The Stewardship Question is…
Many, many thanks! You have been incredibly generous this year. Your offerings, including your response to our summer appeal and your gifts for our fiftieth anniversary, sustain the vital and life-giving ministries of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.
145 children deepened their faith in Jesus through our Camp Discovery Vacation Bible School.
Eight of our high school youth felt the Spirit moving at the ELCA Youth Gathering in Detroit.
We were able to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary in air-conditioned comfort and host a sumptuous lunch!
The list could go on and on! Because of you, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church has been able to carry out the ministries to which Christ has called us in 2015. It is an honor and a privilege to serve such a faithful and generous congregation!
As we look forward to our life together in 2016, I commend the insights of poet Ann Weems on stewardship. She reframes the stewardship question in a way I find provocative.
PRAYER OF STEWARDSHIP
O Lord, forgive our fears
that so stifle our stewardship .
Forgive our giving in and our giving up
instead of giving ourselves
to Christ’s mission of love.
Remind us that our hope
is in standing up and risking,
in taking our stewardship seriously.
Help us to remember, O Lord, that
the stewardship question is not really,
How much we will give?
The stewardship question is,
How will we spend what we have been given?
We pray that it will be faithfully
and cheerfully.
From Seaching for Shalom. © 1991 Ann Barr Weems. Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press. All rights reserved.
As Commitment Sunday, October 11th, approaches, I ask you to consider your personal spending plan for 2016. How will you spend what God has given you?
How will you spend on the health and well being of your family? How will you set aside funds for the future, for retirement or for that rainy day? How will you pay down any debts you may have incurred? And how will you spend on the kingdom of God, supporting Christ’s mission of love through Holy Trinity Lutheran Church?
Many people find making a pledge to the church (an annual financial commitment) to be helpful as they develop their budgets. However, if pledging is not a useful or comfortable tool for you, I encourage you to sit down and write out your own plan for faithful and cheerful spending in 2016. Check back with your plan in six months. Are you on track? Are you spending what God has given you in a faithful and cheerful manner?
May we all be faithful and cheerful spenders!
Pastor Margrethe