Celebrating the Abundance of God
by Angela Emerson
Mountain Echo, May 2008

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
Johnson Oatman, Jr.

As I travel around the diocese visiting with both ordained and lay leaders, I continue to delight in the spirit of joy that permeates the conversations. When I ask people, “What excites you/attracted you/keeps you at your church?” there is energy in the answer. More and more I find myself talking to stewardship committees, rectors, and vestries about stewardship as a celebration of the abundance of God’s gifts.

In every conversation, I hear about an abundance of gifts within the community. The list of gifts is endless, and the types of gifts are as varied as the congregations themselves. Without fail, when people turn their attention to naming those gifts and acknowledging those gifts as a sign of God’s presence and activity in their midst, people rejoice. The people with whom I have met are practicing stewardship. They are celebrating the generosity of God.

Too often, stewardship is conceived of as just one more programmatic issue that requires volunteers, scheduling, and planning. An even more basic misconception is that stewardship is the same thing as the pledge card or fundraising. Wrong! Stewardship at its most basic is a celebration. It is a celebration of the gifts of our lives, our personalities, our various talents, and a celebration of joy itself. A stewardship “program” in its essence is an opportunity to recognize gratefully, joyfully, and intentionally the enormous amount of giving of self and resources that goes on constantly in our churches. It becomes an opportunity to evaluate and improve the management and utilization of all the resources that we have. Stewardship is celebrating what God is doing in our midst.

We worship a God that gives in abundance and without expectation of return. When we grow in our image of God, we too give in abundance and in a spirit of love and joy. So consider making a benchmark of your stewardship program a celebration of all that has been entrusted to you. Celebrate the generosity of your congregation and the God we worship!

Back to Stewardship home page