Talent…

What can you do?

Three youth group members and one retired Navy Commander were appointed as the stewardship committee for a small rural church in the Midwest. They were unclear about what to do at first. Fortunately, they started with a prayer in their first meeting, asking God what and how to lead their little congregation in stewardship.

After an awkward silence, one of the high school student’s eyes lit up and she asked a simple question: “What are we all good at doing? Forget for a moment the title of this committee and just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.”  After a more awkward silence, two of the students, a brother and sister, declared, “We love making desserts!”  

More silence.

The remaining youth group member finally admitted that she liked persuasive writing and the retired Navy Commander offered up that he knew how to make gallons of great, strong, coffee. The student who first asked them to share their abilities suggested that they trust that and build their stewardship plan around those things. 

But, how?

After some more noodling, they came up with a plan. The writer wrote a series of newsletter and bulletin articles inviting the congregation to a dessert social in a few weeks. Once at the social, the congregation would be served a variety of great desserts, and good, strong Navy coffee. They would then be asked to write down what they were grateful for about their little congregation. Then they would ask people to fill out their estimate of giving cards for the new year.

Ability. Talent. Things you are good at. Those all come down to a combination of God-given gifts and temperament, plus the accumulated experience of years of living. God uses all of those things to his Glory in his Church. The oddball stewardship team ended up cooking up a creative, positive, and effective stewardship program based on what they were already good at and loved to do.

Too often we stress over how to get things done in ministry without first trusting that God already knows what’s best and has arranged the parts of the body of Christ in such a way that it all will work out.  What are you passionate about? What do you do when you lose track of time? Those are just some of the questions we need to learn to ask as we try and figure out how to impact our mission field for the Gospel of Jesus.

Many times, the answer to what to do is located in our God-given talents and interests. What gifts do you have that if paired with reaching people, could accomplish that? We often discover that when we operate out of our gifting, we are more effective and simply have more fun. All while doing the Lord’s work!

Dear Members and Friends of West County Lutheran Church, please join me in praying that God would release a movement of people leaning into and serving from their God-given passions and abilities this Sunday. We will be talking about Talents as we move toward the final week in our series on Generosity, which concludes on October 23.

See you in the mission field+

Pastor Mark