NAPC Community

The Stewardship ministry team met on Tuesday, August 21. During the meeting, we discussed communications strategies for the upcoming Stewardship Emphasis Season and also heard a brief update from Scott on the master plan.

The following suggestions were made for Stewardship communications:

• It would be a nice tie-in to a discussion of time/talents to conduct a Sunday School session on spiritual gifts. This is also an objective of the Connections ministry team.
• "Moments for Stewardship" given during the various services could be recorded/edited in advance. This would present somewhat of a logistical challenge, but team members will follow up on a couple of avenues to see if there is anyone who might be able to "produce" these short segments.
• Strong communication should be made to the officers, from Scott and the team chairs. The communication should remind officers of their responsibility to lead by example. Not only do we want to have all pledge cards from officers in prior to pledge Sunday, but we also want to have a strong giving response from the officers.
• Individualized letters from the business office, with a cover letter from Scott, could indicate to each member what their current giving level is and make suggestions for what impact increasing the giving level could have.

We made the following decisions during this meeting:

• We will not have service/prayer response cards this year. Instead, we can encourage members during moments for stewardship to indicate interest in ministries in the friendship/pew pads.
• Greg and Todd will ask individuals on the team to coordinate moments for stewardship for each of the four weeks. (See themes below.) Week coordinators will be asked to submit names to Greg/Todd of those they would like to invite, and we'll make sure there are no duplicates.

We will use the following general outline for moments for stewardship, which follows our verse from 2Cor 4:12:

Week 1: introduction to Stewardship Emphasis Season based on theme that The Hospitality of God requires the Gift of Service (at NAPC, we are about extending God's hospitality to others by sharing the grace and love that only He can provide with those who might walk through our doors — and those that don't...that requires us, as stewards, to be prepared to serve others through our ministries)
Week 2: Redeemed by Grace (focus on stories of personal transformation only made possible through God's grace as evidenced in the life of our church)
Week 3: Grace Reaching More and More People (focus on ministries that form an outreach to others to share that transformation)
Week 4: Thanksgiving to Overflow to the Glory of God (you and I as chairs wrapping up Stewardship Emphasis)

Scott indicated that he will attempt to coordinate his sermons with these messages.

Members will follow up on these actions for the next meeting:

• Eddie to e-mail draft logo and communications materials during the week of 8/27.
• Greg and Todd to draft letter from chairs introducing stewardship emphasis season and send via e-mail for review.
• Greg and Todd to contact individuals to serve as week coordinators
• Scott and Eddie to draft cover letter and business office letter as suggested during meeting, for team review. Also, we need an additional letter for members who have not pledged in the prior year inviting them to pledge.
• Alison was to coordinate our display board for the Connections ministry fair.
• Eddie will put together an outline/draft for "why I give" material.

Respectfully submitted,
-Greg Scherrer