A Call to Stewardship

 

 

 The Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma provides program services to all its congregations.  These services include:

  • Working with leadership in a congregation to setup or strengthen stewardship programs

  • Designing annual commitment campaigns

  • Designing year-round stewardship programs

  • Implementing planned giving programs

  • Seminars and workshops

  • Sunday School programs

  • Speakers bureau

  • Resource libraries at the Church Center in Oklahoma City and at the Stewardship Office in Tulsa

  • Ongoing consultative support and networking services

 

For information or to request assistance please contact:

The Office of Stewardship and Planned Giving

4200 Atlanta Place

Tulsa, OK 74105

(918)712-7002,

or by email at [email protected]

 

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First Fruits

 

By The Rev. Rick Brewer, Christ Church

 

First Fruits, a term from the Hebrew Bible, meant bring to the Temple a portion of the harvest as an offering to God.  The first gatherings (the first fruits) were to be brought because they were considered to be the best and purest of the harvest.  The ritual, like all religious rituals, was a prayer of oblation.  Oblation, one of the principle prayer forms named in the Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer, is defined as “an offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in union with Christ, for the purposes of God” (BCP, p. 857).

As we address the spiritual discipline of stewardship – the management of our talents, money and time – the Church instructs us that we do so within the context of prayer.  Tithing does gather revenue for the work of the church; however, we miss the point whenever we restrict our understanding of tithing to generating funds.  In our economic system, money measures our life and labor much like crops did in an agricultural society.  As such, it becomes a symbol expressing the meanings of our life.

In turn, First Fruits means the first portion of our pay check.  The portion offered is a prayer, specifically a prayer of oblation that offers us to God for the purposes of God.  We offer our tithe as a ritual action, a prayer that expresses our intent and our hope that we live our whole life in concert with God’s loving and compassionate purposes.  It becomes a concrete, specific way to ask God to allow each of us to become an instrument of His grace among whom we live, work and worship.

 

The Bride--A Reflection on Giving

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