About Us - Advancement & Stewardship

Stewardship refers to the responsibility we all have in maintaining and using wisely the gifts that God has bestowed upon us.

The Episcopal Church sees stewardship as more than just contributing money to the church or tithing; it's about finding the best use of your gifts by sharing your time, talent and treasure with the church.

Stewardship is a way of responding to God's generosity with our own generosity. Because we are called daily to the sacred act of using and sharing our resources of time, talent and treasure, this journey of generosity is an exciting adventure into a deeper relationship with God. It is essentially all that we do with all that we have after we say, "I believe".

Below we offer a number of resources to help guide you in developing a full awareness that we are all stewards of all that we have been given.

As Christians, you and I live in two different realms or dimensions of life: The spiritual and the physical; the visible and the invisible; the tangible and the intangible.  Most folks would say that reality is what you can see, touch, taste, smell, or hear.  I kick the leg of the table in front of me and say, "this is real!"  I hold up the book in front of me, and I say, "this is real."  But this is not what God says is real.  Listen to his word:

"Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being

renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are
achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we
fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen.  For what is seen
is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  (II Corinthians 4:16-18)

The permanent, the lasting, the unseen - those are the ultimate realities for the Christian.  Therefore, our values, our lives and our hopes cannot rest on what is seen.  Things which can be touched, felt, heard, tasted, and smelled, are not where our trust belongs.  Everything we see and touch around us is merely a visible counterpart of a greater and invisible reality.  Paul hints at this when he says: "… since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and diving nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…"  (Romans 1:20)

God is the main reality!  Everything we see is a reflection of his handiwork. Money is no exception.  If we allow our economic reality to be confined to our bank accounts, our houses, our cars, even our employment, then we are saying that God is not the ultimate reality of our economic lives. If, on the other hand, God is all-in-all and is more real to us than even these physical resources, thenweshallnever lack!

Why is this?  If God is the greatest of all realities, then no need can exist beyond his capacity to supply it.   Our role is to praise him, even before the need is met, for his having met that need!  We do this in spite of the fact that the answer to our need maynot be visible when we begin to praise. But through the exercise of our belief through faith, we can take a trip into the realm of the unseen. Through faith we can know God and see what is really real.  This world is one of competition and of the economic theory of scarcity, one in which more and more people pursue fewer and fewer resources.   God's reality is an economic world of abundance, for which we should continually be giving thanks, and which can be shared in by all.  God is calling us to shift our economic vision toward that reality.  God is calling us to His economics of abundance as opposed to the economics of scarcity.

I am praying that all of us in the Diocese of Florida, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, will make that shift from seeing economics and stewardship as a question of scarce resources toward a vision of stewardship and giving in terms of a limitless abundance of blessings.  That shift in world view, that shift in our vision of reality, will lead us to give more and more and will enable us to do more and more of God's work here in the Diocese of Florida and in the world.

Faithfully,

+S. J. Howard

The Diocese of Florida is a member of The Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS), an organization committed to inspiring generosity and faithful discipleship. A primary benefit of membership is that all congregations throughout the diocese have access to the 2013 Stewardship Narrative Series, a program designed to complement and support the fall annual giving program. The series is available for download here. In late June, the series will be available in Spanish, Chinese, and Korean.       

To access the material, please use the following:                                                                                          

Username: Generous
Password: Giving

You will have access to the following materials:

Seven Bulletin Inserts to include Worship Bulletins, E-Newsletters, E-Blasts beginning October 6th through November 10th. Each reflection includes discussion questions that can be used for adult formation gatherings

Pledge card and proportional giving chart

Prayers of the People to be used in liturgy over the course of six weeks

Prayer over the Pledge Cards to be used at the in-gathering of pledge

Introductory Letter from the Rector/Vicar

Introductory Letter from the Stewardship Chair

We give thanks to the ministry of The Episcopal Network for Stewardship for helping us to plant the seeds of faithful giving in our congregations, with the hope that we all flourish in faith.

With gratitude,                                                                                             

Doug Walker
Bishop's Deputy for Advancement & Stewardship
Executive Director of Diocesan Foundation