Stewardship

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

[singlepic id=574 w=200 h=200 float=right]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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

Joleen wrote about 6 Key Financial Principles yesterday. Stewardship (a broad term which includes money management) is important to us (we believe it’s important to God!). Because it’s important, we need to be intentional about it. IOW, we need to put some systems in place to help us manage our finances wisely. I recently read … Read more

December and January can always be challenging months financially. Christmas comes with certain expectations. I am not speaking of the expectation of Christ born anew in our hearts, but the expectation of giving gifts. Christmas is a time of financial obligation that sometimes comes back to haunt us in January if we have overextended ourselves. … Read more

Randy’s message on Sunday included a brief rundown of our best money practices. We believe it’s extremely important to have good money practices, but the purpose of good money practices is more than building a savings account or preparing for the future. The real purpose of good money practices is to honor God. John Wesley … Read more