Some preachers write sermons in seminary libraries or home studies. I don’t know any pastors who write their sermons from desks in church buildings, but maybe there are some. Here’s a little secret though: several of us write our sermons at the common computer table in a certain funky restaurant with free wifi in northern Virginia. I don’t dare disclose the location and risk too many people converging on this inspiring turf, but those of you I’ve encountered here know of which I speak.

One of the high points of my ministry in the first congregation I pastored, a 125-member church in upstate New York, was the time one of my elders said, “My husband tells me I am beginning to think like a theologian.” I nearly sailed home from the Session meeting that night. Here was a thirty-something mother of two considering matters in her personal life and in the life of her church by seriously pondering what the God we have come to know in Jesus Christ had to do with it all. In that moment, it felt like my ministry there had not been in vain.

In my senior year in high school, the senior pastor at my home church retired and the youth director left. Out of desperation, the associate pastor stepped in and attempted to fill the gap. Youth ministry was not his primary mission and in a matter of weeks the program self-destructed. Only two of us showed up week after week: my best friend and I.

Churches are rediscovering the power of hospitality, which goes back thousands of years – think of Jesus feeding 5,000 people by the Sea of Galilee – but was sidetracked when the Protestant Reformation occurred and churches split into different denominations over theological ideas. Christianity suddenly became a much more intellectual enterprise, with preachers and teachers trying to attract followers with compelling insights and ideas. The focus of the faith shifted from the heart to the head, leaving the stomach behind.

I have an Episcopal friend who says we Presbyterians are obsessed with debt. “You even changed the Lord’s Prayer to make it ‘debts’ and ‘debtors.’” he likes to tell me. Point made. However, I like the use of debt and debtors. It reminds us that fiscal responsibility is a fundamental stewardship issue. What do we hand to those who come after us in ministry? Do we hand them debt-burdened or debt- free ministries?