The Blog of Gordon Pruitt the Pastor of St. Matthew's United Methodist Church in Richmond Virginia

Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas From the Pruitt's


Happy Birthday to Jesus!!
Gordon, Leigh Ann, Jordan, Karis and Chloe

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Hope For Me

Finally got around to reading my December issue of Fast Company and the book review this month was on "A Perfect Mess." The book claims and has research to back it up that "moderately disorganized people, institutions, and systems frequently turn out to be more efficient, more resilient, more creative and in general more effective than highly organized ones." The only unanswered question is am i moderately disorganized or completely disorganized? If someone from the church paid someone to come in to help you get organized is it possible to be only moderately disorganized? Anyway i see this as good news for me and my fellow slobs. Say amen if you can!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Grace

Our church is taking a special Christmas Eve offering. All the money that is given we go to help a man in Goochland County get running water. It’s hard to believe but there are about 20 homes in Goochland without running water. You have to dig a well, have a drainage field, the plumbing and some other stuff. We are calling this, “It’s Not Your Birthday Offering” because its not our birthday so why should we get all the gifts?
On Thursday I got to meet the person whom we are doing this for. I was excited about meeting him but I left the meeting discouraged. He is a 47 year old man who appears to be in good health and in his right mind. Yet he does not have a job and does not appear to be too worried about it. I just had a bad vibe about it. As we were leaving I felt surely there has to be someone that is more deserving than this man.

Later that night as I was reflecting on the situation I felt God speak to me in that still small voice, “what if I gave you what you deserved? What if I failed to extend to you my grace and love because of your laziness or lack of gratefulness?” Also I don’t know everything about this guy’s story and my assumptions could be way off. Wow was I convicted. And as I was reminded, if anybody in this world is in need of grace it is me. It is amazing to me how easily I fall into the sin of judging others while failing to look at my own self. As Tim Keller says, “we are more sinful than we ever dared to believe and we are more loved than we ever dared to imagine.”

Thursday, December 14, 2006