…For during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” (2 Cor 8)
The old first Church in Jerusalem is in need. The number of widows to care for is increasing. For a number of reasons, the Church needs help. The Macedonian Christians, who are themselves suffering economic loss because of their faith, are giving freely and with joy! Asking for how they can give and serve. Here the fund-raisers are not begging the would-be givers; here the givers are begging for more opportunities to give. Their challenges somehow increased the generous nature of their giving, and they joy in it too.
Here we are, friends, about to finish up one year and begin another together in life and ministry. Year ninety-five finds us facing our own afflictions and challenges. Post-Covid research indicates a forty percent reduction in church participation and giving across our national landscape.
In many ways, this is a fight or flight kind of moment for us. It’s a moment, a season when we might re-commit ourselves to Christ and to one another in a season of loss, Macedonian style. But we might also join in and flow with the habit of some who are leaving the Church because it’s too inclusive, or because it’s not inclusive enough, or because trust in institutions has been eroded, or fill in the blank. We might choose flight instead of fight, because that’s where the energy seems to be these days, like the little kids who follow the soccer ball wherever it goes.
I get it. I understand the struggle. I’m engaged in it myself.
My encouragement would be practical in nature. When the nominating committee calls, and asks you to serve the church, consider the joy of saying yes. Consider the need of the battered and bruised church to be renewed, re-invigorated, and how you might contribute to that. This is the joy of saying yes.
And my encouragement would be to read the Stewardship letter soon coming your way, and find that pledge card, and make a financial promise to our God and to this community for the year to come, and mail it in, or better yet, come to worship on November 20 and place it on God’s altar, along with hopes and prayers for the year to come. his is the joy of saying yes.
“What explains it was that they had first given themselves unreservedly to God and to us” Paul says.
I am deep in prayer these days for the work of the Spirit among us.
Love From Here
Peter Hawkinson
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