Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Much of my work over the past five years has been to help train diocesan stewardship commissions to serve as stewardship mentors for congregations in their respective diocese. I recall with fondness a two-day retreat that I led in 2010 with the Stewardship Commission from the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma. Each member of the team came prepared to share their personal witness about stewardship, giving, and generosity—a testimony they would be asked to give as the invited “stewardship speaker” at stewardship kick-offs, festive meals, and in-gatherings celebrations in their diocese. Field Griffen, a member of the diocesan stewardship commission, recounted to me that when he first joined the commission, he thought he was going to help figure out how to help congregations raise more money. But then, he told me that “once I figured out that stewardship is everything I do, with everything I have, I realized that stewardship is as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon.”  John Vernon Oaks, stewardship officer in The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis is organizing viewing location sites by deanery. His decision to organize viewing sites by deanery was initiated by Brendan O’Sullivan-Hale, a parishioner from All Saints in Indianapolis, who contacted him and offered to orchestrate a webcast in his congregation precisely because the TENS Conference he attended in 2010 was a life changing event for him.