What a Funeral!

Yesterday, I was tossing out some trash in the alley and I saw my neighbor Joe out and about.  He's an 86 year old Italian guy who grows tomatoes in his backyard.  It had been a long time since I had last talked to him because he stays in his house pretty much all winter.  The last time we had talked, his wife was sick and I had been praying for her.

The Widow's Coins

This Sunday, I'll be teaching the children the story of the widow who gave her last two coins in offering to God.

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.  And he said, "Truly, I tell you, this poor wedow has put in more than all of them.  For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."    Luke 21:1-4


Be Cautious When Judging the Offering of Others

Anyone standing by and watching the widow present her offering might have thought poorly of this woman.  We see it on Sundays at church too don't we?  The offering plate goes by and a person reaches into their pocket and tosses a few singles and some change or maybe a ten or twenty in.  If you are a regular attender at church then chances are at one point or another you've judged a person for that.  After all, a tithe or 10% would obviously be more than twenty bucks a week right?  Here you are giving an actual tithe and they are sticking in enough to buy a pack of gum.

The Nudge Method

As a youth pastor, I work with a lot of kids and teens.  When I notice a problem or fault or mistake of one of the kids, there are different ways to approach the problem.  You can just tell the kid what they did wrong and how to fix it.  You can just ignore it and let it slide.  One tactic I like is, for lack of a better title, the Nudge Method.