Edit: For more information and access to the verses of the day in electronic form, click here!

Dear friends,

Sunday in church you received a card with seven Scripture verses on it, the first of three such cards you will also receive on the next two Sundays. This is a tool we will all use during our four-week Stewardship emphasis we began Sunday, and this letter explains a bit more how you can use this tool.

For the next three weeks, we are asking everyone at CTR to focus on one major aspect of our discipleship–the truth that all that we are and all that we have belongs to God. That is called stewardship. It is the counter-cultural understanding that we do not live our lives under our own direction and ownership, but under God’s.

The card you received has a verse for every day of this week, and is constructed in a way that you can easily clip off the daily verse and carry it with you all day; something everyone in our church is invited to do for 22 consecutive days. We have selected 22 verses that center on this vital aspect of stewardship, and using them is our way of allowing God to bring this matter into our hearts all throughout the week. To be honest with you, the most compelling sermon I could ever preach on stewardship would not be nearly as effective as God speaking for Himself, directly to you, through His holy Word.

So we want to allow God to speak, and ourselves to listen. I encourage you to read the daily verse when you first get up in the morning, carry it with you, perhaps in your shirt pocket as I do, and look at it on your coffee break, when you are getting in the car, when you get back to your desk after a meeting; whenever. Allow the Holy Spirit to fill your imagination with whatever the daily verse has to say. It is a simple, practical way to make room for God – to listen to His voice. And small though the cards are, each one has enough room around the edges and on the back for you to make some notes of thoughts that come to mind. Who knows? It just might be the Lord!

These cards are not just for adults; this is a great exercise for children as well.They can each have their own card, and it is a simple way for you to teach them how to listen and respond to God.

I have no idea what God might do among us in these next 21 days, but I am excited to find out!

Our Stewardship Emphasis will culminate in a Commitment Sunday on October 15. I’ll be mailing a letter to you all with more about this.

May Jesus Christ be praised,

Fr Tim