Stewardship
‘Journey to Generosity’
This is the theme of this year’s Stewardship Emphasis. Really, this statement is not just a theme or a motto that might motivate us to give more money to the church. No, it is a response to a challenge from the Lord that will change our own personal lives forever. If we join the Lord’s journey, we will be on the road with him. Sounds like a safe and exciting trip to experience!
Since I am a life-long teacher, Elementary Principal and librarian I love words. I like to know the meaning of them. So I looked up the words.
Journey: an act of traveling from one place to another. Synonyms for journey are words like: trip, expedition, and trek.
Generosity: the quality of being kind and generous or the fact of being plentiful or large. Synonyms for generosity are words like: liberality, lavishness, magnanimity, munificence, openhandedness, unselfishness, abundance, plentifulness, copiousness
So, we, all of us here in this room and all who are members of this church are on a journey. We are starting off in one place, and we are traveling together to another place. We might start our journey taking baby steps, but our destination is generosity.
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How many of you are farmers? Rice farmers? Gardeners? Planters of any type? How many of you have put a little seed into a plastic cup and watched it for a few days, discovering that the seed grows and the roots go down and the stem goes up?
In the Bible, 2 Corinthians 9:6, the Lord reminds us about the law of planting seeds and reaping a harvest. “Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” Let’s insert some antonyms. Whoever sows stingily or in a restricted manner, or infrequently will also reap the same way: a small, stingy, measly, poor crop. But whoever sows bountifully and lavishly and abundantly and with an open hand .will also reap a plentiful, copiously lavish, munificent crop.
I looked up 2 Corinthians 9: 6-7 in The Message which puts the words into today’s vernacular.
“Remember: a stingy planter gets a stingy crop. A lavish planter gets a lavish crop. I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over and make up your minds what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in giving!”
Hmm. So giving is like planting. Sounds like a no-brainer! Let’s begin our journey now.
by Gee Gee Erickson, Clerk of the Vestry, 10-15-2017