For more information, or if you have questions, please reach out to Pastor Rebel Hurd, Director for Evangelical Mission.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Webinar: "How To Make the Offering The Most Meaningful Part of the Liturgy"
January 27, 2025 @ 6:00pm
Offering practices have changed a great deal in recent years with online giving and lingering COVID practices. Join Pastor Tim Brown for a conversation about the role offering plays in worship and how to highlight it in the worship service. Leave with ideas and practices that can be implemented at any congregation. Consider trying out a new practice during Lent!
Zoom Link:
Cultivating Generous Congregations: Spring Cohort
How do we, as communities of faith, change our thinking on stewardshipand generosity to meet the challenges of the moment? In partnership with the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, the ELCA is offering congregations the opportunity to reexamine their stewardship thinking and imagine ways to act on their findings in their communities. The six-week webinar “Cultivating Generous Congregations” will offer virtual cohort sessions where congregational leaders can discuss, dissect, and collaborate on how generosity might work in their contexts. The webinar costs $550 per congregation, plus workbooks ($40 each).
For a deeper look at what the webinar entails, watch this brief “Cultivating Generous Congregations” video.
Please contact the Rev. Larry Strenge (Strenge@elca.org) and the Rev. Tim Brown (Tim.Brown@elca.org) if you’re interested in participating! They will work with Pr. Rebel Hurd to get you registered for the spring cohort.
Mark Your Calendar:
“Cultivating Generous Congregations”
Spring 2024
5-6:30 p.m. Central time
Tuesdays, April 16–May 21
STEWARDSHIP RESOURCES
Are you looking for stewardship resources to fuel your ministries and imagination? Here are a few places to find guidance and support:
With dips in worship attendance, doing “more with less” takes energy, finances and volunteers. All of it can feel overwhelming. The Rev. Mark Elsdon not only speaks to this reality but also breathes into it a sense of possibility, hope and “sufficiency thinking” in his book We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry (Eerdmans, 2021). In this deep but accessible work Rev. Elsdon invites us to think in new ways about what we’ve been gifted by God. Discussion questions at the end of the book make it an ideal read for church councils or leadership teams.
Rev. Elsdon gets a double entry in this month’s resources column: his newest book (as editor), Gone for Good?: Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition(Eerdmans, 2024), compiles different essays from pastors, preachers and thought leaders on the ins and outs of having a mission outpost (building), using it to capacity and sometimes reevaluating its necessity. The book addresses just about every stage in a congregation or community’s thinking as it weighs the advantages and disadvantages of brick-and-mortar ministry sites. It provides new ways of looking at the increasingly urgent question of how to handle aging churches.
It’s not too early to start thinking about an annual appeal for your community, especially if you’re planning out a stewardship calendar in these early days of the year. “Because of God’s Great Mercy,” a wonderful resource compiled by Chick Lane, was recently offered free of charge on the ELCA Stewardship site and comes with customizable resources that can be tailored to your community. Take a look and utilize them as needed!
The Lake Institute on Faith & Giving has developed a website dedicated to sharing stories of generosity across faith communities. The Faithful Generosity Story Shelf features compelling and instructive stories with topics ranging from property sharing to ethical investment. A study guide accompanies each story so it can be used in council meetings or committee retreats, helping people think outside the box and reflect on current needs or desires in their own communities. Bookmark this page for continual updates or sign up to receive them via email.
Many congregations have a hard time finding someone to serve as their treasurer because the role feels daunting to so many. Edd Breeden’s A Handbook for Church Treasurers: Concise Information for a Complicated Task (self-published, 2019) is one of the most valuable works available to volunteer church treasurers, helping them master the ins and outs of their job.
Congregations and rostered leaders anxious about the future might appreciate a book that reframes the ups and downs in life. Scott Erickson’s Say Yes: Discover the Surprising Life Beyond the Death of a Dream (Zondervan, 2022) leads readers through heart-wrenching moments of grief and awakens in them the possibilities that come with resurrection. Erickson, an artist and biblical storyteller, weaves through this work a spirituality that will bind the hearts of the faithful. If you or your community needs a reframing of your current situation, you may find this book to be a wonderful resource. After all, we’re invited to steward not just our gifts but our whole being … including our frames of reference. Give this book a try.
Have a great stewardship resource to share? Please send articles, books, movies and other media to Tim.Brown@elca.org. The best gifts are those that are shared!
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Other Resources
Resource: Book: Abundance; Creating a Culture of Generosity, by Michael R Ward
