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St. Pats is an independent Christian congregation. You can read more about what makes us distinctive by clicking on the links in the left column, but we can characterize it in one word; LOVE. Come and see...

Scripture Lesson for Next Sunday

Generally we observe the Christian calendar and follow the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary. You can view the lessons by clicking here. When you get to Textweek simply click on the link below next Sunday's date. To learn more about the Revised Common Lectionary click here. 

Financial Healing

Sunday's Gospel lesson is a dramatic healing story. We recently helped a family who, in this economy, needed a financial healing. Other than throwing money at urgent financial crises (somebody said you are either in a crisis, coming out of a crisis or going into a crisis), how do you accomplish a financial healing.

Our family in urgent financial need is not alone in the need for financial healing; as you know huge businesses, banks, cities, counties, and states need financial healing.

I've noticed the first tendency is to look for fault. What follows is spirited discussion about the government, the character problems of the underclass. Where is the healing in that?

I think there are only two groups of people when it comes to financial healing; those who heal and those who don't. Christians are supposed to be in the healing business.

Any contemporary financial healing ministry has to begin with love. Love leads to compassion and compassion will lead to action.

The first action is knowledge and learning. It surprises me that in this day in age in United States that most people are using economic models from the 1^st century; we live from day to day financially. There are more resources, information and trainings available today than ever before. For instance, most people measure their finances by their income rather of their net worth. In fact most people don't even know their net worth! We need to heal our understanding.

The second Christian action is the ability to respond to crisis. Crisis makes Christians out of people; they make us cry out "OH JESUS!" Crises are extremely emotional time limited events. Being with out food or under the treat of losing your job or home is a crisis. Since we know that we are either in a crisis, coming out of a crisis, or going into a crisis we can plan better. Our church has contingencies to respond to financial crisis.

The third action is to engage in Christian Wealth Building. That term seems like such an oxymoron. My guess is that in Jesus' time 90+ percent of the population lived in poverty. Today, even with the global recession, the United States has a huge middle class. We have poverty, to be sure, but not like in the first century. There are more ways to gain wealth now than ever before. Christians need wealth to do the work of God in the world. Wouldn't you like to give a million dollars to help drought victims get clean water, or help cure aids, or build new churches world wide? Sure you would.

But we don't because we too need financial healing. We need God to touch our hearts and minds so that we can escape our ineffective, or should I say "diseased" approaches to money and financial matters and be the kind of financial healers that our world and community needs.

I love you - Bryan Martin.