by Dan Baumgartner

In 2005 I went on sabbatical and was able to spend time with several people who have mentored me in both life and ministry, including Dr. Dale Bruner. I learned a number of important lessons during that time.

Dale is a New Testament scholar who is in Pasadena working on a commentary on the Gospel of John. Dale reinforced for me the simple value of being faithful over a long period of time. Dale has mastered the art of showing up. His routine is ironclad: walk to the Fuller Seminary Library, work in his favorite spot, take a lunch break, work again in the afternoon, go home.

Day in, day out, he is faithful to the task. Some days are harder than others. I know that on any one given day, he probably feels like he gets almost nothing accomplished. But he gives himself to it, one day after another, one month becoming the next and several years go by. The work of each day stacks on top of another like so many sheets of paper. And lo and behold, the pile grows. One day, the Church will have a marvelous commentary on John because each and every day, Dale Bruner shows up and works.

On Sunday, November 18, we will begin our “Stewardship Campaign” at Bethany. It’s an opportunity for us to think about the stewardship of our lives: time, energy, money, relationships, environment. How does God call us to live? It is also the time we invite financial commitments for the ministries of Bethany for 2008. Financial Stewardship in our Bethany community is a pretty low key process, which I am grateful for. Nothing too glamorous or glossy.

But that does not mean it is unimportant. Wednesday Night Dinners, homeless ministry partnerships, ministry in Kenya, Honduras, China, our church staff, youth and children’s programs, a building available for a host of ministries in our local community all depend on our collective heeding of God’s call to financially invest in His kingdom work.

The Bethany Session elders are now hard at work on a budget for 2008 that will reflect the ways God is calling our community to live and minister to our world. Our track record says we will need to have slightly more than $1,000,000 in pledge commitments to fund the 2008 budget.

It sounds like a lot, but when each person in our community consistently, faithfully gives what God has called them to, it’s like the lesson I learned on sabbatical. Day after day, week after week, month after month we return to God a tithe of our financial resources, and it accumulates like sheets of paper slowly becoming a stack. Sometimes it is a real sacrifice to give. But God uses each gift, ministry unfolds and lives are changed.

You will receive a letter and pledge card in the mail in the next week or so. A pledge is your best estimate of the financial commitment the Lord is leading you to make. Please prayerfully consider this, and then bring the card with you on November 18 (or get it to the church office) where together we will celebrate by offering them to the Lord.