Dear Friends,

It’s a new year and as we all should expect, God is busy doing new things.  The New Philadelphia Stewardship Committee believes that one of those new things is a new approach to understanding stewardship.

Some of us and some of you, too, have been thinking that there must be more to this stewardship thing than pledge cards and offering envelopes, and a sermon with the “t” word (tithing) and what we do in response to those.  We’ve explored a book called Practicing The King’s Economy: Honoring Jesus in How We Work, Earn, Spend, Save and Give, by Michael Rhodes and Robby Holt.  If you’ve ever read The Economist magazine (they call it a newspaper) you know that economics and the economy is about much more than money, interest rates and investments.  The approach these two authors take to what it means to practice the King’s economy shows that to be true.

We are asking that you join us in a year long journey through a comprehensive look at stewardship in six themes: Worship, Community, Work, Equity, Creation and Rest.  Each of the six themes will be developed in our times of worship on the last Sundays of February, April, June, August, October and December.  We are asking our Sunday School classes to agree to use the two chapters dedicated to each theme as their curriculum on the Sunday prior to the last Sundays of the months noted above.  Evie will be sending more information on how you can do that. If you are not in one of our SS classes, an online forum for considering and discussing those chapters will also be offered at a time to be determined.  More on all of this later.

You may be (and we hope you are) asking yourself how you can put your hands on one of these books and how much it will cost you.  The book normally sells for $19.99.  Baker Books will reduce the cost of the book in a bulk purchase to $10.00, and our Board of Trustees has approved funds to allow us to reduce that cost to just $5.00!  We have 100 copies on hand and you may pick up your copy at the church office beginning today.    We ask that you make Rachel and Donna’s job easier by bringing a check or cash amounting to $5.00.

I look forward to reading about (and practicing!) the King’s economy together!

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Sam