God's Mission Our Gifts: Your July Mission and Service Stories and more!

Congregational Stewardship/Generosity    This is your resource to help you grow generous disciples as part of doing God’s mission. Please modify and use these ideas in your context.    Thank You, Thank You, Thank You  May was PAR month: a time to intentionally invite people to greater generosity through monthly giving.    If you took part, thank you.    If you thought about it, but it didn’t fit, so you’re going to do it later, thank you.    If you started monthly giving through PAR yourself, or increased the amount you give monthly, thank you.    If you only gave to your local Community of Faith but now you also give monthly to Mission & Service, thank you.    If you have any feedback or suggestions for future PAR months, thank you. (And please send them on to us: par@united-church.ca)     For all you do to promote and nurture generous disciples of Jesus, thank you.    You make a difference! Rev. Dave Jagger Community of Faith Stewardship Lead Step Up Your Online Fundraising  CanadaHelps has an updated set of learning courses to help you succeed.  Start collecting donations with customizable donation forms  Optimize your CanadaHelps charity profile  Get started with ticketed events through CanadaHelps  Learn about Peer to Peer (P2P) fundraising with CanadaHelps  Called to be the Church: The Journey     Called to Be the Church: The Journey courses really make a difference.     In each cohort, Community of Faith leaders rediscover how inspiring their church really is and get excited about telling their stories, as they invite people to share their resources to grow in faith and make a difference in people’s lives. Step right up and join the movement!     NEW COURSE OPTION! On-Demand Bequests and Estate Giving     Do it on your own timeline. Watch the videos. Answer the quizzes. And after all that, we’ll be here to help you make Bequests and Estate Giving a reality for your community of faith.     Find more information and register for all these courses at CHURCHx.    Getting Started in Stewardship   Join United Church people across the country to learn some stewardship first principles.     SPECIAL SUMMER COURSE:   Get ready for the fall. August 27, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Eastern, with a reunion on October 14, 4:00-5:00 p.m. Eastern.    Stewardship Best Practices  Best done AFTER Getting Started in Stewardship.    REVISED PROGRAM:  Phase 1: FIVE weeks. (Ends before Advent!) Two-hour sessions each week. The first hour is learning and content. The second hour is discussion and application in order for you to set goals, create an annual stewardship plan, and get energized!  Phase 2: 10 months of coaching for implementation starts January 2025.  Course fee: Pay what you can. Recommended fee $100/team.     Setting Up Your Congregational Giving Program    Learn how best to utilize the Called to Be the Church Giving Program materials and develop a plan that will work for your church with two 2-hour online sessions and coaching.    Fall dates now available: Plan your giving program for January-June 2025.    Bequests and Planned Giving for Your Community of Faith Explore how to set up and maintain a Planned Giving Program at your church, with two one-hour online sessions. Course fee: $29.99/person.    Find more information and register for all these courses at CHURCHx.     For more information on these and other stewardship supports, contact called@united-church.ca. Stewardship Seconds (updated for July-December 2024) Short, pithy sayings that pack a punch, to help infiltrate stewardship thinking into your community of faith. Add them to newsletters, worship, announcements, webpages, wherever people gather!  Find them at the Stewardship in Worship webpage.  Offering Introductions and Dedication Prayers (updated for July-December 2024)  The offering time in worship is NOT about collecting money! It is about growing generous disciples and stewards. These Offering Introductions and Dedication Prayers, for each Sunday of the year, will help. Find them at the Stewardship in Worship webpage.  If You Read Just ONE Book This Month... Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer  Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teaching of plants. Fascinating ideas and information that will help you connect stewardship to everything –  plants, animals, air, water, land – the whole world.  [Image credit: Braiding Sweetgrass] Get the Stewardship Support You Need The people and resources to help you succeed are here.  Your July Mission and Service Stories JULY 7 Ministers’ Retreat: Respite and Reflection     [Photo credit: Lindsay Victoria]   There is a crisis facing Northern United Church Ministers. The emotional toll of ministering to a grieving community is immense, and ministers are in dire need of rest and renewal.  JULY 14 Climate Justice through Cultural Movement      [Image credit:Yowanda Yonggara]   In October 2023, Mission and Service partner the World Student Christian Federation Asia-Pacific, worked with the Bangladesh Student Christian Movement to bring together 50 passionate students from various regions of Bangladesh to address the critical issue of climate change.      JULY 21 Restoring Lost Languages    [Photo credit:Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq/Kitikmeot Heritage Society]   Revitalizing a lost language, as one of our partners in Nunavut is doing, is an important way to preserve not just the language but also the culture that surrounds it.    JULY 28 Facing an Uncertain Future in Lebanon     [Photo credit: © Rawpixelimages | Dreamstime.com]   Fleeing war, Hamdan's family struggled to afford basic needs, jeopardizing his education. Thanks to your support, MECC provides tuition assistance, securing Hamdan's future.  Ask Glenn and Dave! Questions about congregational stewardship or Mission and Service? Just ask Glenn and Dave! Glenn Waterman answers your questions about Mission and Service, and Rev. Dave Jagger handles everything related to congregational stewardship. Question:  Why are United Churches using U.S. based website platforms? Is there a way The United Church of Canada could fund a web-site platform so every United Church could have a site on united-church.ca through which donations could be made as well? Answer:  According to the current polity of our denomination, it is up to each community of faith to decide what web platform and web design software it will use to create its own website, if it has one at all. One of the activities within the Common Good section of the Strategic Plan is working on some suggestions and guidelines for communities of faith to use when making this kind of decision, but it’s up to the local community of faith to decide what works best for them. Your idea of a common web platform across the whole denomination is interesting. However, at this time, and with current resources available, I don’t think we have either the funding or the personnel to create and manage such a thing. It would also be a great challenge to try and accommodate all the unique and specific needs of the variety of communities of faith across the country. And unless we made it mandatory, and charged a fee, it wouldn’t really be sustainable. If you have a question, send it on our handy form, and you’ll get an answer by email or in the next issue of God’s Mission, Our Gifts, or both (your choice). And if your question stumps our all-star team of two, they may even collaborate! Confidential to H…that CanadaHelps link is definitely for your community of faith. Go ahead and use it!   If you haven’t, take a few minutes and do it today!   Questions? Email Mission and Service or call us at 1-800-465-3771.    2023 Mission and Service thank-you certificates and Accountability Reports are on their way to you now! Here’s an Idea! As we begin the 100th Anniversary celebrations of Church Union, give people a chance to tell their story of their passion for the church. Share short testimonial-style stories about why people love their church; how their church has supported their faith; how their church is making a difference in your community and the world. Email Mission and Service or give us a call at 1-800-465-3771 if you have a story to share.  Gifts with Vision: Camping Trust Summer is here, and Gifts with Vision is making a difference for kids at camps across Canada through the Camping Trust.   United Church camps across the country turn to the Camping Trust for projects big and small. Not every project is a tug-at-your-heartstrings, tailor-made-for-magazines story. Some are more functional than flashy—like fixing a hole in a roof or constructing gender-neutral washrooms. But every project is an important part of bringing camping ministry to life, and every grant from the Camping Trust helps make United Church camps possible. Did you know that one way you can support Mission and Service is by being a volunteer? Volunteers are “on the ground” in communities of faith. They tell our stories, making more and more people aware of just how life-changing Mission and Service is! They can choose what they want to do and the amount of time they can spend. And volunteers play an important part by letting us know about what works (and doesn’t work!) in their communities of faith. If this sounds like something you’d like to do, call us at 1-800-465-3771 or email Mission and Service. GOD’S MISSION, OUR GIFTS is your newsletter. We want to provide news and information that you can use in your community of faith, whether you’re a minister, a board member, an administrator, a treasurer, or anyone else who wants to make a difference.   What else would you like to see? What can we do to help your community of faith get where it needs to go? Send us your thoughts! Donate Facebook Twitter Website Email Instagram YouTube LinkedIn   Your generosity enables the United Church to love, serve, and minister in the world. Make an online donation or learn more about your options to support the work of the church.

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