As you might have noticed, either from the calendar, or the letter that showed up in your mailbox last week, or the sermon from this past Sunday…it’s Stewardship season.
The time of the year when we aim to think prayerfully about things that don’t always feel very prayerful: budgets and percentages and tax-deductible donations and pledge cards.
My mom is an accountant, and I like math too, so my first instinct when this time rolls around is to get out my calculator and crunch numbers: think about my income, my expenses, my ability to give.
But that usually ends up being not all that prayerful either. It feels more self-focused: I’ll make sure I get my needs met, and then if there’s anything left over, maybe I’ll give it away.
It’s a complex conversation, I get that – any time we talk about money it’s complicated. It’s a topic laden with the baggage of whatever we’ve been taught about money, whatever our childhood experiences with money were, whatever our adult experiences are. There are real financial obligations we have to meet in our society, and yet I also think that when we focus exclusively on those, our conversations about stewardship fall short.
It is, after all, called stewardship season – not charitable giving season – a subtle reminder that we are, after all, just stewards of whatever resources we’ve been given.
Whatever resources – not just financial.
Also our time, and our talents.
Which is why, this year, we’re inviting you to several types of pledging and giving.
Not just the money one, although that remains important. But also considering how you can give some time, and some of your skills or interests to help the mission and ministry of our church.
You’ve probably heard about our restructuring – changing the structure of our church leadership, doing away with a few committees, redoing several others. The goal of which has been to make it easier to understand what our needs are as a congregation, and easier to jump in and meet them.
So this year, we’re also offering a “time and talents” pledge sheet, where you can read briefly about all those opportunities to serve, and then fill it out based on how you’d like to participate this year.
As with financial gifts, no offer of help is too small.
As with financial gifts, we need everyone to participate as they can.
As with financial gifts, we hope that you’ll be prayerful as you consider where you can help, and what you’d enjoy doing.
And finally, as with all types of gifts, we hope that you’ll be even more blessed in your giving than in receiving.
Click here to fill out the time and talents sheet online, or look for it in your bulletin this coming Sunday. We’ll fill out the cards together during worship and place them in the offering plate, along with our pledge cards for the year.
Please be in touch, as always, with any questions.
With love,
Pastor Jen
Yorumlar