I was always proud to be a preacher’s kid. Growing up in Arkansas and Texas, it surprised many people when I told them my mother was the preacher, not my father. These types of exchanges certainly came with many puzzled looks.
The first year that Rev. Stephanie Ryder served as a pastor, the church’s administrative assistant quit, with her last day being the Wednesday of Holy Week. Serving as a solo pastor, it put the church’s administrative tasks on Ryder, on top of writing additional sermons and creating plans for three services. “I was really caught off guard,” she says. “I know now not to schedule anything during Holy Week that isn’t truly necessary.”
The work involved with creating and implementing your Presbyterian church’s stewardship program just got a whole lot easier.Stewardship Navigator, an educational website launched this month by the Presbyterian Foundation, is a free online tool for Presbyterian congregations. You can find it at stewardshipnavigator.com.
About five years ago, Adam J. Copeland met with a husband and wife who were co-pastoring a church.The couple tithed their income to the congregation and had no extra income to give to other charities and causes that they wanted to support. That reality had made them resentful of the church.“If tithing to church is the goal, there needed to be a reality check,” Copeland says.
Robyn Davis Sekula began work Jan. 28 by Presbyterian Foundation | for Presbyterian News Service LOUISVILLE — Robyn Davis Sekula has joined the Presbyterian Foundation as Vice President of Communications and Marketing. She began work on Jan. 28. In her position at the Foundation, she leads the communications and marketing staff, guiding strategy for… Read more »
The gospel text for Ash Wednesday (March 6) deliberately links the spiritual disciplines of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting (Matt. 6:1-6; 16-18) with storing up of treasures (6:19-21). The passage warns that if these spiritual exercises are done only to impress people, without God, they lose their meaning and we become hypocrites.
Stewardship is not something we have to do, says Maggie Harmon, Ministry Relations Officer for the Presbyterian Foundation. It’s something we get to do.
Lilly Endowment Inc. recently awarded the Presbyterian Foundation a second grant of $1 million as part of its National Initiative to Address Economic Challenges Facing Pastoral Leaders.
Four Ministers of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion joined the Presbyterian Foundation in 2018 to help the Foundation better understand and serve the needs of the entire Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
