Vows: Gifts

Welcome to the weekly Dulin Podcast, a ministry of Doolin United Methodist Church in Falls Church, Virginia. Each week, we share a short reflection on faith and life in community, exploring how God's grace moves among us and through us. We're glad you're here.

Hello, Dulin Church. It's me, James, your pastor, and I am here with another weekly moment. I've had some time to reflect on the various ways that we vow to support the church. Over the last several weeks, we've done the first two, which is when we promise to join the church, we promise to or vow to support the church with our prayers, our presence. The third one is our gifts, our service and our witness.

So this week is gifts. Now I have to tell you, I grew up around the idea of gifts. And when I took that vow as a twelve year old, I understood gifts to be about money, financial support for the church, way of providing for the ministries that the church does. And let me just tell you, certainly as one way of understanding that word, I personally think it's a great way to understand it. What we do at Dualin Church matters and your financial support makes that possible.

But what if we think about gifts as something bigger than financial support, more than financial support? Not to denigrate the whole financial support piece because it does make a difference in our ability to be able to do the things we do in the community. But what about other gifts that we bring to the table? The funny thing is that, know, in one Corinthians, we hear from Paul that there are a variety of gifts but one spirit. Now, when Paul says that, he begins to list a variety of ways that we are gifted, that we get charisms of the spirit.

The word charisma means to be gifted. And charis is from the word grace. We are graced with certain gifts. And some of those gifts include things like singing. So when you see someone sing in the choir or sing a solo for us or play an instrument for us, including the bells, they are sharing a gift.

When we had Laity Sunday just two Sundays ago and a variety of lay people were involved in leading worship for us, those folks that were doing all those pieces who are lay folks were sharing their gifts. Prayers and presents are both gifts that you may offer up to the church. When we talked about prayer a couple of weeks ago and the variety of ways in which we pray, one of the things that we ought to say about that is to pray for the church, to pray for your pastor, to pray for the concerns of our congregation. Those are all gifts that we give to the church. Presence, when you're there bringing a joy, a joyful word, an encouraging word, when you're in the congregation, you're singing the hymns and reading together, you're bringing that presence.

It too is a gift. So we offer our gifts in a variety of ways. We have people at Doolin who volunteer on a periodic basis to teach children as a part of our Sunday school program. We have people who volunteer to work with our youth. We have volunteers who teach English as a second language on Tuesdays and Thursdays in our building.

We have volunteers who've just recently engaged in rebuilding together in our community over in Alexandria. And I'm given to understand that more than 20 of you did that. More than 20 people signed up and participated in making a difference, offering your gifts to others, gift of your time and your presence. So those kinds of gifts make a difference. Remember that you say this with regularity too.

You yourself are a gift and you offer that gift in the way that you live your life. God made you as a gift to us all. Sometimes people think that they're a gift to the world and they get a little puffed up about that. Paul would prefer we not get puffed up. And I would prefer it too.

We don't need to be puffed up about the gift we are, but we also need to realize we are a gift. That means from the smallest child in our midst to the oldest member of our congregation, from those who can be there in person, to those who are homebound and unable to be a part of our community of faith. All of those folks, all of you are a gift, a true gift to us as a community, a gift from God and gift to the world around us. And we are meant to offer that gift. So to sort of summarize, maybe this week's message will be a tad bit shorter than our other weekly moments have been.

But all of the ways that you can be a gift, all of the ways that you offer yourself as the treasure you are and the way that you share your gifts can make a difference. Now, do want to say that we do some important things at Doolin. And I'm proud of those things. I'm proud of the generous way that you as a congregation support the things that we do. I was talking today, we were talking about giving and how many folks pledge, how much they will give every year and how many people give in addition and up and above beyond that.

And for you who give, I want you to recognize that your gift makes a difference, that your financial gifts make it possible for us to serve more than 300 people once a month for our Ministry of Hope. Your gifts help us support ministries like Homestretch which helps people move single parents move from homelessness into finding a home, being retrained and engaging in the community, finding that sense of purpose. These are ways that you are gifting to our community and finances do make a difference. It makes it possible for us to do what we do. So just remember and think about the gift that you are and the gifts that you bring to our community.

How are some ways you can make those gifts more available to your community? Do you want to give financially but haven't been? What would it look like for you to reach out and give? Maybe you have a singing voice and you'd like to sing in our choir. I encourage you to take a look at that as a possibility.

Maybe you have gifts for working with children and you'd like to be a part of the team that does Sunday school teaching on a regular basis in our community. Maybe you'd like to volunteer to share your voice and be one of our lectors, the people who read scripture for us on Sunday morning and participate in that way. Work with our youth. We're always looking for more people to work with our English as a second language program to help teach with that, to be substitutes, to play bells. Heck, if you want to come up and preach every once in a while and you feel you'd like to do that, I encourage you to talk to me about that.

These are all opportunities to share the gifts and witness you have. I don't know what all of your gifts and talents are. I haven't been here long enough to figure those things out, but you bring those gifts. So think about ways you support Doolin in our community and the things that we do. Do you want to sort of stretch yourself and give financially as a way of sharing your gift?

Do you want to sing in the choir or engage in some other way in our community? These are all ways that you can share the gift that you are in making a difference among us. So, your assignment. I don't always give assignments, but I'm going to give you an assignment is to take time to reflect on what kinds of gifts you have that you might offer up to the community of Dolan. Gifts for planning, gifts for financial support, gifts for music, other kinds of ways that you can bring your gifts to bear because we're all gifts.

I try to share mine with the community in the way that I lead and am your pastor. Succeed sometimes, fail sometimes, but keep at it as I try to use those gifts in this kind of service. I encourage you to reflect on the ways that you might use your gifts. And if you can come up with some and you think, oh, I haven't been giving very much or I haven't given at all, but I'd like to give at least a little bit, you could do that. Whatever form that that takes, or maybe you're giving some, but you want to give more.

And your reflection realizes that you, in your reflection, you realize you have more to give and you'd like to make a bigger difference in one way or another. You are a gift and you make a difference to our community wherever you are, whenever you are watching this. Please don't forget that you matter to us. We want you to know that. Again, thanks for joining us in this moment.

It's great to be with you. If this moment has meaning to you and if you'd like to share it, please feel free to share this moment with others. If you happen to be listening instead of the video moment that I share, if you're listening to our podcast, I encourage you to share it with others if you'd like to. We try to reflect about faith here and what difference faith makes to us. So, until the next time I'm with you, I wish you all the best.

I hope you know what a gift you are and that you're willing to share it. Next week, we pick up with the last with with the fourth of five vows we make as members of the church and that fourth vow, you don't have to wait for it. Service is that fourth one. You can ponder that, wonder what I'm going to say about it, maybe bring your own thoughts, share your thoughts in advance. You can email me at pastordoolinchurch dot org and I'm certainly always interested in what you have to say, what you think.

Until the next time I see you or that you see me, I wish you all the best.