Equip the saints of your church with a daily Advent devotional: “Generosity in Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.” Produced by the Delaware-Maryland Synod of the ELCA, the free, downloadable booklet offers ways to explore, serve and pray over Scripture passages. Organized by weekly Advent themes of hope, peace, joy and love.
SOLI’S Stewardship Toolkit offers a free monthly newsletter article, plus weekly RCL-based “snippets” for your Sunday bulletin. October’s toolkit focuses on how God calls us to examine our “harvest” and find sufficiency, contentment, and generosity.
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.
Among the character traits that any good disciple should exhibit, generosity ranks pretty high. Not surprisingly, the Bible has a lot to say about the benefits of developing a heart that is inclined to share, to give and to love. Check out these four short devotionals on generosity, from biblelessonstuff.com. (Photo: Alvanman, Creative Commons)
We want God’s people to be generous hearted and give to God’s ministry — not just money, but their hearts and minds as well. But how can we help people to become more generous-hearted? Chris Willard this issue in an insightful three-part resource in LeaderNet. (Photo: Gayle Nicholson, Creative Commons)
“It is more blessed to give than to receive,” Jesus is quoted as saying in Acts 20:35, but why is that? There is tremendous power in the act of giving. Peter Marty explores this issue in The Christian Century. (Photo: Irish, Creative Commons)
“We need to create opportunities to give that enable us to appreciate our shared humanity,” says social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn. Research shows that giving to others does make us happier, but it matters how we help. Learn more by watching Dunn’s TED Talk and reimagine how you, too, can be a more joyful giver. (Photo: Kregg Steppe, Creative Commons)
Author and Christian Education Director Heather High-Kennedy ponders the importance of teaching children and youth to be generous without the fanfare and hashtags of social media. “Children and youth today are growing up without a way to envision the concept of Matthew 6:1,” she said. (Photo: Carolyn Clement, Social Media Sunday)
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)
What does it mean to be a truly generous person? Wake Forest Professor of Philosophy Christian B. Miller believes that there’s much more involved besides giving time, talent, and resources. Generosity has a whole lot to do with attitude, empathy, and motivation, according to Miller. (Photo: Wikimedia, Creative Commons)
