Stewardship Resources
The Dessert First Complete Financial Commitment Program
By the Staff of Christian Community.
This brand new package draws on Christian Community's extensive research to give your congregation four options for the annual commitment program:
- Cottage Meetings
- Celebration Sunday
- Pass It On
- Every Member Visitation
You can choose the most appropriate strategy for your church at this time and use the other options in future years. Each option directly connects giving to the development of the spiritual life and helps participants focus on how giving is directly connected to spiritual health.
And you can expect to have a great time with the dessert first theme that also connects food and pleasure with your stewardship program!
The Dessert First Complete Financial Commitment Program includes:
- The Dessert First Notebook filled with detailed instructions for all four campaign options.
- A separate packet of materials ready to photocopy.
- A computer cd with letters in several formats.
Permission to duplicate the above materials is included in the price of the kit. The kit also includes copies of these additional publications (that are described in more detail later):
The Dessert First Complete Financial Commitment Program sells for $139 including permission to duplicate the notebook and related materials.
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Here's what Loren Mead, the founder of the Alban Institute, had to say about our stewardship resources:
Christian Community's stewardship resources offer a very practical approach which should produce excellent results for congregations which are facing stewardship challenges realistically. This is an understandable framework for leaders who want their congregation to be healthier as a sound institution, but it also pushes beyond the financial to the spiritual dimension of financial health.
The Desires of Your Heart: Financial Giving and the Spiritual Life
By Steve Clapp, Kristen Leverton Helbert, Holly Sprunger, and Angela Zimmeriman
The Desires of Your Heart: Financial Giving and the Spiritual Life reports on Christian Community's major research on giving that involved 1,157 congregations from thirty different denominations. That study made clear that
the single most important step needed to increase church giving is to directly connect individual giving to the spiritual life of each person. This book shows how to make that connection and provides ten practical strategies for increasing the giving in your congregation.
$20 each.
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The Dessert First Devotional Booklet
By Steve Clapp.
This booklet provides devotions for 28-days that directly relate spirituality to financial giving. Providing one of these for every household in the congregation is a great way to involve everyone in daily reflection on the spiritual life. The devotions help people deal with their anxieties about money, with issues of consumerism in our culture, with concern for the poor, with priorities on time, and with the environmental aspects of stewardship-as well as providing motivation for people to increase their giving.
$5 each for 1-25 copies; $4.50 each for 26-50 copies; $4 each for 51-75 copies; $3.50 each for 76-99 copies; $3 each for 100+ copies.
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Cell Phones, Dessert, and Faith
By Steve Clapp.
This book has been written for individual reading or for group study and provides a positive, insightful look at the place of money in our lives. Readers will:
- Be helped to recognize how their childhood experiences influence their present practices and values on money.
- Recognize that cell phones and other aspects of our culture offer tremendous pleasure but also exert enormous control over our lives.
- Look at the ways that time management and concern for the environment are also a part of stewardship.
- Learn to challenge the force that consumerism has on our lives.
- Find helpful strategies for dealing with their anxieties about money.
- Better understand how the our generosity affects the ministry and outreach of the congregation.
- Better recognize the way that money in our society determines our opinions of other people and of ourselves.
- Come to see that God seeks to bless our lives not only financially but in other ways as well.
- Learn to celebrate dessert and all the other blessings of our lives.
$15 each. $9 each for 10 or more copies.
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Funds for the Future of the Church: Planned Giving Options for the Local Church
By Thomas C. Rieke.
Contains strategies and information that have not previously been this accessible for local church leaders. You'll not only learn the basics about wills, estates, life insurance giving, endowment funds, and similar topics but also how to develop a comprehensive planned gifts program. This report is clearly written, easy to understand, and includes a resource section with additional information not in the main text.
Your church may be missing out on tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars by not having a planned giving program in place.
$59 each including permission to photocopy.
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The Generosity Option: Planning Options for Contemporary Disciples
By Thomas C. Rieke.
Church members across North America give generous support to the current budget and capital campaigns of their congregations. Relatively few members, however, have considered the benefits of helping the church and other charitable causes through planned giving. In this easy-to-read booklet, leading stewardship authority Tom Rieke gives clear explanations of planned giving options and answers your questions.
Tom Rieke was for many years in charge of Stewardship for the Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church. He is one of the most knowledgeable persons in the country on planned giving.
$6 each-intentionally priced low so you can provide copies to people in your congregation.
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Forms and Formats for the Local Church
Compiled by Thomas C. Rieke.
This notebook contains forms and formats you'll find helpful in setting up current and planned giving within your church.
$25 each including permission to photocopy.
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