I share with you this extended quote by Lynne Twist from her book The Soul of Money, quoted in Daring Greatly by Brene Brown:

"For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didn't get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of...Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to the reverie of lack...This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life..."

And, I would argue, this perspective of scarcity is at the heart of the church's problems. We don't have enough worshippers. We don't have enough pledges. We don't have enough volunteers. What would be "enough"? In the mindset of scarcity, nothing is ever enough.

Throughout Lent, I invite you to consider the litanies of lack you say everyday and your church or region says constantly. And as a lenten practice, consider abandoning the litanies of lack. Instead, where is God's abundance and generosity flowing? What is God equipping you with today? And how can we focus on and nurture those gifts rather than complain about what we don't have? Chances are when those seeds God has sowed are nurtured, things will change and grow. I can't tell you if you will have more money or more volunteers or more worshippers, but you might find more faith and more vision. That would be a great starting place, wouldn't it?

J. Clif Christopher, is the author of two popular books: Not Your Parents' Offering Plate and Whose Offering Plate Is It? In his recent publication The Church Money Manual Christopher offers a whole host of best practices for finance and stewardship, including estate planning, teaching tithing, purpose-based giving, and other practical advice for clergy and laypeople.

The "Live Free" digital Companion Resource provides additional worship and study materials for the "Live Free" stewardship emphasis theme, based on Galatians 5:1 and 1 Timothy 6:18-19. The Companion Resource contains a wide variety of worship resources, including invocations, responsive prayers, sermon starters, Bible Studies for Adults and Youth, and much more.

We are free in Christ!