Rethinking Our Practices

On Tuesday afternoon we continued Rethinking Stewardship conference I attended.  (parts 1 & 2)  After lunch we transfered to Rethinking Our Practices: How do we talk about stewardship?  How do we enable other's to give? What messages are we giving to others by our practices about stewardship?

Mark Allen Powell, Ed Kruse and Mary Sue Dreier led us in this discussion.  This was actually the second time I had seen Mark speak, the first at bishop's convocation this last fall (which apparently I didn't blog about).  After hearing him in October I got (and read) his book Giving to God.  Now much of his talk this time was an abbreviated version of what I heard in October and read in his book, but he is an excellent speaker and was very entertaining after lunch.  His main point was "what are the stewardship practices that you are doing actually saying about stewardship?"  As leaders in the church, pastors and others often do not want to talk about stewardship and the importance of giving and then we wonder why others are not giving.  We need to talk about money in church, and not just about giving to the church but also about managing, using and acquiring our money in godly ways.

He was followed by Ed, the director of stewardship in the ELCA, who discussed the need for story when talking about stewardship.  People are more apt to give to charities that they relate to, they are more apt to give to God when they hear how giving generously has changed the lives of others.  Story in our stewardship practices are important but often forgotten.

Mary Sue Dreier was our last speaker in what turned into a very long day (talking about anything for 10 hours  gets long).  Mary Sue talked about the future of practices.  Is pledging still a good way to ask people to give money?  How can we get away from the offering plate and fulfilling the budget in order to help people grow as stewards.  We all know there are more ways to give then just by putting a check or cash into the offering plate, and as we talk more about being stewards and stewardship, we will find many new ways opening to us.

Some questions I thought of during this conversation:

• How do I feel when people talk about money with me?
• How can I better discuss, preach on and instill finances and stewardship into my conversations without others thinking that I'm looking down on them?
• How have I learned to be a steward?  How can I teach others through my actions?