What are Your Stewardship Goals for 2023?

New Year’s resolutions…are they worthy or merely an exercise in futility?
 
According to “Mick” whose goal for existing is to help you “unlock your superpower to create a life you care about” (and who am I to question that?), only 9% of all people fulfill their New Year’s resolutions.
 
But all is not lost. Forbes magazine contributor, Dr. Tracy Bower, says there are four excellent reasons to set resolutions even if you don’t fulfill them:
 
1. Intention: “When you’re moving forward with clear direction, you make a positive contribution to your emotional and mental health.” It’s good for you.
 
2. Hope and Engagement: “[A] positive view of the future, in turn, tends to motivate action.” This might be the year that you make movement on your goals.
 
3. Responsibility: “New Year’s resolutions…[are] also [a way] to consider your broader responsibility—and to expand and multiply your positive effects on others.”  Your goals impact not only you but your congregation too.
 
4. Inspiration (my personal favorite): “When you seek to be better, do better or contribute more fully, you tend to inspire others as well.” Being an inspiration to others is a great goal.
 
All this is to say, what are your stewardship goals for 2023?
 
To say “thank you” more often?
To help your congregation understand that generosity is a spiritual discipline?
To raise more money to fund important ministries?
To get your personal and your congregation’s financial house in order?
To preach at least one or two sermons on generosity outside of the traditional stewardship month?
To (finally) make on-line giving a reality?
 
You know what the needs are for your congregation or for your organization.
 
What’s important is that you carve out thirty minutes (really, that’s all!) to set your priorities – your intentions – for what you hope and dream for the coming year in the area of stewardship.

My New Year's gift to you is the Stewardship Calendar.
 
It’s not meant to overwhelm or burden you.
 
Perhaps it will stir you to think about what goals you have for this new year. Maybe it will inspire you to think about making stewardship and generosity a year-round thing in your congregation or organization. Possibly you’ll check off just one or two things but then again, maybe you’ll check off the whole darned list. This year, I've added links to some of my previous blog posts that might make going forward less intimidating.
 
Let me know what you think. Drop me a line if you’d like the Stewardship Calendar in a Word document so that you can personalize it. And, as always, let me know how I can help you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, (to take a few words from “Mick”) unlock your superpower.
 
Happy New Year! Here’s to being the one who reaches your goals for 2023!

Cesie Delve Scheuermann (pronounced “CC Delv Sherman,” yes, really) is a Stewardship Consultant for the OR-ID Annual Conference. She is also a Senior Ministry Strategist with Horizons Stewardship. For 25 years, while working as a volunteer and part-time consultant, she has helped raise over three million dollars for numerous churches and non-profit organizations. Take a look at how Adithya Chakravarthy at TEDxYouth suggests how to keep your New Year’s Resolutions. Shockingly, it does not involve watching more TikTok.

You can reach Cesie at inspiringgenerosity@gmail.com or on Facebook or at CesieScheuermann.com and one more…cesieds@horizons.net.

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