In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as Holocaust Remembrance Day in commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp (the Soviet army liberated the camp in 1945). Last Sunday, a teenager in my church came and sat down in my office and asked me some tough questions about God. Among his questions was: "Where was God during the Holocaust?"
Tough question. Impossible question, even.
I'm reading a book right now by Elie Wiesel called "The Night Trilogy." The first part of the book is Wiesel's memoir about his life in the death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The second and third parts are fictional stories that he has used as his way of processing the memories that haunt him. I can remember going to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. when I was in college and seeing the terrible things that human beings did to other human beings.
Where I'm living in Illinois is very close to Peoria, Illinois. At an outdoor shopping outlet mall in Peoria, there is a Holocaust memorial. There are two parts to the memorial. The first section has 18 glass containers shaped like the Star of David. The cases together contain 6 million buttons. These are buttons that you would find on a button down shirt or on a pair of jeans. Each button is different. This part symbolizes the six million murdered Jews. The second part of the memorial has five glass cases shaped like triangles to symbolize five million enemies of the Nazi state who were also murdered. If you stand in the center of the memorial, you are faced with a total of eleven million buttons. It's an incredible feeling to be standing in the middle of eleven million buttons and realize that each button is differnet, symbolizing a unique individual that lost his or her life to something so horrifying.
It's mind-boggling to think that a human being is capable of doing to another human being what people did to each other during the Holocaust. The people who suffered in the concentration camps were not even seen as people, but as disgusting dogs who deserved to die like disgusting dogs. When it was over, the world made a committment to make sure that nothing in history would ever even come close to the Holocaust ever again. We know that if we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.
Which makes my heart ache when I look at the world and still see genocide going on. Rowanda. Darfur. And now there are riots and violence happening in Egypt and Tunisia. I know we're not at a point where we can compare what's going on in Egypt and Tunisia right now to the Holocaust -- not even close -- and it is my sincere hope and prayer that we never GET to that point. At what point can we say that we as a human race have grown up and learned to get along with each other? We can agree to disagree. What kind of a god asks his people to kill and make other people suffer on his behalf?
Not the kind of god I know and follow. The Nazis believed -- Hitler believed -- that wiping out the Jewish people was what God wanted them to do. And so we end where we began, with the teenager in my church asking me where God was during the Holocaust.
Did God allow the Holocaust to happen? Yes. I believe that He did. And here's why: God gave human beings the free gift of free will. The problem is that it turns out free will comes with a very expensive price tag. Put in the wrong hands, free will can spiral out of control and we interpret the God of love as a God who asks us to wipe out entire races.
I submit into evidence the cruscades.
The Holocaust happened because human beings took what was given as a gift and used it for evil. Terrible evil. God allowed it to happen because if God stopped it, we cannot say that we have free will, and I believe that we have free will. I also believe that God heard the cries of His people and cried wept with them in their suffering. That's where God was during the Holocaust: weeping with His people. And praise God that other people used their free will to get the Nazis out of power because nobody deserves to have happen to them what happened to the people who lost themselves to the Holocaust.
It's easy to say this now from my perspective because I wasn't alive then. I wasn't in the Holocaust and I'm not Jewish. So it's easy for me to say that. If I wasn't a Christian and I had suffered in the Holocaust, I might not be saying this. I might not believe in God anymore. I don't know if I would be strong enough to believe in God if I had been a victim of the Holocaust. What I do know is that the human race has to step up and remember the Holocaust. We have to speak out against those who say it didn't happen. This is NOT a conspiracy theory. This actually happened. It is a hideous part of the history of the human race. Genocide is worse than cannibalism. We MUST learn from our history or we WILL be doomed to repeat it.
I don't think world peace needs to be an impossible dream. I think that if we are to live as co-creators of God's created reality, we can find a way to live in harmony with each other and respect each other's ideals. We don't have to agree. But we don't have to kill each other over our disagreements, either.
Remember the Holocaust and continue to pray for those in the world that are persecuted because they believe something different than someone else. My hope and my prayer is that the human race can find its common ground not in the same God and not in the same political system, but in the same foundation of the human existence: we want peace.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Becki
my picture of the Holocaust Memorial in Peoria with the buttons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/indifferentchildoftheearth/5046199608/
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Church Growth
I would like to take this opportunity to brag about my session. We've been working together since September and I think we've done a lot of trust and relationship building in the last five meetings that I've been their moderator and pastor. At our meeting last night, we got into talking about a vision for the future here at our church in Illinois and the energy level was so incredible and the excitement over the church's potential was so visible, that I felt extra encouraged and strengthened by what we're doing here.
I have to admit, I've been questioning some points of my call lately. There were (and still are) moments when I was convinced I'd been hired to change a church that doesn't want to change. And there's certainly a place for small church ministry. Small churches are an opportunity for people to really get to know each other on a more personal level than you might in a church of 5- or 600 with three services on two different days of the week. Some people look especially for the small-church atmosphere. But in that case, a church has to own up to their identity as a small church and find ways to grow without really growing. Since that's as silly as it sounds, small churches are not doing so well in today's economy.
And maybe that sounds unfair, but most of us can say we knew a small church that recently closed its doors due to lack of membership and, related, lack of funding.
So at our meeting in December, I challenged my session to think about our church here in Illinois and come to our January meeting with a vision for the future. We asked:
1) Where do I see our church in 1 year?
2) Where do I see our church in 5 years?
3) Where do I see our church in 10 years?
4) Where do I see our church in 50 years?
5) How do we get there?
As we started talking about our visions for the church here, the energy level was noticably higher and the excitement was visible. People talked about fellowship activities they "used to do" and asked, "Why can't we do that now?" There's absolutely no reason why we can't do that now! We brainstormed for about an hour and we came up with a pretty solid plan on how we're going to get there. I was really impressed with my session and their excitement about growth. As a pastor, that tells me that while there are definitely some who don't want the church to grow (whether they would say that out loud or not), my session proved to me last night that they trust me to lead them through a period of change and growth. My session proved to me that there are folks in this congregation that recognize that a church's life means growth (spiritually and physically) and growth means change, and change will lead to more growth.
The most interesting vision for the future was on the five-year-plan when someone said they'd like to see so many people here that we need a new building.
So how do we get there? How does growth happen? It starts with a tangible plan. This congregation, like many other congregations, needs a concrete plan. Abstract is too much to try and get our head around. Personally, I also am keen on having a plan, so we were on the same page about that. Change doesn't happen overnight, but we have a plan now to get us on the right track. In the next year, we are looking to move towards a second service to start in the fall, fellowship events that continue through the summer, the revival of a church-wide prayer chain, and an occassional blended contemporary and traditional worship style at our current 9:30 service. We're also looking to reach out to members that we haven't seen in a while and find out 1) why we haven't seen them in a while and 2) how we can encourage them to come worship with us again. It's great to reach out to visitors and hope for new members, but we also want to step up our outreach plan for those we haven't seen in a while who are still current members. In addition, we want to partner with some neighboring Presbyterian churches and do more things together to encourage relationship and fellowship.
Growth is not easy, but it is possible, even for small churches. Growth is also necessary if a church wants to retain its life. We cannot carry out the mission of God in this world if we don't know what we stand for. We cannot carry out the mission of God in this world if we don't have a vision for the future. It's important to set goals as a congregation and realize that not everyone is going to be on-board. There's no way to please all of the people all of the time. The human-factor makes that impossible. But it is possible to agree that we as a congregation have to love and support each other and part of that process means having a vision for the future with a tangible way of realizing that vision.
Our theme for 2010 was "We are blessed to be a blessing." Our theme for 2011 is "Do it in the name of Jesus Christ," based on Paul's letter to the Colossians where he says, "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Col. 3:17). As a church, we can grow. As we seek new ways to discover how God is calling us as a congregation, we do so trusting in the Holy Spirit to bring us where we need to be.
Praise God for the work we are doing here in this church!
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Becki
I have to admit, I've been questioning some points of my call lately. There were (and still are) moments when I was convinced I'd been hired to change a church that doesn't want to change. And there's certainly a place for small church ministry. Small churches are an opportunity for people to really get to know each other on a more personal level than you might in a church of 5- or 600 with three services on two different days of the week. Some people look especially for the small-church atmosphere. But in that case, a church has to own up to their identity as a small church and find ways to grow without really growing. Since that's as silly as it sounds, small churches are not doing so well in today's economy.
And maybe that sounds unfair, but most of us can say we knew a small church that recently closed its doors due to lack of membership and, related, lack of funding.
So at our meeting in December, I challenged my session to think about our church here in Illinois and come to our January meeting with a vision for the future. We asked:
1) Where do I see our church in 1 year?
2) Where do I see our church in 5 years?
3) Where do I see our church in 10 years?
4) Where do I see our church in 50 years?
5) How do we get there?
As we started talking about our visions for the church here, the energy level was noticably higher and the excitement was visible. People talked about fellowship activities they "used to do" and asked, "Why can't we do that now?" There's absolutely no reason why we can't do that now! We brainstormed for about an hour and we came up with a pretty solid plan on how we're going to get there. I was really impressed with my session and their excitement about growth. As a pastor, that tells me that while there are definitely some who don't want the church to grow (whether they would say that out loud or not), my session proved to me last night that they trust me to lead them through a period of change and growth. My session proved to me that there are folks in this congregation that recognize that a church's life means growth (spiritually and physically) and growth means change, and change will lead to more growth.
The most interesting vision for the future was on the five-year-plan when someone said they'd like to see so many people here that we need a new building.
So how do we get there? How does growth happen? It starts with a tangible plan. This congregation, like many other congregations, needs a concrete plan. Abstract is too much to try and get our head around. Personally, I also am keen on having a plan, so we were on the same page about that. Change doesn't happen overnight, but we have a plan now to get us on the right track. In the next year, we are looking to move towards a second service to start in the fall, fellowship events that continue through the summer, the revival of a church-wide prayer chain, and an occassional blended contemporary and traditional worship style at our current 9:30 service. We're also looking to reach out to members that we haven't seen in a while and find out 1) why we haven't seen them in a while and 2) how we can encourage them to come worship with us again. It's great to reach out to visitors and hope for new members, but we also want to step up our outreach plan for those we haven't seen in a while who are still current members. In addition, we want to partner with some neighboring Presbyterian churches and do more things together to encourage relationship and fellowship.
Growth is not easy, but it is possible, even for small churches. Growth is also necessary if a church wants to retain its life. We cannot carry out the mission of God in this world if we don't know what we stand for. We cannot carry out the mission of God in this world if we don't have a vision for the future. It's important to set goals as a congregation and realize that not everyone is going to be on-board. There's no way to please all of the people all of the time. The human-factor makes that impossible. But it is possible to agree that we as a congregation have to love and support each other and part of that process means having a vision for the future with a tangible way of realizing that vision.
Our theme for 2010 was "We are blessed to be a blessing." Our theme for 2011 is "Do it in the name of Jesus Christ," based on Paul's letter to the Colossians where he says, "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Col. 3:17). As a church, we can grow. As we seek new ways to discover how God is calling us as a congregation, we do so trusting in the Holy Spirit to bring us where we need to be.
Praise God for the work we are doing here in this church!
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Becki
Friday, January 14, 2011
A little bit of play goes a long, long way
It's been snowing a lot in Illinois lately and the cold has me thinking of new and creative ways to keep warm without sending my electric bill through the roof. Luckily, it's not that hard to heat my small apartment but it is quite drafty. I've found a friend in weather stripping, but I'm still spending most of my time walking around the apartment with a blanket wrapped around me. I try and keep the thermostat under 70, but it turns out that's a lot easier said than done when I hate the cold.
When I was a little kid, I was a morning person. I'm not so much a morning person anymore, but I remember getting up early all the time when I was little. It'd be about 5 or 6 in the morning and I'd hear the heating vent come on in the winter time and I'd race out of my room with my comforter in one hand and a collection of toys in the other. I'd scurry down the hall to the kitchen where I'd sit on the floor with my blanket cacooned around me and I'd play there in front of the heater. Now, don't get me wrong. Each room had a heating vent and it wasn't like my parents were forcing us kids to sleep with icicles hanging over our heads. I honestly can't tell you if I was actually cold or not, but there was something exciting about sitting in front of that heating vent on the floor in the early morning hours. It was comforting. It was like this whole new world opened up that only came to life when everyone else was sleeping.
Sometimes my brother would wake up too, but not usually. Usually first thing in the morning, it was just me. Then I'd have to fight for my place by the heater during the day when it came on if we weren't in school. Being the oldest (and yes, I was a bratty big sister), I usually won.
I remember what it was like to play. I remember all the games of pretend my brother and I would play in the backyard, the crazy characters and stories we'd come up with. There were times our entire backyard was this other world and we'd pretend parts of the backyard were actually underground and we'd climb through bushes like we were going through a wardrobe into Narnia. At one point, we had our own brand of super heros because we decided that the Power Rangers were too limited in their abilities. We didn't want to fight; we wanted to explore. We'd explore our backyard like we had never seen it before and we had a blast.
My parents were great about playing with us. My dad is kind of a big kid himself, and he'd play space ship with us on the equipment at the park and we'd walk through the neighborhood playing "Elephant Hunt" (see that crack in the sidewalk? An elephant has been here! We must be getting close!). Play was important in my family growing up. For most of my childhood, we didn't have cable and we never had the video games, so we played outside a LOT. I feel so blessed to have grown up in a household that encouraged play.
As adults, we don't play much. We spend a lot of time working and worrying about how we're going to provide for ourselves and our families, and we forget to play. If you have kids, it's a little easier because having kids, at least while they're young and want to play, you are sort of encouraged to play. When they grow up, though, your opportunities for play become fewer and farther between. Sure, I play video games, but it's not the same. I'm not making story lines up; I'm following a story line that has been pre-selected for my mission.
There was a meeting at the church the other night and I happened to be in the office. One of the members at the meeting has two little kids (the oldest is about three, the youngest is 18 months). The kids like to come in my office when I'm here during the meeting (if I'm here, of course) and they play. I have some toys in my office for when kids are here. I have dominos, which they really get a kick out of. I also have a Veggietales play dough set, which the older child has really taken an interest in. So we got that out the other night and we made some fun creations. It was a joy just to sit with these little kids and play. How often do we as adults who don't have kids -- especially if we're pastors -- get to play?
In my quest to simplify my life, I want to take more opportunities to play and practice being child-like. God calls us to be children of God, and if we don't play -- if we don't find reasons to laugh with ourselves and find humor in the world through play -- we can't accept that calling.
This week I challenge you to find ways to play. And I don't mean putting on a video game or a movie. I mean actually play. Play with figurines, dolls, legos, blocks...something you used to play with as a kid. If you have a friend that has kids, ask if you can babysit while she or he goes to do errands. And then sit with the kids and play. Make up fantastical worlds and stories and characters. It's amazing how much less stress and anxiety you feel when you just forget about the real world and play.
I'm not saying the real world will go away if you play, because it won't. But I guarentee you that if you make a conscious effort to play it will help you see humor where you never saw it before. It will help you see the world with new eyes and maybe, if we start looking at the world with new eyes, we'll find ways to live more simply and make a difference.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Becki
When I was a little kid, I was a morning person. I'm not so much a morning person anymore, but I remember getting up early all the time when I was little. It'd be about 5 or 6 in the morning and I'd hear the heating vent come on in the winter time and I'd race out of my room with my comforter in one hand and a collection of toys in the other. I'd scurry down the hall to the kitchen where I'd sit on the floor with my blanket cacooned around me and I'd play there in front of the heater. Now, don't get me wrong. Each room had a heating vent and it wasn't like my parents were forcing us kids to sleep with icicles hanging over our heads. I honestly can't tell you if I was actually cold or not, but there was something exciting about sitting in front of that heating vent on the floor in the early morning hours. It was comforting. It was like this whole new world opened up that only came to life when everyone else was sleeping.
Sometimes my brother would wake up too, but not usually. Usually first thing in the morning, it was just me. Then I'd have to fight for my place by the heater during the day when it came on if we weren't in school. Being the oldest (and yes, I was a bratty big sister), I usually won.
I remember what it was like to play. I remember all the games of pretend my brother and I would play in the backyard, the crazy characters and stories we'd come up with. There were times our entire backyard was this other world and we'd pretend parts of the backyard were actually underground and we'd climb through bushes like we were going through a wardrobe into Narnia. At one point, we had our own brand of super heros because we decided that the Power Rangers were too limited in their abilities. We didn't want to fight; we wanted to explore. We'd explore our backyard like we had never seen it before and we had a blast.
My parents were great about playing with us. My dad is kind of a big kid himself, and he'd play space ship with us on the equipment at the park and we'd walk through the neighborhood playing "Elephant Hunt" (see that crack in the sidewalk? An elephant has been here! We must be getting close!). Play was important in my family growing up. For most of my childhood, we didn't have cable and we never had the video games, so we played outside a LOT. I feel so blessed to have grown up in a household that encouraged play.
As adults, we don't play much. We spend a lot of time working and worrying about how we're going to provide for ourselves and our families, and we forget to play. If you have kids, it's a little easier because having kids, at least while they're young and want to play, you are sort of encouraged to play. When they grow up, though, your opportunities for play become fewer and farther between. Sure, I play video games, but it's not the same. I'm not making story lines up; I'm following a story line that has been pre-selected for my mission.
There was a meeting at the church the other night and I happened to be in the office. One of the members at the meeting has two little kids (the oldest is about three, the youngest is 18 months). The kids like to come in my office when I'm here during the meeting (if I'm here, of course) and they play. I have some toys in my office for when kids are here. I have dominos, which they really get a kick out of. I also have a Veggietales play dough set, which the older child has really taken an interest in. So we got that out the other night and we made some fun creations. It was a joy just to sit with these little kids and play. How often do we as adults who don't have kids -- especially if we're pastors -- get to play?
In my quest to simplify my life, I want to take more opportunities to play and practice being child-like. God calls us to be children of God, and if we don't play -- if we don't find reasons to laugh with ourselves and find humor in the world through play -- we can't accept that calling.
This week I challenge you to find ways to play. And I don't mean putting on a video game or a movie. I mean actually play. Play with figurines, dolls, legos, blocks...something you used to play with as a kid. If you have a friend that has kids, ask if you can babysit while she or he goes to do errands. And then sit with the kids and play. Make up fantastical worlds and stories and characters. It's amazing how much less stress and anxiety you feel when you just forget about the real world and play.
I'm not saying the real world will go away if you play, because it won't. But I guarentee you that if you make a conscious effort to play it will help you see humor where you never saw it before. It will help you see the world with new eyes and maybe, if we start looking at the world with new eyes, we'll find ways to live more simply and make a difference.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Becki
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Living Simply
That's my New Year's Resolution: to live simply. For me, living simply means taking an honest stock of what I have in my life so I don't pressure myself into doing, buying, or feeling something that I don't need to do, buy, or feel. It means spending less time pining for those things I want and spending more time doing God's work on earth.
As a pastor, it's easy to say that I'm already doing God's work on earth. I'm constantly working for God; that's the definition of the gig. It would be easy enough to leave it there and say I gave at the office and move on with my life. But I don't think God is calling me to do that. I don't think God is calling me to do his work from the pulpit alone. If that were the case, I'd be no different than the person looking for minimal involvment in church (you know them...they come once in a while on Sunday mornings, sit through the Sunday morning service, and are out the door like a bullet as soon as the postlude starts to play). Even as a pastor, I believe that God is calling me to look beyond what I do Sunday mornings and participate in His world in different ways.
Live simply so others can simply live.
I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I can do to make a difference in God's world beyond my work on Sunday mornings. I've read a lot of blogs and parts of books that talk about how to live simply within a reasonable means (or even under our means as we look to be good financial stewards). In the next several blog entries (though not consecutively, if that makes sense), I'm going to talk about different ways that I'm simplifying my life.
Today I want to talk about how I'm simplifying my life environmentally.
I'm doing more to live simply and go greener at the same time. I'm turning the water off more when I brush my teeth or do the dishes. I'm making sure to recycle and print things from the computer more judiciously. If I can save myself from having to print something, I take that route.
There are some "going green" areas that are really a challenge to me, though. First thing in the morning, for example, I love a nice, long, hot shower to wake me up and get the day started. It's part of my wake-up-process. I could definitely take shorter showers and save a ton of water. I don't, though, because I rely heavily on that shower. If I really wanted to, I could take a shower in less than ten minutes. My normal shower is between 15 and 20. Imagine how much water I would save if I just did what I had to do and then turned the water off. So as part of my living more simply in a way that is environmentally friendly, I'm going to pray for God to help me learn how to take shorter showers. I'll set an alarm so I know when my ten minutes is up and each day I'll shorten the time until I'm down to 5 or 7 minutes. If I taper off, so to speak, my hope and prayer is that shorter showers feel more natural and less undesirable.
I also struggle with the bottled water thing, because I'm really not a fan of the way the water tastes in my apartment. I can't change that, but I can add a brita filter to my faucet or get a brita pitcher and hope that it makes a bit of difference. I try to reuse water bottles, too, so I'm not just creating more waste. With that, I also want to try and drink more water. I'm really not a big water drinker, so I'm going to consciously attempt to drink more water in a way that encourages me to be a good steward of this precious resource of the earth.
Living simply means finding ways to live in God's world in a way that makes the world a better place for the people around me. It means decluttering our lives so we have more room for the things that truly matter. We are all in connection with one another, whether we realize it or not. This is the world we've been given to live in, and God calls us to take care of each other and the world around us. We must be good stewards of our neighbors and the earth.
As you look towards the future of 2011 and beyond, I invite you to think about what living simply means for you. What ways can you declutter your life to make more room in your heart for God? What things do you struggle with when it comes to mental and emotional clutter? What ways can you find to live simply that encourage good stewardship of the earth?
God has given us a beautiful and amazing world. He has given us each other to love each other and lift one another up. Let us discover new and creative ways to live simply in the gift of God's creation.
Peace,
Pastor Becki
As a pastor, it's easy to say that I'm already doing God's work on earth. I'm constantly working for God; that's the definition of the gig. It would be easy enough to leave it there and say I gave at the office and move on with my life. But I don't think God is calling me to do that. I don't think God is calling me to do his work from the pulpit alone. If that were the case, I'd be no different than the person looking for minimal involvment in church (you know them...they come once in a while on Sunday mornings, sit through the Sunday morning service, and are out the door like a bullet as soon as the postlude starts to play). Even as a pastor, I believe that God is calling me to look beyond what I do Sunday mornings and participate in His world in different ways.
Live simply so others can simply live.
I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I can do to make a difference in God's world beyond my work on Sunday mornings. I've read a lot of blogs and parts of books that talk about how to live simply within a reasonable means (or even under our means as we look to be good financial stewards). In the next several blog entries (though not consecutively, if that makes sense), I'm going to talk about different ways that I'm simplifying my life.
Today I want to talk about how I'm simplifying my life environmentally.
I'm doing more to live simply and go greener at the same time. I'm turning the water off more when I brush my teeth or do the dishes. I'm making sure to recycle and print things from the computer more judiciously. If I can save myself from having to print something, I take that route.
There are some "going green" areas that are really a challenge to me, though. First thing in the morning, for example, I love a nice, long, hot shower to wake me up and get the day started. It's part of my wake-up-process. I could definitely take shorter showers and save a ton of water. I don't, though, because I rely heavily on that shower. If I really wanted to, I could take a shower in less than ten minutes. My normal shower is between 15 and 20. Imagine how much water I would save if I just did what I had to do and then turned the water off. So as part of my living more simply in a way that is environmentally friendly, I'm going to pray for God to help me learn how to take shorter showers. I'll set an alarm so I know when my ten minutes is up and each day I'll shorten the time until I'm down to 5 or 7 minutes. If I taper off, so to speak, my hope and prayer is that shorter showers feel more natural and less undesirable.
I also struggle with the bottled water thing, because I'm really not a fan of the way the water tastes in my apartment. I can't change that, but I can add a brita filter to my faucet or get a brita pitcher and hope that it makes a bit of difference. I try to reuse water bottles, too, so I'm not just creating more waste. With that, I also want to try and drink more water. I'm really not a big water drinker, so I'm going to consciously attempt to drink more water in a way that encourages me to be a good steward of this precious resource of the earth.
Living simply means finding ways to live in God's world in a way that makes the world a better place for the people around me. It means decluttering our lives so we have more room for the things that truly matter. We are all in connection with one another, whether we realize it or not. This is the world we've been given to live in, and God calls us to take care of each other and the world around us. We must be good stewards of our neighbors and the earth.
As you look towards the future of 2011 and beyond, I invite you to think about what living simply means for you. What ways can you declutter your life to make more room in your heart for God? What things do you struggle with when it comes to mental and emotional clutter? What ways can you find to live simply that encourage good stewardship of the earth?
God has given us a beautiful and amazing world. He has given us each other to love each other and lift one another up. Let us discover new and creative ways to live simply in the gift of God's creation.
Peace,
Pastor Becki
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