Henri Nouwen on Gratitude and Being God's Beloved

A couple of you asked me for copies of the devotional thought I read last Wednesday night to begin our time for giving thanks. I want more of you to have it. So here it is. It is by my favorite devotional writer, Henri Nouwen. He titled it, “The Spiritual Work of Gratitude.”

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives-the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for.

Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

Here is another of his reflections titled, “The Still Small Voice of Love.”

Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, "Prove that you are a good person." Another voice says, "You'd better be ashamed of yourself." There also is a voice that says, "Nobody really cares about you," and one that says, "Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful." But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, "You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you." That's the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen.

That's what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us "my Beloved."

If you would like to receive Nouwen’s Reflections as a daily email, visit HenriNouwen.org.

Our Giving in 2010 and 2011

Let’s make 2010 the last year we finish in the red. In 2010 we gave $144,757 toward our expenses, which amounted to $171,868. We fell $27,111 short, but we are going to make a healthy turn in 2011.

New Hope made two decisions last year that will help us a great deal this year. First, by conducting a “Pay Down the Debt Campaign” and adding some money from savings to reduce our mortgage principle, we reduced our monthly mortgage payment from $3100 per month to $326 per month. Second, we adopted a realistic budget. Last year’s budget was $180,108. This year it is $149,186.

With our monthly mortgage payments reduced by more than $2000, we are going to give enough to support our 2011 budget

In our Long Range Plan we said “our first objective is to pay off the existing debt of $70,000 before the expiration date of October 30, 2018.” We will do that by making monthly payments of $926.81 and by making an additional quarterly payment on the outstanding principal as cash flow permits. We also plan to become able to pay off our existing debt by increasing the number of church members who are giving 10% of their income to the church.

If you can give 10% of your income to support our ministries, I am asking you to do it this year. If you cannot give ten per cent, decide on a percentage of your income you can afford to give and give it regularly. We will have a good year of giving and stop our long-running practice of spending money out of our savings in order to pay our bills.

God has worked through our Church Council, our Budget Committee, and our Long Range Planning Committee to lead us to the place where we can begin to pay for our ministries, support missions, and put some money into savings. “Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!”

"Thanks and Yes"

This is a prayer that I heard long ago attributed to Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary General of the United Nations. “For all the has been thanks. To all that will be yes.” That prayer expresses the way I feel about the past and the future of our church.

As I look back over 2010, I am grateful to be pastor of New Hope. There is nothing like the local church when it is working the way it is supposed to work. When I hear members say that our church feels like their extended family, I believe we are doing what the church is supposed to do. When I saw the church members who came to Ben Baiiley’s Memorial Service, I was glad for the support his family is receiving as we “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). When Sharon Bailey told me that she looks forward to being in our Grief Support Group, I was glad that we are a church learning some new ways to expand its care.

As I look forward to 2011, I am enthusiastic and aware that there is a lot to be done to keep our church working the way it is supposed to. Here are a few things we will do this year.

_ A new Real Love group will teach participants the nature of God’s love and how to make loving choices.

_ Our Long Range Plan calls for the beginning of a Sunday School Class for young adults. I am working on it and hope to begin the class in February. It also calls on us to recruit and train enough new leaders of children and youth to achieve a ratio of one leader for every four students.

_ We want to increase the number of church members pledging to give a tithe (10%) or more of their income to support our ministries.

_ We want to do training that helps members discover how they can best serve Christ in or through our church by using S.H.A.P.E. materials to show members their Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences.

When you pray, thank God for all that has helped us see God’s love for us and say yes to the truth God will teach us in 2011.