October 25th, 2007 - Synod Stewardship Meeting:

Stewards of Abundance

The evening was put on by the Oregon Synod Stewardship Committee to speak to stewardship beyond the local level and share some facts about how stewardship money is used.

Pastor Dayle opened the meeting with reflections on Fiddler on the Roof, which she had just seen again after the Harvest Party the night before. She pointed out how the main character balanced what we balance as the church: tradition, scripture and community. I am currently reading Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change and it was refreshing to get confirmation our church and the ELCA has been doing for a long time the kind of Christianity McLaren espouses and not what he indicts.

After Pastor Dayle’s welcome Becky, a member of the Stewardship Committee, kept us moving around the room by asking how we would respond to questions from 1 to 10. 10 meant doing well and 1 was clueless and we voted with our feet moving from one side of the Fellowship Hall to the other based on how we felt.

The questions were about how well the churches we represented were doing our ministry; how well the synod was doing its ministry and how well the synod could do given the right circumstances. This activity gave us all something to think about when we returned to our chairs.

I don’t know need to quote Bishop Dave’s presentation for this meeting. It is on the Oregon Synod website:

http://www.oregonsynod.org/highdesert/present/player.html

I must say I like the way he puts things together. Bishop Hanson, at last month’s Bishop’s installation quoted from the text Bishop Dave chose for the occasion - Isaiah Chapter 42:

Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:”)

and then quoted Bishop Dave on why he chose it:

“The Pacific Northwest is a creation-rich place in many ways. I dare say the first article speaks to concerns that dominate our spiritual consciousness. We receive this orientation from Native American spirituality, from the many environmental concerns that loom large in our part of the world, and simply through the natural beauty that surrounds us. The ‘sky slope’ or the ‘woods out hunting’ are articulated as many people’s church. They claim this without embarrassment or guilt. It is the Northwest.”

Capturing the reverence people do feel in the Northwest for the natural beauty here was very refreshing to hear last month.

There were seven of these synod presentations. The one at Creator was the final of the seven. It definitely inspired more concrete thoughts about the support we give to the larger church.