As Stewardship is the heart of the church, Time, Talent, and Treasure given to the church by its members are the heart of Stewardship.
However, Stewardship is more than just the giving from the congregation during the annual pledge drive. This is probably best described by Tuck Aaker of the Stewardship staff in the ELCA Florida/Bahamas Synod. The following is an excerpt from his recent article in "Stewardship Now".
"If we only focus on one time in the year to celebrate our gifts to the church, we’re shortchanging the process. We can achieve a whole lot more if we use the "big picture" approach to giving and highlight the many ways our congregation gives to others every day of the year.
I had been a little confused about what year-round stewardship meant until I separated the giving from the receiving. Most stewardship efforts are tied to inspiring members to give generously, which is a great cause. But who receives those gifts and how they use them to fulfill the mission of our congregation is not clearly understood.
Most of us have a Stewardship Sunday, the time we gather the intentions to give, but that’s pretty much the end of it. The message of what happens to those gifts doesn’t get told until the next year when we want to inspire our members to give again. That message ... how we are reaching out and how your gifts help change someone’s life ... is the other half of year-round stewardship. That’s the receiving part. That’s the part that will help your members grow in their giving every year.
These two parts of stewardship ... the giving and the receiving ... are part of the same process, but we need to give them each their own focus, their own time to be celebrated".
If you are interested in serving on the Stewardship
Committee, please contact Darla Phelps at stewardship@hoplutheran.com
or call the church office at 760-745-3738.
Stewardship Now © copyright 2003 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Permission to reproduce this sheet for congregational use only, providing this copyright notice is included.