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Sermon 11/18/18 Luke 12:13-21, 32-34 Whole-Life Stewardship: Treasure We’ve had a small group of folks participating in a book study using Adam Hamilton’s book Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity. Hamilton’s study first came out nearly ten years ago, but it’s been updated and re-released. Last Sunday night, as we watched the video for the session, which includes segments of Hamilton’s original sermons that created the book, we were surprised at the way things unfold: Hamilton was talking about wildfires that were ravaging California. It certainly made our ears perk up to listen with extra attention to his message.  Hamilton said, “Large areas of California were ravaged by wildfires. Dozens of people were killed, and tens of thousands were evacuated from their homes. As I watched the tragedy unfold via television news coverage, it struck me that this was a moment in which so many people were being forced to think about their relationship to material poss

I received a copy of Mornings with Bonhoeffer: 100 Reflections on the Christian Life by Donald K. McKim to review. I've previously used Ron Klug's 40-Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a devotional and really enjoyed it, so I was definitely intrigued by this resource.  McKim's book is divided into two sections: Believing as a Christian and Living as a Christian, and further divided into categories like "Christian Beliefs" "Church," and "Living in the World."  I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I read at least a few entries in every section to get a good feel.  As opposed to 40-Day Journey , which included a significant  the excerpts from Bonhoeffer's writing (collected from his complete works) are very short . Sometimes only one or two sentences of his writing is included, so you often can't really get a full picture of what he's saying. The "meat" of the content here is from McKim, not Bonhoeffer.

Sermon 11/11/18 Luke 9:10-17 Whole-Life Stewardship: Talent Are you talented? What comes to mind when you hear that word - talent? Maybe the TV show America’s Got Talent springs to mind, the game show where contestants come with all sorts of performing talents - singing, dancing, acrobatics, magic tricks and more - and go before a panel of judges, hoping to make it through several rounds of cuts before taking home the big prize. Have you ever been in a talent show? I think my first appearance in a talent show was in third or fourth grade, when my friend Sharon and I did a whole miming act for the elementary school talent show. We were still just young enough not to be teased mercilessly by our friends. I was in a few more talent shows - at camp, for girl scouts once, and even once in college. But for the most part, I started to get more and more self-conscious about putting myself out there in such a way. Being in plays felt different to me - a director had to think you wer

Sermon 11/4/18 Luke 12:22-40 Whole-Life Stewardship: Time Today we’re starting our November sermon series called Whole-Life Stewardship . Stewardship means the task and role of taking care of things on behalf of someone else. As Christians, we believe that the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it. In other words, everything belongs to God, our Creator. We do, the universe does, our time does, our things do, the animals and the trees and the mountains and the air we breathe; it all belongs to God, really. We’re just the caretakers, the stewards of all that God has given us to watch over. We don’t act like this is true sometimes. We forget that we are stewards. We think that we are in charge. We think that we are the true owners of all that is. And so we need to remember. We’re doing that in a small group, as we read through Adam Hamilton’s book Enough . We do that when we gather for worship, when we sing praises to God and remember that God is God and we are not. We do th