Budget time has passed, and the budget passed. You guys are doing a great job giving as a class, keep it up. We'd like for you to comment on Sunday School for the coming year. What would you like to learn about? What questions do you have, what areas do you feel weak in? Its been a while since the parenting class, is it time for another life-application series? Do you want to read and talk about a book? Do you simply trust your instructor to teach whatever they feel appropriate? You comment, and we'll do what we can.

I mean, how exciting is Budget time in the life of a church? If you're curious to the actual answer to that question ask Pete. He's our Church Treasurer now. But for the purposes of this blog, I want to propose this question: what do you know about our church's finances? Do you feel informed? Do you simply trust that the folks in finance are doing the right things with the money you tithe? Is that healthy? In the coming weeks we will be given a new proposed church budget for the coming year. Over the past few years our church has shrunk from over 300 giving units (people who write checks to the church) to less than 200. Yet our church budget remains withing a few percentage points of being the same overall amount. At the same time, we usually have to juggle which bills we pay month to month because we don't have the cash on hand to keep our bills current. We dip into money people give as designated to pay supplement our ordinary budget, but can you be sure that money ever gets put back into the designated accounts it was tithed into? Do you know we pay our missions bills last? Does any of this matter or are we happy as long as the lights are on on Sundays and the staff is baing paid?

So last Wednesday at church Matt and I were noticing we were about the only adults under 50 in the building. Why is that? Are the weeks busy enough without adding an additional commitment to come eat dinner at church and attend the prayer meeting? Is there any interest in attending a prayer meeting where you learn of prayer needs of some church members but often non-members followed by a 20-30 minute lecture with no discussion? Is the food worth paying $4 to eat? Are the activities for your children adequate? Let's discuss what it would take to make Wednesdays at our church a source of Christian growth for you and your family.

Today in Sunday School we discussed the Psalms and how specifically the Psalms of Lamentation (like 137) are sometimes specific to situations and therefore do not apply to us at all times. But we also learned the Psalms were a powerful vehicle for corporate worship, and we talked about what issues we personally have with admitting our inner most struggles to God in a private setting. Could we use the Psalms more often to help us in our Christian walk, and could we use each other more for accountability? Are there actually parallels here between the Psalms and corporate accountibility, or have I just made something up? - Stephen