November 2006

“The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like young sheep.” Psalm 114:4

The mountains and the hills all around us are bathed in the beauty of fall. Last Sunday Brenda and I drove around the Ozarks just looking at the fall colors and experienced all the joy and happiness that comes from living in such a beautiful environment. We experienced deep feelings of awe, thanksgiving, and gratitude. As the leaves begin to fall and we move into a season when the trees will be bare, we will still have wonderful memories of these moments.

As we also enter this time of the years into the season of stewardship and making a pledge to our church, I ask all of us to look back to all those seasons of thanksgiving and to express our gratitude to God for our many blessings in concrete ways. We must first and foremost say to thank you to God for all the blessings we have received through prayer. I am quick to pray for something but sometimes as not as readily to remember to say thank you to the Lord for those answered prayers. I have noticed that the more I pray in thanksgiving the more connected I am to the blessings received. Our thanksgivings are an important part of our prayer life.

Second, we must all show up Sunday after Sunday and meeting after meeting to support one another and to praise our God who has created for us such a magnificent environment in which to be together. Just seeing one another in church and in Sunday school is an important means of mutual encouragement.

Third, we need to express our gratitude for all the many ways God has blessed us here at St. Theodore's, including our physical plant, our church staff, and our programs. We are told in Holy Scripture that the guideline for that grateful giving is in the tithe or only 10% of our income. As one of the candidates for bishop stated: “We are still trying to support the church with 1980 dollars from what's left over at the end of the month and not with 2006 dollars from off the top and the first check going to the church in grateful thanksgiving for our many blessings.” I have said to you that I have never met a budget I liked because they have all focused on expenses and not vision, mission, and thanksgiving.”

It is a magnificent fall and a time to make memories and say thank you to God. It's time to bless your church with a pledge of your time, talent, and your money. Our Stewardship Campaign begins on All Saint's Sunday, November 5. Say your prayers and be prepared to make a pledge to the God and to God's church.

 

Fr. Ken †