help other people, and so we put one quarter aside to give to God. We can put that money in the offering plate, or in our buckets to raise money for Women at the Well, or to someone who needs help.

And then we talked about the fact that we still have TWO quarters left. And that means that by the grace of God we have 50 cents more than when we started AND we are saving something AND we are helping God.

As a reminder that what we have is truly a gift, I gave each young person a quarter. I told them they could do with that quarter whatever they wanted.

One of the littlest among the group promptly stood up, marched back to the altar table, and plunked her quarter in the offering plate.

Praise be to God.

putting your money where your mouth is… even if it hurts

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Recently there has been a call on some of the social media outlets I follow… a call to take money out of the big banks.

As a part of the larger “occupy”movement, people are being asked to put their money where their mouth is… literally… and close their accounts with the the big guys on Wall Street and to move that money to local banks and community credit unions. A link to the pledge can be found here: http://www.rebuildthedream.com/move-your-money/

I like this idea. I appreciate local businesses. I like the accountability that comes when you are in personal contact with the people who take care of your money. I like that it is more than just feet on the ground complaining about things they don’t like, but people willing to make changes in their personal lives based upon the message they are preaching.

I don’t like what doing this would do to my personal credit rating.
When the pledge first crossed my desk, I immediately went and started searching for information on the statewide United Methodist supported credit union. I looked at loan rates and credit card rates and started doing the math to see what kind of a personal financial impact it would have if I closed my accounts with the “big banks” and moved my debt and my checking account somewhere more local.

My Bank of America credit line has been around for over 11 years. As a freshamn in college, I caved to the credit card pressure… but it was a “Working Assets” card – and they donated 1% every year to non-profits that you get to choose. At the time, I justified my decision, thinking it was the “conscientious choice”… if I was going to have a credit card, that’s the one I wanted. But they were bought out by the big guys and I’ve been with BoA ever since. Because I have been with them for a while, and pay my bills faithfully, it is also my largest line of credit.

The only line of credit I have with Citigroup is fairly new… and I opened the card to transfer some balances with no interest so that I could work on paying off debt from college/seminary/long-distance-relationship-plane-tickets…

To close the first account and to open a new one would drastically reduce both my average age of open credit lines and my open card utilization percentage… thereby significantly affecting my credit score (especially since I have that newer line of credit from only a year ago).

To transfer balances would involve fees and especially with the Citigroup account, I still have another year of no interest and would rather spend that time paying off that little amount, rather than incurring another fee and having to pay interest.

Argh…

Sometimes, doing something that is seems right, hurts. Taking a stand involves personal cost. Finding the courage to literally put our money where our mouth is… priceless.

(sorry, I couldn’t resist).

But we should spend time wrestling with financial questions.

Where is my money invested?
Who benefits from my money/debt?
What kind of transformative change does the power of a single dollar have?

Does my bank align with my values?

What kind of damage does debt do to my spiritual life?

What does your spending say about your spiritual life?
All sorts of thoughts are rolling around in my head, all as a result of a little tweet.

a few bytes of inspiration

Posted on February 20, 2011Leave a comment

I took copious notes at the recent GBCS forum I attended in Washington, D.C.

And then I came home and had hoped to decipher and debrief, but ran smack into four funerals and piles of mail and pastoral visitation needs, and a husband who missed me, and family gatherings… you get the picture.

But remember, I took notes!

So here are some of my attempts at wading through the tiny print all over my folder from the event… the statements and questions that continue to linger in my mind:

Can we balance the budget without hurting the poor? This is the top advocacy issue for economic justice.
the difference between lobbyists and advocates: one works for the benefit of their organization, the other works for the benefits of others and do not raise money for legislators.
government of the people, by the people, and FOR the people
The United Methodist Building was built before the Supreme Court that is next door to it.
Your call is: one sentence, impossible, won’t let you go.
Pastors stand at the gaps to bring reconciliation between people – the pastor has to get involved… and you have to win the hearts of the people
We say, “WE BELIEVE…” but will we help usher in these things that we believe so firmly in?
Legislative priorities adopted by the GBCS are based on our Book of Resolutions and Social Principles…. but also depend on what congress is actually going to focus on that year.
Do we have FOOLISH VIGOR?
Everyone needs to be proud about what THEY bring to the table… otherwise there cannot be alliances, partnerships, solidarity
the church is never called to be partisan, but always called to be political
EKKLESIA means to be called out – called out of the world, from the world… the church is the body that is called out, and calls out.
Congregational vitality has everything to do with Justice and Mercy… we can’t feed people’s souls if they die of hunger.
A leader is someone who makes sure no one falls down (7 year old boy)
Do we really believe the UMC can change the world? Do we really believe God can work through us to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD?
In Defense of Creation talks about three systems that destroy: hunger making systems, war making systems, and desert making systems. The intersection of these destroys life.
Evangelism is absolutely connected with Mercy and Justice ministries… as long as you communicate WHY you are doing what you are doing.
you have to have some kind of personal engagement with what you do… in D.C. policy is traded without an awareness of lives that are affected. We need to know what the INCARNATIONAL IMPACT OF JUSTICE is.
The point of justice is not programs and issues but relationships…
To be Christian is going to COST something… faithful sacrifice.
Ask folks how they feel about this issue personally… how does it affect them? what is it like to read the news? where do they have fears and hopes?
the UMC is a leader on Capital Hill because we have United Methodists who passionately care about the issues.

Anything catch your eye? Anything you want to talk more about?