Elizabeth, Stewardship, Sept 16, 2018
Stewardship is … “Using the gifts that God gives us to do the work God calls us to do.” No gift is too large for God’s work. We give back as we are given by God.
Pledging should be about growing your faith. As your faith grows so should your giving.
Make your pledge for 2019 and return it by Sunday, Oct. 7
If you didn’t receive a pledge card in church, you can pledge online
The Commitment
A better word than pledge card is commitment card. We commit so we can:
- Commit to help us reduce hunger in this area, through the Village Harvest Distribution
- Commit to us to bring hope to our community,
- Commit to help us bring comfort to those suffering in sickness or loneliness,
- Commit to help us in Christian education and encourage fellowship.
- Commit so we can make a difference.
What should be our commitment to what God has given us ?
God calls us to share in God’s mission of caring for the world, using all the gifts God has given us. Our gifts includes those of treasure. Over 80% of the funds used to support and plan for ministry in a year come from pledges.
Got Questions ?
Is my stewardship defined only by the money I give to the church?
Why should I pledge ?
How much should I give ?
See our Faq
Why Give to St. Peter’s
- Giving is an act of worship along with prayers, sermons and music. Get your money’s worth of the service and give—it is a blessing to be able to do so. Moreover, give till it feels good!
- Giving allows our ministries to expand. As Scott Gunn writes at Forward Movement, “Jesus was always taking his followers to new places, literally and metaphorically… As followers of Jesus, I think we’re called to go to new places.”
- Giving acknowledges the reality is that all we have was given by God anyway. All that we are is a gift . From Deuteronomy – The Lord “gives you power to get wealth” which includes labor, influence, finances and expertise.
- Giving is part of our responsibilities in the baptismal covenant (look in the Prayer Book, pgs. 304-305). We commit our lives to reconcile ourselves to God and to one another. Lives are transformed with our gifts to change and repair a broken world as we reconcile ourselves to God. As Bishop Curry likes to say -“change the world from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends.”
- We freely receive from God so we should freely give back. We mess up in so many ways in our lives but grace is never held back by God so don’t withhold your gifts from God.
Connecting our Stewardship Campaign to the Season of Creation
Language from the Bible supports both the Season of Creation and our pledge campaign using the language of – planting, growth, production of fruit, and feeding.
Here’s some of our language and imagery, linking these practices, both ancient and continuing, with our common life at St. Peter’s:
- Plant: We begin with the seeds: Worship and prayer, baptism, evangelism, welcoming, pastoral care
- And the seeds soon grow: Education, communications, upkeep of buildings and grounds
- And produce fruit: Fellowship, belonging, new members, confirmation, marriages
- To feed people who are hungry in body and spirit: Village Harvest, Village Dinner, Christmas and Thanksgiving Season of Giving -welcoming community groups to our Church
- And our roots are deep: Tradition, reconciliation…
- Settled into the ground of our being: Jesus Christ
- Watered by the vows of the Baptismal Covenant – to continue in worship, repent and return, respect the dignity of others.
- Jesus said, “I am the vine, You are the branches…bear much fruit.”
- All of this depends on your gifts, regular income that provides the rector and staff; that lights, heats, and cools our buildings, that provides materials for worship, for service, for outreach.