Where Your Treasure Is...

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the 32nd annual Lutheran Women’s Advent Brunch. Several women from the congregation participated in this event. We left early from church as I rode with Nancy, Anne, and Esther. As we left the weather was a very unusual 50 degrees and raining. There was a tropical storm that had been through the west coast of Alaska causing extremely high winds the night before, power outages, and the warm rainy weather.

The Advent brunch was at the Egan Civic & Convention center in Anchorage, Alaska. The theme for the year “Where your treasure is” based on Luke 12:34. There were about a hundred women from sixteen congregations around Alaska in attendance.

We received welcome and opening prayer and then were served a wonderful meal. The menu? Omelets, sausage, hash browns and a variety of specialty teas, coffee, and juice.

Instead of having one keynote speaker stand up front and talk the whole time the advent brunch had seven speakers each portraying a female Bible character that was connected to one of the seven “Wholeness Wheel" characteristics.

When I look through the program I couldn’t help but laugh as the wholeness wheel was the focus of the morning. The Wholeness Wheel is something my professor at Concordia St. Paul, Kevin Hall, has focused on many times over.

Let me explain the wholeness wheel briefly, and you can look at the image below to get a better understanding.

The Wholeness Wheel reflects our call to care for our whole self. By balancing the interconnected dimensions of well-being, we are able to live well in Christ and pass on our faith.

The Wholeness Wheel illustrates that wellness is multidimensional — made up of spiritual, vocational, intellectual, emotional, physical, social and financial elements of well-being. Spiritual well-being is intertwined with each aspect of wellness.

At the center of the wheel, we are a new creation through the waters of baptism. Christ lives in us and through us and calls us out to love and serve one another. Abundant life is living as a new creation, being grounded and centered in Christ and loving our neighbor as ourselves. It is when we are living well in Christ that we are best equipped to pass on our faith. (InterLutheran Coordination Committee on Ministerial Health and Wellness of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American and The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod)

The first part of the wheel was Social and Interpersonal Well-Being as we reflect on the story of Ruth as she shared her gift of presence and relationship she had with the workers in the field and eventually with the land owner Boaz who had the opportunity to take Naomi and Ruth into his care.

The second was the treasure of Emotional Well-Being and we looked at the story of Esther and her gift of courage in going to the king to save her people. Next the treasure of Physical Well-Being and the story of Mary Magdalene was highlighted as she was restored to health by Jesus and followed him.
Him.

We then moved onto the Treasure of Financial Well-Being and the story of Lydia as she shared her gift of resources as the dealer of the purple cloth and A woman whose heart God opened and she then opened her home to accommodate men such as Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke.

Lydia (from my church), portraying "Lydia" from the Bible

Next was the Treasure of Vocational Well-Being with the story of Mary of Nazareth and how she shared her gift of service to accept the call to bear the savior of the world.

Finally the treasure of Intellectual Well-Being was highlighted as we looked at the story of Mary of Bethany, sister to Martha and Lazarus as she shared her gift of curiosity as she desired to listen to Jesus word.

Each colored gift corresponds to the treasure each Women of the Bible brought as she shared her story

It was very neat to hear witness from the Women of the Bible and also hear how it was tied in to a story of real time application. It was engaging and I thoroughly enjoyed it.