Stewardship Outreach for 2024
Beyond the Offering Plate: Toward a Holistic Approach to Stewardship
October 15 - November 12
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Drawing from a book by the same name that was edited by Adam J. Copeland, our Stewardship Series this Fall seeks to expand our vision of stewardship. It is not that stewardship does not involve the ways we think about and share our finances - it certainly does! But we miss out if we end there. In his introduction, Copeland writes of a friend who lamented:
Every once in a while, I discover that a word has kind of been hijacked. This happened to the words “orthodox” and “evangelical.” When people hear either word, they have a narrow, specific meaning that pops to mind, and that meaning usually doesn’t work for me. “Stewardship” has had the same fate. This grand word with sweeping implications for lives of living in communion with all creation, caring for the gifts God has given us…we have decided it really mostly applies to our money. What a total bummer. |
Over the course of 5 weeks, we will invite one another to look more broadly at stewardship; to think on our stewardship of money and finances, as well as our relationships, our privilege, our time, our community, and our work. During the series, we will be inviting you to pledge to the church so that we can plan ahead and dream big about the mission of Stone Church. But we also want you to make commitments to yourself, to God, to each other that shape the multitude of resources we have. Copeland writes, “Stewardship is a lived concept, most often resulting in sharing that surprises, compassion that complicates, and love that inspires.” We dare to hope that can come true among us!