Note: This is a guest post written by Tim Brown, pastor in the ELCA serving parishes in Chicago, IL and Raleigh, NC. He currently serves in the ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop as Director for Congregational Stewardship Support where he creates and curates relationships and resources to help Synods
We are now into the Christmas and holiday season– and for better or for worse, gift giving is often a part of celebrations. Simple gift giving can be, well, a gift. When consumables, experiences, charitable giving, or limited material gifts that have been mentioned as wanted or needed are given,
I was doing some work on my laptop recently, and an ad for a clothing company popped up: “Hey, shopped 30% off yet? Our generosity won’t last forever. “ Seeing that ad, my work came to a screeching halt. Not because I wanted to run to catch that sale, but because
We are bombarded by advertisements for products every day. Although the actual number of advertisements we see each day is up for debate, it’s no secret that we come across ads all the time. Scrolling through social media, using an app on our phones, watching YouTube, watching movies and TV
Recently, we went to visit my parents with Baby Theo (and his bottles and diaper bag) in tow– a regular occurrence now that we live much closer to them. When it was time to feed Theo, my Mom took the bottle out of the fridge and pulled out the same
Last month, our lives changed with one phone call. After a long and involved process, my husband Will and I found out from our assigned social worker at the adoption agency that we were picked by the birth mother to adopt a baby boy! He had just been born two
Consumer culture is incredibly prevalent in the U.S., so much so that we often assume automatically that more is better. We are encouraged to spend our time, energy, and financial resources on accumulating more and more material possessions, while also continuously being dissatisfied so that we keep buying and consuming
In August, my husband Will and I went on a cruise with my parents. These family trips used to be a tradition (happening about every other year), but because of personal schedules and the pandemic, we hadn’t been on a trip together in five years. On our last trip five
A few years ago, I took intentional steps to break my addiction to online shopping. When I was going through that process, I peeled back the layers of why I became addicted in the first place. I discovered that– at core of it– my issue was discontent. Contentment and Consumer
Over the last few years, like many people, I’ve been in the job market searching for openings and applying to jobs. One phrase in particular kept standing out to me in many job postings– employers frequently wrote that they were looking for someone who went “above and beyond.” This struck