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October 2007
Insight is a monthly contribution on remarkable topics dedicated for thoughts, reflection and prayers. Please feel free to contribute to this page what you would like to share with others.
Stewardship/Gift Sunday
Every year we select a Sunday as a special Sunday for St Matthew's folk when we focused our thoughts on 'stewardship/giving'. On that Sunday, we are encouraged to bring our gift of money, specifically for a special project like the Bobi project 2006.
Last year we raised £1500 for the Bobi project and we are pleased to report that the money we raised was sent by our treasurer Mr David Eldridge. You might be aware that sending money to Africa is a challenge and a blessing. However, by the kind hands of the Reverend Dr Jeanette Meadway, the treasurer of Archbishop Janani Luwum Trust UK, registered Charity number 1110006 in England and Wales, that money landed safely in Bobi-Gulu Uganda. We have received some good and encouraging reports and testimonies from Bobi, St Peter's Church confirming that our contribution of the £1500 for their church building reached safely and the gift boosted their moral and encouraged their endeavour in the project. However, they are still along, long-way of to completing the Church building. Please continue to pray for more financial assistance .
This October/November, we would like to focus our thoughts on Stewardship/giving. Our aim this year is to raise £2000 for the ongoing work of refurbishing of our Church and centre here at St Matthew's. Indeed, as you might have noticed, the progress of the work in our church lunge, which began last summer, is continuing.
How are we going to raise the money?
Our objectives are to:
- Encourage our church members to give generously using gift envelops so that we can claim Tax from the Government.
- Teach a series of five sermons on Stewardship/Giving in October
- Make special appeals to our regular Church users to support the work
- Pray and trust God to teach us to know how to give generously.
- To recommit ourselves afresh to serve God and his Church.
What is Stewardship/Giving?
There are many important teachings in the Bible, which challenge some of our attitudes to giving, money, property, and stewardship, which I would like to focus our thoughts on here. What is Christian stewardship?
Our roots. Our Christian understanding of stewardship come from four main sources in the scriptures: the sacred law of the Hebrew people, the Torah; the teachings of their prophets; the teaching of Jesus; and the teaching and experience of the Church in New Testament times.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, men and women are presented as stewards of God's abundant creation. The beauty, the complexity and immensity of this created world is described in Job 37 to 41 and Ecclesiastes 3.The human beings whom God created in his own image, male and female, are entrusted with the stewardship of the multitude of plants, animals, birds, fish and insect life, as well as the minerals resources. They are accountable to God for them and we read these accounts in Genesis 1 and 2. Indeed, the best way to put this in a nut sell, is 'Thanksgiving.'
This theme of thanksgiving is very important for us Christians too. It is a key element in our worship every Sunday here at St Matthew's.
Why? By experience, in our worship, whether it is morning worship' All-age-worship, or the Eucharist - our thanksgiving to God for all that he has done for us is imperative. It is at the root of the Christian understanding of the stewardship of all our resources, recognising that we have received them from God, expressing our gratitude to him, and handling them as resources entrusted to us by God.
Thanksgiving and faithfulness to God are seen as two side of the same coin in Deuteronomy 11 and 12.
However, while God asks his people to make material sacrifices, to move to unknown destinations, to endure considerable hardship in the process, he also promises them great blessings.
He is not challenging them (the Hebrews) to live a life of poverty: he is challenging them to live a life of obedience and gratitude in which they will be greatly blessed. They have to be willing to sacrifice things that stand in the way of them being adaptable, adventurous, and faithful to God's great purpose for them.
It is the same for us Christians today. We here at St Matthew's are promised great blessings - and we too are challenged by God to be grateful and faithful, willing to sacrifice traditions, structures, and forms of worship or organisation that prevent us from being faithful to God's will and vision for us in changing circumstances.
Therefore, in my opinion, as a Christian, Christian stewardship is the giving gratefully and joyfully in thanksgiving to God for our material and spiritual prosperity. This for me is an important aspect of Christina stewardship that comes from the time of the earliest encounters of God with his chosen people (the Hebrews). The Hebrew people gave themselves first to God and their material gifts of plants, and silver-money followed.
Christian stewardship and testimony. Michael Wright in his testimony says: 'I vividly remember, even after 30 years, the emotional turmoil I experienced over a small pair of candle-holders. Their cash value was trivial: their emotional value to me was considerable. I lent them to the church for a special occasion. Afterwards the Rector said they looked so good there he was sure I would want to give them to the church. I did, but not gladly. I felt I had been spiritually blackmailed.
I had used the candleholders for some years at home, often lighting a candle when I prayed at the end of a day. Parting with them was painful. I was angry.
What I slowly came to realize was the hold that such possessions had on my mind and emotions, and how that hold could interfere with my relationship with God and with other people, and how it disturbed my inner self.
Trivial as the subject of that incident was, it helped me to experience the significance of what Jesus said about the choice between God and possessions. We can either put our relationship with God first, or we can put our possessions first. We cannot do both at the same time: 'You cannot serve both God and money' Luke 16 v13.
This ought to be a key principle of our Christian stewardship here at St Matthew's church.
Modicum Okello (Rev)
Prayer for Open Doors Ministries
Christians in Peshawar, northern Pakistan, received dozens of letters this week threatening them death if they refuse to become Muslims.
Police have been providing security around churches, even as Christians received new deadlines for converting to Islam
Believers continue to live in fear, skipping services and canceling church activities.
A spokesman for the Church of Pakistan said that on 7th September some of the letters had been thrown into the courtyards of Christian homes saying if they don't become Muslims they will be killed.
Many Pakistani Muslims associate Pakistan Christians with the West, and the letters: "Our mosques and children are being martyred at American orders. Therefore the churches will also be wiped off the face of the earth."
In a similar incident last May, more than 50 Christians fled the village of Charsadda when a local Christian politician received a letter threatening death if the community did not embrace Islam. The letter turned out to be a prank by some Muslim teenagers, but at least five families who fled then have never returned.
Violent Incidents have been perpetrated against Christians in Pakistan for several years. In November 2006, a mob of several thousand Muslims destroyed four churches, a convent and Christian schools in the Punjabi town of Sangla Hill after a Muslim accused a Christian of committing blasphemy.
No one was held responsible.
"There is no kind of security that can stop suicide attacks", said one Christian leader.
You can read more details and see photos on the Open Doors Ministries website
Please pray with us that:
- The Lord will strengthen Peshawar's Christians who are under threat and cast out their fear with his perfect love
- They will be miraculously protected in ways that convincingly demonstrate to them and to their Muslim and Hindu neighbours that God id with them
- Many Pakistani Muslims will become disillusioned with Islam and will be drawn irresistibly to the loving God revealed in Jesus Christ
Thank you for praying with us.
Every blessing.
Communications Team, Open Door Ministries.
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