Building Faith Equity

It’s probably not news to any of us that the housing market continues to be poor.  And… more than likely many of you have had recent personal experience with either the devaluation of your own home – or for some of you – great difficulty in selling your home for what you feel its true value should be.  We hear these stories almost daily.

However, friends of mine put their house on the market just two months ago and after only a one open house, and four separate offers, they will happily close on their home in two week’s time, at close to the original asking price.  What’s even more remarkable is that the buyer’s home inspection came back with a list (like they all do) but they were all minor requests (my friends say ‘miniscule’)  Why? Because for the 40+ years that they owned it, they cared for and maintained their home with time and money, on a regular basis.  This helped to produce a wonderful result for them in this normally difficult housing crisis.

The same can be true for our faith.  If we attend to our faith on a consistent basis, it can produce wonderful results for us when crisis strikes.  But for most of us, it doesn’t even occur to us to tend to our daily faith walk or if it does, it still gets short changed.

One way to attend to our faith regularly is consistent attendance in worship. But it seems that for many of you, Sunday worship gets dwarfed by travel, sports and even emotional or physical fatigue.  Another way to tend to your faith is to set aside a daily routine of prayer and devotional time.  But again for busy lives, this plan, well intended, also can get pushed aside.

This is why we offer many different types of Christian Education opportunities at First Church Boonton.  There is the Thursday Morning PW Bible Study, the Monthly Evening PW Bible Study, Sunday School for children ages 3–9th grade, youth groups (for grades 5–8 and 9–12) and the monthly Lay Listening Group starting up again in October.

There will be two additional bible studies this fall. The Men’s Bible Study, Saturday AM, studying the book of Hosea and a Sunday Morning Bible Study after worship, led by Rev. Jen and Seminary Intern John Molacek.

I know for some of you, you feel that “you don’t know enough to attend” but that’s not true.  None of us knows it all.  We are all on this faith journey together and every teacher has to prepare and ‘look stuff up’ because the bible is an enormous, never ending source of both information and history but most importantly, food for the soul.

If your faith is struggling or you’re struggling even to get to church, it’s probably due to being disconnected to God and others, and God’s word.  Trust me when I tell you, regular weekly worship attendance is tough!  And maintaining a daily prayer and devotional life is even harder, if you’re going it alone.  But I can also tell you that it’s delightful and life-giving to take and share the journey together.

Besides, how are you going to answer your children’s and grandchildren’s questions about God, if you don’t know who God is, first-hand?  Don’t go it alone.  Get yourself and your kids involved in studying God’s word and see how much more meaningful your life becomes.

Learning with you in Christ,
Jen