wfn.org | Assembly preacher calls church to "tunnel vision of the heart"

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Note #6015 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

27-June-2000
GA00068

	Assembly preacher calls church to "tunnel vision of the heart"

	Laurene Chan says to give freely without counting cost

	by Jerry L. Van Marter

LONG BEACH, June 27–Fourth-generation Chinese-American Presbyterian Laurene
Chan told 212th General Assembly worshipers today that stewardship is a
matter of determining a need and then asking, "What will I give to meet it?"

	Preaching from Acts 2:37-47, Chan, an elder at San Francisco's Presbyterian
Church in Chinatown, said Christian stewardship means "giving from the heart
without calculating the cost."

	She talked about people who return from mission trips to other countries
saying that they received far more than they gave.  "Why should we be
surprised by this?" Chan queried.  "All are valued before God.  All are
loved by God.  All have something to offer by God's grace."

	Chan talked about a friend's daughter with Down's Syndrome who
instinctively reaches out to people in need without question.  The girl's
mother calls it "tunnel vision of the heart."  When the girl saw a man by
the roadside with a cardboard sign asking for food, Chan recounted, she
concluded that he was simply hungry and needed something to eat.  On
subsequent days she took food in the car to give him.

	"This is what our stewardship is about," Chan said.  "Each day God calls us
to new life, to new ways of living....We are common people who are called to
give uncommonly so we may be united in Christ.  Sad will be the day when a
vision is just a vision, a dream just a dream.

	"For in Christ all things are possible," she concluded. "The power to give
uncommonly, not as the world gives but as Christ gives, is ours, so that all
might share in the abundance God has provided."

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