BE CREATIVE YEAR-ROUND
SECOND QUARTER OF THE YEAR
Last
week, I starting looking at Vanco’s creative list as a year-round stewardship
idea. This list is part of the last of eight rules for effective church
leadership laid out in the booklet put out by VANCO, titled The Complete
Guide to Church Stewardship. It was to BE CREATIVE. In being creative,
My
breakdown of their list is below. For the second quarter of the year (April,
May and June), I am providing some additional ideas below.
January First Fruits
February The Gift of Love - Our Brothers and Sisters Keeper
March Ministry Team Spirit
April Miracles
and Wonders
May It’s our Anniversary (heritage
Sunday)
June Planting Good Seeds
July Virtual Messages/Social Media
Sunday/The Conversion
August College Alumni Day
September The Unexpected/ Brick Layers
October Financial
Testimonies
November A
Praise of Thanksgiving
December The
Christmas Gift
The second quarter of the year would include Miracles
and Wonders; It’s Our Anniversary and Planting Good Seeds.
Miracles and Wonders – I know I find, and I
believe you do, that when there is a need, because of weather, or war or
something else, our people are generous. UMCOR (the United Methodist Committee
on Relief) is just one way our denomination responds, often as the first
responder, when there is a natural disaster and need. The church often takes
the lead. Our Conference has a Mission Central Hub that funds as a centralized
location to lead our churches in equipping “local churches to bring hope and
relief to their neighbors facing a socio-economic or natural disaster.” So much
is done here in our Conference and outside. There are miracles and wonders that
happen because of the church!
It’s Our Anniversary – Vanco mentions this
as an anniversary of a major milestone in the life of the church: 200 years,
etc. However, every year, on third Sunday of
May, The United Methodist Church is called to honor its heritage by
committing itself to the continuing call of God known and spread by Charles and
John Wesley, along with others the early Methodist movement reached and with
whose denominations we are all joined as The United Methodist Church. Often, we
celebrate the birthday of the church on Pentecost. In 2024, both Heritage
Sunday and Pentecost occur on the same day!
What an exciting way to honor the history of the Church, the
denomination, and of the local church!
Planting Good Seeds – There are a few
different ways to view this. One is to plant the good seeds of a new idea, a
new ministry, new fundraising. If good seeds are planted, then good ministry
will grow! Another idea is to focus on environmental protection and climate
change. Maybe conversation and understand around the United Methodist Social
Principles would open up some of our eyes to ideas that the church is involved
in!
So just a few more ideas; next week, I’ll visit
the third quarter of the year!
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