Stewardship Resources

I Have Something That Belongs to You

What happens to old habits when we think about stewardship in new ways?

What happens in our faith lives when we define stewardship as "the management of our selves, the gospel, our daily work, our resources, and our relationships with our neighbors"?

The result just might be "I Have Something That Belongs to You," a course to help Christian adults discover how they can best use the gifts God has given them, a concept referred to as “stewardship of life.”

This new resource for Lutheran churches was written by the Rev. Dr. Foster R. McCurley, nationally known motivational speaker, author and preacher. It was developed and funded by the Stewardship of Life Institute (SOLI), a non-profit corporation that exists to promote stewardship education in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

The 12-session course is divided into three segments.

• The first emphasizes understanding of who we are, both as God's creations and as baptized sisters and brothers living in the world.
• The second focuses on understanding our daily work "as the mean by which God the Creator accomplishes the divine purposes for the world and by which God the Redeemer inspires Christians to transform work into vocation."
• The third deals with ethics and how we as Christians respond to the challenges of living in the world.

"I Have Something That Belongs to You" is a self-contained notebook, with leadership resources, printed originals to be copied for participant resources, and camera-ready originals suitable for overhead transparencies.

The sessions are adaptable for a range of educational settings for adults: Sunday morning forums, evening or daytime study groups, men's and women's ministry meetings, young adult groups, even weekend retreats. Flexibility was one of the curriculum design goals for this project, so ample material is provided for groups which want to expand beyond the basic one-hour session.

Ideally, a pastor and a layperson will team teach the course, emphasizing both the theological elements of stewardship and the experiential ones. No special equipment is needed, although an overhead transparency projector is optional.

The regular price of the materials is $39.95, but ELCA congregations and related groups may purchase the materials for a discounted price of $20, including shipping and handling. To order, contact Katie Deighan, or call the institute at (717)334-6286.

Headquartered at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa., the Stewardship of Life Institute was established in 1993 with a major gift from the late Arthur L. Larson, a longtime member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Wilmington, Del. Upon Larson’s death in 2000, SOLI received a final bequest to carry on his lifelong commitment to helping Christians see themselves as caretakers of what belongs to God rather than as possessors. While primarily funded by Larson’s generosity, SOLI also has received grants from Lutheran Brotherhood and the Lutheran Laity Movement.