December is winter where I am, yet it’s a sweaty month for many church treasurers and finance people with a December fiscal year end. They are anxiously wondering: will the organization meet the budget, that is to say will donations match ministry goals?

Regardless of your faith tradition, everyone dies in the end. Please remember with gratitude people who have left money to the church in their wills.

The practice of gratitude guides humans like ultraviolet vision guides bees.

Ultimately having a big pile of money under the mattress is exactly the same as having a big pile of zucchini under the bed. You can’t take it with you.

Frederik Buechner’s wisdom applied to generosity. Where do your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet? What kind of giving inspires joy? What does the world need?

Generosity as Spiritual Gift - Part 2: Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control

Generosity is one of the fruits of the Spirit. Are our hearts and our lives headed in the same direction? Is it a good direction? Like the moisture meter, the answers to those questions speak truth!

The atmosphere in the quilt auction was electric. I can’t think of another setting where Mennonites go public with their generosity in quite the same way. Fundraising proclaims your values. Let’s unpack that.

Giving is a spiritual discipline like prayer, part of following Jesus. It’s a discipleship question, not a budget question. Can someone donate to your church using their phone?

Deuteronomy 26, the lectionary for this coming Sunday, talks about sharing the first fruits of the harvest as an offering to God.

The first ripe tomato, the cookies fresh out of the oven, part of the first paycheque. When we share what God has given us, from our first fruits, we honour God.

At the start of the harvest, we don’t know what the coming year will bring. Will there be famine or hardship? Should we can those first tomatoes in a jar on the shelf?