STEWARDSHIP

What is the Stewardship Campaign?

Each year we hold a stewardship campaign and the usual reaction is, "Here they go again asking for money." Yes and no. The purpose of the stewardship campaign is to help you grow closer to God, to take the next step in furthering your faith, and to support the institution that helps you to grow closer to being like Christ. God knew that materialism would draw us away from him and that is why there are over 2,300 verses that deal with giving to God. The majority of Jesus’ parables deal with money and possessions. Matthew 6:24 says, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” He wants you to focus on eternal values and not the things that clutter your day to day life. One way of putting our focus on God is by tithing which is giving 10% of your income each week to Him. You are showing God that He has first place in your life when you set aside 10% of your income first before paying the bills, spending it on yourself, etc. If you pay God out of what is left, guess what, there is never anything left. God explains why that happens in Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” If you give God your leftovers, why would you expect to get His best for your life? You made your choice that God is an after thought and He is abiding by your choice. Will it be easy to tithe? No. Satan knows the buttons to push in your life to side track you from fully following God. In our country, materialism is one of those buttons.

The church is also tithing as an example to you. The Finance Committee decided that 5% of general income this year would be applied to apportionments. These are areas the Florida Conference requests that we join other United Methodist Churches in paying to cover local, district wide, state wide, national and international items. Information on these areas is available at the conference website www.flumc.org. Two of the apportionments have to be paid each year and we have paid them in full. We have paid about half of a third apportionment. At this time in 2008, we had not paid any apportionments.

The other part of the Stewardship Campaign is that we will build our church’s 2010 budget on what is pledged. The 2009 weekly budget is presented on the bulletin board in the narthex of the sanctuary. The steam puffs above the train show what came in the previous week. The tunnel represents how much of the budget was covered by that income. Many weeks this summer, we only covered the utilities and insurance for the church (the train engine) and little to none of the next car which represents the paid church staff. Our deficit is small compared to previous years as the various programs in our church have minimized their spending or did fundraisers to cover the cost of their activities or materials.

Prepare your hearts and minds by reading again the Stewardship devotionals that were in the Sunday bulletins during the month of September and pray for God’s guidance as we prepare to take the next step in our walk of faith.

“…Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” Malachi 3:9-10