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2024 Fall Newsletter - Hear from each of Harbor's Pastoral Team
A Season of Stewardship
It’s hard to believe with the heat we are currently experiencing, that the summer is done and the fall is coming fast. It feels like just last week we were beginning our Unraveled study and getting ready to welcome our first Blue Theology group of the summer. But now, parents’ heads are spinning as their kids are somehow a few weeks into the next school year.
Time moves fast, and if we don’t find ways to slow down, looking back can feel like a blur. This is what is on my heart these last weeks as the new school year starts. Am I moving so fast that I’m missing the good parts, the slow parts, the growing parts? And as I’ve been reflecting on the pace of my life, I recalled an experience from this last summer that taught me to slow down.
Our family was blessed to visit the Eastern Sierra for a week in July. Our visit happened after Ryan’s serious car accident, so while he had the strength and presence to go on the trip, he needed to take it easy and stay around the cabin.
But the girls really wanted to hike up to the first glacier lake. It’s a rough hike, five miles that is largely uphill. And then the return hike is those same five miles, but downhill. I wanted to take them and to experience the trail as I’ve done almost every summer of my life, but with all the stress of the last month, I also was feeling over-tired, worn down. What to do? Do I cancel the hike because it’s just too much, or do I change my pace and own the change?
I decided to change my pace and own it. I told the girls that I needed to go slow, that they could stick together and walk ahead and wait for me. I told them that I would make it, but not as quickly as they were used to. Of course they were happy to just go, and didn’t much care if it was going to take a little longer.
And so we set out together. And they worried at first as I picked my way along the path. Are you okay, mom? We can go back if it’s too much. And I would respond, Nope, it’s not too much. I’m just going at my own pace. I’ll catch up.
At first it was hard to accept how much slower my pace was. I kept internally judging how slowly I was moving, how long it was taking, how far ahead the girls were. But somewhere after the first steep mile, even the voice in my head got tired and I began to notice other things, softer things, slower things, fleeting things, subtle things.
And along the path, I experienced so many incredible moments: water so clear it took my breath away, wild flowers that only the slow would notice, silence as the winding path led us through mountains and rocks that muffled the sound of the river, and peace as I let myself move at my pace. Peace, when I let my own self guide. Peace, when I paid attention and respect to my own needs and my own body.
We made it to the turquoise blue glacier lake, and we scrambled down to the edge of the water, crossing makeshift bridges, and hopping over logs and fallen trees. The icy water received our tired feet and my slow pace allowed me to tune into the spiritual exchange between my submerged feet and the crystal lake. I felt so much gratitude for my feet that had carried me and that were now soaking in the mineral rich water. My slowing down had allowed me to feel more part of the landscape. In fact, the earth elements no longer felt like a landscape, but rather an extension of myself. Slowing down is what allows us to connect with ourselves, with one another, and with the earth.
After playing in the glacier lake, and sunning along its edge, we headed home. Five miles, almost completely downhill. A very different challenge than the walk uphill. A very different pace. It felt as though we were flying down the mountain in comparison to the slow pace we had kept on the way up. But the funny thing is that we arrived back at the cabin at the same time we had arrived in years past. No time had been lost. What a mysterious thing to think of time as getting lost.
Our hurried journeys in year’s past hadn’t gotten us home any sooner. What had the rush gotten us? What had we missed in because we were trying to hurry?
What I realized that day upon returning home was that I had been a good steward of my own energy. I had accurately assessed whether I wanted the experience. I had accurately predicted how much energy I had to offer to the experience. And I had made a change to the way I usually do things in order to acknowledge that I was feeling tired and less strong than years past. I listened to myself. I was a good steward of what my body and energy shared with me. And I lost nothing for it. In fact, I gained a new understanding of what it means to go slow, to go fast.
There are seasons in our lives when we need to go slow, when every single step is intentional and tedious. And then there are seasons in our lives where we need to move more quickly, be more decisive, make the change. The trick is to discern which season of life you find yourself in and to act accordingly. The trick is to be a good steward first of your own self, and then to look around at the different angles of your life and begin to expand your stewardship. We have to learn to take care of the thing that is right in front of us (and that’s a different thing for each of us) before we can move onto the loftier goals.
Pay attention to what your needs are, and offer care to yourself, the way you would to a dear and tired friend.
In this season of the church, we are talking about how we become better stewards of ourselves and our own lives so that we can be faithful stewards of the community. It begins with you. You matter. Your rest is sacred. Your need is precious to God and deserves care from the community–whatever it is.
I hope you’ll join us for our non-traditional look at what it means to be a steward of your own life and how that translates back into the thriving of the community. We’ll be digging into different scripture each week and looking at each scripture through a different lens of stewardship. We’ll be asking hard questions of scripture and of ourselves, and we’ll be sharing our reflections in small groups on Sundays.
It’ll be interesting, challenging, lots of fun, lots of growth. Don’t miss it!
If you would like to offer a message about your own relationship to stewardship, please talk with Caroline about offering a Mission Moment in September or October.
- Pastor Sadie Cullumber
The idea of talking about finances as part of the life of the church is often uncomfortable. My mind goes back to growing up in the 80s and thinking about televangelists like Jimmy Swaggert always asking for money. I’m not sure what they were asking it for other than to enrich themselves. That felt like manipulation and a misuse of Jesus’ teachings, and I was a kid who didn’t know any better. Then there is the modern day version of Jimmy Swaggert in the form of the prosperity gospel. Give so that you too can obtain wealth and prosper. Both models of stewardship misunderstand or misuse Jesus’ teachings.
That is why it is important that we talk about stewardship seriously and in the way of Jesus. Not as some ticket to heaven or as a means of creating wealth but as a spiritual practice. Investing a portion of our gifts, including financial gifts, into a community that will hold us and support us during our walk together in Christ. We see Jesus in the scriptures over and over again instructing his followers to put it all into community and follow him.
Harbor wants and needs everyone’s full presence and commitment to contribute to the community in some form. That is what it means to be the body of Christ in the world. We must all be disciples who contribute in some form or another. As we learn from Jesus, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34) We are given gifts by God, and we want to share those with others.
Jesus asks us to show up authentically and to shine as the children of God we all are. “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your God who is in heaven.” (Matt 5:16) Stewardship and giving of our gifts is how we live in community as the body of Christ.
Everyone has a role to play and one of our tasks as Jesus’ disciples is to share our gifts with others. When we share our gifts and talents, we are following in the way of Jesus.
- Pastor Ryan Cullumber
The word ‘stewardship’ used to bring up lots of difficult emotions for me. My loved ones have been told, “If you just GIVE enough, God will know and everything will get better” or “You’re not being blessed because you don't give enough.”
I think most can understand how harmful these statements are and how they create mistrust–not just in churches, but also in God. We find ourselves asking, “Is God only going to bless me with strings attached?”
I’m delighted to be able to talk about stewardship in a different way this season. Stewardship isn't about having strings attached to what or how much you give. And it's definitely not about “granting wishes” based on that.
The way that I personally have been engaging with stewardship (thanks to a recent seminary course I took) is more about the ‘ask’ being an invitation into the work we are doing at Harbor, and what you ‘give’ is a gift into that. Yes, it can be financial, that is needed in this world and in our church, but the gifts are also time, and care and attention and joyful commitment. Every time I have something I LOVE (a lipstick brand, a recipe, a musician), my first instinct is to share it with others. That’s another way to be good stewards of our community, to share about it. Because we all know that we can’t do this work alone.