Natalie's Grace Notes

  Friends, there’s an old, famous, joke you may have heard before about a small town with several churches all on the same block who were all struggling with a squirrel infestation. Each neighborhood church, from their own cultural and theological lens, came up with a different solution. The Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they should not interfere with God’s divine will. At the Baptist church, the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistry. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistry and let the squirrels drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and, unfortunately, knew instinctively how to swim, so twice as many squirrels showed up the following week. The Lutheran church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels...

  Friends, today’s Good News is about what we can do in the name of Jesus with what we have in our hands right now…not with what we wish we had, or with what we think we need before we can even get started. One of the biggest issues holding churches just like this one back from being able to engage in good ministry work is something we call “scarcity mindset.” I’m gonna take a shot in the dark and guess that a lot of y’all have heard that phrase before, and maybe even used it yourselves in another context. Scarcity mindset happens when anxiety starts to take over the control room. Any of y’all see the Disney movie Inside Out ? It’s about a girl named Riley, and her feelings. Disney relatably and humorously had the movie take place inside her head, and showed us her anthropomorphic feelings, voiced by comedians. Anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and joy. In the sequel, Riley gets some new feelings up in “headquarters”—ennui, nostalgia, embarrassment, and anxiety. If you’ve seen either ...