A Heart of Gratitude

On Sunday we finished a short Bible study on “Cultivating a Heart of Gratitude.”  You should know by now my love for words and the meaning they hold… so each week I started with why I chose the title for this study. 

Cultivate means to nurture and help grow. Farmers cultivate crops, fundraising professionals cultivate donors, and celebrities cultivate their images.  When you cultivate something, you work to make it better. To cultivate anything requires attention to detail, an understanding of what is being cultivated, and a lot of patience.

Gratitude means thanks and appreciation. It's the warm feeling you get when someone helps you figure out a great solution to a difficult problem that you've been trying to solve.

Gratitude is more than a feeling, more than a habit; it is a mindset.  Gratitude is a learned trait, none of us come by it naturally.  It is something we must continually nurture within us.

Over the years I have begun to lean into a heart of gratitude.  It is a change in perspective that helps me see things through a grateful lens. It has been a gradual transformation, but I have found the results to be truly life changing.  I am at a place in my life that no matter what happens, good or bad, I am able to look at my circumstances with gratitude. 

How is your gratitude meter these days?  How can you cultivate a heart of gratitude?  If I could make a few suggestions…1) start a Gratitude journal.  At the end of every day take a few minutes to write down 2 or 3 things you are grateful for.  2) Write down a few scriptures about gratitude and put them in a place you will see them daily.  Putting God’s word in your mind helps cultivate gratitude in your heart.  3) Find a few friends and start a gratitude text chain.  Sharing one thing you are grateful for every day, this also helps you to be accountable in your daily gratitude!

As I get ready to spend Thanksgiving week with my family, my little Pastor heart is full of gratitude!  I am thankful for the amazing staff we have, that serve us with great passion.  I am grateful for your love, support, encouragement and friendship.  I am grateful beyond measure for the honor of being your pastor.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Blessings,
Pastor Jenni

Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens.
This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. (1 Thess 5:16-18)

To Know God is to Thank God: To the Most High

I am God Most High!
The only sacrifice I want is for you to be thankful and to keep your word. (CEV)

Our focus this week as we conclude our Stewardship journey is the final phrase of Psalm 50:14: “To the Most High!”  What a great reminder that God is the one to whom we offer all that we have and all that we are, make our sacrifice of praise, and make good our vows. 

This has been a crazy season.  There has been so much tension and conflict in the world around us…with the elections, the economy, wars and conflict, natural disasters.  For Emmanuel I feel we have also been living on the edge…uncertain of our long-term financial viability, how the actions of the General Assembly will affect us, and our longevity as we continue to age as a congregation.   It is easy to get bogged down in the “what-ifs,” to let fear get the best of us, to look around and wonder how we will continue to exist.  Friends, it is when we lose our focus on the Most High, when we stop offering God our best, when we no longer respond with thanksgiving, when we break our promises…things go sideways. 

As we look to the future with hope and expectation we must continue to keep our eyes on God.  As I look ahead to next year and beyond, I have a sense of awe and wonder in great anticipation of what God has in store for us.  Keeping my heart, mind and soul focused on God reminds me of where we have been. This has been an amazing year watching God at work, meeting our needs in unexpected ways, expanding our reach into our community, and equipping us for what is to come. 

Stewardship helps keep what God is doing in and through us in perspective.  Stewardship encompasses every aspect of our lives.  It is more than just our resources, our finances, and our sense of generosity.  Stewardship is also about our service to the church and our dedication to loving our neighbors.  Ultimately stewardship is our response to God.  It is a promise of trust, and an act of gratitude. 

I hope you will take some time this week to reflect on our Stewardship journey and how you would like to continue the journey into 2025.  This Sunday we will be dedicating our pledges (Sacrifices of Thanksgiving and our promises to God) during worship.  You will find a pledge card in the Weekly link, or you can fill it out on Sunday when you come to worship.  Our pledge is about more than just our money and how much we will give to support the work and ministry of Emmanuel.  It is a promise of trust, an act of gratitude.  Together, as Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, we make a promise to God to continue to be faithful stewards of all that God has given us.  We make a pledge of support, an offering of thanks, a promise to be generous with our time, talent and treasure.

Blessings,
Pastor Jenni 

“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and make good your vows to the Most High.”  Ps. 50:14

To Know God is to Thank God: Make Good Your Vows

Spread for me a banquet of praise, serve High God a feast of kept promises... 

Our focus this week on our Stewardship journey is “Make Good Your Vows.”  Or as the Message translates it, serve God a feast of kept promises.  I love the imagery, the visual picture those words bring to mind…a feast of kept promises!  I see a table set with plates filled to overflowing with all the promises we have made and kept.  Or better yet a filing cabinet stuffed full of receipts of promises fulfilled.

I find promises are easy to make and most of the time difficult to keep for whatever reason.  I remember a few times as a kid making a promise with a friend with my fingers crossed behind my back…canceling out the promise.  Or making a promise then shaking pinkies setting it in stone.  But I also remember the disappointment when someone made a promise to me and didn’t fulfill their end of the bargain. I am sure there have been times that I have disappointed someone with the inadvertent breaking of a promise…I think we all have done it once in our lives, right?

What does it mean when we make a promise?  A promise is a declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will happen.  There should be some weight to our promises, a sense of duty or responsibility with the vow. But, how often do we find ourselves saying, “I promise”, and realizing we can’t fulfill it or forgetting to follow through.   Does your promise mean something or is it just something we say in the moment?

I think about the big promises we make – wedding vows, baptismal vows, ordination vows – promises that we work on daily.  Promises to be faithful.  Promises to nurture.  Promises to encourage and lift-up others.  I take very seriously the promises I made when I became a Minister almost twenty-four years ago.  Promises I made to God and promises I made to the family of God I serve. 

There is huge responsibility with the promises we make to God…and sometimes we do fall short.  But, our God is a God of grace and mercy.  We are not served with a receipt that says “canceled” when we break a promise; we are given another chance to try again.  God always keeps his promises, and we need to strive to do the same.

Stewardship is about our promises.  A promise we make to be faithful to God for all that we have been given.  It is about more than just our money and how much we will pledge to give to support the work and ministry of Emmanuel.  It is a promise of trust, an act of gratitude.  Together, as Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, we make a promise to God to continue to be faithful stewards of all that God has given us.  We make a pledge of support, an offering of thanks, a promise to be generous with our time, talent and treasure.

What promise are you ready to make to God?

Blessings,
Pastor Jenni

“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and make good your vows to the Most High.”  Ps. 50:14

To Know God is to Thank God: A Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

 Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High.

Our focus this week on our Stewardship journey is “A Sacrifice of Thanksgiving.”  One commentary writer says, “to make a sacrifice of thanksgiving is to hand over something of deepest value—the source of one’s life and one’s children’s lives—because one could trust and give thanks that what God has made available in the past would be offered again—and again, and again, and again.”

When we give something with a truly open hand, the receiver can easily take it and we can’t take it back.  When we begrudgingly give something with a clenched fist, it is difficult for the recipient to receive the gift and equally difficult for us to let go.  Sacrifice is an act of giving. Giving freely of our resources and of ourselves.  Sacrifice is also about trust.  Trust that God will continue to provide as we continue to be faithful in our gifts.

Consider this week the attitude of your heart in the offerings you give back to God.  What sacrifices are you making to God?  Are you giving out of the overflow of thanksgiving for all God has given to you?  Or are you giving out of obligation or guilt? Do you give generously knowing that what we give is blessing others?  Stewardship is about more than just about our money and how much we will pledge to give to support the work and ministry of Emmanuel.  Stewardship walks hand in hand with gratitude.  Gratitude being a feeling of thanks and appreciation for the good things in our lives. 

 Blessings,
Pastor Jenni

“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and make good your vows to the Most High.”  Ps. 50:14