GKJ AMBARAWA

Equipping World-Changing Disciples Home Equipping Leaders Stewardship Five Tips for Managing Your Church Budget During the COVID-19 Crisis MARCH 27, 2020 Five Tips for Managing Your Church Budget During the COVID-19 Crisis BY KEN SLOANE None of us could have anticipated what this spring was going to be like when 2020 church budgets were being prepared last summer or fall. Yes, we are in unfamiliar territory. A friend reminded me of these verses in the lectionary Gospel text assigned to March 29: Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them” (John 11:7-10, NRSV). Covid 19 response home square People around us are in unfamiliar te...

Ruining the Darkness A Sermon for Every Sunday, Epiphany 5A Matthew 5:13-20 Several years ago my sister, father, and I started giving my mother a hard time because she suddenly became very particular about how dark it had to be for her to go to sleep. It had to be completely, 100% pitch black, and if somewhere there was the littlest light shining—maybe the dull glow from a streetlight outside the window, maybe from an alarm clock beside the bed—she would not be able to fall asleep. She would lie there awake, irritated by the light. She even got so dependent on having utter darkness whenever it was bedtime that she started to travel with a roll of electrical tape in her toiletry bag. When they’d turn off the main lights of some hotel room, inevitably there would be other smaller lights around the room still shining. Little light on the thermostat? She’d slice off a piece of electrical tape and cover it up. Little light emanating from some device in the bathroom? Slice off anot...