ECF Vital Practices September 2014: Sharing Our Gifts
When you think about stewardship, do you associate it with giving or with sharing?
Giving suggests a transaction, a handing off, while sharing implies relationship, a connection. God invites us into relationship – with God and with each other – and encourages us to open our eyes and to see what God is showing, telling, and teaching us.
This month Vital Practices articles share stories of the ways congregations or individuals are responding to God’s invitation. As contributor Demi Prentiss observes, “Our response can open the door to God’s multiplying our gifts, allowing them to bear life-giving fruit in the lives of others, in ways we may never have the privilege of seeing.”
Our September stories include:
“Attitude of Gratitude” by Demi Prentiss invites us to consider stewardship as how we respond to what God is trying to show us and tell us and teach us. How can we adopt the practice of an “attitude for gratitude” to help us focus more clearly on the gifts God has given us? Este artículo es disponible en español aquí.
Across our church, congregations are learning to do more with less. In “Become What You Receive,” Greg Syler continues the story of the ways St. George’s Valley Lee is re-learning how to be church, how to become the literal Body of Christ. Este artículo es disponible en español aquí.
Peggy Dahlberg’s “From Outreach to Relationship” shares the story, not only of what happened when Christ Church Cranbrook made the decision to focus their outreach efforts more narrowly, but also how the congregation’s commitment to this approach has helped it thrive through several changes of clergy leadership.
In “Do Not Give Money to God,” Sandra Swan challenges us to change our thinking about why and how we give. This fall, at St. Paul’s in Greenville, North Carolina, members are being asked to put the emphasis on doing, rather than giving, a formula Sandra maintains helps transform “money into ministry.”