Pr. Chris asked me to write a paragraph or two on stewardship for this newsletter. Oh, my! Have you ever known me to confine myself to a paragraph or two in print or conversation? The theme, I\u2019m told, is sacrifice, a word that strikes nearly as much terror into the hearts of modern Christians as its synonym, \u201cgive,\u201d a four-letter word that is never spoken in polite company.<\/p>\n
We understand the concept of \u201cno pain no gain,\u201d but our desire always is to reduce the first while maximizing the latter, thus pew cushions, convenient parking, casual dress, familiar hymns, and 7 minute sermons (I prefer all of these, so there you have it!), and \u201cI\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t come to church last Sunday, but I\u2019m so busy\/tired\/upset I knew I wouldn\u2019t get anything out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another synonym for sacrifice is \u201csurrender.\u201d When I think back on our faith formation as a couple, nothing has brought Pam and me closer to God than pledging. It\u2019s one thing to say you trust God but quite another to promise a substantial part of your income to God\u2019s work in the world. We surrender a portion of the gifts we\u2019re to be given, trusting that God will provide for our needs in the upcoming year. God\u2019s faithfulness has grown our faith every year for the 25 years we\u2019ve been married.<\/p>\n
This year, let\u2019s keep on giving the gift that keeps on giving: faithful and faithful-filled stewardship. I miss you all, even here among God\u2019s green hills and forests. For 15 years, as your pastor, I found myself immersed in love, kindness, humor, joy, and a profound appreciation for your deep, abiding, spirit-filled generosity.<\/p>\n
– Pastor Bob Cochran<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pr. Chris asked me to write a paragraph or two on stewardship for this newsletter. Oh, my! Have you ever known me to confine myself to a paragraph or two in print or conversation? The theme, I\u2019m told, is sacrifice, a word that strikes nearly as much terror into the hearts of modern Christians as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pastor","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3186"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3195,"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions\/3195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsview.us\/1stlutheranchurch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}