My priorities were messed up. When I wanted something, I bought it. If I had the money or not. I couldn’t get my head around money and I lived like Steve Martin and Amy Poehler’s characters in this Saturday Night Live Skit.
I carried my bad habits into my marriage and together we comingled mounting bills, lack of giving and out of control spending into a lifestyle.
About 3 years ago, my wife and I took the Managing Our Finances God’s Way class at Sanctuary. And perhaps, for the first time ever, we came away with new perspectives on how we were to live out lives as stewards of God’s resources.
It wasn’t a magic button that we pushed and it fixed our finances. It was the beginning of a journey that has us continually improving upon giving more, spending less and saving more to be more purposeful with our finances.
Times are still tough as most of us are probably experiencing, but we have a fundamentally different relationship with the resources God has blessed us with.
I would encourage all of you who are struggling in your relationship with money to get a fresh perspective by taking the upcoming Managing Our Finances God’s Way class at Sanctuary.
This class is interactive and taught by Sanctuary Pastors and Elders.
Recently, my Kindergartner’s school newsletter posed the question for parents: “What do you think of change?” Thinking about change wasn’t a new thing. Change was the subject of a sermon series a year ago. Change has been on the forefront of my mind in the last couple of years as I’ve gone through some personal growth and recovery. And change is something we’re all thinking about now.
The school asked it because the district is in the midst of looking at restructuring their building usage to be more practical and cost-effective. This will mean some building may close. Grades may be shifted. There will be change.
My response to the school’s newsletter (if you reply you get entered into a drawing for a gift certificate—so I admit my motives weren’t without reason) was this:
Most of us fear change; a few thrive on it. Change, however, is necessary. Ask any biologist. If an organism doesn’t change, it doesn’t grow. And if it doesn’t grow, it dies. Yes, there can be harmful change (ask any patient who has just learned the news of cancer). But much change can be good—especially if we work to make it so. It takes discernment to know if change will be bad or good. But more than discernment, a positive attitude is needed: an attitude that goes into a situation of change looking for ways to make it positive, to work to make a smooth transition, to encourage and support those who need it. Our children are so much better off if we teach them to not run from change but to face it head on, prepared and with a positive, helpful attitude. What is true for the school is true for the church.
Change is hard. Change is painful. But change is good. Especially when in the will of God.
The outcome of change depends largely on our attitude to it. Do we face challenges with a positive attitude, knowing God gives us the strength to accomplish the things He puts before us? Do we face change knowing that God is the one in control, the ultimate orchestrator of history? Do we face opportunities for growth knowing that in all things God works for the good?
David Wenellis a Covenant Member at Sanctuary. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in ministry in Iowa and British Columbia before moving to St. Loius Park. He blogs regularly at www.wandering-in-the-wilderness.blogspot.com and is currently a stay-at-home dad.
Along with most, I was surprised to hear of Efrem’s call to be Superintendent of the Pacific Southwest Conference (for me it was partly because I had forgotten that the current superintendent, Evelyn Johnson, was retiring). Though we haven’t talked about it, I know Efrem didn’t enter into this calling lightly. The superintendent position is not an easy job. I also am sure it was a heart-wrenching decision to make. I’m sure he spent many hours in prayer discerning God’s will and calling in this.
I also know Efrem is one who does not seek the “next biggest thing.” He is not just moving on or leaving Sanctuary behind. He is simply following God. And sometimes that doesn’t make sense to others. But it is the one whom God calls who must obey.
I’ve been through several pastoral changes myself. One church we attended went through three pastors (one of whom was called to be an associate superintendent) in less than five years—not to mention the two interims in between.
I’ve also been the one in ministry who left as God has called me here and there. I know it’s not easy for a congregation to go through. It’s not easy for a minister, either. We never know why God calls us from one place to another, but He sometimes does. It’s never easy to leave a congregation that you’ve invested in. It’s never easy to pick up your family and leave your friends and a community that you love.
God sometimes asks a pastor to stay in one place for a long time. And sometimes He moves people on quickly. It’s the same with people in the congregation—some of them He calls to stay in the church for a while and sometimes He moves them from place to place.
The Reminder
Maybe it serves us as a reminder that the church is not about a building or about one single leader. The church is about a community. A community in fellowship with one another. A community unified by their love for God, their mission and their service.
Maybe it’s even a reminder for us to be willing to go where God leads us. Whether that’s away from our family and home country to a new, foreign (like the patriarch Abraham) or whether it’s to the neighbor’s house across the street. He could be calling us to take a pay cut in order to serve Him in a better place, or He could be calling us to take a promotion in order to steward resources for His Kingdom. Maybe God is just calling us to be faithful in what we’re doing—even if we’re not seeing the fruits of that yet.
The Commitment
If nothing else, let it be a reminder that our commitment to God in all circumstances is to listen—and obey.
David Wenellis a Covenant Member at Sanctuary. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in ministry in Iowa and British Columbia before moving to St. Loius Park. He blogs regularly at www.wandering-in-the-wilderness.blogspot.com and is currently a stay-at-home dad.
Last week, my wife and I had the grand opportunity to leave our two kids in the care of her parents and spend five days on vacation in California. Afterwards we both agreed that it was probably the most enjoyable vacation we’ve had. We walked the streets and hiked the hills of San Francisco and spent time with friends and family at a wedding of one of my childhood friends.
Yet, with all of the fun that we had there was still a dark cloud that sat over us for those five days. It seemed overindulgent to be doing what we were doing when hundreds of thousands of victims were still suffering through the aftermath of the great earthquake in Haiti. Then three days into our vacation we found out that a young teenager was killed in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day, just down the block from our house.
While on vacation I was reading some of the writings and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. and was struck by the power of his words and “fierce urgency of now” as he led others in breaking down the racial injustice that was pervasive in his time. Reading his words brought to life the intensity of the Civil Rights movement, the commitment of its’ supporters and the evil of the injustice they fought against. All together these things created a deep uneasiness in me.
In a speech given in 1957 in Berkley Dr. King talked about the need to be “maladjusted” to the injustice in our world.
“Now we all should seek to live a well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things.”
I wonder sometimes if we have become too adjusted and complacent with the suffering and pain that exists around us (both near and far), allowing things to feel normal that should never be made to feel normal.
Wouldn’t you agree that there are some things that we should all get angry about? When a country brutalized by poverty like Haiti is hit by a natural disaster, we should be angry. When a teenager walking down the street in the middle of the day is shot dead, we should be angry. No matter where we live, no matter how comfortable our life is, no matter how rich or poor we are, these realities should shake us, should affect us, should push us to live for and strive for something different.
But instead of journeying to that more difficult place, a place that asks something of us, we push answers too quickly (see the stupidity of Pat Robertson), or too quickly blame others for their plight (see poverty in Haiti and the US). Too often we live our life on the circumference, fearful, unwilling or unable to journey to the center, where things are messy, dangerous and uncomfortable. It is safer to live on the edges, more dangerous to live in the middle.
And more than the anger and beyond the emotion we need to find ways to act, individually and collectively. As I read through more of Dr. King this weekend, I struggled to know what in our world today will move us the way his fight moved so many?
What injustice, what oppression, what evil will we unite around and fight against? Will we come together to alleviate poverty in a developing or recovering nation? Or fight for the human rights of all people in our own country? What does it look like to love our neighbor? Should we work less and spend more time with our families? What is our social and moral responsibility?
In a lot of ways I think that we’ve become brainwashed. Brainwashed into thinking that this is it. Brainwashed into believing that we’re stuck with what we’ve got. This is the way the world is. Work hard, follow orders, stay in line and you’ll get what you deserve we’re told. But is that really it? Is this the road we want to be on? Is this really the best that it is going to get?
I don’t think so. And I hope you don’t either.
I think we need to again hear the words of Dr. King and wonder what it means for us to be maladjusted today. When hundreds of thousands of people can see their lives destroyed in a blink of an eye, or when a teenager can be shot in the middle of the day, we need to ask more questions, wrestle more with what we have and what we give.
Let us together be serious about transformation.
“I call upon you to be as maladjusted as Amos who in the midst of the injustices of his day cried out the words that echo across the generation, ‘Let judgment run down like waters and the righteousness like a mighty stream.’ As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half slave and half free. As maladjusted as Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery could cry out, ‘All men are created equal and are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ As maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth who dreamed a dream of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. God grant that we will be maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and civilization. And then we will be able to move from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.“
Neeraj Mehta is the former Program Director at the Sanctuary Community Development Corporation. Currently, he is North Minneapolis Program Director at Nexus Community Partners. He lives in North Minneapolis with his family and is an active Covenant Member at the Sanctuary.
CHICAGO, IL (January 22, 2010) – Efrem D. Smith has been nominated to replace Evelyn M.R. Johnson as superintendent of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), it was announced today.
Smith, who currently serves as senior pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, will stand for election during the Pacific Southwest Conference Annual Meeting April 23 at Mission Springs Camp and Conference Center located near Santa Cruz, California. If elected, Smith will be installed during the 125th Annual Meeting of the ECC in St. Paul, Minnesota, in June.
It’s been about 9 years since I was in Haiti. I went there on a mission trip. and I received more than I gave.
As we came approached the village, the children and families ran to greet us and ushered us into their community with singing and dancing. The words I didn’t understand. The pureness of the joy, I did.
I spent time in a village of dirt and ramshackle huts. Mud and dirty water. Where often the same water was used drinking and bathing in.
I experienced church in this little village of Petit Goave, Haiti unlike I’d ever experienced before. For hours there was singing and dancing. Praising and giving thanks.
When we came to the village, they had very little, if anything to eat for the two weeks prior. We brought huge bags of rice and beans. And while everyone ate rice and beans, they treated us to rice and beans with a creole fried turkey that they’d saved just for us. And it was nearly 100 degrees and they served us ice cold Coke in glass bottles with persperation running down the glass.
We came 2,500 miles to serve them, but they served us.
Now, I’m doing what I can to give back…and you can too.
Covenant World Relief
Our denomination, The Evangelical Covenant Church has a relief organization called Covenant World Relief. They are first responders for disasters like the earthquake in Haiti. They already have teams on the ground and they continue to need supplies and donations.
On December 13th, we held our Winter Baptism Service. 18 people took this milestone step in their faith. It takes people serving with their time and talents to make these types of experiences run smoothly. The Humphrey family took on that call as a family and served together. Here’s their experience…
Volunteering During Baptism Service
Our entire family of five recently had the opportunity to volunteer together at our church baptism service and we had a wonderful time. As we drove to the church for the service, my husband, Lonnie and I talked to our children about water baptism and what it represents; burying your fleshly ways of sin, and being raised up with a new life in Christ. We also talked about the blessings we receive when we help others.
Our service was very simple; passing out towels, helping with robes, holding eyeglasses, and just being a willing part of Christ’s body. When we asked our children what they liked about helping, they each had a unique response.
Our oldest daughter, Alanna, thirteen, was struck by the joy of those being baptized. “When the people came out of the water, they seemed really happy, although they were wet and probably cold, they seemed full of joy. That was cool!“
Our nine year old daughter, Arianna, said, “I really enjoyed it because it made me feel like I was a big help in one of the most important times in the people’s lives.“
Our son Landon, six years old, had this to say, “It made me feel special by helping other people. I think God likes me helping other people.“
God definitely likes it when we help others. I believe that God blesses us so that we can be a blessing-at any age.
The Humphrey Family: Lonnie, Marcia, Alanna, Arianna, and Landon
This summer we had a garage sale, and we told our daughter that she could keep most of the money that was made from selling her clothes or toys. After the sale, she counted up all her coins and bills from selling her stuff. We exchanged all her change to bills and she ended up with about $10. We asked how she felt about giving 10% to God, and she hesitated and was definitely leaning towards keeping all of the money for herself.
My wife recommended that we separate out the money into two piles-$1 for God and $9 for her. When she saw how much she had to spend, what she was giving to God seemed very little.
Sometimes we focus so much on what we are giving up, rather than our blessings. Whether a blessing is $10 or $10,000, God provides for us in ways we can never fully imagine.
God doesn’t call us to give, because He needs our money, we give because God wants us to learn how to bless others as well as receive the grace and joy that comes from the process of giving. If only we heed His call…
Phillip Lee serves on the Elder Board at The Sanctuary. He attends the Sanctuary with his wife Andrea, daughter Lauren and son Daniel. They are active leaders and champions of our Community Groups ministry.
I was talking a few years ago to a friend who is a doctor. We got on the topic of tithing, and he said that tithing money has never been a problem for him. He always calculated 10% of his paycheck and wrote a check on Sunday for that amount. When we began talking about his life and how he tithes in service or ministry, he was stumped. He always had looked at tithing as a “monetary giving” of his faith. As a doctor, money was not an issue in his life, so to write a check each week was easy for him, unlike most others. However, his precious resource was time, since he worked so many hours, and he found it very difficult to even contemplate giving 10% of his time to God.
After all, God doesn’t need our time, money, or talents. He offers us an invitation to freely offer these things to him so that through our participation in his work, we are transformed.
A few days ago, my daughter asked me to help her draw a flower on a piece of paper. When I asked her what it was for, she said she was making a card for me. Even though I helped make the card, I was very blessed by her effort and thought and she was gratified to see the smile on my face when she gave it to me.
Isn’t this the type of giving and receiving that we should have with our Father?
Phillip Lee serves on the Elder Board at The Sanctuary. He attends the Sanctuary with his wife Andrea, daughter Lauren and son Daniel. They are active leaders and champions of our Community Groups ministry.
David Wenell is a Covenant Member at Sanctuary. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in ministry in Iowa and British Columbia before moving to St. Loius Park. He blogs regularly at 
Neeraj Mehta is the former Program Director at the Sanctuary Community Development Corporation. Currently, he is North Minneapolis Program Director at Nexus Community Partners. He lives in North Minneapolis with his family and is an active Covenant Member at the Sanctuary.
Phillip Lee serves on the Elder Board at The Sanctuary. He attends the Sanctuary with his wife Andrea, daughter Lauren and son Daniel. They are active leaders and champions of our Community Groups ministry.