Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Power of Community in Stewardship

God made us to live in relationships. To be in relationship with the Father, through the work of the Son in the presence and power of the Spirit. He also created us to live in community with each other on the horizontal. I was reminded of this over the past several weeks and again today.

When our school (www.TallOaksClassicalSchool.org) moved to our new location we had volunteers helping in a massive way. Some were painting, some moving, some packing, and some working on the technology infrastructure. Each sub-group had its own energy and enthusiasm and the dynamic 0f the group propelled them to go further than any one person would have done on their own.

Good Neighbors (www.GoodNeighborsHomeRepair.org) has its Summer Youth Work Camp this week in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Similarly, teens and adults are "swarming" on houses in need of critical repair and months worth of work is being accomplished in only five days.

Events are time-consuming parts of the job of development and stewardship officers, but they can yield results that are greater than the sum of many individual efforts.

For our planning purposes:
  1. Have a good attitude about mobilizing volunteers; believe that the Lord has given us capable volunteers who are just looking to be plugged into the organization
  2. Recognize that more is being gained than the actual work itself; relationships are being developed
  3. Deep and strong ties to the mission occur when we are well-deployed and working shoulder-to-shoulder with each other
  4. Often, financial gifts just flow out of people seeing immediate needs and acting on them; the challenge may be keeping track of the generosity

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