I don’t know would your congregations but we have started the gear up for Stewardship season. I know that this is time of year that many church professionals find particularly challenging so here is your opportunity question, share, rant, or anything thing else you feel like sharing with the class. Happy giving . . .
That's interesting, I've not heard of churches doing a stewardship season in Feb. In my experience they usually seem to fall in late fall with the preparation of the annual budget. I'd be curious to know your thoughts on the timing??
ReplyDeleteI'm now a year and four months into my first call; I did a series of four sermons on stewardship last fall. We saw a slight increase in our pledges, but as usual for this congregation, they came nowhere near what was needed to support the operating budget.
Which makes this pastor, and his finance committee, some nervous puppies! One problem: we are a small congregation with two or three families who are able to give a lot, and the rest of the congregation knows it and plans on it. I'd be curious to know how others tackle that monster?!?
We did stewardship season in October and November, with "give us your money Sunday"...sorry, umm, pledge dedication or something like that....on Nov. 12. We were down in pledges this year, partially due to unhappiness with the current contemporary worship situation (the service was moved to Saturday evening...).
ReplyDeleteI hate stewardship season because we always focus on money and not on time or talents or other forms of giving. Yes, we need the money because without it we can't do the ministry we've been called to, and we can't run the place, etc. But I think if people in the church feel engaged in ministry, if they are asked to pledge their time and talents, the money will naturally follow. It would for me, anyway.