October 25, 2007
The most iconic image to emerge from the California wildfires that began raging last Sunday was a picture of a teenage boy evacuating his apartment house. He was doing so on a skateboard while carrying his surfboard, smoke billowing in the background. He seemed calm enough, his spirit surely bolstered by the reassurance that he was escaping with his two most valuable possessions (not to mention the unexpected day off from school!).
Of course our hearts go out to those whose lives have been thrown into chaos by this catastrophe. So much news emphasis has been placed on the "million dollar homes" and "celebrities" that have been affected by these fires that it could be relatively easy for our "empathy meters" to read abnormally low. But having ministered to several families whose homes and possessions have been lost in fires, I can tell you that the loss of irreplaceable pictures and heirlooms is devastating regardless of your economic circumstances.
Here is the question for the week: if you could only evacuate two objects from your home, what would they be? I suspect that this young man didn't have to think twice about his skateboard and surfboard, but the answer might be a bit more challenging for the rest of us. Would it be the watch you inherited from your father or the wedding and baby pictures or the antique dining table? What about the sweater your mother knitted for you just months before she died, or that manuscript you've been working on? The question itself poses the potential for exposing what it is that we truly value in life. I can tell you that it is a question I couldn't answer quickly.
One of the purposes of the annual Stewardship Campaign here at Christ UMC is to encourage all of us to think intentionally about what it is that we truly value in life. Much has been written lately about this generation's "search for significance," and I truly believe that the church plays an enormous role in that quest. Those who are participating in Bible Study or Project Hope or serving as youth counselors are discovering powerful ways in which the meaning of their lives is being enhanced through the ministries of the church.
Here is a simple invitation: will you join me over the next few days in meditating and praying about what you consider to be really important? And will you, during these times, ask yourself what your life would look like without the church and its ministries? What would our city be like? Our answers to those questions will surely guide us as we struggle with those important questions about how we will care for the future of our church and the people to whom it ministers.
