By Pastor Tracey Leslie
Scripture:  Luke 16:19-31


​This morning we continue with Trinity’s fall stewardship campaign: Setting the Table for Trinity: How Table Talk Shapes Our Hospitality and Generosity. 
Over the past few months, I’ve been visiting with Trinity members and asking some common questions.  Of all the questions I’ve asked, here is the one people have seemed to find most challenging.  The question is: share a time in your life when you were impacted by generosity; either someone showed remarkable generosity toward you, or you were able to be unusually generous with someone else.  So this morning, I want to begin with an invitation for you to turn to someone near you and address that very question.  And let me say, by generosity I don’t mean only money.  We can be generous with our money, generous with our time, generous with our talents, even generous with our attention.  So turn to someone near you and share a time when you have been impacted by generosity; either someone showed remarkable generosity toward you or you were able to be especially generous with someone else.  Describe both the experience and the feeling that it invoked in you.

By Pastor Tracey Leslie
Scripture:  Luke 5:27-32

​When I was about nine years old, I had an interesting experience.  I was raised in a culture where sin was often defined as moral infractions; things like using bad words, drinking alcohol, and working on Sundays (unless you were a doctor or policeman).  Sin was about saying or doing certain things that my religious culture defined as “offensive.”  So, back to 9-year old me.  I was at a friend’s house playing.  Her mom was my Girl Scout troop leader.  They were good Christians.  My friend had an older brother in middle school.  While we were playing, her brother used two words – anatomically descriptive words – and his mother had a quick response.  He knew only one of those words were permissible in their home.  The other was a word she did not ever want to hear pass his lips again.  Observing the exchange, I realized that my parents didn’t allow us to use either of those words.  Hmm… Two Christian families at odds over this one word.  I wondered: were there good, Christian families who allowed both words?  That would be radical!

By Pastor Tracey Leslie
Scripture: Luke 7:24-26, 31-35

​I want to invite you, for just a moment, to close your eyes and think back to one of the most wonderful and memorable meals you’ve ever eaten? 

• When did it happen?  Recently, long ago?  Was it a holiday or some special occasion?
• Where did you eat?  Where you at someone’s home, your own home, a restaurant?
• What did you eat?  Was it something exotic and scrumptious, an old family recipe, comfort food, or just something simple?
• With whom did you eat?  Your extended family, a big group of friends, or was it an intimate dinner for two?