Treasure,
too, you have entrusted,
gain through
pow’rs your grace conferred;
ours to use
for home and kindred,
and to
spread the gospel word.
Open wide
our hands in sharing,
as we heed
Christ’s ageless call
healing, teaching,
and reclaiming
serving you
by loving all.
-
Robert L. Edwards, , “God, Whose Giving Knows No
Ending,” ELW 678
In the past year, I have received
so many blessings that I barely know where to begin. Sarah and I had just
finished our amazing wedding and moved to our rented house in Battle Creek to
start the often-hilarious process of transforming from two independent adults
into one family. We had a baby, already three months old, who loves to smile
and laugh (taking after his mother) and stare at brightly-colored moving
objects (after his father, of course). I am thankful to have received six weeks
of paid parental leave, time to learn now to be a dad, to change diapers and
teach my kid to smile and tell him about how much fun it will be for him to mow
the lawn in a few years.
God has also richly blessed
Lutheran Church of the Savior. We have supported the Free Store from dream to
reality. We have greatly increased our number of volunteers there and at our
nearby Loaves and Fishes pantry, and have given record support to local
ministry partners like Kairos House and Ministry With Community. We have
welcomed new visitors, baptized babies, and commended into God’s eternal care
some of our most beloved older members. We hosted our first-ever Family Fest in
September, gathering some 70 people of all ages for fun, games, and elephant
ears. We paid off our mortgage just last month, and began completing
long-awaited building upgrades while planning how to better use our resources
for mission and outreach. We deepened our relationship with our neighbors at
Sunnyside United Methodist Church, from service to the community to the most
vibrant, wonderful Easter Vigil worship Kalamazoo has ever seen.
In response to all these
blessings, I give thanks to God. I know that all I have comes from God’s
bountiful grace, that life, health, family, and wealth are mine not to keep but
to share. Jesus was not born merely to show the world how blessed he was, but
to share his blessedness with everyone who recognized their need for God’s love
and mercy in their lives. Like Jesus and his first followers, we respond to
God’s powerful love in our lives by loving and serving those around us, by
feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger and questioning the powerful in
unity with the voiceless.
We respond also by giving
financial support to God’s mission alive in the church. My wife and I each give
ten percent of our pre-tax income to our congregations, knowing this gift
supports local ministries like those mentioned above, as well as Michigan-wide
ministries for youth, college students and seminarians and national and
worldwide efforts such as Lutheran Disaster Response’s relief efforts after
Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast and in the Caribbean. We tithe in
thanksgiving for God’s rich blessings, and because we want to share these
blessings we have received from God in Jesus Christ with God’s church and with
the world.
This month, each member of
Lutheran Church of the Savior will have an opportunity to prayerfully consider
her plan for giving to support this ministry and God’s mission of love and
service to the world. We have already begun to hear stories of how our support
grows God’s reign of life and love in our community and beyond, and we will
continue in the coming weeks. On November 11th we will gather to
fill out our estimate of giving cards, committing to our life of faith together
for the coming year. We live a life of thanks for all God has given us by
returning what we can to God’s mission in tithing and giving to our church
community. We are blessed so that we might be a blessing.
Thanks,
Pastor Andrew
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