Life, leadership, and the pursuit of Jesus' mission!

Category Archives: Stewardship

Weems on Money

This past week, Joleen and I attended one of our remaining requirements for ordination, an all-day training day sponsored by the Board of Ordained Ministry. The day featured Dr. Lovett Weems from Wesley Theological Seminary. The topic was “Church Finances.” Part of the content confirmed some things we already knew, but we did learn someContinue Reading »

5 Practices to Make the Most of Time

I’ve been writing about The Balancing Act by Bishop Robert Schnase (see “The Balancing Act” and Pray More Than Criticize). Bishop Schnase writes on “Redeeming Time.” By that, he means “making time sacred, useful to God, holy” (119). Schnase adds: … redeeming the time involves discovering the holy, gift-like quality, the grace of time. ItContinue Reading »

Our Best Financial Practices

Joleen and I have been married 16.5 years. Looking back, we can list at least three financial practices that have proven valuable. 1. Honor God with tithes and offerings. Tithing wasn’t a new practice for either of us when we married, but we did develop a new system for the way we’d do it. EvenContinue Reading »

God Works in the Summer, Too!

Here’s my latest finance letter for West Side … Summer is upon us! Some days we can feel it in the warm sunshine and some days we wonder as we experience the cool rain and blustery winds. One day I was in eastern PA and we traveled from balmy eighty degree temperatures to an icyContinue Reading »

Extravagant Generosity

Jesus, consistent with the Old Testament,  speaks unabashedly and repeatedly about wealth, greed and generosity. In Mark 12.41-44, Jesus relates a story comparing the giving of the rich to that of poor widow who gives two very small copper coins. Jesus comments … They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty,Continue Reading »

Involving Kids in Mission 2.0

As we’ve written about before recently, we’re enjoying involving our kids (mainly Ethan, at this point) in our mission giving. We usually do some extra giving at the end of the year and one of our favorite year-end projects is Heifer. Heifer’s mission is … To work with communities to end hunger and poverty andContinue Reading »

Generosity

In the monthly West Side UMC Stewardship newsletter, we have been looking at the twelve qualities of the Christian steward as presented by Rev. Phillis M. Bowers in the booklet, Guidelines for Leading Your Congregation: Stewardship. The next quality, which is appropriate in the midst of Advent/Christmas and as we begin the new year, isContinue Reading »

Involving Kids in Mission

In the days and weeks leading up to our first trip to Korea — and to becoming parents — we wrote about the kind of culture we wanted to create in our home and family life. Part of that included Shaping a Servant Culture. To help our children become servants and givers, we want toContinue Reading »

Stay on Track

I have noticed a number of commercials from Fidelity Investments lately. They’re the commercials with the green line on the ground that offers guidance and direction. Last week, one especially caught my attention. In the commercial, the financial advisor encourages the client that the plan they worked out for his retirement “makes sense” and thatContinue Reading »

Stewardship Quality: Compassion

In Guidelines for Leading Your Congregation: Stewardship, Phyllis M. Bowers has outlined twelve qualities of the Christian steward. Rev. Bowers is the Executive Director of The United Methodist Stewardship Foundation of Central Pennsylvania. It is an honor for her work to be published in a denominational guide. Over the next year, we will take aContinue Reading »