A forward-thinking editor would have organized an article for this Election Day that somehow connected stewardship and politics. Whoops! I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that you may be happy to avoid election coverage in your weekly stewardship email. If so, I have some good news: today’s fine post by Hans Dahl is not election-related!…
Assumptions do not serve the church well. I once filled-in as a guest preacher in a congregation, and after the children’s sermon indicated to the kids that they could go back to their pews. But they wouldn’t budge. So, I walked back up to the pulpit. When I got there, I looked down, and the…
I’m afraid to say it, but once the aisles brimming with Halloween candy are cleared, they’ll probably be filled with…Christmas items! I’m shaking my head just thinking about it, but the holidays are upon us — or, at least, retailers want us to think they are. In today’s post, Rev. David Loleng considers what simplicity…
Much of the tumult of this election season is, in a roundabout way, all about work. There’s the work of immigrants. There’s the question of steel workers, coal miners, and factory workers in this country. There’s the work of low paid assembly line laborers in other countries with whom we have trade agreements. (And I…
The week before the seminary started its fall term, I was traveling in Scotland. My grandmother lives there and was in the hospital. I hadn’t seen her, or several other of my close Scottish relatives, for years. And yet, I hesitated when setting up my automatic email response on my seminary email. “Should I admit…
When I taught at Concordia College, I often found myself discussing the concept of vocation with students. They usually had great plans to find work after college that exactly aligned with their many passions. While I never wanted to squash dreams exactly, I sometimes shared with them a story Craig Barnes tells in his book,…
Today’s newsletter focuses on a growing area of fundraising and non-profit giving: Giving Days. Henri Nouwen once wrote, “Fundraising is proclaiming what we believe in such a way that we offer other people an opportunity to participate with us in our vision and mission.” In their own often tech-savvy way, Giving Days are prime opportunities…
In recent months, I’ve repeatedly been drawn to questions that connect race and stewardship. To blindly approach white privilege as a “gift” to be stewarded seems simplistic, and yet the presence of racial bias, inequities, and the church’s continued role in them, means we must respond in some way. Last summer, after the shooting at…
I’m happy to introduce Alex Benson this week, a student at Luther Seminary and editorial assistant for this CSL newsletter. Alex’s post is a great example of how our students have experienced stewardship before seminary, and how that broad vision shapes stewardship in the classroom. Each newsletter goes through several layers of editing, uploading, and…
Do you have a story of a time when a pastor — maybe even you — tried to shock the congregation, but went too far? The challenge for pastors is that “too far” is in the eye of the beholder. As Jesus taught time and again, one person’s scandal is another person’s holy justice. I…
It’s possible to develop bad habits in our church leadership. For some of us, I’m afraid one of these habits is complaining about the giving habits of young adult members. Rarely do these conversations appreciate the realities of underemployment, student loans, and other economic shifts. But, as Grace Duddy Pomroy points out below, there’s a…
In one of the final assignments for this summer’s Money and Mission of the Church course, I asked students to make a Top Ten list of stewardship takeaways from the semester. While students certainly spoke about ways to ask for funds, most of the lists began and ended with theology. Like Erin Weber-Johnson’s essay today,…
I was recently reading through a congregation’s annual report (hey, I’m a seminary professor, what else do we do for fun?) and I noted the report broke down five different methods of giving: electronic, giving kiosk, plate offerings, non-cash stock gifts, and “bill pay” automatic checks. Twenty years ago, only a few of these existed…
How does your church measure “enough?” Does the yardstick look different depending on who’s using it? The challenge with measures is we can sometimes miss the forest for the trees. When we do so, we end up making idols of numbers, measures, and data. In today’s post, Natalie Hall reflects on an experience of measuring…
I sometimes joke with students that “committee meetings” rarely come up in call stories. Further, most of our students at Luther don’t discern a call to Christian public leadership because of their love for finances and accounting. For these reasons, they might indeed hope to avoid attending Finance Committee meetings in their future calls. I’m…
