Rev. John Schauer answered his own question when he preached the first of eight monthly sermons last month based on Scriptural texts that support the Synod’s “Stewardship Principles.”
“I’m convinced these principles have all the right content for motivating our members for good stewardship and that my congregation [St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Ida Grove, Iowa] has the resources, but I wanted help with teaching the principles,” Schauer told Reporter the week after he delivered that sermon.
Earlier this year, Schauer called Rev. Larry Reinhardt, director of Stewardship Ministry for LCMS District and Congregational Services (DCS), asking how he could get that help in teaching the eight principles the Synod’s 1998 convention adopted.
In that resolution, the convention “encourage[d] all members of congregations, entities, agencies, and auxiliaries to study carefully these articulated biblical stewardship principles and use them as guidelines for all stewardship education and fund-raising activities.”
“I told him we’d get right on it,” Reinhardt said of his conversation with Schauer.
What resulted is a new PowerPoint presentation from Stewardship Ministry, available for free download from the Web, with 20 pages of leaders’ notes that include comments on the scriptural passages backing up each of the eight principles. It was these leaders’ notes and Bible passages that led Schauer to develop his series of sermons – what he calls “sermonic Bible studies.”
“It’s an excellent resource — exactly what I was looking for to help me teach our members the principles,” Schauer said.
“What on earth are you doing for heaven’s sake?” is the title of that PowerPoint presentation posted on the DCS-Stewardship Ministry site at www.lcms.org/stewardship.
Reinhardt noted that the Synod’s Biblical Stewardship Principles have been translated into French, Portuguese, and Spanish, and also are available on the Web in versions that target various age groups, beginning with early childhood.
Another new PowerPoint available on the Web from Stewardship Ministry is “Connecting Money and Mission.”
It is designed, according to Reinhardt, “to help congregational leaders and members make an attitude shift that results in a more effective connection of mission and money.”
“With these and the other resources we produce,” he said, “we want to help God’s people develop into maturing stewards who do the right things for the right reasons and strive for excellence in all they do.”
Posted Oct. 27, 2005
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