This, our first posting on Stewardship Musings, introduces the Stewardship Gifts quarter at First Church.
I have a small inspirational card on my desk at work (actually an ad from a retirement investment company) that says "What you do today determines how you will live tomorrow." What First Church does today, or more specifically on Covenant Sunday, November 18, will indeed determine how this congregation will live tomorrow, and for some time to come. This blog is intended to provide food for thought, and answer any questions, so that we may have every resource we need to make an informed decision on Covenant Sunday. In fact, we hope we will be more than informed, with God's help, may we be inspired.
Our theme for the Stewardship Gifts campaign this year is Celebrating Abundant Life. That may not sound like a theme for a campaign that is asking us to give, but our belief is that we give in response to the gifts we have been given - so first we're celebrating our abundant gifts.
Choosing an abundance mindset isn’t easy because there actually is hunger and poverty. We are also barraged with advertising to sell us scarcity mindsets so we will buy products. Power brokers sell scarcity and fear to secure their power. Our view of God affects our scarcity/abundance mentality, and our scarcity/abundance view affects our understanding of God. A scarcity mentality perceives a punitive God who “speaks the word of judgment much louder than grace. It fosters fear, reward motivation and tit for tat. The abundance mentality perceives God as the giver of grace who speaks the language of unconditional love. Faith in the God of abundance fosters gratitude.”
These thoughts come from a book we are using as a study guide this quarter, Abundance, by Marilyn Brown Oden. (Commercial - available online from Cokesbury for $3.99 plus shipping.)
To add your thoughts, click on Comments below.
Marilyn Good, Stewardship Chair
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