October is stewardship month here at All Saints Evangelical Lutheran Church. The team will use the materials from the ELCA Churchwide Synod titled, “The Joy of Generosity: Generous lives. Joyful community. God’s work together.” Each week the focus will be on a different aspect of “The Joy of Generosity”.

Introduction

“The Joy of Generosity” is Coming to Our Congregation

Have you ever done something generous and been surprised at the joy this brought into your life? Perhaps you made a generous financial gift. Perhaps you volunteered many hours of your time to a nonprofit organization. Perhaps you shared your talents in a way that benefited another person. Whatever the specifics, you were surprised by how much joy your generosity brought you.

In this experience, you bore witness to the truth of Jesus’ words recorded in Acts 20:35: “Happiness lies more in giving than in receiving” (Good News Translation).

Over the next few weeks, we in the community ofAll Saints Evangelical Lutheran Church are going to consider the joy that generosity brings us. First, we will think about the connection between generosity and joy in our personal lives. Then we will celebrate the joy we experience through living in community. Finally, we will reflect on the joy we experience and the joy we give when we as a congregation do God’s work in the world. 

As this unfolds, we encourage you to pay extra attention to material that comes your way from the church. Please join in worship, where we will focus on these three aspects of joyful generosity. Finally, we will ask you to reflect on your own life. How have you found generosity and joy to be related?

At the end of these three weeks, we will ask you to consider your giving to All Saints Evangelical Lutheran Church for the coming year. You can be confident that your gifts to our congregation will bring joy to others, both inside and outside our community. You can also be confident that your generous gifts will bring you joy. Of that you have Jesus’ promise.

Week #1

Greetings from All Saints Evangelical Lutheran Church.This weekend, we are excited to begin “The Joy of Generosity” in our congregation. As you prepare for worship, we encourage you to think about your own experiences with generosity.

Often we think that giving things away leaves us with less. The bold claim of the Bible is that just the opposite is true: when you give things away, you end up with more. In 2 Corinthians 9:11, Paul writes, “You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity.” Sociologists Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson write, “Generous people tend to receive back goods that are even more valuable than those they gave away: happiness, health, a sense of purpose in life, and personal growth.”^*

How has your life demonstrated Paul’s promise that we will be enriched through our generosity? How has generous giving of time or money increased your sense of purpose in life?

We will consider these thought-provoking questions in worship this weekend. We hope you will join us.

*Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson, The Paradox of Generosity (Oxford University Press, 2014), 11