Tag: Stewardship

A cross with the words ministry plan in the background.

Ministry Plan, Again

 

September brings with it the end of Summer and the beginning of a new school year and resumption of many other things that occupy our church and family calendars most of the year. This Fall at Immanuel, September also signals the beginning of a new chapter of congregational life as we consider a plan for our ministries into the future.

The Ministry Plan is a document I have been working on this Summer that is the product of the first two Steps of our planning process and will be used to guide our decision-making in the future. The Ministry Plan is where our conversations, meetings, prayers and ideas find a tangible result: a list of prioritized goals for Immanuel Lutheran Church & School.

The Immanuel Church Council will get a first look at the Plan at its September meeting. I will have a presentation on it at the September 29 Voters’ Assembly. But here’s a preview:

Our discussions over much of the last year have produced many ideas for evaluating, enhancing and adding to our ministries. These ideas have been grouped into six general themes called
Ministry Targets . The six Ministry Targets are these:

  1. We receive from God to empower our service to others
  2. We equip disciples of Christ to serve others
  3. We care for each other as a family
  4. We welcome the community to our campus
  5. We serve children and young families with God’s love and forgiveness
  6. We enhance and strengthen our ministries

Into these six categories our ideas have been organized, and out of these six categories have come both Staffing Needs (the people resources needed to carry out the Ministry Plan) and Campus Needs (the facilities needed to carry out the Ministry Plan ).

That’s a preview. For more, I invite you to attend the September 29 Voters’ Assembly. And as we get ever closer to taking the next step into our future as a congregation and school, I thank you again for your prayers and faithful presence and stewardship. Please continue to lend your time, talents and treasures to shaping the future of Immanuel Lutheran Church & School!

Pastor VanOsdol

Blog Note: New to Immanuel? Catch up on the entire VisionPath and Ministry Planning process to date, in chronological order, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Stewardship poster with an open book image

Stewardship: How much should I give?

 

Whenever the topic of stewardship and giving comes up, the conversation inevitably turns to the question: “How much should I give?†Answers will vary because the motive behind such questions also vary.

Sometimes the motive behind asking this question is for self-justification. Even though, as Lutherans, we know we are not saved by our works but by grace through faith because of Jesus’ substitutionary atonement, the natural religion of fallen man is to earn God’s favor by what we do.

Take, for example, the response of our Lord to the rich young ruler who asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?†Jesus first tells him to keep the commandments. The rich young ruler responds by indicating that all this he has kept from his youth. But Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing: He must sell all he has and give it to the poor and then follow Him.

This rich young ruler went away sad because he was quite wealthy and could not part with his possessions. Here we see that those who seek to justify themselves by their giving will hear a response that intensifies the duty that God places upon them. Indeed, they will hear a response that makes it impossible to win God’s favor by their works.

But to those who genuinely desire to know their duty as Christians in the arena of giving, we look to the Bible for our answer. We believe the Bible is the Word of God. And we know that the Word of God has been “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work†(2 Tim. 3:16–17).

So, we begin to answer the question, “What should I give?†with the question, “What does the Bible say about how much we should give and to whom?â€

The Old Testament is explicit. The expectation is that the people of God would give a tithe – 10 percent – of the first fruits of their labor to support the full-time ministry of the Levites. This is what the Lord gave Moses to teach the people:

“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

“And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire – oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves.

“And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.

“At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.†(Deut. 14:22–29)

This principle of tithing is carried over into the New Testament, though not explicitly by calling it a tithe. St. Paul teaches the Church at Corinth the following:

We are to give to the church regularly (1 Cor. 16:1–2), proportionally (1 Cor. 16:1–2; 2 Cor. 8:12), and generously (2 Cor. 8:20) of our first fruits (1 Cor. 16:1–2; Gen. 4:4; Prov. 3:9; Lev. 27:30) with a spirit of eagerness (2 Cor. 9:2), earnestness (2 Cor. 8:7), cheerfulness (2 Cor. 9:7), and love (2 Cor. 8:23). And all of this is because the “Lord has ordained that those who preach the Gospel should make their living by the Gospel†(1 Cor. 9:14), just as the Levites did.

This is our New Testament standard. Since Christ became poor for us in order to make us rich in Him – blessing us with the riches of heaven – so we have also been so blessed to follow the example of our Lord and Savior and give of ourselves and the work of our hands to bless others with the same.

If we have been lax in this, let us, like our Lord, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross and scorned its shame, likewise begin to work toward this goal of regular giving of a generous proportion of the first fruits of God’s giving to us.

And let us do so not begrudgingly, but for the joy set before us – with a spirit of eagerness, cheerfulness, and love – to share the blessings of God with those placed into our care.

LCMS Stewardship Ministry

A person holding a camera with the words " time and talent support " written on top of it.

2020 Time and Talents Survey


The Time And Talents Survey is now live!

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ…Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.†(1 Cor 12:12,27)

Christian stewardship is the free and joyous activity of God’s family — the church — in managing life’s resources for His purposes. Immanuel members and friends have diverse gifts that are collectively of great value to our congregation and the community we serve.

What are your God-given gifts? Please take a moment to help us get to know you better by completing a 5-minute survey at the link below. We invite each family member to participate (adults and young adults middle-school-age and older).

Check all areas in which you think you’d enjoy becoming involved as well as those areas where you have some skill that you can share, or areas where you want to learn and grow! We are collecting this information in order to connect Immanuel members with each other through service in current and potential ministries.

[contact-form to=’[email protected]’ subject=’Time and Talents Survey Question’][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Question’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form] 

VisionPath for Immanuel


“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.â€
(Jeremiah 29:11)

What a blessing to have so many of you invest in Immanuel by lending your voices to the conversation about our future at the Voters’ Assembly on June 24! The decision made in that conversation is to partner with Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) in embarking on VisionPath: a facilitated process to discover God’s vision for Immanuel’s ministries.

VisionPath is an approximately 10-week process, which for us will begin this August and conclude in October. Some highlights include:

  • The formation of a Leadership Team to work with me and our Facilitator (Rev. Billy Brath) to engage the entire congregation in the process
  • Participation in a Congregational Survey, to give every Immanuel member a voice in the process
  • Attendance at the Vision Event, where Pastor Brath will lead us in the processing of questions and the voicing of ideas
  • The production of a Vision Statement, summarizing our shared vision of the mission and ministry of the congregation

Converting the dreams of VisionPath into realities will require more time and effort. As VisionPath draws to a conclusion, we will come again as a congregation in the September Voters’ Assembly to consider the next steps (what LCEF calls Ministry Mapping & Messaging) and whether to continue with them.

This month, much of the groundwork for VisionPath will be laid behind the scenes. When our Summer break has ended, we will be rested and ready to embark on the journey of VisionPath. Here we go!

The peace of the Lord be with you always.

Pastor VanOsdol

What’s Next for Immanuel?


Sisters & Brothers in Christ:

In my Pentecost Sunday Sermon, I surveyed many of the recent blessings we have enjoyed at Immanuel Lutheran Church & School:

  • Immanuel Lutheran School continues to thrive and will begin its 25th year of service to the congregation and community in the Fall of this year. ï‚·
  • We have celebrated many Baptisms, New Members and Confirmands in recent weeks. ï‚·
  • All the while, the Quilters keep quilting and the Braille Workers keep working and the Bible Studiers keep studying and the Family Fun Night crew is helping forge family connections.

There are other signs of life and growth:

  • Sunday morning attendance is blossoming: from an average of 72 people per Sunday in 2013, to 77 in 2014, 89 in 2015, 101 in 2016, 113 last year, and over 130 so far in 2018. ï‚·
  • Your giving has been very generous: Not only did we pay off and burn the remaining mortgage last year, but we are now contributing to a monthly budget line item called Future Expansion and at the end of the year will also deposit any budgetary surplus into that fund. ï‚·
  • Our recent Youth Movement is creating a need to have more Busy Bags available and think about expanding again the Family Section in the back of the Sanctuary. (On a recent Sunday, a visiting family with several young children sat in the front row because that was the only space available for a family their size. As it turns out, they were visiting from a local LCMS church and were OK with being in the spotlight up front.)

I also mentioned on Pentecost Sunday that things have been so busy lately that I completely overlooked the opportunity to highlight the 30th Anniversary of Immanuel becoming a member congregation of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (we were welcomed into the LCMS on April 29, 1988).

I could go on. I won’t. These are just some of the blessings God has been sending our way lately. And this abundance of blessings is leading your congregational leadership to ask good questions about our future.

What needs do we now have? In what ways do the changes in our church neighborhood affect us? What do we see Immanuel’s future mission and ministry looking like in terms of:

  • Spiritual growth? ï‚·
  • Immanuel Lutheran School? ï‚·
  • Facilities? ï‚·
  • Staffing? ï‚·
  • Care for our members? ï‚·
  • Stewardship? ï‚·
  • Outreach and service to the Five Forks community?

In May, your Church Council welcomed Rev. Billy Brath, a consultant with Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF), who gave a presentation about Ministry Clarity. Ministry Clarity is a planning process offered by LCEF to help congregations like ours develop a plan for congregational ministry today and into the future.

After the presentation, the Council moved to recommend to the June Voters’ Assembly that Immanuel utilize this process to help guide our future and come together as faithful stewards to live out our purpose in God’s Kingdom in this place. If adopted, this planning process would begin in the Fall of this year.

Please save the date of June 24 and plan to attend that Sunday’s Voters’ meeting to hear about this process and lend your voice to the conversation about Immanuel’s future!

The peace of the Lord be with you always.

Pastor VanOsdol