I have been involved in stewardship, in both my parish and in our diocese, for close to two decades. Over those years, I have come to appreciate that stewardship is about just that – how we share our gifts of time, talent and treasure to further God’s mission. It is much more than simply our financial contributions to the Church. It is also about recognizing what we have received, what matters to us, and what we hope to pass on.

Generations of Anglicans before us gave their time, shared their resources and sustained our parishes and ministries through their faith, commitment and generosity. They cared about the Church of their day, but they also made possible much of the Church we know today. We have received and recognize what they have entrusted to us.

It follows, therefore, that we should be talking more openly about what we, in turn, might entrust to those who will follow us. What can we do today to help ensure that our Church can sustain its mission in future years?

This question leads directly to a consideration of legacy giving. What will our legacy be, and how will we ensure that it plays the role we intend it to play?

Answering these questions requires that we reflect on what has been important in our lives, to talk with the people we love, and to make thoughtful choices about the difference we would like to make in the future.

Family and those closest to us will naturally be at the centre of those decisions. For many Anglicans, the Church may also have a place. A gift in a will can express something quite simple: that our faith and our Church community have mattered to us, and we would like others to experience what we have found there.

Some may choose to remember their parish. Others may wish to give to one of our Community Ministries: Belong Ottawa, Cornerstone Housing for Women, Centre 105, The Ottawa Pastoral Counselling Centre, or the Refugee Ministry Office. A gift may also be made to the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa. Each reflects a personal decision about what we value and hope will continue.

“Planned giving” means including charitable giving in our longer-term financial or estate planning, as a way of leaving our own personal legacy. Legacy giving is one form, most commonly through a bequest in a will. Such gifts can include securities, life insurance, RRSPs or RRIFs, and beneficiary designations, among others.

Legacy giving is not limited to those with considerable wealth. A gift may be large or modest from accumulated assets or a gift of cash. Professional advice is essential, but the first step can simply be a conversation: What has been important in my life? What do I want to pass on? What would I like to help make possible for others? How do I go about doing that?

On Tuesday, Oct. 27, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., I will host an online diocesan webinar, Supporting the Church You Love, for Generations to Come: Your Legacy. God’s Mission. It will be presented in collaboration with the ADO Learning Commons and the Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS).

I will be joined by Canon J. Davey Gerhard of TENS, Ratul Dutta, a financial advisor from RBC Dominion Securities, and Rita Asangarani, a lawyer practising in wills, estates and trusts. Together, we will bring perspectives on Christian stewardship, financial planning and the legal considerations of legacy giving.

Our hope is to make it easier to begin these conversations, with thoughtful reflection, practical information and an opportunity to ask questions. Free registration on Eventbrite at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1993707443633?aff=oddtdtcreator.

We have received much from those who came before us. In considering our own legacy, we have an opportunity to carry that generosity forward, so that future generations can build strong communities of faith, care for their neighbours, respond to the needs of their time, and ensure that the Church remains an active and meaningful presence in the communities we serve.

Derwyn Sangster is Chair, Stewardship Resource Hub,
Anglican Diocese of Ottawa

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Knowing this, the diocesan Stewardship Committee has been planning for some time to produce a video, interviewing members of a parish that has made important strides forward in terms of their approach to financial stewardship to help inspire and offer practical advice and ideas for other parishes.

This spring, those plans were realized. The Learning Commons has now posted a video in which Anglicans from the Parish of the Valley, particularly Holy Trinity Pembroke, share what they have learned in their efforts to deal with financial challenges and to build a healthy and effective approach to stewardship.

In April, Carole Breton, diocesan director of Communications and Development, travelled to Pembroke with a small team, including videographer Karl Chatel, to interview one of the Parish of the Valley’s associate incumbent, the Rev. Gillian Hoyer, and Marie Cheesman, member of diocesan council and former chair of Holy Trinity’s Ministry and Money Working Group, about their successful approaches to stewardship and the important lessons they have learned along the way.

“Jesus talked about money more than he talked about just about anything else in the recorded words that we have in the Gospels,” said Hoyer. “And so, I think that how we steward our money, how we steward our time, our gifts, are such an important part of what it means to be a holistic and healthy Christian and healthy Christian community….Stewardship is a part of our life together.”

Cheesman explained that the challenges Holy Trinity faced are likely very similar to those faced by many congregations.

They found that the pattern of financial offerings were very heavily weighted at the end of each year, but such uneven givings made it difficult for the church to pay its bills and expenses through the rest of the year.

The number of parishioners using pre-authorized remittance (PAR) to give regularly was dwindling as parishioners aged and new parishioners were not signing up to replace that.

A historic church building and other needs required funds to maintain and invest in the life of the congregation.

Some of the ways they addressed these challenges were:

• Creating a Pentecost stewardship campaign to encourage giving at an earlier point in the year
• A creative person in the parish made low-cost video vignettes asking parishioners what Holy Trinity meant to them, which spurred everyone to reflect on what they love about their community.
• Using ready-made stewardship campaign resources available through the diocesan church’s membership in The Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS) and tailoring them to suit the congregation
• Applying for government grants, which added up to $100,000 in additional funds that have helped with renovations and purchases such as much-needed new tables and chairs for the parish hall.

Both Hoyer and Cheesman offer practical and kind advice to other parishes who may be feeling daunted and wondering where to begin to address financial needs in their congregations or parishes. Start small, they said. Hoyer said the first step for the clergy team in the Parish of the Valley was writing just one letter that went out to everyone in the parish. But the essential take-away was not to be afraid and just start.

Watching and discussing the 10-minute video posted as a resource on the Learning Commons page of the diocesan website will now provide another way for congregations or parishes to begin their own stewardship journeys.

The video is part of a series of way to engage called “Stewardship in Action — Voices from Across the Diocese”  video, social media, Learning Commons content, stories in Perspective. This stewardship video marks the first of the new series of content.

Videographer Karl Chatel filmed and edited the interviews with Marie Cheesman and the Rev. Gillian Hoyer to produce a stewardship resource for the Learning Commons page of the diocesan website.

Learning Commons: Helping Parishes Thrive

Resources from The Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS) are available to all parishes and congregations at no cost through the diocesan membership.

TENS Annual Pledge Campaign Materials

Each pledge campaign Zip file has complete resources a fall pledge campaign for the Liturgical Year and includes:

Logos and artwork

Seasonal Meditations on Generosity

Sample Letters from Clergy, Wardens, Committee, and Thank-you notes

Pledge Cards

Formation Resources for adults and families

Weekly Meditations to use during the campaign season

Liturgical Resources and Prayers of the People for your campaign season

Past years’ resources are also available, so parishes can choose a theme that best speaks to their community.

The password for this year is Matthew22:4 . Please note that there are no spaces, and the password is case sensitive. You are invited to share this password widely through newsletters, websites, and social media to help your community access these tools. The password will remain active until February 2027, when the renewal period concludes.

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TENS is a ministry of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. and the Anglican Church of Canada. It is an association of church leaders that provides resources and training at low or no cost to clergy and lay stewardship leaders. The Anglican Diocese of Ottawa is a member, which means that all the parishes in the diocese can access all of TENS stewardship resources.

The webinar featured a conversation with Davey Gerhard, executive director of TENS, and the Rev. Debra Bennett, a TENS board member and the priest at Church of Our Savior in Akron, Ohio.

Derwyn Sangster, chair of the the Stewardship Resource Hub moderated. The following excerpts offer a glimpse of the rich discussion:

“From your perspective in the Anglican faith, what is stewardship?” Sangster asked Bennett.

“On a number of levels, it can be understood as an act of worship. It’s our relationship with God and how we respond to God’s generosity in our lives, in all facets of our lives. Where are the blessings? Where are we grateful?” she said. “And it is a part of our spiritual disciplines —when we are intentional around attending to those things of God that we understand are part of how we live and move and have our being. And so, when we engage in service to community, that is an act of stewardship.”

Sangster then asked Gerhard what stewardship means in the day-to-day life of a congregation.

“If we think about stewardship in general as caring for all of God’s creation, the entire kingdom of God, the reign of God, we think about our congregational context as our own little corner of God’s reign, of God’s kingdom. And while we are called to serve all of God’s people, the parish context gives us the opportunity to serve our local community and the local ways that our community needs us to be present, to stand up for it, to advocate for it, to heal and seek and serve.… I look at our congregations as our local place to engage God’s work and to keep that recognition of abundance, gratitude, and generosity flowing out to our neighbors.”

Sangster also asked Gerhard, “What are the essential elements of a successful stewardship campaign? And… how can TENs resources be brought to bear in support of parish campaigns?”

“What TENS does, in addition to creating an annual pledge campaign, which is about the mechanics of how we raise money in a congregation — pledge cards and statements of faith and letters and prayers —all those things are very important and touch on the spiritual and the human components of our stewardship. But then we also give an enormous number of resources for ongoing formation throughout the year. My worry is that when congregations only talk about stewardship as a coded word for fundraising, and they only do that once a year or one month a year, then we’re missing all these other amazing opportunities to draw that connection between gifts received and gifts given, and gratitude….”

“We inspire, we nurture, we grow Christians in their faith and in their love. And part of doing that is then for us to see stewardship, not as just transactional, but transformational. … Our resource library is chock full of things. Our webinars all through the year get into work that’s not just how to run a stewardship campaign, but how to evangelize, how to talk about money and faith, how to see what your community needs from you and bring that back into your budgeting process and your planning processes.”

Enjoy the full webinar online and contact Carole Breton, director of Communications and Development, for more information:

carole-breton@ottawa.anglican.ca.

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