Happy Stewardship Season!

It's stewardship season! Don't groan. This year I promise not to talk about stewardship in every Beacon Lite from now until mid November. Yet, stewardship is important. I try to bring up the topic regularly. This is the only life we have. That makes our management of it, our stewardship, critical.

Now to the message. A stewardship campaign is not a capital campaign. We typically conduct capital campaigns to cover expenses too great for or substantially different from our operating budget. Such things as replacing a pipe organ, adding technological improvements to a worship space, renovating an educational wing, or building a new mission house usually involve a capital campaign. In a capital campaign we make the case for an "over and above" expense and invite everyone to make a one-time contribution.

Some people approach a stewardship campaign like that. They look at the details of the annual budget and try to discern their "fair share." But stewardship campaigns support our annual budget and reflect not "over and above" expenses but what it takes to conduct our ministries and take care of our staff and property. Stewardship campaigns help to generate the revenue that makes us who we are as a community. Not everyone who pledges or contributes rings a bell, participates in Super Wednesday, comes to worship at 11 a.m. on Sundays, meets with a book discussion group, or belongs to the Men's Discovery Group. But all that and more is part of what makes us who we are. Our annual budget supports all of that; it allows us to answer God's call.

We now have a fiscal year that runs from July 1 of one year to June 30 of the next. That means that we currently live on pledges made last fall and will enter next year with the support of pledges made this fall. That gives our leaders opportunities to adjust our budget as needed. It also gives all of us an opportunity to ask not, "What's my fair share?" but "What do I want to give to the ministries of Jesus Christ to show my gratitude for my blessings?" Yes, our pledges keep the lights on, but they also express our faith and gratitude. Approaching our pledge as an act of faith and gratitude, however, makes it more meaningful and joyful.

Please take a look at our stewardship brochure and note how much we are and do as a congregation. Then, instead of placing a price tag on those ministries and trying to discern a "fair share," reflect on our gratitude for the ways God uses and blesses us, think about the joy and comfort that faith and this community of faith bring us, and make a pledge that reflects thanksgiving for those blessings. Some of us have more time than money to give. Others of us have little time but more financial means. What matters most is a contribution that means something to us and expresses our faith. Happy Stewardship Season!

Grace and Peace,

LP