From Pr. Tim Brown’s Stewardship Newsletter
Are you looking for stewardship resources to fuel your ministries and your imagination? Here are a few places to find guidance and support:
Need to make a well-used stewardship text more practical? Many church leaders and congregations have read Henri Nouwen’s A Spirituality of Fundraising, but many aren’t sure how to utilize its principles in their communities. Geared toward making the book a practical tool for communities, the Nouwen Society offers a four-week how-to guide on implementing Nouwen’s ideas in your congregation. Nathan Ball, a friend and colleague of Nouwen, developed the workbook on behalf of the society, ensuring that Nouwen’s generous spirit was paramount. Order a copy here from the Nouwen Society and take A Spirituality of Fundraising to a new, practical level in your community.
Stewardship Bible studies? Do they exist? They do, and we’re working on developing more! But an easy and affordable Bible study that your congregation could use this year is “Our Duty and Delight” by the Rev. Mark Allen Powell. This six-week video course utilizes online learning with small-group exercises to get both the individual and the group thinking about stewardship through a Biblical lens. It’s affordable, easy to implement and, most important, makes an intimidating topic easy and accessible.
Stewardship of space is always a tough question. There’s no “one size fits all” to any congregation’s curiosity about how to best steward its space and land. The ELCA is currently developing a resource to help communities of faith wrestle honestly with this question, but there are examples of churches doing innovative things with their spaces. One such church is St. John’s Lutheran Church in Madison, Wis., which decided to develop affordable housing on its historic site — read the story here. This step may not be the right move, or even possible, for all congregations, but St. John’s story is one example of a faith community tackling a hard question.
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!