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"Running in Faith" is an electronic devotional guide written by members of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church. Each week, writers use their personal interpretation of scripture to write an inspirational message they hope will help readers take their Sunday faith into weekday lives. Your comments are appreciated and, when related to a particular devotion, passed to the writer. We hope you will share these devotions with friends and coworkers. We are always happy to add new names to our e-mail list. Please contact us if you wish your name to be added. |
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It takes a congregation to raise a child. This variation on a popular phrase came to me as I watched Bishop Riley take into his arms the newly baptized Sophia Rose and carry her through the congregation to introduce her to all her new brothers and sisters, her family in Christ. The Bishop told her that these people were kind, generous and loving, and will help her parents guide her growth in faith in coming years. We, the congregation, do have a great responsibility to all these new Christians. Glance around during coffee hour and see how many infants, toddlers, and small children are among us. Sunday School teachers instruct them in the stories of the Bible, pastors lead them in worship, and music leaders teach them to sing the great hymns of praise and thanks. Social ministries people can include the little ones in their projects, teaching them how to give to others. The property committee can welcome the help of children in taking care of our building and grounds as active participants in workdays and day-to-day upkeep. Altar guild members often give children the opportunity to carry up the elements and assist with God's holy housekeeping. During stewardship emphasis Sundays, sharing of time, talent, and treasures should include youngsters. Inviting friends to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School is vital evangelism. When old enough to memorize nursery rhymes and songs, they can also memorize the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer, as well as other parts of the liturgy. As children become old enough to read, they can be taught to participate more fully in worship. All of us can play a part in their spiritual growth. A smile, a kind word, or a question about what they learned in Sunday school can open a conversation.
Do you remember when your own children were small? What worked for you? Do you remember someone who mentored you when you were a child in church? How can you help the children of this congregation to grow in faith and their belief in Christ as their Lord and Savior? Be patient, loving and kind.
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Congress has been working on the budget. The leadership has proposed a plan called budget reconciliation. Drastic cuts have been proposed to reconcile the budget. The plan cuts billions of dollars -- repeat -- billions from Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Plan, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and other programs "that keep struggling families together and assist low-income working families in moving to higher economic ground. Cuts to mandatory spending called for in the reconciliation package would decrease valuable assistance to millions of low-income families, children, elderly and people with disabilities." Tax cuts for the wealthy (although they donšt need them).˛ (Bishop Mark Hanson) Our faith gives witness of God's concern for the poor and oppressed. Jesus unequivocally calls us to feed the poor and cloth the naked. Americans opened their hearts and their checkbooks with the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. As we look towards our government for leadership, shouldn't the government reflect our values of dignity and care for those that have less than we do? The Conference of Bishops, in conjunction with other leaders of faith from many other denominations, has sent a letter to each and every Congressperson denouncing these drastic cuts. In a speech addressing this issue, Harry Reid, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, called these cuts "immoral". Lutheran Bishops have been calling their states representatives and senators denouncing the severity of the cuts and the amoral impact towards our brothers and sisters. The vote has been postponed. As Christians we repeat every Sunday, "Merciful Father, we offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us -- our selves, our time, and our possessions, signs of your gracious love." As Americans, are we then called to speak out to our government officials when they are not good stewards of our taxes?
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Some years ago, I asked a neighbor to ride with me as I drove from Lake Parsippany, New Jersey, to New Marlboro, Massachusetts. As we rode along, chatting away, we laughed about the silly fools who had been hired to put up signs along the highway. After all, we were heading away from New York City toward the Berkshire mountains but the signs kept telling us how many miles to the George Washington Bridge -- and the distance kept getting shorter. Then, the incompetence of the road workers really became apparent because we saw that the silly folks had built the bridge on the road going north You guessed it; the silly folks were actually those traveling in the car rather than those working for the transportation system. The workers had erected plenty of accurate signs for us to follow. But, we were following our own directions. After all, we knew "our" directions were correct. After seeing the bridge, however, we acknowledged that we should have paid attention to those signs erected to guide our journey. We should have questioned if it was possible that we were going the wrong way. Paying attention to those signs and letting them direct our journey would have taken us to our desired destination in a much shorter time. Isaiah reminds us that, in our lives, it is the Lord who directs us in the way we should go. Don't ignore the signs!
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If, as Freud once said, "neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity," then sanity must be the opposite: the ability to get along in this world of unknowing, of never arriving, but always being on a journey to the stars. Naturally, over the course of our lives, we assimilate a body of knowledge and experience that helps us to understand the world around us. We develop a set of skills that enables us to conduct ourselves appropriately and do meaningful work in society. We establish relationships among family and friends, on whom we feel we can depend for social and emotional support. We place ourselves in a particular locale, expecting that it will remain at least somewhat consistent from day to day. However, the moment we attempt to solidify our own experience or the testimony of others, to cement them in place, as it were, we become rigid and stagnant, and cease to grow. Humanity thrives in an atmosphere of change, and it is well to perpetually expect it, learn to adapt, and maintain a healthy scepticism toward the things of this world, including our own deeply held convictions. There is a kind of knowing that supports progress, but it is not carved in stone. God, by contrast, is changeless, precisely because He does not belong to the earth, but to the worlds beyond the stars. Ironically, that which looks less "solid" and more uncertain from our materialistic standpoint is actually far more reliable, and it is here that we may confidently place our trust. We can neither embody the world of the Spirit in any physical image nor codify it in any set of doctrines, but we can build our lives upon it. Accessible through faith alone, it the end of our journey, as it was the beginning, and the home for which we yearn: where love flows forever, beauty never withers, and truth never dies
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