New Sermon Series—Generosity

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.—J. A. Shedd

For the first time in decades, we as a congregation find ourselves heading out of the safety of our fiscal harbor.  Most of the investments that provided financial security for us have now been dedicated to the construction of a new building.  Consequently, this means that we need to re-evaluate our spending in light of our adjusted
income. 

When you saw the announcement on the front page of this newsletter promoting a sermon series on
generosity, you might have concluded that I’m going to hammer on you for the next several weeks about giving more.  Part of me wants to say, “No, I’m not going to do that.”  But the other part of me realizes that there’s no way to talk about generosity and not say anything about money.   So, in this series of sermons on generosity we will of course, talk about money. But giving money is not the only way to express generosity.  There are other
currencies that also convey generosity.  There’s the currency of time, the currency of love, even the currency of forgiveness.  So, even though we’re going to talk about money as an expression of generosity, we’re not going to focus exclusively on money.  We’re also going to concentrate on the broader issues of what it means to live a generous life.

Actually, our main goal for this sermon series is not to get you to give more money to the church or to raise a certain amount of money for a particular project.  Instead, we’re going to deepen our emphasis on generosity by wrestling with questions like these:

• How is God working in your life?
• How can you open yourself to the good work of the Holy Spirit in you?
• What are the spiritual resources you already have?
• How much would you like to give?
• What would it look like for you in your life with your job, your house, and your financial resources to live a life of generosity?

We’re about to embark on journey away from the safety of our familiar harbor.   Of course a ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.  Ships are built for a purpose—to transport people and goods from one place to another.  The purpose of the church is similar. Our mission is to get people from one point in life to another…from one stage of faith to another.  Remaining in the harbor is safe in one sense, but risky in
another.  A ship anchored in the harbor may avoid the risk of being damaged by wind and waves.  It runs the risk of wearing out from use.  But to never leave the harbor invites rust.  Better to run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.