In this post, Rev. Janet Karvonen-Montgomery shares how her personal experience of receiving an unconventional loan led her to use her $300 windfall to lend to others.
On Our Minds
Love Let(s) Go blog #4
Reverend Patrick Joiner’s distribution of one-dollar bills reminds us of Dan West’s walk through his neighborhood (chapter 5 of the Love Let Go). Read more about Patrick’s experience here.
Love Let(s) Go blog #3
Pastor Betsy Hoium spread her $300 windfall across generations. She shares in her blog that she learned “money is a human creation and a means, but not an end. In the best of circumstances money can be used to love God and love neighbor — doing God’s work in the world, thinking of others before ourselves and providing opportunities to develop our God-given gifts.”
Love Let(s) Go blog #2
The second blog from the Love Let(s) Go pastor retreat comes from Rev. Horacio Castaldo who gave his surprise $300 windfall to the Union Gospel Mission, a ministry that preaches Christ to people who have lost everything due to drug or alcohol addiction. Read more here: https://www.spas-elca.org/generosity-spreads-gospel/
Training Pastors to Love Let Go
Last summer a group of ministers from the St. Paul area participated in a retreat titled Love Let(s) Go, inspired by our book. Ami spent a day with the group, facilitating discussion and helping them rethink stewardship within their congregations. At the end of the retreat, the bishop handed each of them a $300 check to do God’s work, a la LoveLetGo. Each pastor was asked to submit a blog post. Over the next few weeks, we will share their reflections. Here is the first, from Pastor Julie Wright of Amazing Grace Lutheran Church. She in turn created her own Love Let Go experience: https://www.spas-elca.org/a-generosity-ripple-effect/
Ami on WHMP radio
Listen to Ami’s interview with Bill Newman on WHMP in advance of a visit to the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA.
Watch Laura and Ami on television Feb. 6
Watch Pastor Laura and Ami Campbell’s interview about the Love Let Go experience, appearing on “Significant Insights” on Tuesday, Feb. 6 at 9pm CT. The TLN show can be streamed live online by visiting www.tln.com and clicking the “watch online” link; you may also see the show on Roku, Android TV, and Amazon Fire; Comcast channel 138 in the Chicago area; in the Bay Area, on analog channel 68 and digital channel 47 and on Comcast 25, Dish Network 68, DirecTV 68, AT&T 25, San Bruno Cable 15, and Google Broadband in Sanford 25. If you miss it Tuesday evening, you can catch it when re-broadcast the following day, Feb. 7, at noon, or the following Monday, Feb. 12, at 8:30am. Once it is posted to YouTube (approx. three weeks after initial airing), we will add a link here as well.
Laura featured at Calvin’s January Series
Listen to Laura’s inspired talk on the transformative power of generosity, delivered at Calvin College’s 31st January Series.
“Renewed hope in the human spirit”
From the recent review of Love Let Go in the Green Bay Press Gazette, “Although the focus of the book is on the church and decisions made by the congregants, this title does dive into the science of generosity and ends up with more depth than expected. Readers will be left with a renewed hope in the human spirit and thoughtfully questioning what they would do if they encountered a similar situation.”