|
|
|
FOUR KEY INITIATIVES that Address Real Concerns of Regional Church Leaders
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
CULTIVATING A STEWARDING COMMUNITY
Resources for Supporting Stewardship Cultivation in Congregations
|
| |
|
Support for Stewardship Cultivation:
Cultivating a stewarding community involves the re-orientation of attitudes and expectations, practices and habits, rules and structures. Such change requires not a quick fix, but long-term vision. Not a one-time program, but a system-wide and strategic formation process.
|
The greatest challenge facing the churches in North America today has to do with how we will address a cultural economy shaped by consumerism and self-centeredness with gospel-shaped lives of gratitude and generosity. In contrast to the cultural economy, God's economy is one of shared abundance, ruled by the promise of full and plentiful life lived in community. Christian stewardship involves cultivating a church that is shaped by God's economy, and that lives according to God's abundance.
|
 |
|
|
The Center's support includes three key elements:
|
Equipping Leaders
with biblical, theological, and practical resources for preaching, teaching, and cultivating their church.
|
|
Foundational seminar: Cultivating a Stewarding Community
- This pivotal seminar is intended for the judicatory: Judicatory staff, leaders, and teams join with pastors and key lay leaders. Groundwork is laid for a re-orientation in ways of thinking, perceiving, and behaving as a stewarding community in congregation and judicatory. The rich biblical understanding of stewardship is discovered afresh and its practical implications are explored. A range of resources are provided for pastors - for preaching, teaching, and cultivating the congregation. Assistance is given for forming a stewardship cultivation team to guide the re-orientation back home.
- Congregations are enlisted to enter into a stewardship cultivation process over the coming year.
- Each congregation sends a team with the pastor for two focused training events (described below).
|
Processes for Congregational Formation
for lives of gratitude and generosity.
|
|
Congregational formation: Stewards of the Household of God
- In this workshop congregation teams are introduced to a Bible study process for cultivating the congregation as a community of gratitude and generosity - a stewarding community. Teams receive practical help in planning for a congregation-wide formation process in the biblical understanding and practice of stewardship.
|
Local Planning
for long-term stewardship cultivation in the congregation.
|
|
Planning for stewardship cultivation: Developing Financial Stewardship
- In this workshop congregation teams are equipped with concepts and tools for creating a 3-year stewardship cultivation strategy for their church. Their strategy will embed stewarding community vision and practices throughout the congregation.
TOP OF PAGE
|
|
|
Cultivating a Stewarding Community - The Opportunity:
Cultivating a Stewarding Community offers a way for the judicatory to link arms with congregations to transform vision, and equip leaders, teams, and congregations for lives of overwhelming gratitude and overflowing generosity. The church has been given the unique, redemptive vision of the "household of God." This is a powerful and needed alternative to the prevailing, toxic world views based on fear, accumulation, and greed.
Cultivating Christian stewardship is a matter of learning to live within the norms and values of the Household of God. The very life and practice of the household of faith - the church - is intended to demonstrate the quality of life that God desires for the whole household, for all humanity. Christian stewardship involves at its root the cultivation of the church as a stewarding community.
|
A Partner in Ministry
The mission of the Center for Parish Development is to provide counsel and resources to facilitate the transformation of judicatory bodies and congregations toward a stewarding community - a community of overwhelming gratitude and overflowing generosity. The Center staff is eager to share its resources and experience honed over 38 years with churches across North America.
As you seek to support congregations through the renewal of vision and stewarding practices in your judicatory, let us be a partner with you.
TOP OF PAGE |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
