A Long Tradition of Sharing Our Blessings

During the Stewardship season, Westminster has a tradition of inviting members to speak from the pulpit during a worship service. In this Moment for Stewardship, folks will speak of how their faith has been impacted by Westminster and its programs and the importance of keeping those programs healthy, vibrant and successful. 

On Sunday, October 30, JoAnn and Jim Sanders told how their connection to Westminster began over 100 years ago because of Westminster’s long tradition of sharing its blessings with others.

Moment for Stewardship

May Clean Water Flow

by Ed Cunnington, Jr

Those of us who have been involved with the installation of clean water systems in Cuba have been able to count many, many blessings. We count them in the faces of families, orphans, known as children without families, and the elderly who have known only gastrointestinal problems since birth. We can count the blessings in our faces as we see the benefits of clean water for those who have never experienced clean water. 

Living Waters for the World is a mission outreach for the Synod of the Living Waters in the Southeast United States. This outreach offers education, training and supplies that have reached over 300 sites in 22 countries. To date, eight Westminster members have been trained, either at the site in Mississippi or in California. 

Those WPC members who have been trained have counted their blessings and committed their time, talent and money to a ministry of helping to provide “clean water to all God’s children.” Further, several others in the congregation, touched by the effect of clean water on people’s lives, when counting their blessings, have contributed to this water ministry.

Because of the partnership we have with the church in Matanzas, members from WPC have been blessed with the opportunity to participate in delivering clean water systems to our brothers and sisters, in Christ, in Cuba.  We have been witness to changing the health in people’s lives. The blessings in that ministry abound.

Construction of the clean water system at the orphanage in Matanzas, Cuba...

 ...under the watchful eyes of the beneficiaries of clean water.

 Learn more about the vital importance of available clean water to people's lives:

And Indeed, It Was Very Good

by Gary Beil, Eco-Justice Team member

Genesis 1:31 says that when God saw everything that God had made, God declared it very good. The members of the Eco-Justice team at Westminster share a belief that the practice of good ecology in our church, our homes and all we do in life is a matter of social justice central to being a Christian and a steward of God’s creation. I am excited to be part of a reinvigorated environmental initiative taking place within the Westminster community. A group who shares a great concern for the future of God’s creation has come together to form the Eco-Justice team (part of the Social Justice Ministry).

We have a common concern that the world faces a profound crisis of ecological disruption and depletion, and we believe our congregation can make a collective effort to help avert further environmental damage to our earth. We are blessed to have lay leaders and staff members who commit their energy and church resources to make certain our physical facilities are in good environmentally sound working order to make our church as green as possible.

One of many "Bike to Church" Sundays at WPC

The concept of eco-justice links the concepts of ecological sustainability and social justice. Eco-justice implies that it is impossible to care for the earth without also caring for all humanity. However, it seems more compelling to reverse the emphasis and recognize that it is impossible to care for humanity without caring for the earth. Anything we do that diminishes the health and well-being of the earth diminishes the health and well-being of real, flesh and blood people.

Our worship at Westminster is, of course, God centered. We continually reflect on the fact that this day, every day, is the day that God has made. One of the many blessings I count is that our congregation is committed to good stewardship of the creation bequeathed to us by God.

The Westminster Eco-Justice team has given careful thought about what we can do as a community of faith to act, not just in terms the abstract concepts of caring for humanity or for God’s creation, but for real people of both present and future generations. Some of the team’s priorities:

• maintaining our certification as an Earth Care Congregation of the PC(USA) environmental ministries program;


• working with the congregation and its councils and committees in a collaborative way; and


• developing methods to educate the congregation about additional ways to care for the environment.

I am grateful to my colleagues on the Eco-Justice team at Westminster – Elise Howell, Rick Person, Jim Christiansen and Duncan King – for their energy, commitment and talent. We believe that our congregation has a major responsibility to help guide humankind to a path of rightness and goodness. We invite you to learn more and join us in this eco-justice journey at Westminster!

A Rolling Blessing

by the Rev. Tim Hart-Andersen

Among the many blessings of living in this beautiful city is its "bikeability!"

A few years ago I began riding my bike to Westminster. It is good exercise and I find that I can make it to church from our home in 23 minutes. On some days it takes almost as long in a car.

At first I wondered about how I would get around if I needed to make a hospital call or go to meeting elsewhere in the city. I discovered that people didn't mind being visited in the hospital by a minister in bike clothes!

People often ask if there's a shower for me to use at the church. Actually, there is a shower at Westminster, but it was converted long ago to a storage closet. So, I clean up in my office restroom, and change clothes there. (I keep a full wardrobe at church).

I have had my share of close calls while biking on the street. As a result, I wear the most garish reflective safety vest possible (a construction vest left over from a church building project). In three years of regularly biking to and from Westminster, I've only had one incident: late one wet night a man stepped out from between parked cars just as I passed and I knocked into him. Neither of us was injured.

I love to ride early in the morning. Often in the spring or fall there are patches of fog in low-lying areas. The scents and sounds of nature accompany me as I glide quietly down the streets. Every patch of cool air I feel. I often am riding when the warm light of the sun first reaches across the city from the east.

For some reason I seem to ride fastest at night. Maybe it's because I'm homeward bound!

My ride to Westminster serves as a kind of rolling blessing. It's a two-wheeled retreat in the midst of the city. I get to enjoy the wonder of God's creation and the changing seasons. The ride allows me time to collect my thoughts and plan for the day, without having to fight traffic. It gives me the joy of silence; unless cars are around, the streets are remarkably hushed when you're on a bike. The ride centers me as I prepare to go to work – and that's a wonderful blessing!

I do stop riding when there's ice on the streets. I don't mind the cold… think of all the things we do outside in the Minnesota winter! But it's simply too dangerous to ride over ice. I took a spill on the ice once – and that was enough to convince me that riding the city bus or driving the car (or carpooling, as I often do in winter) can be blessing, too!

See you in church -- and on the streets of Minneapolis. I'll be the guy in the bright vest!

A Global Mission Recollection

by Jim Carter, Stewardship Committee Co-Chair

Looking forward to the coming weeks as a co-chair of the 2012 Stewardship Program and aware that 20% of Westminster’s operating budget is committed to local and global mission efforts, I know that we are indeed blessed.

In 2007 Nancy and I were fortunate to be part of Westminster’s trip to Cameroon to help commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the independence of the Presbyterian Church there (previously part of the Basel, Switzerland Mission). Here are a few images reminding us of some of the blessings we felt and still fondly recall...

View the Photos

The orphanage worker in Douala who gives her all in support of the children;

The exuberance of Cameroonian church members celebrating this anniversary in Buea with all their heart;

A child racing down the beach in Kribi (as his predecessors have for generations) in juxtaposition to an offshore oil rig (Kribi being where Dr. Arnold Lowe served as a missionary before WWI);

The energy and enthusiasm of the students at the Church School at Kumba Presbyterian Church, Westminster’s thriving sister church;

A fisherman finding food for his family as his father and grandfather did for him;

A church off in the distance in Limbe… a refuge for followers of Christ, whatever their denomination.

Thanks be to God.