This month we enter into another \u201cnew\u201d phase of our journeys.\u00a0 Journeys that individually will take us into new depths (and hopefully new heights) in our relationship with God.\u00a0 The end of this month we begin the season of Advent, which is a time of anticipation, of waiting, and of hoping for something new to break into our lives and dwell in us forever.<\/p>\n
But there is a lot going on between now and the end of November here at First.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been talking about Stewardship.\u00a0 And the meaning of stewardship is LOVE.\u00a0 I talked about the three movements of that LOVE.\u00a0 Down\u2026we first look at how God\u2019s love has come down to us through creation (God breathed life into man), and through the cross (Jesus died to save us all).\u00a0 Then we look at that love IN us.\u00a0 God loves us so much that God has entrusted all of us with gifts of the Spirit.\u00a0 Some have the gift of teaching, others the gift of compassion, and some with the gift of communication with others, and much, much more.\u00a0 The movement from IN is OUT, and that\u2019s about how we use all that God has entrusted to us for the good of humanity in the world we live in.\u00a0 And in that, we become an instrument of God\u2019s love in the world.<\/p>\n
This month we collect food to fill Thanksgiving dinner boxes for those in need. (Don\u2019t forget to pluck your turkey feathers and return your nonperishables so we can pack boxes and deliver the meals in time for Thanksgiving dinner).\u00a0 We also make a commitment this month on Commitment Sunday (November 9) to give a part of ourselves to the world as a steward of all that God has given us (more information on that coming soon).\u00a0 And we give thanks (November 23) for each other and for the church we so freely worship and praise God in\u2026all before we begin our Advent journey at the end of this month.<\/p>\n
November is a time to give thanks for so many things.\u00a0 We give thanks for friends and families, for all that we have and all that we are, and for those \u201cGod Winks\u201d that can show up at unexpected times and in unexpected ways.\u00a0 We give thanks that we can worship anytime and anywhere.\u00a0 We give thanks for God\u2019s work in us and in the world.\u00a0 And we give thanks that God loves us and will never leave us.<\/p>\n
I challenge you this month to explore those things you have to give thanks for.\u00a0 To open your heart and your soul in silence with God, and listen for God to speak to you in ways you don\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Just pondering,<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pastor Patti<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This month we enter into another \u201cnew\u201d phase of our journeys.\u00a0 Journeys that individually will take us into new depths (and hopefully new heights) in our relationship with God.\u00a0 The end of this month we begin the season of Advent, which is a time of anticipation, of waiting, and of hoping for something new to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8agoY-1Ca","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6211,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6210\/revisions\/6211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}