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The Law of Input and Output

Let me begin by wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year.  In case you are wondering why you didn’t get a Christmas card from our family, the explanation is simple: we didn’t send any.  No one got one.   We haven’t send Christmas cards for years.  It’s just not our preferred vehicle for staying in touch I suppose. It’s not by principle or philosophy.  It’s just something we don’t get around to.  For those of you who send us cards, thank you. However, we have been noticing that year after year the number of cards we have been receiving has been steadily decreasing.  We are aware of the fact that it is a reflection of the law of input and output.  We tend to get out what we put in.  You don’t send cards, over time you receive less of them.  It’s true of other things.  I for one have been noticing more output around my waistline in the last month. It is the result of my wife’s cookies on the counter I just happen to pass by on my way through the kitchen.  Popping one in my mouth became a delicious and automatic habit over the past month.  But what you put in results in output.

As we enter our hundredth anniversary year as a congregation I am reminded of the input people have provided to Parkview over the century of its life: input of physical effort, talent, emotion, money, prayer and time.  The output result has been significant and I am grateful for that input and output.  Of course in the life of the church there is such a thing as grace. Without God’s grace, the greatest input will have no output.

As we each enter another year in our lives and a new period in Parkview’s life, I would like to ask you to think about your input into this church and by this I mean mostly your input of commitment.  What you will put in collectively will be reflected in the output, in the energy of this church called Parkview. There is a spiritual aspect to this.  Although church has a strong social element, the spiritual commitment is crucial. It does not mean perfect, consistent faith.  That is God’s gift. No, it means the willingness to pay attention to your spiritual life and to the role of God in your life. If you do that in questioning way, that is just fine. But it is important to keep struggling with the reality of faith in the way that we keep struggling with the important relationships in our life.  We cannot allow ourselves to become spiritually immobile in other words.   This is a mistake both the extremely religious and the non-religious have in common.  They share the unwillingness to question and to struggle, the lack of commitment to wrestle with faith in an ever changing intellectual and social environment.  The fundamentalist just recites cookie-cutter answers without thinking and the non-religious often dismiss spiritual life because they do not see a way to reconcile faith and science.  But they are both disregarding the laws of input and output.  The thinking you put in will result in output. I believe no questions are off limits and no serious discussion is out of the question.  I welcome new discoveries and inventions, because I believe the truth cannot possibly be threatening to God our Creator.

In the coming year may we aim for right input and pray for the greatest output. Thank you for being a part of our spiritual family. May God bless our ministry.  Aart