August 26, 2026
In this month’s Sojourners magazine, writer, public theologian; Damon Garcia- gives us another perspective on the theology of “gifts”: “I no longer believe God gives us individual gifts of specific skills that we’re supposed to discover and use. Now I believe God gives all of us one big gift that we all share together. And that gift is the life that we all connect with together.” He continues: “I believe individual gifts are a process instead of fixed traits that we’re given. We use this life to connect and from those connections, we receive energy. We channel that energy into action, and the more we practice specific actions the more skilled at them we become, until our practice becomes a gift. And from there the process recycles. We use our personal gifts to make more connections with ourselves, our environment, and other people. And those connections make more energy, and that energy inspires more action, and repeated actions make more gifts.”——redefining gifts as a process widens our potential.
I am sharing this again, as I reflect on our intentional Café Conversations we held after worship on Sunday. During our time together, we were discerning as a community what is “next” in the realm of community ministry as PVCC. So many good things were highlighted in the table discussions. We affirmed that we care about humanity; we want to enrich our community. We want to bring hope and be a center for experiencing acceptance and love.
What we saw emerging was our attentiveness to things spoken by our community. That we need to be in deeper relationship with our neighbors and discover together what is needed.
Our time together in the Café Conversation model was rich and very engaging. We will continue to build relationships with all our neighbors. At this time we will pause one of our grant opportunities (don’t worry it opens again in February 2027) so that we can build a more connected community for all of us to move forward together.
We want to grow and have new experiences at PVCC. I believe we desire to live our call in increasingly fulfilling ways. As a church our motivation is to live into the call of Jesus- to love a God and neighbor…..making disciples and being a witness with God’s limitless love.