For
many churches, it is stewardship season again – a time
for crunching numbers, developing budgets and asking for pledges.
But
some Massachusetts Conference congregations are discovering that studying
Scripture and sharing faith journeys can be a better way to approach
stewardship.
At Central Congregational Church UCC in Newburyport last fall, parishioners
were invited to stewardship coffees at the homes of various members.
Once there, they took part in Bible study and were invited to talk about
their faith journeys and how they had been brought to Central Church.
“The use of Scripture helps to take people away from using the Annual
Budget as the sole method for determining their pledge and allows them
to perhaps reflect upon it in a more spiritual manner,” said Mike Mottola,
chair of the church’s stewardship committee.
It was Mottola’s fourth year on the committee, but the first time he
remembers bringing the Bible into the process.
“In the past we tended to use the budget as the motivational tool,”
he said. “This time we stressed that deciding how much we give to the
church is more than just some sense of paying our fair share of a bill.
It is about reflecting upon the many gifts God has given us and deciding
what portion we can return to His service.”
The new approach was apparently effective: the church experienced a
15 percent average increase in giving.
Senior Pastor Kent Allen said he is not sure whether the new approach
completely explains the increase, or whether other factors were at work.
Regardless, he said, it was a rewarding way to carry out a stewardship
campaign.
“The real positive thing about it is it really opens the door for people
to talk. Part of our church life is that we tell our faith stories,
but that’s not something that classic UCC churches tend to do,” he said.
Another church discovered the same thing while conducting a capital
campaign.
When campaign consultant Carol Darnley met with campaign leaders at
First Congregational Church in Ashfield, she led each meeting off with
Bible study.
“When I was training with other consultants over the last few years,
one thing I noticed was that the focus of their work would always end
up on tasks: deadlines, time lines, meeting the monetary goal,” she
said. “I felt that we needed to focus on the primary goal of serving
God, growing in our discipleship for Christ and celebrating God’s grace
in our lives. The monetary goal was almost secondary.”
|
A
Legacy
Prayer
written for the Capital Campaign of the First Congregational Church
UCC in Ashfield
Oh
Lord let our living example be
An everlasting Legacy,
Of our faith,
To family, friends and community.
This
is our church
With doors wide open to come and pray,
And hear God’s word,
And celebrate.
No
matter who you are
Or where you are from,
Let our church be
The place for all to come.
May
we be stewards who pass on to you,
The things that are precious,
The things we hold dear.
Our church, God’s house,
May it always be here.
Oh
Lord, let our living example be
An everlasting Legacy.
Amen |
Campaign
administrator Richard Pree said the work with Darnley laid the Biblical
foundation for the campaign leaders, which changed their approach.
One of the first things they did was assign a team to write a campaign
prayer.
“It
was instrumental. To some degree, what you are doing with a capital
campaign is a sales campaign. But by having the campaign prayer first,
the entire appeal was grounded in that,” he said.
It also affected the approach that campaign visitors used when calling
onchurch
members at their homes to hear and talk about their involvement in the
church and to ask them to participate in the campaign.
“It gave the people who did the visits an inner sense of confidence,”
Pree said. “I’m not sure that it changed the words they used, but it
gave them a sense that they were inviting people to participate in something
that was really great, rather than feeling like they had to apologize
for asking for money.”
The congregation, which has 100 members and 60 giving units, set a goal
of raising $110,000, in order to paint the church, put in a parking
lot and make the building accessible to the disabled. They ended up
raising about $125,000 in monetary and in-kind donations.
Both churches presented their experiences at a recent Conference-sponsored
event, “Transforming Stewardship: Opening hearts, minds and wallets.”
Associate Conference Minister for Stewardship Meredith Hutchison said
they were chosen to demonstrate that “what is foundational to stewardship
is a strong faith based in the Biblical concept of abundance and generosity.”
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