FROM THE PASTOR
Giving From the Heart
Giving From the Heart” was the theme of our successful year-end offering which helped move our year-long budget deficit into a surplus. We also shared our plans for regular support of the ministry of St. Luke’s in the weeks and months of 2023. Our Strategic Plan calls for a year long stewardship emphasis in which we help one another grow in our life as stewards of God’s graciousness in our lives. There are four major elements of this stewardship emphasis.
- God teaches us. In scripture God teaches us about “first fruits giving,” tithing, cultivating grateful hearts. In Scripture we learn of God’s amazing grace for each of us through the death and resurrection of Jesus and how to live lives of gratitude through our time, talents and treasure. We will dig into God’s Holy Word as God teaches us about gratitude and abundance.
- We teach each other. Each of us has a story to tell. About what our church means to us. About how we are serving God in our lives. An Eagle Scout builds a compassion box which will be placed outside our church, filled with food and other things to sustain difficult lives. Someone rings a bell to enhance our worship. Another brings communion to homebound members. Another readies our altar for our Sunday Family Meal. A high school student joins our church. So many stories, so many acts of ministry. We will tell our stories this year.
- Our budget is a mission document. We will get in touch with the ministries we serve, locally and globally. Each budget line is a story. We will see budget line items which support our building and staff as an investment in spaces for grace and mission. Mission Interpretation is what we call telling the stories (like Missionary Wal Reat in South Sudan last week) of the difference we make because we support the mission of St. Luke’s. We will see that we are better together in disaster response, global mission, resettling refugees, feeding the hungry, starting new congregations and so much more.
- We are transparent and practical. We will communicate frequently how we are doing in our collective stewardship together. How is our giving in relation to our budget; in relation to last year’s giving? We will share workshops in practical ways we can enhance our giving: workshops on using our IRAs to fund our giving; planned giving; fund raising and more.
Your stewardship team is John English, Tom Malin, Lisa Ramsey, Paul Rooney, Debbie Sanger, Pastor John Schumacher and me. We welcome your ideas, your stories, and your participation.
We encourage “Giving From the Heart” because we serve a gracious and generous God.
Pastor Stephen Paul Bouman
