Well the week has begun again and we continue. I was at a church conference last week (reason for large single post) and found some very interesting things. Stewardship is essential to everything else in ministry. If you are not being a strong steward of gifts then there is a blank spot in your ministry. The other thing I found unrelenting with each presentation was the fact that we are to be out there, out there in the world where real minsitry and mission happen. We often short ourselves as we try to keep hold of everything or at best some things of our life. As Herb Miller points out in this session we must begin to give it up, pass it out, share it around. Keeping it for ourselves only adds to our worry and limited life.
I won't keep you any longer so as you read through this lets skip the questions and just see where we are led. The scripture in embedded in the reading and is Luke 16.19-31.
Look forward to hearing from more people. Pastor WaynO


IV. Money Can Become a Barrier to Wealth
Growing up, one of the things a farm boy enjoyed each summer was the week the carnival came to town. How exciting it was to walk through the lanes of floating ducks and ring tosses and shooting galleries, dreaming about all the wonderful things he might win there. It was also at this time of year—just before he left to go to the carnival on Saturday night—that his father always gave his standard lecture about not wasting money on foolish things like carnivals. "Son, don't waste your money on that stuff." he said. "If you're going to buy something, buy something worthwhile—something that will last."
The boy could never quite understand what his father had against carnivals. Finally, when he got a little older, his dad told him why he had such strong feelings. As a young man, his father took the girl he was dating to a carnival. While there, he got interested in a ring toss game and was determined to win a giant Kewpie doll for his girlfriend. He kept throwing until he won the doll, but it took more money than he had anticipated. Consumed by the excitement of the moment, he threw away $30 of hard-earned cash (which in the 1920s had taken him six months to save).
It took the boy some time to learn that lesson about carnivals. He had to learn it himself, the hard way, just like his father did. As the years of life unrolled, the boy discovered that his father's words applied to many other things. "If you're going to buy something, buy something worthwhile—something that will last." You can tack that advice up over a great many potential purchases. How easy it is to throw away your time, your money, and even your whole life on Kewpie dolls that count small in the long haul.
Jesus made that point in his parable about the rich man and the beggar (Luke 16:19-3 1). The rich man could have decided to use his wealth as an interstate highway to God's creative power and eternal life. Instead, he decided to use his wealth in a way that created a barrier to his connection with God—and the price he paid for buying the wrong thing totaled much more than $30. In this parable Jesus does not say that money is a bad thing. He is not telling us we will be happy if we are poor and sad if we are rich—nor is he telling us that it is wrong to be rich and right to be poor. Rather, he is saying that if you have money, buys something that matters. Otherwise, you will wake up one day with a life full of money but empty of value.
In our consumer-driven society, we are pressured to operate on the same premise as the rich man in Jesus's parable: that money has ultimate value. "Give me money." we think. Give me a new house, a new car. and plenty of cash, and I'll be happy. Give me a boat and a cabin and some spare time and I will be happy. But that is never true, is it? After a little experience, most of us learn that spending our money to get the things money can buy subjects us to the danger of missing what money will not buy. If we are lucky. we learn sooner than the rich man in Jesus's story that life with meaning must be a life, not just of getting and using, but of giving and helping. You cannot live like a self-centered vegetable without beginning to feel like a vegetable. If you do not live for something beyond your small package of self, you end up with many things around you but with nothing inside you.
Chinese farmers once operated on the theory that they should eat all their big potatoes and keep the small potatoes for seed. This they did for countless years. Eventually, however, they realized that the laws of genetics were reducing their potatoes to the size of marbles. Keeping the best potatoes for yourself and using the leftovers for seed will destroy your future. The Bible says the same thing—what you sow. you will eventually reap (2 Corinthians 9:6). What you give to help others you never lose. What you keep for yourself is gone forever.
Giving is Eternal