Our new Business Administrator, Joe Carbonaro, came to me with some exciting news: the summer offering of Financial Peace University that he will be teaching now has 48 persons enrolled . . . and this on top of the 38 persons who are completing the spring offering of the class. I said to Joe as I said to Mike Woods, our Stewardship Chair who is teaching the spring class, “Do you realize what a gift of ministry this is to people?! You all are really meeting a heartfelt need in the lives of our people. This isn’t just helping people better manage their money. The education, encouragement and prayer is helping reduce anxiety in peoples’ homes, reduce friction and arguments between spouses, and increase the joy, peace and thanksgiving in their lives. What a gift!”

As reported elsewhere in this newsletter, our church is enjoying a 5% increase in giving over the same period from last year. As I have preached the last three weeks, our God is a God of abundance, not scarcity. The covenantal part of that theology for us is that with abundance from God comes our responsibility to manage it well (the root meaning of the word economics) with God foremost in our minds. We are doing that at First UMC-Denton and families are learning to do that still better in their own lives.

Thank you for your learning, your loving and your living; yours is the lifeblood of your church and its growth. I pray for all of you good vacation time this summer whether you go far or stay near. Remember to keep your church’s mission in your prayers and checkbooks as you travel; we are building toward a great fall season.