Thank you for everyone who joined us. We put together a few photos of our time together.

One sign of how important our topics were is we began conversations much larger than we could carry on during the time allotted.  We're hoping we can continue our work together through an ongoing sharing on bLogos and FB.

Wealth, especially money, divides the church.  It can and does also become part of our sharing, our communion (koinonia). We'd be mistaken to try to create the fool-proof perfect system that will overcome sin and remove our need for mercy, patience, and hope in God's grace.  But we can still share wisdom about how congregations can plant the kudzu of the kingdom.  How, in this culture so saturated with the symbolic power of money, can we be people among whom wealth serves its proper ends?  How do you talk about that in your congregation?

In short, in what ways has your community made wealth and poverty into occasions for reconciliation, supporting and building friendships, witnessing to the finitude of being creatures and the plenitude found in bearing the cross?

by Kelly Johnson

Over the years, many EP endorsers have asked us to hold a Gathering dedicated to talking about economic issues, and at the end of last summer's gathering, the board agreed that we would move that direction for next year. Little did we know at that moment just how big an issue the economy was about to become in the U.S. 

But as the planning committee began working, first we had trouble sorting out exactly which kind of economic issues we would talk about.  Then, although usually a gathering is organized around a scriptural passage or theme, we could not settle on just one.  Ultimately what struck us was less the importance of any one passage and more the importance of the scriptural story as the story of God’s economy. Or to put it another way, what struck us was the idea that the true economy is the work of God. 

Our word ‘economics’ is related to the Greek word oikonomia, which refers to household management.  (The Greeks had a separate word, chrematistike, to name efforts to make a profit in money.)  So as we organize this gathering, we are thinking about questions like these:  What is God’s household management (or home economics) style?  How does God care for creation?  And how do we who are invited to share God’s life participate in that economy—and get in its way?  In particular, to continue our conversation on racism from last summer, in what ways now does our use of wealth build up the body and in what ways does it divide us? 

Currently we have three keynote speakers confirmed, each of whom will address part of the story of  God’s economy and our share in it.  Bill Cavanaugh will be speaking on creation; Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove on Jubilee and Jesus’ teaching; and Kathy Grieb on Paul’s collection for the Jerusalem community.  Workshops are being organized around four types of congregational practice:  congregations that run businesses together, congregations that do community organizing to deal with economic problems in their neighborhoods, congregations that share a common purse, and congregations that take up collections. 

But these plans are just a framework for the real work of the gathering:  taking time to get to know each other, to share ideas and questions, and to talk together about what our good God is doing.  We hope to see you all there.