This week, I write the first of four letters to you about stewardship. "Stewardship" is shorthand for your responsibility, as a participant in Marble, to support and care for our ministries and programs. You support the church by giving your 1) prayers; 2) presence; 3) money; and 4) service. This week, we begin with prayers.

Unfortunately, everyone at Marble is not flush with cash. We struggle to make ends meet every month and to save for the future, now more than ever. Stewardship season can hit us pretty hard. It can make some of us feel like spiritual freeloaders, because we won't be writing big checks.

But no matter our financial status, I dare say all of us are poor in another way: poor in the amount of time we make in our lives for quiet prayer.

I'm guilty. My kid gets up at 6am, waking me; I'm making breakfast, playing with trains, doing dishes, coordinating schedules with my wife before I run out the door to work. I work frantically all day, coming home to pick up the boy, bathe and feed him, read stories, eat dinner with Beth, do the dishes... by that time it's 9 and I just want to veg for a few minutes until I go to bed.

When I take quiet time for prayer, it's by stealing 20 minutes during my day to sit in my office or go for a walk; or it's the last 10 minutes at night before my eyelids close. There's rarely enough time for prayer...

Even when I do pray, do I pray for my church? I pray for others I know, including you. I pray for peace and justice to fall like dew on the grass. I pray for myself. But often I forget to pray for the church.

Perhaps you might. Pray for Marble Church. Pray for the church to be open to the winds of the Holy Spirit; pray for the church to live as the Body of Christ in the world; pray for the church that we seek to be nothing more and nothing less than a this-worldly approximation of the kingdom of God. Pray for the ministers... but that does not mean praying for the "clergy," but for every member, including each of you, who is called to a ministry of love according to your gifts.

Pray for the church that we be like Christ. And when you pray for "the church"... remember: the church is not a "them." You are the church. The church is only and ever as brave, bold, faithful, kind, just, loving, passionate, and grace-ful as you are. When you pray for God to bless and inspire the church, you are praying the same for yourself.

Give Marble church the gift of your daily prayers.