It was on a late January afternoon. I was getting ready for our new members dinner and I had just a few minutes before I would leave -- not enough time to start any new project. I turned on the TV to Channel 11 and saw the beginning of a show I'd never seen before, "30 Good Minutes." Apparently it's a religious program, but I didn't have time to hear the guest preacher. What I did catch was the music before the sermon, and it was our own Tom Weisflog! The host introduced Tom, who played a piece on the organ called "Offering." I enjoyed it, as I always enjoy Tom's offerings, and as I drove to the new members dinner, I thought about the consistent and inspiring offerings of music we hear every Sunday, on the organ or piano, and also from our wonderful choir, led so well by our faithful vocal music director, Ron Wentzel.

I meet with Ron and Tom about every two weeks, and we talk about the music for the coming weeks. They do a fabulous job of coordinating the musical offerings with the themes of the service. Their offerings are central to the worship life of the congregation, and you can tell by the beauty of the music and the spirit of the choir that these musical "offerings" are given in love and with caring, by our music staff and our dedicated music volunteers.

In our worship during the "offertory" we give offerings for the life and work of our church. At that new member dinner we talked about the year-round offerings we give in the form of pledges for the support of all the aspects of our life together. And there are other kinds of offerings that we give to and receive from each other. These are the offerings of our thoughts, our questions, our creativity, our willingness to participate, our openness to each other. These are the offerings of our shared religious and spiritual questing, in our children's, youth, and adult religious education experiences. These are the offerings of our common concern for the ethical life of our congregation and the surrounding world.

At that new member dinner, as new members and longer-time members ate together and talked to each other, they were beginning new bonds of connections. These, too, are offerings we make to each other.

The next time you listen to the strains of the organ, think of all the offerings we all give and receive. Every day, through these offerings, we recreate the church.

In faith and with love, 

Nina