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Thursday, September 12, 2013 Castlegar News
Faith
Benefits of church attendance don’t ever go out of fashion
Empowering! View church going as out of fashion? Not I! Attending worship services on Sundays not only offers opportunity to celebrate spirituality in life, it centers me as to what is important in life – love for others and our world and at the same time – nurtures me and empowers me with hope.
With less stuff to look after and occupy our minds we can enrich our lives by spending more time with family...
The writer of Hebrews, as he was attempting to encourage Christians to re-
B U S I N E S S
D I R E C T O R Y
main steadfast, presented this definition of faith. He writes “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Some individuals of modern times who exemplify this concept of faith, remaining ever hopeful against great odds, include W. Wilberforce who worked to abolish slavery, Desmond Tutu leading the struggle against apartheid and Martin Luther King championing civil rights. Faith is assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen, that there is more to life than we can see and that God’s presence is with us at all times. This summer, Protestant leaders gathered at Sorrento to study the traditions of our faith, traditions that can be found in almost all
Rosemary Manarin
United Church Speaks
faiths, not just Christianity. The purpose was to see if the traditions can help to motivate us to care for the earth in ways that are in line with God’s perspective, to resist evil and learn to do good, caring for people around us and the world we live in. Paying attention to Je-
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sus’ teachings is one tradition that has value and is in fact the cornerstone of the United Church’s beliefs. The grace of Jesus, the example he set as he lived out His faith, calls Christians to love one another and be agents of social justice. Today, more and more it is seen that this call to strive for social justice involves care for our earth in order to serve people’s welfare. So can we be motivated to do our best to care for our earth? In living out our faith in action, we will. Another tradition, that of asceticism or doing without has many benefits. Opting out of the consumerism culture is better for our environment and can enrich our lives in many ways. With less stuff to look after and occupy our minds we can enrich our
lives by spending more time with family and caring for our world and the people in it. Thirdly, looking at things sacred, like water that is used in baptism, participants became excited as ideas clicked in. What if we viewed all water as sacred? What if we viewed water as being of value beyond what it can be used for like in fracking or bottling it for profit? What if we started to view water as the basis of life and not just a commodity? What if we valued and honoured water because of its power to enable life? What if we began to see not just water but all of creation as sacred? Perhaps that would motivate us to treat creation in a whole new way. Our faith traditions, that begin with the prem-
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ise of the essential goodness of creation and that encourages us to love God by loving all that God has made, can motivate us to act in caring for our world that is so vulnerable in our time. This is the kind of value that is held up in our worship services; that give me hope and so empower me to live out our faith in action.
“We cannot own the sunlit sky, the moon, the wildflowers growing, for we are part of all that is within life’s river flowing. With open hands receive and share the gifts of God’s creation, That all may have abundant life in oneness with their neighbour.”
Excerpt from Hymn by Ruth Duck
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