st luke's stewardship 2025
Be part of it!
our goals for 2025
2025 St. Luke's Stewardship Campaign
“All things come from thee, Oh Lord, and of thine own have we given to you.”
Our
Stewardship Commitment. Each Sunday we rise as one and sing the
Doxology long etched in our hearts: “Praise God from whom all blessings
flow.” Those simple words remind us that all we have is a gift from God.
By any measure, St. Luke’s is a healthy congregation. We see God’s
abundance in our own lives, in the communities in which we live, and the
ways God’s promise nourishes our souls.
In the scripture God
tells us it is our duty to give back as an act of worship, and that
stewardship starts with thanksgiving. Each member of St. Luke’s Clergy
and Vestry believes deeply in our Christian mission and in our own
leadership commitment. We have all joyfully pledged to start the 2025
Stewardship campaign, and we ask that you now join us with your own
pledge.
Our Goals. As prior generations built and sustained St.
Luke’s, it is incumbent on each of us to do our part to continue to
sustain St. Luke’s so that we, too, can leave a thriving church to
future generations. God asks us to give sacrificially and joyfully,
trusting that God will use our gifts to do something wondrous. Giving is
transformational both for you, and for the people we help. Our goal is
to achieve 100% pledging participation by all St. Luke’s members,
friends, and regular visitors.
If you have not pledged before,
now is the time! Please join us in building God’s kingdom. Base your
pledge on proportional giving, which means setting aside a tithe (10%)
or other portion of your income to the work of St. Luke’s as one of your
highest priorities. (A reference chart is included on the pledge card.)
Pray as you discern your pledge amount and think of God’s abundant
generosity in your life.
Why Pledge? Your pledge is a commitment
by you to give a stated amount to St. Luke’s for 2025 , which allows the
church to rely on your pledge as predictable income, whether you happen
to be in church or not. St. Luke’s relies on pledges from its
parishioners to fund annual operations and outreach. You may be
surprised to learn that we receive no financial support from the
Diocese. In fact, the opposite is the case, where close to 10% of our
annual budget is paid to the Diocese to support outreach initiatives.
Although the church is blessed with an endowment, St. Luke’s Investment
Policy restricts our ability to use endowment income to cover operating
expenses. Under the Policy’s spending rule, endowment income is
expected to cover a small amount of next year’s expenses. The practical
reality is that pledges and donations are required to cover most of St.
Luke’s annual operating expenses.
How do I pledge? You can pledge in one of two ways:
(1) On line: Complete the Online Pledge Card. Please CLICK HERE to go to the online pledge form. Be sure to fill out the recurring section to indicate how you want your pledge to flow.
2) Download the pledge card: Please CLICK HERE for a pledge card.
You may simply take a photo of the completed card with your cell phone and email the picture to St. Luke’s office at tower18@stlukeseasthampton.org . (Just click on this email address to open the email.) Or, put the pledge card in an envelope and drop it in the offering plate during service.
To join in the celebration, bring your completed pledge card to the altar on “Pledge In-Gathering Sunday,” which is Sunday, November 17th . A special coffee hour will follow the 10:00 am service.
Please pledge by returning your completed card on or before Pledge In-Gathering Sunday (November 17th).
A note from the Stewardship Chair:
Anna and I love St. Luke’s, its music, and all the
wonderful people building God’s kingdom here. St. Luke’s is a holy place where
God comforts, inspires, and challenges us to share joyfully the talents and
resources God entrusts to us for the benefit of each other and our hungry world.
Amid the most cost-intensive phase of child rearing, we are increasing our
pledge this year because Christ has asked us to love one another as he has
loved us, and we trust that God will provide for us always. St. Luke’s has enormous
potential to build up the kingdom of God, and we are limited only by human fears
and timidity. Please join with all of us in joyfully giving, trusting that God
will provide for you, too.
Thank you in advance for your loving generosity, and all that it empowers. I want to offer the heartfelt gratitude of Father Ben and the whole Vestry together with my personal thanks for your support. We welcome any thoughts or questions you may have, which you can direct to me or to any of the Vestry members.
All God's blessings
Dan Mongan
Download this pledge card
Please CLICK HERE to download a pledge card for 2025
here are some frequently asked questions
about stewardship.
Stewardship FAQs
1. Doesn’t “stewardship” just mean a fund raising campaign to support the church’s budget?
No. As Bishop Ian Douglas has said, the church is not an end in itself to be preserved, but is the result of our faithfulness. A stewardship program is primarily concerned with faith raising, not fund raising.
2. How can a stewardship program be about “faith raising?”
A good stewardship program reminds us of what Scripture teaches about our identities as mortal but trusted agents of God’s creative power in the world.
3. Then why do stewardship programs always talk about money?
We have to talk about money because money is such a powerful force in our lives and in the world.
We often make idols of our love of money and of its counterparts, greed and scarcity.
4. How can the success of a stewardship program be measured if not in terms of the amount of money raised?
Success of a stewardship program is measured in units of conversion. At its best, our culture teaches us the value of philanthropy—the judicious giving of our money to support some worthy cause. Scripture, on the other hand, teaches that it is not our money in the first place. All the
resources under our control are on loan to us from God for wise management according to scriptural principles. Making this shift in thinking is stewardship conversion.
5. How much should I give?
Only you know. This decision requires prayerful and deliberate consideration. The General Convention of The Episcopal Church has repeatedly reaffirmed the tithe as the biblical standard of giving to God’s Church. However, we realize that people with limited resources may have difficulty living on 100% or their income, let alone 90%. On the other hand, for wealthy people, 10% may be a relative pittance. Only you can decide where you fall on this wealth spectrum.
6. Doesn’t giving to good charitable causes count toward my “tithe”?
Supporting good charitable causes is important and laudable, but the sacrificial offering of money to God through God’s Church is much more fundamental. The commitment of a substantial and proportional part of our wealth directly to God through God’s Church reminds us of our identities as temporary but trusted caretakers of God’s creation. Once we are clear about that identity, our desire to support charities that take good care of God’s world is inevitable.
7. I still don’t understand why commitment—attending church regularly and pledging money to God through the Church—is so important when I don’t feel a need or desire to do it.
In his book, One Minute Wisdom, Anthony De Mello writes of the student who asked the master, “What must I do to achieve enlightenment?” “Nothing,” the master replied, “it is as easy as
watching the sun come up.” The student was puzzled, “Then of what use are all the disciplines?”
what does the scripture teach us
about sharing talent and treasure?
Biblical Reflections on Stewardship
1. Money as a spiritual force
Scripture
Please read these passages several times and listen carefully to hear what the passage may be saying to you at this particular time. Live with the scripture for a while beforeyou think about the questions.
Matthew 6:19-34
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is [a]clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is [b]bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the lightthat is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and [c]wealth. The Cure for Anxiety
25 “For this reason I say to you, [d]do not be worried about your [e]life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the [f]air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor
gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
27 And who of you by being worried can add a single [g]hour to his [h]life? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 Do not worry then,saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these
things. 33 But [ i ]seek first [j]His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things willbe [k] added to you.
34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will [l]care for itself. [m]Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Luke 21:1-4
The Widow’s Gift
21 And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury.2 And He saw a poor widow putting [a]in two [b]small copper coins. 3 And He said,“Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; 4 for they all out of their [c]surplus put into the [d]offering;
but she out of her poverty put in all [e]that she had to live on.”
Questions:
Note that the prescription is to use one’s treasure to move one’s heart to the right place and not vice versa. What does this statement tell us about the role of our pledge to the church?
What does it mean to be full of light or full of darkness and what does our money have to do with it? Were the Pharisees using their tithes to move their hearts to a place of light rather than of darkness? Was the widow? Are we?
Does the total amount of money pledged describe the success or failure of annual pledging, or is there some other, better measure?
2. The tithe
General Convention has repeatedly reaffirmed the tithe as the standard of annual giving to God’s Church for Episcopalians, but raising the tithe in a discussion of stewardship often provokes anxiety and resistance or worse.
Scripture: Deut. 14:22-29
22 “You shall surely tithe all the produce from [a]what you sow, which comes out of the field every year. 23 You shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God, at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your
herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. 24 If the [b]distance is so great for you that you are not able to [c]bring the tithe, since the place where the Lord your
God chooses to set His name is too far away from you when the Lord your God blesses you, 25 then you shall [d]exchange it for money, and bind the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. 26 You may spend the money for whatever your [e]heart
desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your [f]heart [g]desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your
household. 27 Also you shall not neglect the Levite who is in your [h]town, for he has no portion or inheritance among you.
28 “At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit it in your [ i ] town. 29 The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance
among you, and the alien, the [j]orphan and the widow who are in your [k]town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.
It is interesting that the purpose of the tithe in the Hebrew Scriptures is always to “learn to fear the Lord your God always.” The use of the tithe varied. It was used to support the Levites, the priestly class who could not own land and, therefore, who could not generate their own income (see Numbers
18:21-24 as well as the Deut.
passage above). It might be used to support resident aliens, orphans, and widows, or it might be used for a big party! No matter how the tithe was used, its purpose was to remind the people of their dependence on, and subservience to, God.
Scripture:
Luke 21:1-4; Matthew 23:23; Luke 18:9-14
Luke 21:1-4
The Widow’s Gift
21 And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury.2 And He saw a poor widow putting [a]in two [b]small copper coins. 3 And He said,“Truly I say to you, this poorwidow put in more than all of them; 4 for they all out of their [c]surplus put into the [d]offering;
but she out of her poverty put in all [e]that she had to live on.”
Matthew 23:23
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and [a] cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.
Luke 18:9-14
The Pharisee and the Publican
9 And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself:
‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.12 I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector,standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast,
saying, ‘God, be [a]merciful to me, the sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
As with other laws from Hebrew scripture, Jesus teaches that it is not enough to follow the laws as a legalistic ritual. Instead, one must strive to meet the spirit of the law, a standard much harder to attain.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 16:1-3; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
1 Corinthians 16:1-3
Instructions and Greetings
16 Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. 2 On the first day of every week each one of you is to[a]put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. 3 When I arrive, whomever you may
approve, I will send them with letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem;
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
6 Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows [a]bountifully will also reap [b]bountifully. 7 Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed; 9 as it is written, “He scattered abroad, he gave to the poor,
His righteousness [c]endures forever.” 10 Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness;11 you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the [d]saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God. 13 Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God
for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the liberality of your [e]contribution to them and to all, 14 while they also, by prayer on your behalf, yearn for you because of the surpassing grace of God in you. 15 Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
Paul counsels the people of the church in Corinth to put aside “whatever extra” they earn, and that their offerings should be joyful and carefully considered (“…as you have made up your mind…”), and should be made confidently and thankfully in response to God’s generosity
Questions:
Should we be telling people to “Give until it hurts.”?
Is there a difference between funding our parish budget and encouraging people to be faithful to Jesus’ teaching? If we were successful in the latter, do you think we would automatically succeed in the former?
Should we commit ourselves to tithing? Would the terms “intentional” (meaning carefully and prayerfully considered) and “proportional” (meaning an amount appropriately large or small relative to the resources under our control) communicate Jesus’ and Paul’s teaching better than the word “tithe”?
