Demi Prentiss, until recently Ministry Developer/Stewardship Officer of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, has written an article in the September Vestry Papers, a publication of the Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF).
“As we grow beyond the narrow understanding of stewardship as an annual fundraising exercise – or as the late Terry Parsons used to call it, the ‘annual beg-a-thon’ – God begins to reshape our concept of what ‘gift’ and ‘giving’ actually mean.
“Back in the days when spiritual gift assessments were becoming popular around the church, some leaders subscribed to the idea that all we needed to do was determine what gifts people had, match them up with the appropriate ministries, and all the church’s volunteer staffing problems would be solved. In some churches, people would anxiously await learning what gifts the survey revealed that God had given them – and then were often left to puzzle over what use might be made of those gifts. One friend consistently received the news that she had the gift of chastity. ‘And now what do I do with that? How do I use that in ministry?’ she would ask. I never heard a very satisfactory answer.”