DISCIPLESHIP AND GENEROSITY WOVEN THROUGHOUT EVERYTHING

 

            I’ve been talking about how discipleship and generosity have to work together, which remains true, but I want to spend a little more time on generosity itself and how it doesn’t relate to just discipleship but to everything else.

            Generosity needs to be woven into everything in the life of the church! That includes children and youth ministry, women’s ministry, men’s ministry, adult discipleship, missions, outreach, everything.

            When planning worship, generosity needs to be taken into account as well, planning the offering, including how and when giving is mentioned and talking about the impact of people’s giving. I know that offering is often something that “just happens” during worship, but it is a very important part of worship. If giving is an act of worship (and it is), why don’t we spend as much time planning that act of worship, as we do prayer, music, scripture and message?

            How often have you sat in a worship service or viewed an online worship service and heard the same words, the same phrase, over and over introducing the offering. If that’s your experience, can you imagine how people who sit in the same church each week, and hear the same words at offering time respond? They probably stop listening, and, since their experience is the same old, same old, then they can make the same old offering as well!

            We have many seasons in our Christian year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, Ordinary Time, and the seasons leading into and out of all of them, but one common denominator is Giving Time! It happens every week, and it should be an integral part of worship.

            So don’t silo generosity out into one or two people who are “in charge” of stewardship, don’t make offering time a throw-away moment in service; let’s give it focus and attention and plan it in such a way that it has an impact—on worship, on generosity, on people, on the church, and on those whose lives are changed by the generosity of folks in your church!

 

Please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or susanranous@unyumc.org if you’d like to talk about this and how stewardship at your church can work together with discipleship and the intentionality of it everything!