Blogs and Articles
To encourage worshipful, generous-hearted living
For the most recent blog or to see articles by dates, look down the list on the right.
Written for “Live Free” issue of Giving: Growing Joyful Stewards in Your Congregation Republished in Ecumenical Stewardship Resources e-newsletter 6/26/2015 500 million people use Facebook, half of them logging in every day. Facebook and emails are most popular among Baby Boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) in the U.S and Canada, and Baby Boomers…
Read MoreThe following was spoken by Heather Linsley, Worship Leader on February 28th, in my home church. I share her words and prayers with her permission. – Betsy Schwarzentraub Written by Heather Linsley For those of us who have secretly (or not so secretly) wished we had just one more hour in the day in which…
Read MoreJames A. Harnish, Abingdon Press, 2009 Written for the “Live Simply” (2016) issue of Giving: Growing Joyful Stewards in Your Congregation published with permission In Simple Rules for Money, James Harnish offers Methodist founder John Wesley’s guidelines for financial living, still strikingly appropriate for us today. “Wesley’s rules are not about fund-raising for the church,”…
Read MoreSpread your good news! Plan the strategy for sharing your congregation’s narrative budget over the year. Consider any of the following ways of telling or sharing your good news: Use posters and bulletin inserts that proclaim the ministry. Highlight one ministry area a month, or feature a ministry area in weekly bulletins. Have first-hand testimonials…
Read MoreHow can we build a Narrative Spending Plan, or Narrative Budget? Church leaders and pastors are familiar with the process of establishing a line-item budget, but a Narrative Budget is done a different way. It starts by forming a small group of church leaders who are familiar with the church’s current ministries, including the pastor.…
Read MoreWhat a gift it is to meet and share with colleagues across the U.S. and Canada through the “Stewardship and Culture” online course! One of the topics in our most recent conference call was about churches that are not tied to a specific church building but are literally “on the move” in the community. One…
Read MoreInspiration can come in some surprising forms. An article in the January-February 2016 issue of Smithsonian left a lump in my throat. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen archaeological finds in seminary, so I was pleased to see pictures of Galilean treasures unearthed in recent years. One item is particularly intriguing: a quartzite…
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