In Bible study we recently watched a teaching video by Bob Goff where Bob carried a bucket, talking about what we put in our bucket is what we get out of our bucket. He challenged us to consider what needed to be taken out of our bucket and what we needed more of in our bucket. As we talked about our current situation, hope came up. As we continue to live outside the walls of the church and outside of many of the places we wish to be, we seek hope that we will soon return to shared community, shared meals, and shared life beyond the walls of our house and the screens of our computers.
The good news is that there is always hope through God and Jesus Christ our Lord. It is that hope that we are basing our stewardship campaign for our 2021 church budget on, titled, “Hope for Tomorrow.” As part of this, we will be distributing hope buckets during our first Sunday drive thru communion. Each bucket will be filled with messages of hope from scripture for each of the remaining days of October. You will then be invited on the reverse side of the hope notes to write your hopes for “tomorrow” and return the notes into your bucket. In such, we will be putting hope in our buckets and receiving hope from our buckets. These can be hopes for blessings from God, hopes for your life, hopes for your family, hopes for the church, hopes for our community and hopes for our world. In this way, we will put our focus for an entire month on hope, filling our bucket with hope and allowing hope to pour out of us to the world around us.
If you are unable to participate in first Sunday communion, please let me know and I will deliver one to you or mail one to you, as we want everyone to participate in our month of hope. As the wonderful hymn, “Great Is Our Faithfulness” sings, we have “strength for today and great hope for tomorrow” if we with lead into and trust in our Lord.
Blessings and love, Pastor Stacy