Finance First Friday: So What Next?
by Eliza Mae Lundberg I met Eliza Mae Lundberg, and her then fiance Jon, in 2018 when they were planning their wedding. Over the years since I have enjoyed meaningful and inspiring conversations with Eliza. Knowing she would bring a young but wise perspective to our leadership team, I was thrilled when Eliza accepted the […]
Finance First Friday: Cutting Back to Move Forward
by Sarah Dull With rising prices and interest rates, maybe your budget isn’t stretching as far as it used to. Whatever the reason, many people are facing financial challenges or anticipate they will be facing them soon. Proverbs 14:23 warns us, in all toil there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. So, […]
Finance First Friday: Pledging as a Spiritual Practice
It is the first Friday of October which means those emails and letters asking you to make a pledge of support for next year will soon be arriving. But why? Why should you make a pledge? Why not just give? I knew the perfect person to answer those questions, long time parishioner, former warden, and […]
Finance First Friday: Decolonial Stewardship of God’s Resources
by Sarah Dull The first faith forum series this fall is Decolonial Stewardship of God’s Resources. In preparation, I thought it may be helpful for us to look at how we got away from the early teachings of stewardship and some ideas for practicing decolonial stewardship of God’s resources. Before we start, a quick reminder: […]
No Escape
by the Rev. Barbara Mraz Abortion rights, the abomination of gun laws, or my three favorite movies of all time — much as I would like to hold forth on these topics from the pulpit, the implicit expectation is that the preacher will address at least one of the lessons for the day. It can […]
Finance First Friday: Dealing with Money Avoidance
by Sarah Dull A recent blog post called out the continuing anxiety most of us are still living with. Over the past few years, we have developed a public narrative that the world is scarier than ever, we are hopelessly divided into political factions, we are powerless to create institutional change, and we’re on a […]
Finance First Friday: Philanthropic Redlining
We have been reading, learning, engaging with, and growing in our understanding of Racial Justice over the past two and a half years. One of our parish priorities, adopted from the same Diocesan priorities introduced in 2021 by Bishop Loya, is Justice: Becoming Beloved Community. In prior Finance First Friday posts we have looked at […]
Summer “Light” 
by the Rev. Barbara Mraz Everyone in lighter clothes due to the heat (well except for Cameron, Jayan and me who aren’t about to abandon our black!); hymns that are easier to sing (more “Amazing Grace” and less “Hail Thee Festival Day”), sermons with more jokes and lighter theology (more “Jesus loves everyone” and less […]
Finance First Friday: Money, Politics and Religion.
As we head into summer holidays, St. John’s Director for Children, Youth, and Families, Katie Madsen, encourages us, as disciples of Christ, to talk about hard topics. Money, Politics, and Religion. For most families these are no-go topics of conversation—things that should not be brought up around the Thanksgiving dinner table. You never know how […]
Jesus as a “Brand”?
by The Rev. Barbara Mraz One pundit says that Americans are almost promiscuous in their overuse of the word love. We “love” our dog, our dinner, a season, a song, a place. Oh, and also our friends and family. Yet how do you love when you are exhausted? When Covid is out there still menacing? […]
