Giving is…recognizing God’s priorities

Teaching Children About Money

Learning how to handle money responsibly was a value my wife and I wanted to pass on to our three children.  Yet, where does one go for appropriate “curriculum” for such teaching?  We decided to develop our own system.  Among the values related to money management that we wanted to teach were:

1. Learning to give to God and others.
2. Learning to save.
3. Learning to spend responsibly.

As a fundamental learning experience, we provided each of our children with three banks, as soon as they were old enough to receive money of their own.  One was the “spending” bank.  One was the “saving” bank.  One bank was for “giving.”  The kids were urged to divide whatever money they receive among the banks.  And this they did without complaint.

The plan worked beautifully for a number of years, until one day my oldest son came home from Sunday school.  

Facing me, Chris declared, “Dad, you’ve been lying to me!”  I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about!

“You’ve always told me I should give away one third of my money.  Today in Sunday school, they told us to give only 10 percent!”

By: Wayne Barrett

The Abingdon Guide to Funding Ministry, Vol. 2

by Donald W. Joiner and Norma Wimberly

Copyright 1996 by Abingdon Press

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey

Web Content Producer

www.umcgiving.org

lcarey@umcom.org

Faithful Steps with Others

"Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people, and your God my God." --Ruth 1:l6b

I honestly never preached from Ruth until this past fall, It was then that the story grabbed me. Here is Ruth, a Moabite, a foreign woman, who makes the decision to stick with her mother- in-law, Naomi and journey to
Naomi's homeland. Ruth's husband is dead Naomi is without husband or son, so she decides to go to her ancestral home in Bethlehem. Naomi seeks to convince her daughter-in-law, Ruth, to stay behind with her own people, but Ruth insists on going with Naomi. Ruth steps out in faith. One faithful step at a time without knowing what is fully before her.

The story continues with Naomi guiding Ruth into a marriage with Boaz. It turns out that Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David. She is also listed in the ancestry of Jesus in the gospels. Ruth did not know this
at the time she stepped forward with Naomi. She just lived in faith that the two women could do more together than they could apart.

We are never sure about the future, but each faithful step with others can make a difference. Your dollars joined with other dollars can be the source of a scholarship for a young woman who may be the next bishop
of Mississippi. Your dollars may provide the bed net that prevents Malaria in Africa and saves the life of a child who could become the next Albert Einstein. Your dollars joined with other dollars may provide a camping experience for a child who will encounter the love of Jesus Christ for the first time and this child may be your future pastor.

We may never see the result of our next faithful steps in all of its fullness, but taking that next step with others--The Power of WE--may make all the difference.

-- Rev. Mike Hicks, Hattiesburg DS, MS Annual Conference

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

Lessons from the Kresge Kids

And the Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain. --Isaiah 25:6

They started praying weeks before the van left to pick up children who had been invited to Anna Kresge UMC in Cedartown. They weren't sure who would be waiting to get on it, but get on it they did. Kresge had an all too common problem: few children were attending their church. But a committed group, including several senior adults, decided to extend the table and reach out to children not reached by any church. The van returned loaded with children, and then went back out for even more children waiting to come. 

On a June summer evening, Kresge went from an average of 10 children to 40! The church now welcomes 65 children, and pastor Rebecca Holmes tells me adult attendance is growing too. Three vans go out each week, including the van from nearby Aragon UMC.  Has it been perfect? Hardly. Have these children increased worship attendance or giving? The jury is still out. But lives have been forever changed, including the adults who now consider Wednesdays the highlight of their week.

I offer some lessons learned from the Kresge Kids; they offer unique insights on those who are not yet at the table.    

It starts with prayer:  Prayer makes the impossible, suddenly possible. Wesley was right, God is for us. Are we praying like we believe that?

Children are important to God:  They are Jesus’ future church. Do whatever it takes to make them a priority ministry. The church they inherit will be very different from the one we know today. We are going to have to do things differently.  

Senior adults are a powerful resource and there are children in your community not being reached by anyone. It is all about the kids. Is Sunday the best day, or would Wednesday be a better day? For Kresge, it was Wednesday evening. For the unchurched, and for many in the fold, Sunday mornings are just hard. We have some work to do on why church matters.  


-- excerpt from Sharon Yancey, founder of The Matthew Initiative, a non-profit foundation that provides the seed funding and staff expertise to help new churches and churches who need to grow again, start a dynamic children's ministries program. Contact her at Yancey.Sharon@gmail.com.

North Georgia Annual Conference

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

Be faithful

“…fix your attention on God.    You’ll be changed from the inside out.”

  (Romans 12:2 The Message)

To give is to Respond Gratefully

My dad would sit down at the kitchen table on Saturday evenings, write a check, and put it in the envelope.  Then he would set it on the corner of the kitchen counter next to his car keys.   That’s it.  He never said anything to my brother and me about stewardship, about giving to God, about the importance of sharing.  He just did it.  He never missed.  He still does it every Saturday night.  It’s a powerful memory, and it continues. 

I did not inherit my dad’s organizational skills, nor more honestly, his faithfulness.  I have been known to search my purse for a pen while the ushers were coming down the aisle, or to fill out my check for the offering while the pastor was recapping the Gospel lesson.  If by some chance the plate went by before I finished – more times than I care to admit – that week’s offering never made it anywhere. 

But I still remember that envelope sitting by the car keys.  And some weeks I lay my own witness on the kitchen counter for my kids to see.  I might even write a bigger check to “catch up.”  It’s not a have-to it’s a want-to something from my past that allows me to be faithful. 

- Barbara DeGrote, from The Abingdon Guide to Funding Ministry, Vol. 3 by Donald Joiner and Norma Wimberly

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

“Thank you, God

“Thank you, God, for the beauty of this summer day.” Those were the opening words to the blessing that my eldest son prayed over the burgers and fries we shared at a local restaurant. After he finished the rest of his prayer, the power of those opening words, “Thank you, God” reminded me of the importance that gratitude has in the life of God's people.

It's very easy to let personal anxieties and worldly expectations drive the way we live our lives. Take a moment sometime and talk to a stranger in line at the grocery store or at the airport or at the ball field and sooner or later they will reveal the source of a fear or an anxiety in their lives. As a pastor, you learn very quickly that, at best, fear and anxiety can cast a pall on life, muting its beauty and vitality; at worst, as the Garden of Eden narrative teaches, it will destroy relationships and community.

In the third chapter of Paul's letter to the church in Colossae, he reminded the followers of Jesus that their lives – individually and corporately - were to be evidence that Christ is alive. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is found in verse 15: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”  I believe Paul wrote that because he learned that adopting the posture of gratitude is a powerful gateway to experience God's grace and God's peace. Gratitude opens our hearts to the revelation of how God has indeed blessed us.

Now, there are a myriad of ways that we can experience that manifest goodness of God; but I experience God's goodness best through the people he has placed in my life. When I think about my wife, Jennifer and our children I am grateful for God's constant companionship through their patience and constant love. When I think about the wonderful lay people in the churches we've served, I am grateful for the church and for the way God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. When I think about the Bishops, superintendents and pastors who through the years offered me direction, accountability and fellowship I am grateful that God did not let me be in ministry by myself.

God's grace is abundant in our lives, my friends. Be grateful and you'll see it. Even if it is over burgers and fries.

Grace to you and peace...
Rev. Herzen Andone

-- excerpt from a reflection by Herzen Andone is superintendent of the Northwest District. 

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

Worship

"God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and Truth." 

- John 4:24

"Praise the Lord! How good it is to sing praises to our God; for He is gracious,
and a song of praise is fitting."
- Psalm 147:1

It was Sunday morning and the congregation of a small village United Methodist church was gathering for Sunday school and worship. Dewey was in their midst and in his usual jovial, spirited form. He always had a tale to tell and a laugh to share. It was time for the Sunday school assembly, and Mrs. Ritter's piano music ushered them in.

They opened with prayer and then an old favorite hymn. As usual, Dewey sang with great vigor and feeling. His singing was always loud, spirited and with gusto. He knew all the words to all the hymns, so he could sing unencumbered. There was only one problem. He could not carry a tune in a number three washtub. The old folks used to tell stories about the days before central heat and air, when the windows would be open in warmer weather. The village dogs would join in the chorus-howling when Dewey sang.

After the assembly, we would go to the Sunday school classes. There were two adult classes-the young adult class and the older adult class. Dewey went to the young adult class because he said he didn't want to go into the class with "all those old folks." Dewey was in his late 70s.

After Sunday school there was worship, of course. Once again Dewey sang to the Lord with exuberance. The church was only 75 feet from a railroad track. A train came through once while we were singing a hymn, and the only voice I could hear was Dewey's, but the train sounded better. I often wondered why someone didn't ask him to hush, but nobody ever did.

I remember being back at that church a few Sundays after Dewey died, and I missed his singing. There seemed to be  so little spirit in the worship. The praise seemed so weak and everybody there seemed to be older. Then I knew. It is not the tune that is the most important. It is a heart for God filled with the Holy Spirit bursting forth in a song of Praise!

--by Rev. Wayne Webster, Brookhaven Dist. Super., MS Annual Conference (Psalm 111:9)

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

Be faithful in your giving

“…fix your attention on God.    You’ll be changed from the inside out.”(Romans 12:2 The Message)

Cindy and Steve were making final plans for their summer vacation.  They had considered some trips close to home, yet their dream trip to Yellowstone kept bouncing back into the discussion.  They thought about the fact that their oldest child will start high school in the fall and and the fact that they usually traveled home to Michigan to see family.  Finally they decided to “go for it” and head to Yellowstone.

The next Sunday, Steve started writing the check for their offering.  He found Cindy and asked, “What do you think about giving less to the church this summer to make sure we have enough money for our vacation?”  She said, “I guess it’s okay…I don’t know,” as she ran off to comb little Lily’s hair.

When it came time for the offering, their 10 year old son took his turn at putting the envelope in the plate.   Steve noticed that he was studying it pretty closely.   When they got out to the car, Tyler asked, “How come you gave less to the church today, Dad?”   Steve looked at Cindy, who stared straight ahead at the road.   He replied, “Well, your mother and I were thinking about taking a special vacation this summer.  You know that Kristy’s going to high school next year and…”   Kristy interrupted, “Mom said you were thinking about taking us to Yellowstone instead of going to Grandma and Grandpa’s this year.  Why would we want to do that?  It doesn’t seem very faithful to me for us to give less to the church just so we can take a trip to see Old Faithful!”

After the kids were in bed, Cindy brought Steve the checkbook and said, “I just went online and signed up to have our regular tithe sent to the church every week through online banking.  Do you want to write a check to make up the difference this week or should I?”  “I will,” he said.  “And I’ll call my folks to make sure we can come during our usual week in August.   Maybe we can take the ferry or do something special while we’re in Michigan this year and start a new tradition.”

--- Wisconsin United Methodist Foundation

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey

Web Content Producer

www.umcgiving.org

lcarey@umcom.org