Based on Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Today is World Communion Sunday!

We begin our Stewardship Month as we look toward mission and ministry for 2024, how do you reflect on what we can and have done? How has the church changed vour life? This week's text focuses on the stewardship of creation and, maybe, the stewardship of our imagination. Genesis helps us to see that stewardship is really about God entrusting humanity from the very beginning of Creation with the care and tending of all that God has created. It is a kind of partnership with God in seeing and enabling the potential in all creatures to be developed and thrive. In other words, stewardship is about the long-term cultivation of "right relationships" between God, human beings, and the rest of creation for the sake of a thriving world. The healthier each aspect of this set of relationships, the healthier we all can be.

Dr. Carol Frances Johnston writes, "Genesis 1 and 2 establish this understanding, and chapters 3-11 provide wisdom as to how God's intention for mutual thriving has been distorted. Throughout the rest of the Bible, we see how God acts consistently to overcome the distortions." We are called to be in right (good, healthy, honorable) relationship with all of creation- including ourselves and other people.

Music this week:

• Forever Reign

• Sanctuary

• In the Light

• My Life is in You, Lord

• Bread for the Journey