Specific Stewardship Materials...

If you are already looking to get down to brass tacks on a stewardship campaign, here are several links that might give you ideas, or from which you might order.

"Saints Alive" materials are produced by the Ecumenical Stewardship center (the PCUSA is a partner in that). They come out with a theme every year. Your church could use it as is, or use it as a jumping off point and tweak it to suit you. It comes with pretty comprehensive theme for every year.  Materials from previous years are available if you like those themes better. The first copy of this year's material is free. I'll have a 2011 book to look at at the presbytery meeting if you want to look at before you order.

http://www.stewardshipresources.org/WebStore/tabid/55/List/1/SortField/0/Default.aspx

The UCC has stuff that your church might can take and use. The downside is that all the purchased options have UCC logos on them...but you might get some ideas (like you might use pics of your own congregations with the "Count yourself Blessed" theme). I find their theology very close to ours.
http://www.ucc.org/stewardship/stewardship-resources/


Slightly less complete for you, but good ideas for themes and an interactive feature that lets people share their ideas is from the Luther Seminary website.
http://www.luthersem.edu/stewardship/database.aspx


GBOD which is the United Methodist site has some stewardship resources. Much of theirs is geared toward the pastor, but snoop away. They link to another site that provides good graphics if any of their themes might connect with what you want to do.
http://www.leway.net/StewProgs.html 

We hope to provide some ideas from the presbytery as well, but it may take some time and if you are ready to start now, perhaps this will be helpful.

Deliberate Choice...

Individualism in America is revered...and non-existant.  Even the agreement that that we are "individualistic" is agreed upon as a value by the entire society.  So, really, as part of being in the world, and especially as part of being called to be different from the world, we need to be aware of our culture to the best of our ability.  That is hard.  There's a great story that illustrates the point...the little fish swam quickly home to his mom to tell her about his adventures that day.  "Mom, I jumped out of the water and you won't believe what I saw...it's beautiful...rocks, trees, birds."  And the mom says, "What do you mean you jumped out of the water?  What's water?"

We think we are making decisions that are well-reasoned and objective, we certainly understand all the influences shaping our thinking.  The reality is, we are constantly shaped by what's happening in our culture, most of which we are unaware of.  So what is happening in our culture relevant to stewardship issues?  According to the author of an interesting historical account of money and American Protestantism:

...American Protestantism has entered an era where--at least at the margin of residential growth--a denoninational family affiliation is perceived as a drag on, rather than a strength for, a local church. (p. 203)

This has happened accidentally.  Wealthy suburbs and extremely low interest rates in the 1990's and 2000's provided for a good bit of new church construction.  People independent of denominational structures were able to move more quickly and be more "specific" in their brand, and for every one mainline church built, several local and entrepreneurial organized churches are established.  That was no one's deliberate decision...just a response to opportunity..and a bit of the down side of working together in an endeavor--it always takes groups longer to move.

The author claims that the fact that the "new" religious outlets are not denominational has a couple of significant impacts.  First, the character of congregational life will be reshaped.  Mainline denominations will lose members, but also, because most of these new churches are independent, fewer people will understand life in church as something that serves beyond itself to a "regional, national, or even international expression."  The second major impact is a reshaping of existing denominational congregations.  If historical patterns hold true (and that is likely), the denominational churches are likely to become less denominational in practice, claiming for themselves a "independent" identity and becoming more critical and less supportive of denominational structures.

Sounds familiar to me.  Does it to you?  Certainly denominational budgets show that trend.  There is no doubt that some denominational structures make us unwieldy as churches trying to respond to immediate need and significant change all around us.  Certainly "reformed and always reforming" is a good thing.  But  I think these patterns raise some significant questions that we need to think about.

1. It is easy for wealthy areas to redefine, reinvent, and support new churches that are not necessarily denominational but support the needs of the community.  But poor people do not start new churches, they join existing ones, if they are able to attend at all.  Does Christianity become a religion of the middle and upper classes?  And the related question, does Christianity become a religion of the suburban, because small churches in rural areas are not likely to have the resources (financial or people) to build large independent churches.
2. Is it a sound understanding of our identity as a people of God to focus our existence and ministry to our local area, assuming that regional, national, or international ministries should be done by others, that ministry should only be local, or that we have nothing to learn from partnering with ministry outside of our local area?
3. Specifically as Presbyterians, what does our connectional system say about us and about who we think God is, should we be aware of that and be able to articulate it, and do we want to live into those understandings or should they change?
4. How deliberate and educated do we want/need to be about what our denomination is (and not just one or two divisive issues, but the whole spectrum of identity) and how to we reform ourselves to keep the best and remove the "unwieldy?"

We are well on our way as a culture to losing denominational identities.  Perhaps that is a good thing.  But perhaps, we should attend to that change in a way that chooses how we redefine ourselves and doesn't let culture choose for us without our knowledge.  We may find beauty and meaning beyond the denominational waters, but we may also find that the waters in which we swim give us life and support in ways that we never imagined because we never became aware until it was too late.

More Fun Stuff...

From the 1950's...bulletin fillers from a book titled Better Church Finance:

• It is never safe to trust God's business to the man who neglects his own.
• When a man is asked to become a tither, he is asked to establish as a life principle the habit of putting God first.
• There are no recored of failure among tithing churches.  The examples are legion.  (Though everything I read indicates there has never been a tithing church...)
• If a church has a lot of "flinty givers," it may take a lot of knocks to get the "fire."
• Wonder what the Lord thinks when a woman with a $20 hat gives five cents to his glory.
• Some people try to get something for nothing and then kick about the quality.
• Our credit in heaven is not determined by what we give but by what we have left.
• There is enough of the Lord's money in the purses of Christians on Sunday morning to do all the work God expects them to do--if He could get his own money back!
• Our money will testify concerning us in the Judgment.  Whether our checkbook is to be summoned by the defense of the prosecution depends upon us.  We are the ones who make His Testimony for Him.  he will only say what our stewardship tells Him to say.

Just for Fun...

From a businessman in the 1920's:

$1 spent for lunch lasts five hours.

$1 spent for a necktie lasts five weeks.

$1 spent for a cap lasts five months.

$1 spent for water power or a railroad grade lasts five generations.

$1 spent in the service of God lasts for eternity.