Make your 2013 Pledge Today
Lisa Stiller – Stewardship Chair
As we Christians look around, we long for the opportunity to demonstrate the power of God for salvation and healing. We see the issues that loom large over every home and we hunger for the ability to make a meaningful difference in our world.
But how and where do we as individuals begin? The task is infinitely compelling and yet the enormity of it seems overwhelming. C.S. Lewis speaks to this dilemma in his “Weight of Glory” sermon given in 1941 during the devastation of WWII.
According to Lewis, the solution resides in our relationship with our neighbor:
“The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit. … Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
The solution to all the problems of the world begins with sharing the Good News of Christ with the immortal soul next door.
The solution to collapsing economies, failing families, secularism, addiction (I am sure you can pick many others) is delivered through the world-wide church preaching the Gospel, administering the Sacraments, healing the sick, and feeding the poor, one soul at a time.
As members of First Lutheran, we participate in the mission of healing souls and bodies throughout the world and in our own backyard. Through such campaigns as the Lutheran Malaria Initiative and other Missouri Synod-based programs, we make an enormous difference in the greater world. In our own backyard our multiple ministries of Music Outreach and Education for children and adults, Campus, Brazilian, and Blind Ministries, and most importantly, boldly sharing Word and Sacrament with exuberance and joy every single week reaches others and ourselves deeply!
Your pledge and subsequent donations to First Lutheran enable us to be the healing beacon of Christ in our community and our world – one neighbor at a time.
Please send pledges to Catherine Feddersen, Financial Secretary at First Lutheran. Thank you!
