Stewardship Testimony

Friday, November 29, 2002

Dear Brother Taylor,

I wanted to write and personally thank you and the staff of the Stewardship Department for the materials, suggestions and encouragement you provided us during our first Stewardship Emphasis Month.

I must admit that I was somewhat hesitant about having a stewardship campaign, especially for an entire month. As the pastor of a small church, currently less than 100, I was afraid of how our congregation would respond. I wondered, "Would people think we were only interested in money? Would our attendance fall off? Would anyone leave?"

My fears turned out to be unmerited. Our attendance was actually up from the same month last year and most everyone seemed to honestly appreciate a thorough study of what the Bible says about stewardship.

Following your suggestion, we conducted an anonymous financial survey of our congregation to determine who was giving what. The survey contained many questions about stewardship including, "Do you support this church with a tithe? If not, please tell us why." I was not surprised to learn that many of our members were not consistently supporting the church with their tithe. What did surprise me, however, was the reason that they did not. I had expected answers such as, "We don’t believe tithing is for the church today." or "We don’t agree with how the church uses the tithe." However, among those that responded, everyone expressed a desire to tithe. The only reason for not doing so was a feeling that they could not afford to.

We ended the month by passing out commitment cards and encouraging everyone to allow the Holy Spirit to lead them. I am grateful to say that five families committed themselves to tithing for the first time and several others pledged to increase their overall level of giving. The result has been that we have broken our tithe record every month since then and hope to be able to start a building program by Spring. I believe that God has used our campaign to take us to another level as a congregation. We are already planning our campaign for next year and believe that God is going to bless us in a tremendous way. Thank you again for your support and assistance.

Sincerely,
Harold R. Newsome, Pastor