Presby-Musings

For the next four weeks, we'll be reflecting on Advent in the daily devotions--extending the conversation from the sermons I'm preaching each week on how to: Give More, Spend Less, Worship Fully and Love All.  This morning I came across a prayer that was attributed to St. Francis, and it spoke to me as I step further into this Advent season:    Most High,  Most glorious God,  Enlighten the shadows of my heart.  Grant me a right and true faith,  A certain hope, and  A perfect charity, feeling and understanding  Of You.  So that I may be able to accomplish Your holy and just commands.  Amen.  I don't know about you, but when I am waiting on God (like I seem to be right now during this season of expectation), I find that the "shadows of my heart" tend to tamper my sense of joy, and keep me from being expectant of God's abundance.   This prayer is so perfect because it speaks simply of our need for God in the mi...

I hate paying bills.   I am pretty sure that there's not a single person reading this, who would disagree with me.   If, however, you get a great deal of joy out of writing checks, or sending payments out of your checking and/or savings account every month, I apologize for my generalization.  And I would respectfully suggest you get some help, because you may have a disorder of some kind.  There were times in our marriage when Merideth and I would sit down to "do the money" (that's what we call it), and there would be a whole lot of month left at the end of our money.  Sometimes, there would be more than we could handle.  So, in the middle of the stress of worrying about having enough--we often neglected giving to our church, or to charities that we believed in, simply because we felt like we didn't have it to give.   Years ago, however, we decided to take a different approach.  We re-oriented our life together around a simple principle...

We are in the middle of a sermon series for the month of May, entitled Jesus and We.  The basic idea behind this series is pretty simple.  We're wrestling with what it means to be a community of faith that lives into the hope of the Resurrection.  Christianity in America has become decidedly self-centered.  Christian book stores are filled with all kinds of self-help books on all of the things you can do to become a better Christian.  Far too many churches in America espouse a Jesus and Me kind of theology.   But what we know from Scripture, from the teachings of Jesus and from experience itself is that it's not all about Jesus and Me.  The Church is about Jesus and We.  Church is more than just a place you go, it's who we are.   Today we're going to be talking about Irrational Generosity, and what that means for us as a church.  And when I say "irrational" generosity, I mean the kind of generosity that doesn't make sense to mos...

This week we are launching a brand new sermon series for the month of May entitled, "I Like Giving."  Each of these sermons is inspired by the book and the website of the same name.  Generosity is not just a virtue--and it's certainly not an exclusively "Christian" virtue, but I do believe it is a virtue that flows from the very heart of God .  I also think that for those of us who  all ourselves Christians , it's more than just a virtue, it's a way of life.  Over the course of this sermon series, we are going to explore what it means to serve a generous God, whose generosity is built into our very DNA .  You and I were made to be generous, it's how we were created.  But in order to fully experience the benefits of living a generous life, we need to learn what it means to practice generosity as a lifestyle.   Today we're going to explore one of the most famous conversations Jesus had with someone about what  it means to be generous: ...

This past June I graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with a Doctor of Ministry degree after spending three years of reading, writing, sweating , researching, more sweating and even more writing before finishing my dissertation/project.  So why am I back at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary this week taking another class? Well, it's not because I enjoy freezing my tuckus off in 16 degree weather.  And it's not because of the Primanti Brothers sandwiches--although they do stand for a pretty good argument . I am, in fact, taking a weeklong seminar with the goal of obtaining an Executive Certificate in Religious Fundraising from the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, which is part of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University . In English:  I am learning how to develop generosity in church congregations, and to develop my own leadership skills when it comes to stewardship/giving/fundraising in faith communities. As part of this ...

Every Sunday I stand in front of roughly 450 people plus a bunch of people watching church online and I ask for money. I don't come right out and say, "Give us your money," but I imagine if you were looking for that sort of thing, you would probably find it.  You would have to look hard because I spend less than two minutes of a 60-70 minute service talking about money. I shouldn't be hesitant about this, honestly.  It's a shame that I feel like I can only briefly mention the fact that without the generosity of our church members and friends our church wouldn't be able to share the Gospel with our community in amazing ways each and every week. Jesus spent more time talking about money than he did talking about heaven or hell.  So there's that. Even so... I am not going to beg, bribe or berate people into giving money to my church.  But I do feel like this needs to be said:  Why would anyone be upset about being asked to give in order to sup...

I've been preaching on Happiness for the past two weeks.  So naturally, we had to get around to money. Which supposedly can't buy you happiness.  But by looking at the way most of us live our lives in pursuit of happiness through money, it seems that none of us really got that memo. Let's start with some Scripture why don't we? Hebrews 13:5-6 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you;     never will I forsake you.” 6 So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.     What can mere mortals do to me?” The epistle of Hebrews was written to a group of Christians in the first century who were trying to figure out how to live the Christian life in a diverse context. So we have nothing in common with them... This discourse at the end of the letter discloses some important things, what I will call the "Signs of a Genuine Christian L...

Yes, I am still preaching about money. And no, people haven't stopped coming to church. Although after last week's sermon on tithing, I might lose a couple. Listen, I saw the above bumper sticker in a restaurant on the bulletin board.  I went there to consume mass quantities of Italian food.  I ordered spaghetti and meatballs with extra meat balls.  The extra meat balls cost like a buck extra.  There were four of them--each the size of baseball. I got my money's worth and took about twenty minutes off of my life, too boot. Woot!  Anyway, back to the bumper sticker.  What do you think o that? Isn't that messed up? I mean, we just started climbing out of the worst recession since the Great Depression and the first thing on everyone's mind is... "Well, get back to spending!" Okay, okay.  I get it.  It's Capitalism.  But isn't that the thinking that started this whole mess--the belief that the acquisition and consumption of wealth ...

When I was growing up, the conservative, evangelical churches that we attended all had this thing about “tithing.” Apparently, as near as I could gather, Tithing was inexplicably connected to Salvation in the churches of my childhood. If you were among the saved, you tithed. If you were bound for an eternity doing laps in the Lake of Fire, you didn’t tithe. And tithing meant giving 10 per cent of your income, more or less. The ten per cent thing was a doctrine that appeared to be connected to the Old Testament and to stoning. I grew up believing that if I didn’t give God ten cents on every dollar from my allowance, I ran the risk of being taken out behind the church to be stoned, and then I would go to Hell.   After awhile, I figured out that no one in church ever really got stoned for not tithing. I also realized that there were other signs that indicated someone was a Christian---like showing love, acting with mercy, sharing grace, and not telling people they weren’t saved ...