In our monthly articles concerning Stewardship, we have been exploring various aspects of how we use the resources that God has entrusted to our care to love God and our neighbors.    We acknowledge that God has called us to serve our neighbors, including those that are near and also those that are far away.  This month, we emphasize that we are Stewards of Global Community.  

According to the Heart Association: Every minute in the United States, someone’s wife, mother, daughter, or sister dies from heart disease, stroke, or other forms of cardiovascular disease. Although heart disease death rates among men have declined steadily over the last 25 years, rates among women have fallen significantly less. What are the differences between men and women with heart disease?

This spring I was standing in the front entryway at church when I looked down and noticed a little green sprout peeking out from a joint between window and floor…reaching a long, single stem into the rotunda…inside the building!

It’s since been removed…as I suppose is appropriate…but it made me smile. That tenacious little living thing had found its way through the cracks and up back into the sunlight again at the entrance to our building.

The topic for this month is Mindfulness. According to Tim Stead, an Anglican priest in Oxford, mindfulness has been called; silent prayer, contemplative prayer, the desert tradition, or mystical theology in the Christian tradition. It has been around since the time of Jesus to the present. In about the 1970’s, the study of mindfulness and its effects on health became the focus of much research. Tim Stead (2018), defines it as, “Being more fully aware of your own experience in the present moment in a non-judgmental way.” There are some who feel that mindfulness or meditation is their time to listen to God and to discern God’s will for them.

The primary purpose of Stewardship is to serve the will of God. The main goal of our Peace Lutheran Church Stewardship Planning Committee is to help all of our congregation’s members and participants to live their lives with purpose and meaning, so that God’s creating, redeeming, and sanctifying activity will flourish in our community and world. We seek to equip, nurture, and challenge all people who are connected with Peace Lutheran Church to lead a Stewardship lifestyle which encompasses all areas of living and is not limited to providing financial support for our congregation, and God’s people elsewhere.

• Tornado preparedness- Not one state in the continental U.S. has escaped the wrath of tornadoes. While the main tornado season is from Late April to July, tornadoes can strike at any time of the year.