“And that’s what makes the world go round.” We have all heard this sentiment expressed in some form or fashion. Usually, it is “money makes the world go round,” or for the less cynical and more romantic it is “love makes the world go round.” A graduate student might suggest that it is “coffee makes the world go round,” while a musician could postulate that it is “harmony” or “good vibes” that keep us spinning. A calculus teacher would say that “math makes the world go round,” and if you ask a scientist what makes the world go round she would explain: “A cloud of gas and dust started to collapse due to its own gravity, and then started spinning, thus flinging our solar system into being. The Earth started spinning too and will keep spinning because space is a vacuum with no friction to stop the spin.”

I’ll take another spin on that: “And God said, ‘Let there be’… and there was.”

This is not to suggest that God created without leveraging gravity, centripetal and centrifugal forces as well as other natural laws (after all, God created those laws too!), but it is to suggest that God is a Giver! God gives life. God gives breath. God gives love. God gives grace. God does not need anything—not you, not me, not the world. But in the core of God’s character is a generous, giving nature that spins everything into being. It is God’s giving that makes the world go round.

At Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church we explore this deep truth, God the Giver, in our annual Stewardship Series. This year is no exception. We will turn the pages of Paul’s wonderful letter to the Church at Colossae and consider its messages of grace, gratitude, and generosity.

This booklet is designed to be a journal for you personally as well as a conversation guide for each of our community groups. Each week you will find an exercise for you to interact with individually, and a set of questions to prompt group discussion. I begin here with a couple background questions, and then we will move into the four teachings that correspond with the four messages in our Stewardship Series.

The Background Questions:

• What is the book of Colossians all about?
• What is “Stewardship”?
• Why do we have a Stewardship Pledge Campaign?

The Four Teachings:

• God the Giver- Week 1- Colossians 1:15-23
• Receiving Grace- Week 2- Colossians 1:1-6
• Responding with Gratitude- Week 3- Colossians 3:12-17
• Cultivating Generosity- Week 4- Colossians 4:2-18

As we embark on this journey together I will be praying over you, and hoping that you will rest in the knowledge (1) that you cannot outgive God, (2) that God’s grace is always sufficient, (3) that there’s nothing better than gratitude, and (4) that generosity is something God wants for you not from you.

With Prayer and Devotion,
Pastor Bart