Stewardship Events for 2013

The following dates, designated offerings, and projects are provided so that you can prepare to respond to them with generous hearts and anticipation.

Sunday, February 3: Souper Bowl, $2.00/person

Sunday, February 10: PW Blanket Offering

Easter, March 31: One Great Hour of Sharing Offering

Sunday, May 19: PW Birthday Offering

Sunday, October 6: Peacemaking Offering

Sunday, October __: Crop Walk

Sunday, November 10: PW Thank Offering

Sunday, December 22: Christmas Joy Offering

There will be fund raising activities for Mission Tour ’13 throughout the year.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PAYING THE PER CAPITA APPORTIONMENT

The last “event” is the voluntary contribution of our per capita/apportionment for 2013, This year the breakdown is: General Assembly $ 6.87 Synod $ 2.20 Presbytery $19.83 Total to pay $28.90 per member By writing a check payable to “Donegal Presbyterian Church” for $28.90, marked for “per capita”, you enable other funds in our budget to be freed up. (You have a special envelope for this in your box of giving envelopes!) Try to do this during the month of January. In responding to this request, we increase our mission outreach considerably and the entire church budget for 2013 becomes an even greater force in God’s Kingdom! Keep up your faithful work and witness in the name of Jesus Christ! Thank You!

THE STEWARDSHIP OF CHRISTIAN LOVE

Stewardship is NOT about fund-raising, or making the budget, or meeting our commitments to a variety of mission funding programs.

An old copy of the Presbyterian Book of Order may be outdated in its review of the rules of our denomination, but its statement on stewardship seems to be timeless:

"Those who follow the discipline of Christian stewardship will find themselves called to lives of simplicity, generosity, honesty, hospitality, compassion, receptivity, and concern for the earth and God's creatures."

The ways in which a Christian believer uses God's gifts of material possessions, personal abilities, and time certainly reflect on his/her faithful response to God's self-giving of Jesus Christ.

To be an active member of this church is to participate in the work and worship of the congregation. This means an equal contribution of your time, talent and rsources is necessary and needed. Being a good steward is knowing how much you can give of yourself with being detrimental to yourself or your family.

It is well known in Presbyterian circles that those who have the least tend to give the most. More people with annual incomes of less than $35,000 will tithe (give 10 percent) from their income than those who make substantially more per year. Some Presbyterian leaders say that the same is true of the way they give their time and talents to the church. This is hard to prove, because we cannot quantify time and talent as easily as running an adding machine tape.

Tithing, an Old Testament concept of fairly sharing your bounty with your community and neighbors, and it is a traditional expression of Christian stewardship. People who tithe do so out of gratitude to God for his grace given to us in Jesus Christ.

The Russian author, Nicholas Berdyaev, wrote: "If I am hungry it is a material problem. If someone else is hungry it is a spiritual problem."

Stewardship does not come naturally; it is a learned behavior. It is a practiced behavior. It is stepping-stone or a building block, towards spiritual wholeness.

We believe that only by sharing of one's self can we become fully open to all the possibilities of spiritual awareness and joy available to the disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

Gift Card Program
groceries
We all like to be a part of something that is successful, especially when it involves very little effort on our part!  And this is an opportunity for each and every one of us who shop at any of these participating supermarkets  (Giant, Weis, Darrenkamp’s) to help in continuing with this program and make it even more successful.

We have completed our 15th week of our 4th year.  Total sales for the past 15 weeks-----$ 38,450.  In that same amount of time we have “earned” a profit of $1,830.  As a result, $1,500 has been transferred from the Gift Card Fund to the Capital Campaign Fund.  Note:  during this time period we set a record of $5,575 sold on Sunday, April 1st----and that’s no April Fool’s joke!

Thank you to all for your continued support of the program; and don’t forget to help us continue with the success of this program over the summer months.  Arrangements can be made to get cards to you during the week should you not be in church on Sunday to purchase the cards.  (Call Althea at 367-5101)