Discipleship

We are emphasizing stewardship at CRLC these weeks.  We contemplate all that is given to us by God... and we prayerfully consider our response.  We wonder about how to give thanks for all that we receive.  And we think about the difference between consumerism and discipleship.....
I think of people who call the church office saying that they are "shopping for a church"... It may be a phrase that is expressed without any thought to the implication ... but I can't help but wonder if it predisposes the inquirer to consumerism rather than discipleship.  In truth, we should hang a warning sign over the church threshold and tell folks that if they are "shopping" they will be disappointed... because we are about discipleship. 

When discipleship becomes a way of being, the heart is claimed ... and transformed. The riches of the life of faith increase exponentially by being spent on the behalf of the others. We don't receive God's blessings so that we may hoard them or consume them.

The blessings given so freely reverberate in the open heart and generate an intense, uncontainable desire to share them with others through our words and deeds. As disciples, our lives...our hands...our hearts are always open. We receive all that God gives...and we give all away...and in doing so God replenishes us with limitless, infinite generosity.