Entries Tagged 'Stewardship' ↓

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 and to care for the earth.

Using Heifer’s online catalog, you can give the gift of various animals, from a flock of chicks or ducks ($20), to a goat ($120), or even a heifer ($500). You can also give a share of an animal if you choose to give less than the full amount.

Today, I connected my laptop to the TV and Ethan (wearing his backpack, at the time) helped us choose some gifts.

 

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, is generosity.

A Christian steward is generous. Christian stewards give whatever is needed and whenever it is needed (Proverbs 11.24-29; Mark 10.17-22; Luke 12.13-21; 2 Corinthians 8.1-15; 2 Corinthians 9.6-15; Galatians 5.22-23; 1 Timothy 6.17-19).

They voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints (2 Corinthians 8.3-4). In this passage the Apostle Paul is speaking of the Macedonian Churches. He states that they are poor, but yet they desperately wanted to give to the ministry of the Lord. What a beautiful picture of generosity!

What enabled them to give in such a way? Paul goes on to say, “they gave themselves first to the Lord.” The only way we can have generous hearts is if we first give our hearts to the Lord. The only way we can see God’s will, and to have a desire to be a part of God’s work in this world is to give ourselves to the Lord.

And so as we present our gifts to God, we give him our hearts. As we first give him our hearts, he enables us to give generous gifts. He stirs up in us a desire to desperately want to share in the ministry and work of the church through our financial gifts.

It is my prayer that as we enter this new year, we will once again commit our whole lives to Christ!

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 to let them share in opportunities of blessing others. And one of the ways we like to do that is Operation Christmas Child, an annual outreach of Samaritan’s Purse. Last year was Ethan’s first year to participate in Operation Christmas Child. This year, Sarah got to watch. Next year, she’ll be ready to jump in, as well.

A nice new development this year is the ability to track where your shoe boxes go. By making an online donation (to cover the $7/box shipping cost) through EZ Give, you get a label with a bar code, which is used to track the destination of your shoe boxes. The traditional method is to include your donation with your shoe box.

Well, we would be interested in hearing how you have involved — or are involving — your children in mission and/or giving in the comments below.

 

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 that he should “just stay on track.” Shortly after leaving the Fidelity office, the client stops to look at some expensive cars. Back down the street, the financial advisor from Fidelity calls out, “Stay on the line!” The client smiles, gets back on the line, and moves along.

The commercial caught my attention because that’s not the message we’re accustomed to hearing in commercials. Granted, it was a commercial from an investment firm, not an advertiser for a product they’re trying to convince us we need.

But the message is a good one — have a goal, a purpose, stay on track, and don’t get distracted along the way.

You can see the commercial on YouTube.

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 a look at each of the twelve qualities she has detailed. The first of these characteristics is compassion. She states:

A Christian steward is compassionate. Christian stewards are caretakers and caregivers. They concern themselves with the distribution of gifts and resources so that all might benefit (Genesis 2.4-9; Matthew 14.13-21; Matthew 25.31-46; 1 Corinthians 12.12-28; James 2.14-17).

While a caretaker is one who has been given the responsibility of caring for something or someone, a caregiver always refers to the care of someone. Stewards recognize that their finances and possessions belong to God and are only entrusted to their care. They are given to the steward to be used in ways faithful to God. The creation passage in Genesis 2 expresses this in telling how God created the earth, placing humankind in the midst of it to care for it (Genesis 2.15).

God calls his stewards to be compassionate, distributing their resources to care for others in their time of need. Jesus did this as he fed the five thousand (Matthew 14). Jesus says when we do this for a stranger, we do this for him.

To be caretaker and caregiver is to recognize that all we have is gift, a gift entrusted to us to use for the glory of God.

We pray, “God, thank you for your good gifts, for your provision. May we be faithful in sharing those gifts to care for one another and to care for the stranger in our midst.”

(This post is taken from my monthly finance letter at West Side UMC.)

I recently came across a new author and speaker, Margaret Feinberg. I am currently reading one of her books, The Organic God. When I first discovered her, an audio file on her website caught my attention, entitled “Outrageously Generous.”

Fienberg states that in Malachi 2.11, God says he loves the temple. In John 3.16, the Scriptures say God loves people. However, there is only one place in the Scriptures that say precisely what God loves: 2 Corinthians 9.11 …

“God loves a cheerful giver.”

Feinberg says, “I want to love what God loves and I want to be what God loves.”

Why does God love a cheerful giver?

When we give cheerfully, we reflect our outrageously generous God. We join him in the act of generosity. Not just as someone who collects, but by becoming someone who distributes to others.

Feinberg continues:

When I was young I helped at home with chores and sometimes helping out Mom at her office. I had no job outside the home, so I was dependent on my parents for spending money. When the weekend approached and I wanted money to do something fun, I had to go to Dad and say, “I need ‘x’ amount of dollars.” And Dad would always respond, “How much do you need?” Feinberg would reply with the exact amount needed. If it was for a movie, “I need $7.50.” Feinberg never considered needing some extra for a snack during the movie or to do something following the movie. If she had extra left over from the week before, she may say she only needed $5. Her dad always responded by giving her more. If she asked for $5 she got $10. If she asked for $10 she got $20. Whether he could afford it or not, he always gave more.

In this, Feinberg received a generous demonstration of God’s love and his generosity. We serve a God who doesn’t just give what we ask, he gives us so much more.

Feinberg confesses that despite such generosity, there are times that she is tempted to hold back. Rather than living openhandedly, she says, “I tend to hold on.” And to this end Feinberg refers to the story of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt in Exodus 16.

When we can’t put it into words, we can’t even express those things we desire, we cry out to God, and he gives them to us in abundance. Indeed, our God is outrageously generous!

I am currently leading a Bible study based on a book by Adam Hamilton called Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity.

With the book, Hamilton includes a prayer for contentment on a plastic key tag that can easily be kept in places as a visual reminder of what we are studying, learning, and applying to our lives. The prayer reads:

Lord, help me to be grateful for what I have, to remember that I don’t need most of what I want, and that joy is found in simplicity and generosity.

In chapter one, Hamilton observes that the American Dream has become the American Nightmare, as Americans strive to accumulate material things and do so by going deeper and deeper in debt. Jesus was tempted in this manner in Matthew 4.8-10 when Satan tempted him with the pursuit of wealth and power rather than the way of sacrificial love.

Satan is described as a thief who “comes to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10.10).

Hamilton writes:

If he can get you in debt, he can make you a slave. If he can convince you to spend all you have, you’ll never offer your tithes to God, never help the poor as you could have, and never use what you do have to accomplish God’s purposes. If he can tempt you to become a slave to creditors, you will not know simplicity, generosity, or joy. He will have neutralized your effectiveness for the Kingdom and choked the gospel out of your life (22).

In the second part of John 10.10, Jesus says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Too often we equate the abundance of wealth and possessions as abundant life and a sign of God’s blessing.

Adam Hamilton challenges us to discover true abundant life and joy through simplicity and generosity. Hamilton’s balanced approach does not suggest that we never buy things for ourselves, but promises to grow our understanding of Christian stewardship and God’s will for our lives and living.

West Side UMC hosted Dennis Buffington from Penn State Cooperative Extension on January 26. His presentation was entitled “Coping with High Energy Costs.” Following are some highlights from his presentation.

Don’t overlook the simple things. Remember to open your blinds during the day and close at sunset.

You can save up to 20% by turning back the thermostat at night. As a general rule, for each degree the thermostat is turned back, you save 2%. Programmable thermostats make this easy. Once $300, they now run between $60-75.

Incandescent vs. Compact Florescent Lightbulbs: Remember that watts does not equal how much light, only how much energy the bulb uses. Lumens indicates the amount of light. An incandescent bulb produces more heat than light. A florescent uses approximately four times less energy and lasts ten times longer. Check with your local recycle center regarding disposal of florescent bulbs, as they contain some mercury.

Insulation: If there is light around the door, weather strip. If the windows rattle, there’s energy loss.

Look for the Energy Star rating when buying new products. Energy efficient products will have an arrow near the left of the spectrum and will have the Energy Star logo. For more info, 1-888-STAR-YES or energystar.gov.

Use the cheapest energy. This is harder than it sounds because not all products produce the same amount of heat per gallon. For instance, the same amount of propane produces 40% less heat than heating oil. Check out the online energy calculator for accurate comparisons.

Other information covered included how to figure the cost per kilowatt of electricity, (this information does not appear on your bill). Also, the cost of electricity is expected to rise sharply when electricity rate caps expire December 31, 2010.

Check out energy.cas.psu.edu for more information.

We didn’t really plan to do a stewardship series of posts, but it’s sorta turned out that way, hasn’t it? See our previous posts: 6 Key Financial Principles, Money Management Tools, and 6 More Financial Principles.

This post comes specifically out of our planning/budgeting our giving for 2009. For us, it’s about honoring God with our finances.

I heard that phrase from Bill Hybels several years ago in one of his audio recorded sermons, and it has stuck with me ever since. In that message, Hybels said …

Tithing isn’t fundamentally about money. It’s about the condition of your heart.

Giving money to the church isn’t just about fulfilling a duty, easing our conscience, helping the church pay its bills (including “shares of ministry,” in a United Methodist context). No, giving money to the church (to do God’s work) is about honoring God with our finances!

In a recent post, I briefly mentioned that we’ve set up a spreadsheet file that automatically calculates the amount we give for tithes and offerings, but didn’t go into any detail. For us, honoring God with our finances involves at least a few things …

Give proportionately. Each year, we set percentages for “tithes” and “offerings.” Technically “tithe” is a tenth (i.e. 10%), but we believe 10% is a starting point. We set a percentage of our “income,” including our pre-tax salaries, monetary gifts, interest earned, cash back from credit cards, and the fair rental value of the parsonage in which we live.

Increase our giving periodically. As we grow spiritually, we believe our desire to honor God with everything (including our finances) will increase as well. Practically speaking, that means we hope to increase the percentage of our giving over the course of our lives, as we have done periodically over the last 15 years.

Give tithes AND offerings. We’ve always used the language of “tithes and offerings” which comes from Malachi 3.8. I don’t know of any hard-and-fast rules on this, but this is what we do: we set a percentage for the “tithe” (beyond 10%) and set another small percentage for “offerings”; we each use this amount to give toward specific/special offerings as well as other ministries/causes (we’ve written about some of them before).

Again, while the Bible has a *lot* to say about money and possession, I’m not sure there are any real hard-and-fast rules on giving. I am comfortable with the concept of tithing, (with 10% as a starting point). Proportionate giving is simply a good system, I think. Regardless of your giving philosophy, though, I think some of the best advice comes from Paul in 2 Corinthians 9.7 …

You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”

Whatever system or philosophy you settle on, don’t be legalistic about it. And don’t give just to help the church pay its bills or meets its obligations — give simply because you want to honor God with your finances!

Earlier, Joleen posted 6 Key Financial Principles (which came from Church of the Resurrection).

In working on another post (which will be posted later), I came across six more principles (with some overlap with COR’s). These came from an audio recorded sermon I heard by Bill Hybels several years ago. In the message, Hybels shared six principles for excellent money management …

1. Earn ethically
2. Spend wisely
3. Save
4. Avoid destructive debt
5. Give to the poor
6. Tithe your earnings to God’s work

More good stuff to think about as we begin a new year!