Lectionary Reflection for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
June 27, 2021
This week’s epistle lesson offers an excellent chance to talk about stewardship and generosity. After all, every sermon should be a stewardship sermon. Read on for ideas for preaching and teaching, worship, and time with youth and children.
Want to increase your congregation’s capacity for generosity? Start with these six practices, and start right now. Don’t let fear or lack of experience get in the way of helping your community grow and flourish as radical stewards! From UNSeminary.com. (Photo: Irish, Creative Commons)
You don’t have to wait for Thanksgiving to encourage “thanks-living.” Here’s a list of 10 short videos about random acts of kindness and gratitude. Use these films as discussion starters with your youth groups, faith formation classes, or other venues in your faith community. (Photo: marco antonio torres, Creative Commons)
Here’s a great way to lift up stewardship in your congregation during Lent. Check out 40acts 2017 “Romans 12 – A Living Sacrifice” and examine what it means to give your best: when it’s hard, when it hurts, with excellence. You’ll find Bible studies, small group resources, prayers, worship ideas, resources for youth, and more.
“Human generosity, far from being a thin veneer of cultural conditioning atop a Machiavellian core, may turn out to be a bedrock feature of human nature,” concluded UC-Santa Barbara psychologists in a recent study. Writing in Scientific American, author Maria Konnikova cites research supporting that it is more blessed to give than to receive. (Photo: Asenat29, Creative Commons)
Author Tim Shapiro suggests six measures for whether your congregation is celebrating and cultivating generosity as a way of life. How is your congregation stewarding the call to help people develop lives of deep faith and generosity? (Photo: taxcredits.net, Creative Commons)
Looking for ways to better engage your congregation on Sunday morning? Check out these six simple suggestions, and choose even one to get started. (Photo: Brayden McLean, Creative Commons)
What a wonderful world it could be if our hearts and eyes were in sync! This article offers some good food for thought about how tithing could make a real difference if the entire Church decided to do it. (Photo: Evan Jackson, Creative Commons)
Wondering how to tackle even the basics of planned giving to ensure your congregation’s future ministry and mission? Check out this informative webinar from the Episcopal Church Foundation!
Lloyd Alter shares his story of downsizing during the renovation of a three-story house into two units. Instead of having a garage sale or selling on ebay, he and his wife gave their excess possessions to many different people. For the Alter family the experience was both liberating and joy-filled. (Photo: Stephan Dann, Creative Commons)
