Stewardship - St. Luke's Episcopal Church of Phillipsburg, New Jersey

"Give to the Most High as He has given to you, and as generously as you can afford. For the Lord is the one who repays, and He will repay you sevenfold." (Sirach 35:12-13)

Dear St. Luke's family member,

Over the past three weeks, we have emphasized the importance of giving back to God through our gifts of time, talent and treasure. We have done it with a skit about Stewardship, a sermon from Fr. Tom and a sermon from Bishop Mark. Woven into each of these weeks has been the message that God is an amazing presence in our lives, and that giving back is our way of showing our reliance upon God and our belief that the more we give, the more we realize we had.

For 2012, we're asking you to make a pledge of your time, talent and treasure by filling out a Time and Talent Card and a Pledge Card and returning it at either service for All Saints' Day on Sunday, Nov. 6^th. If you will not be here on the 6^th, we ask you that you mail it back to the church soon. The mailings went out on Monday, but if you do not get it or if you misplace it, you can download the forms with the links below.

The attached Time and Talent Card (Click HERE for online version) is the way that you literally sign up to try a new ministry (Coffee hour, Altar Guild, Acolyte, Layreader, etc.) and give back from the talents you have from God.

The attached Pledge Card (Click HERE for online version) is the tangible gift of your resources over the coming year.

This year, we began to talk about pledging in terms of "proportional giving," which is the name for giving a percentage of what you have been blessed with. In the case of treasure, it means offering a meaningful percentage of your household income. The biblical standard is to give 10% as a first fruits offering, which is the type of proportional giving called "tithing." While this may be new to some and hard to achieve initially, the goal of Stewardship is to "strive to tithe" by starting at a percentage that is maybe a stretch above where you were in 2011, and then trying to increase it in phases over time.

"Time" too is a gift that can be given as a percentage. Just think of the number of hours you have free in a given week and consider giving a percentage of that time to volunteering. We can definitely use some new people helping with some of our wonderful committees or activities.

Our enormous capacity to give dwells inside each of us from a very young age, and it's part of what makes us unique in God's creation. We thank you for being a devoted member of St. Luke's family, and for returning this at the services on the 6^th or by mail.

See you in Church, and may God bless you,

Vic and Ceil Zeno, and Lorrie Marine, Stewardship Co-Chairs

"All that we have and all that we are is a gift from God." Stewardship is our recognition of this basic tenet in our relationship with God. During a General Convention of the Episcopal Church, we upheld the idea that Stewardship is the primary work of Christians, since freeing ourselves from the love of "things" and relying upon God are vital to who and what we are. At St. Luke's, Stewardship is an all year long emphasis, since God blesses us ever day, all of the time.

"Annual Giving" is the particular time of year when we ask ourselves to let the church know how we plan to give back to God through St. Luke's for the coming year in terms of our time, talent and treasure. How we use these three things in the world is our response to the grace all around us.

Below you will find videos of our Stewardship skits for 2011. These skits were written by Margaret McGee, and they are wonderful. There are three sets of skits, each with three scene. Below a the scenes for e third and final act. They depict "Edythe" as the retiring chairperson of the Stewardship committee. Over the past two years of skits, she first met an angel when trying to figure out her pledge to her church. Then, she eventually becomes the chairperson and works faithfully within the committee to expand their vision of God's boundless grace. We have learned a lot from Edythe, and we hope you will too!