What’s Happening?
August: Sharing Our Gratitude:
We’re keeping gratitude journals throughout the week and sharing our experiences on Sundays. Ask for a journal if you haven’t gotten one yet.
September: Noticing Generosity
We’ll share our experiences noticing (and being grateful for) the generosity of others.
Coming This Fall!
Cottage meetings!
Potlatch!
Blessing the Pledge Cards!
A Reflection…
If This Work Is About Stewardship/ Sustainability, Why Are We Doing Gratitude/Generosity Journals?
Yes, we are embarking upon our annual stewardship campaign, but we are enlarging it to include exploring ways to develop new possibilities for us, and income streams and to help us to create long term sustainability for our Parish. This is why we are describing it as a Stewardship/Sustainability Campaign, and it is for 2025 and 2026.
We are beginning with gratitude and generosity because they are the most important pillars in the foundation that has to be made in order for energetic and sustainable stewardship to thrive. Gratitude and generosity support stewardship in much the way ice cream and peach cobbler support one another. We know that peach cobbler is wonderful all by itself and so is ice cream, but if you like them both, as I do, they are so much better together.
So it goes with stewardship, which is the process of caretaking of our property, sharing our resources, and serving others which all happen to be wonderful and very important. And they can be done for many reasons such as out of a sense of duty, guilt, habit or even out of fear, but when all of these things are done based upon the foundation of the joy that is created when we practice gratitude, which is the act of being grateful for all of our many blessings and generous, which is sharing without any expectation of a particular return, providing long term sustainable stewardship is so much better. One of the most important gifts that comes from stewardship commitments that are grounded in this way is that you do not tend to experience burn out or compassion fatigue as is likely when gratitude’s and generosity’s faith building energy are not present.
Therefore, we are embarking upon this work for the Stewardship/Sustainability Campaign for 2025-2026 by working on enlarging our capacity to be thankful and generous. You will receive a small journal book starting on Sunday August 3, 2025, with instructions being given to you regarding how those little journals are to be used and to help support you as we take a few new steps together as a community.
May we keep seeking to be a half shade braver everyday as we listen to what the Spirit is saying to us about Living Generously at 2407 Cascade Road as we Give. Serve. Forgive. Love.