A message from Bruce
Rockwell,
Assistant to the Bishop for
Stewardship
Welcome to the stewardship pages of our diocesan website. We hope you will find resources here that will help you develop a year-round program of stewardship development and education. You'll find links to these documents below.
As the Bishop’s Assistant for Stewardship, you'll find my own theology of stewardship right below these links to stewardship materials. I hope you'll take the time to read it so you'll know how I understand stewardship.
And if you click here you'll find a bibliography of some of my favorite stewardhip resources.
15 New (and Old) Ideas about Year Round Stewardship Formation
Scroll down for these topics:
Some
Thoughts About Stewardship and
its Meaning in Our Lives
Putting
a Long-Term, Year-Round Stewardship
Program in Place
Conditions
for Effective Stewardship Education
and Development in the Parish
Stewardship
Commitment Programs That Contribute
to Conversion and Transformation
Stewardship
Components that Strengthen Your Commitment
Program
Click Here for all of the Parish Stewardship Documents in PDF format for downloading and printing.
Thoughts on Stewardship from Bruce
I understand stewardship as the way we live out our lives as children of God and as baptized members of God’s household here on earth. It is a way of life, a way of being in the world. It is an attitude in which we acknowledge that all that we have and all that we are is a gift from the loving God, who generously entrusts us with good gifts.
As we acknowledge who we are, stewards of God’s creation, and whose we are, disciples of Jesus Christ, we begin to live lives of stewardship. We become more generous, growing into the image of God. As we become more generous, we experience the grace of God in new ways. As we become people who give joyfully and thankfully to God through God’s church, we empower the Church for mission and ministry.
As we become stewards, we experience the sense of offering, of returning to God a portion of what God has so generously entrusted to us. As we make joyful offerings to God, we are drawn closer to God, and our spiritual lives are enriched.
It is for these reasons that it is important to develop a year-round process of stewardship education and formation. For these reasons we offer education throughout the year, not only as we approach the time of the stewardship commitment program, known by some as the annual pledge drive or campaign.
There are some who think stewardship is exclusively about the church’s need to receive. This is not true. Stewardship is about our need to give. If we are to become the people God created us to be, we will learn to be generous; we will become people who make joyful offerings to God.
There are some who think stewardship is only about money. It is about money and far more than money. It is about all of life. It is about creation. It is about relationships with our families and with others. It is about the way we use our time. It is about the way we care for our bodies. It is about all of life.
Stewardship is about money. Money is an important symbol of what we value in our lives. If we say we are generous but are not generous with our money, we fool ourselves. Stewardship is about being generous with every aspect of our lives -- our time, our talent, and our money. There are some who say our relationship with money is the chief spiritual issue of our lives.
What follows are links to resources that I pray will be helpful to you in developing a stewardship formation program that will be life-giving and transforming. It includes many of the steps your parish can take to broaden and deepen its understanding and practice of healthy stewardship.
Bruce A. Rockwell
Assistant to the Bishop for Stewardship
 Click Here for all of the Parish Stewardship Documents in PDF format for downloading and printing.
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Here are the many of the components of what we believe constitute an effective, long-term, year-round program of stewardship formation.
Click
Here for all of the Parish
Stewardship Documents in PDF
format for downloading and
printing. |
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Bill Yon, a fellow sojourner in the stewardship vineyard developed a list of conditions that we have found that contribute to effective stewardship development in the parish. With thanks to Bill for his work, here is that list.
Click Here for all of the Parish Stewardship Documents in PDF format for downloading and printing. |
Stewardship Commitment Programs Introduction: What
is the mission of the Church? How
does the Church pursue its
mission? What
is the duty of all Christians? From
the Catechism or “Outline
of Faith,”Book
of Common Prayer, The Church is in the Conversion Business The church’s mission is to help each one of us as we strive to allow God to draw us into a closer relationship with Our Creator. It is through stewardship education and development that the church can actually be in the conversion business. Stewardship is a means by which parishioners can strengthen and deepen their faith! Stewardship development consists of both education and commitment. Education is essential. But a commitment program is also essential since it is through the commitment we make that we live out our beliefs about stewardship. What follows are descriptions of four financial stewardship commitment programs. Each one of these programs will give you an opportunity to bring together a significant number of people from the parish for education about stewardship. Stewardship training, the opportunity to study scripture, pray, hear a witness, and think about a personal response, has proven to be the most effective way to develop more loving, more thankful, more generous disciples of Jesus Christ. |
Parish
Mission Statement
