Here are some resources you might find useful for your church's annual giving commitment campaign:

• General Board of Discipleship's Annual Stewardship Campaigns web page: Here you will find twelve "packaged campaigns" -- complete with descriptions and lists of contents -- that have been used in thousands of churches across the country, with excellent results. Included is New Consecration Sunday which has been widely used in our annual conference.
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's (ELCA) "Stewardship: Financial Response Methods" web page: This surperb site is packed with resources that include: a feature that helps you discern wich "response method" is right for your congregation; FREE, downloadable "Stewardshop" workshop recordings; information on the ecumenical resource "Giving: Growing Joyful Stewards in Your Congregation"; year-round financial giving programs; small church programs, and much more.
• Presbyterian Church (USA) -- "Selecting a Stewardship Theme": An annotated compilation of ecumenical, annual giving resources centered around biblical themes (e.g., "That All May Have Life in Fullness").

At the 2009 Annual Conference Karen Bolin presented a PowerPoint slide program on stewardship. This resource is available for you to use in your church with a finance or administrative committee, or even the whole church.

It is attached  below in two formats. First as a PowerPoint slideshow, and second as a PDF document that includes the images, and Karen's script. Even if you don't have PowerPoint on your computer, you should be able to print the script.

Attachments:

File	Description	File size
Karen Bolin for CFA 2009 2.pdf	Stewardship Printable Document	62 Kb
Karen Bolin for CFA 2009 2.ppt	Stewardship PowerPoint Program	220 Kb

Stewardship of Mind: Discerning which Spiritual Disciplines Help Us Most to Follow Jesus

The measurable IQs of my son and daughter are about 100 points apart.  I say “measurable” because it is difficult to truly assess the mental capacity of a person with severe autism like my son, Thomas.  He has trouble understanding and answering questions, so even though he has some skills like memorizing and reciting that would have been valued in the age of oral tradition, he is unable to communicate how much he comprehends.  My daughter, Julia, on the other hand, excels at communication.  Language and logic come naturally for her, and so do all other skills necessary for doing well on standardized tests.  I can’t  remember one in which she didn’t score in the 98^th percentile or above.  Neither can I remember one in which my son scored above the 2^nd percentile.  So although they come from the same gene pool, the same household, and the same school district, they are on opposite ends of the intellectual bell curve.  Julia thrives at Stanford University while her brother struggles to learn the most basic skills in a self-contained special education classroom.

What does this have to do with stewardship?

Stewardship of Christmas: Celebrating and Giving to Others in a Way that Honors Jesus

The season of giving is upon us, and with it are the usual Christmas questions: To whom should we give? What should we give? How much should we give? Since this article is part of a series on Christian stewardship, you are probably expecting me to write, “Give to the poor” and “Give what is truly needed” and “Give as much as you can.” After all, Jesus told his disciples that what we do for the “least” among us we do for him (Mt. 25:40). When we reach out to the downtrodden and outcast, we honor Christ, and that is certainly what Christmas should be about.