Ask the Matriarch - Stewardship in a Smaller Congregation

It is getting to be that time of year, isn't it?  This week's question invites us to think about and share resources for stewardship in smaller congregations.

I serve a small (and struggling financially) congregation.  The last two years (the two I've been here), we've done 'traditional' stewardship drives which have focused on money.  The response was about the same both years in terms of number of pledges/amounts pledged and I'm told about the same as previous years.  And I'm told, our financial situation is about what it has always been for our fairly young congregation.  (As in age as a congregation, not necessarily age of members.)  As our Stewardship Board talked more and more, we feel that this year, we don't plan to talk specifically about money or do a traditional drive.  Instead we want to spend some really intentional, hard-hitting, faith-building conversations around the Stewardship of our time.  Think more all-encompassing than filling out "Time and Talent Sheets."  If someone can tell our priorities by looking at our checkbook registers, how are our priorities shown by how the hours of our days our spent?  How many hours do we devote to serving God and other people?  (e.g. worship, volunteering at church or other organizations, etc) How do we use the hours of our day bringing glory to God?  (In our work lives, home lives, friendships, families, etc?)

I'm looking for resources to help us have these conversations or even just for me to help frame some sort of program/plan/intentional focus.  Any suggestions?

Thanks

From Martha, blogging at Reflectionary

In a similar effort, one effective tool was having people "show" how they donate their time and their talent during worship. For instance, we did a Children's Time that started as usual, but while I was talking, two of our Wednesday Wizards (retirement age men who got together every week to do handyman tasks around the facility) came down the center aisle with a huge ladder and started talking about changing a lightbulb. I had one of them on a mic. This surprised the congregation and led to a planned message about the variety of ways help is needed.

We did something similar with the choir. I had a quartet sing a line each of a hymn, then put the four parts together.

If your church has a mission project that has potential for being illustrative, think about a skit or presentation in worship. I think seeing your friends/neighbors doing something in person speaks volumes over letters and sermons on Stewardship. 

Lastly, consider recognizing people who volunteer for non-elected positions. People in the pews may have no idea who is doing that repetitive task, or what kind of relatively simple jobs need doing, until they see who does them. One year I pinned a carnation on everyone who did the non-elected jobs, whether they were one time for that year (painting a stairwell) or ongoing (coordinating our night at the Soup Kitchen). 

Hope this helps,

Martha

From the Crimson Rambler, who blogs here

Resources for the “stewardship campaign”.  Oh boy.  Lots of memories around this issue, some of them happy and some of them not quite.

Perhaps some of the strategies that support a financial campaign can be translated… the Narrative Budget, for example—or the “generic” log of a midweek day for the clergy – or the work/practices/habits of other congregations, other traditions (“the work being done elsewhere,” as the farmer said when he took the ostrich egg into the henhouse!!)
Traditional Christian responses to the conundrum of time, like the Benedictine model (1/3 work, 1/3 rest, 1/3 prayer)?  It can be a revelation to talk to spokespeople from other faiths entirely – Judaism, Islam, Sikhism all have insights that wouldn’t do us any harm!  

I remember a Sikh visitor describing his family’s daily prayer routine which included 45 minutes of prayer at the beginning of the day –and when we gasped at that, he said, “Now think about this.  You are about to step out of your home into a world which hasn’t even heard a RUMOUR that God is love.  You have to be READY.  Come to think of it, 45 minutes isn’t enough.  Best take the full hour.”

The thing I’ve always longed to do during a financial campaign …and never had quite the nerve, I guess, or the technical know-how…would be to make a candid, unedited video of the discussions of the Stewardship Committee – and just show it to the congregation.  Because the most cogent, sensitive, nuanced, passionate, EDIFYING  argument for financial support of the church to my mind has always been voiced “antiphonally” in those deliberations.  And perhaps that model would work, too, for talk about time and how time is spent, given…?

And from Muthah+, blogging here

Small congregations seem to have their own ideas about stewardship.  I have often found that even pledging is not the way that they necessarily respond to the needs of the congregation.  Folks tend to give toward initiatives rather than 'up their pledge.'  Your committee has already discussed what has worked before.  Talk to them about what you wish to do--concrete things that would prime the pump.  And then challenge them.  A friend made it fun by setting a goal and then promising to die her hair purple if they made it.  They made their goal with plenty to spare.  (She is all ready for Advent!)

Do you have some resources or ideas to offer?  Please join in the conversation by posting your comments below.

May you live in God's amazing grace,

revhoney