Church family,

In 1760, John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, wrote a sermon entitled “The Use of Money.” In this sermon, he offers three rules for Christian ethics in money. Apparently, ‘three rules’ is our Methodist method! The rules are 1) gain all you can, without harming your health or harming others; 2) save all you can, avoid luxury and vanity; 3) give all you can, remembering that all money is really God’s anyway. These ethical principles reflect a commitment to embodying the Kin-dom of God in all parts of our lives, even how we use our money.

Each November, we hold a church-wide Stewardship Campaign. We share about how our church’s finances have been over the past year, and we emphasize the importance of giving through our time, talent, and treasure.

We do all this because it is important for us to have realistic conversations about what it costs for us to do ministry as Covenant United Methodist Church. Just as important, however, is to highlight the role that giving of our time, talent, and treasure plays in our discipleship. That’s why each year, we ask everyone to fill out an Estimate of Giving Card to help us build a faithful budget for the next year. Please return these any time in November, but especially for Sunday, November 22nd, when we have our Celebration Sunday!

This year, we are also going to take some time to dream into our future and church life together. Who do we want to be? What do we want to be doing? Who will we be serving in our community? Because in the same way that we must practice that sort of diligence in our personal time, talent, and treasure, we must take that time to consider how our collective time, talents, and treasure is being invested for the future of our church.

This is not an alarm bell—We are in a strong financial position. We have high levels of involvement and volunteering. We are simply taking intentional time to listen for the vision the Spirit may be stirring up in our midst. So I invite you to join me in praying and seeking this November, faithful church—where do you see God leading Covenant UMC over the next 10 years? How is God calling you to steward your time, talent, or treasure for our shared future?

–Pastor Megan Madsen