Doll Can Create

Part of my drive to keep things moving forward—and to feel productive—is to find something else to do whenever I hit a roadblock.

Do you ever hit those roadblocks?

Watch to see how I managed my old ipad.

Earlier this week, I was working on my sermon and found myself completely stuck. I kept asking:

Where am I going with this?
Will it connect with anyone?
Where will people see themselves in this story?

Those are important questions because a sermon is more than words on a page. It needs to meet us somewhere in the middle of our real lives. It needs to help us recognize where God is already at work.

I think I finally figured it out—but you’ll have to join me on Sunday to hear where the story led!

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring three important parts of our life together as the church:

• Our purpose as the church
• The pace at which we live and grow spiritually
• The passions and gifts God has placed within us

This Sunday, we’ll focus on that third word: passion.

What moves us? What brings us joy? What abilities, interests and experiences do we have that God might use?

We’ll explore this through three simple movements.

Recognize the Gift

Sometimes we overlook our gifts because they seem too ordinary. We may not think of baking, gardening, knitting, repairing things, organizing, listening or offering hospitality as spiritual gifts.

Yet God often begins with what is already in our hands.

Recognizing our gifts means paying attention to what gives us joy, what comes naturally to us and what others have noticed within us.

Offer the Gift

A gift becomes even more meaningful when it is shared.

That may mean offering something we have made, but it can also mean giving our time, our attention or our presence. Sometimes the most important gift we offer is simply ourselves—the willingness to sit beside someone, listen to their story or help carry a burden.

Connect the Gift

Finally, we’ll consider how our individual gifts connect us with the wider life and work of the church.

We don’t all have the same abilities, interests or passions—and that is a wonderful thing. When each person brings what they have, our separate gifts become part of something larger. Together, they help the church worship, serve, care and reach beyond its walls.

If you’d like to hear how it all comes together, I invite you to join us this Sunday:

9:30 a.m. at Linden Park United Community Church on Hamilton Mountain
11:00 a.m. at Binbrook United Church

The 9:30 service will also be livestreamed on Facebook. I hope to share it on YouTube afterward as well—provided my iPad agrees to cooperate!

For now, I still have today and tomorrow to finish preparing for Sunday. And perhaps that is the lesson within the lesson: when we reach a roadblock, we don’t always need to push harder. Sometimes we need to pause, do something else and allow the next step to reveal itself.

Whatever gift or passion you have to offer the world, I hope you feel free to share it. It may seem small or ordinary to you, but in God’s hands, even the simplest gift can become part of something beautiful.

Have a wonderful day, and God bless.

From Pastor Barb to you—bye for now.

And for those who follow me on YouTube, I’m Doll from Doll Can Create.

I know you can too.