Dear Fellow Friends and Members of Northfield Community Church:
NCC's Got Talent! The Stewardship Committee invites you to celebrate our individual and collective gifts and talents with special programs and activities throughout the year.
Each one of us has been blessed with many talents that make us a unique and beloved child of God. Your talent might be music, writing, baking, or carpentry. It might be financial acumen, leadership, or event planning. It might be a listening ear, a friendly smile, or a sympathetic heart. The Bible gives us another definition of talents: a measure of great wealth. As members and friends of Northfield Community Church, we share both kinds of our talents.
Stewardship Sunday is October 26. Your Stewardship committee asks you to take time between now and then to pray and reflect upon sharing your financial talents with your church. This is the time to consider proportional giving - setting aside a percentage of your income to give to your church home so we may continue doing God's work in our church family, our wider community, and our world. Proportional giving allows us to make a priority of our commitment to our church. It is much more than giving money. It is an acknowledgement that everything we have is a gift from God and anything we return is a small portion of our many blessings. It is faith in action!
Practicing stewardship to Northfield Community Church makes each of us a better Christian. We have been created in God’s image and blessed with the potential to become givers like God. Giving is not a burden, but an opportunity to grow, to further God’s purposes in the world, to share God’s love with others, to help God’s children now and in the future, and to participate in the abundant grace of God’s universe. We should give, not out of guilt or fear, but towards the ends of joy, satisfaction, fulfillment, love, and spiritual growth.
Each one of us shares the responsibility to be generous and caring stewards of our church, its facilities, and programs. The formula for the financial health of our church is simple...we need to manage our spending, increase financial donations to the church, and increase our membership. We each share in the responsibility.
On the back of this letter are some thoughts from your fellow members and friends. Read them and find where you fit. In a future mailing, the Trustees will provide a proposed budget along with information on proportional giving to help you plan. Your Stewardship Committee thanks you for your prayerful consideration.
Sincerely,
The Stewardship Committee
Janet Jesse Wally Cornett Guy Raymaker
Tom Behrens Helen Hutten Loretta Kaplan Kris Moran