Soul-utions is a carefully crafted worship experience designed to help you on your spiritual journey. We are a group of people who are seeking God's plan for how to live our lives. You are welcome to join us on Sunday mornings at 11:00 AM at Morrison United Methodist Church in Leesburg, Florida. Come on in, grab some breakfast, and experience the love of Christ.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Money and Love Are Not the Same

So how’s the journey to enter into the Christmas story going?  Still caught up in the season of excess?  Holiday sales and “best deals of the year” continue to beckon us to join the masses.  It is difficult to walk against the crowd that seems to want nothing more than to “eat, drink, shop, and be merry.” 
Jesus is the reason for the season.  Later in his ministry, Jesus said, “People try to serve both God and money – but you can’t.  You must choose one or the other.”  So how do we turn the tables?  We may be face to face with a newborn Jesus who brings us to our knees in worship, but spending less at Christmas still seems like an impossibly difficult challenge.
Spending less requires us to plan, research, give of our time and energy, and cultivate relationships.  These pursuits are more taxing than flipping through the latest catalog or bingeing at the mall.  However, as we choose to go against the cultural flow, it is important to remember that spending less on Christmas presents doesn’t mean we love our friends and family any less.  In fact, we will often find that those to whom we give creative, personal gifts will see our love – and perhaps God’s – more clearly than ever before.  
Together we can strive to thoughtfully evaluate what we support with our spending and allow our spending to support products, people, and causes that are worthy of being supported.  Our giving should be more about giving what is needed rather than what is wanted.  At the end of the day I hope that your celebration of the birth of the Liberating King is focusing less on what you are spending and more on what you are giving from a place of true worship.
I encourage you to take a minute to share with others some ideas about how you are trying to be faithful to the reason for the season!  Thanks for joining me on this mission and may you connect back to the beautiful story of Christmas.

Monday, November 22, 2010

It's All In Your Perspective

This is Advent – a time to prepare for the coming of Christ!  I want to invite you to walk with me to Bethlehem and experience firsthand the nativity, not as an innocent bystander but as a fully participatory individual.  Together we will see the birth of Christ from inside the stable instead of inside the mall. 
As we begin our journey, I am reminded that this trip is about the moment when God entered our world to make things right.  My thoughts center around expectations.  What am I hoping for?  What will make this Christmas more meaningful to me?  I am concerned that if I let the culture define this holiday season than I will be equating love with consumerism.  So I want to get past the shallow story of our culture’s Christmas and enter into the deep, life-giving waters of the Incarnation.  Free to give without comparison, receive with gratitude, and worship with abandon.
Join me in sharing the true meaning of Christmas with one another by giving of ourselves in ways that will truly make a difference in the life of someone else.  During worship we were given “Act of Kindness” cards and asked to do something for someone anonymously and leave this card.  If you have been the recipient of one of these or you are the giver – please take a moment and share your experience.  Also spend a few minutes reading what others are trying and it may just spark some ideas.
Thanks for joining me on this mission and may you connect back to this beautiful story of Christmas.