Talent - How You Can Become Involved
As generous distributors of God's manifold grace,
put your gifts at the service of one another,
each in the measure he has received.
1 Peter 4:10
Everything we have - our very breath, our life, our time, our talents and our resources - comes from God, and in thanksgiving for His many blessings, we need to give a portion of our blessings back to God." We have a need to give. We also have a need to use our gifts to benefit others. There's a saying, "If you don't use it, you lose it." But more importantly, in using our gifts we honor the Giver of the gifts.
Stewardship of talent calls us to search out the talents that we possess, nurture them, and help them to grow, and then share them with others.
Jesus tells us that our first and greatest commandment is "To love our God with our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole mind." We do that by using God given talents for the benefit of others, and doing that brings us directly to our second greatest commandment, "To love our neighbor, as we love ourselves."
Within our parish community there are many ways we express our love of God and neighbor … through gathering and preparing for worship, nurturing faith with the next generation in word and deed, sharing with the poor, working for justice, reaching out to those in spiritual, emotional or physical need, being good stewards of our resources, and celebrating our rich diversity. There are opportunities to serve within our parish which require a few hours a week and others that only require a few hours a year.
The Stewardship of Talent shows us the way to a Spiritual life, a oneness with God through reaching out to another human being. So, the Spirituality of Giving through the Stewardship of Talent is a part of living a spiritual life.