TENS ministry offers advice and resources for parish stewardship

It’s never easy to talk about money — whether it is friends splitting a bill, a couple discussing their household budget, or a parish talking about stewardship. But Anglican parishes in the Diocese of Ottawa can get help starting conversations about stewardship and access some valuable advice, expertise and resources for stewardship campaigns through The Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS)

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.

On Oct. 28, TENS and the Diocese are partnering to host an online webinar on stewardship, where attendees can bring all their questions, whether they are a veteran of parish stewardship campaigns or a bewildered beginner. In the lead-up to the webinar, Perspective interviewed TENS executive director Canon Davey Gerhard.

Anglicans are “often a little timid talking about money and faith,” he acknowledges. “We hope to kind of break through some of those barriers.… If we look at Jesus and his ministry, 40 percent of his parables are about money, stuff, things, and our attachments to them— 16 out of 40 parables,” he said. “That tells us Jesus spent a lot of time talking about money, too, because it’s stuck in our lives, and we relate to it in healthy and unhealthy ways. That comes up in faith, so why not find appropriate faith-based ways to talk about and engage our money and our ministry because they impact each other.”

Gerhard explains that TENS tries to help people see stewardship in a holistic way as a part of their faith. “So often I think we think of stewardship as transactional, and what TENS aims to do is make it transformational, where we understand that every dollar that we raise in church goes to ministry. There’s no waste. We steward those investments from our members well and that is an essential part of how we create community and how we fund our ministry. And it’s not just our outreach, it’s also how we care for ourselves, how we care for each other, how we are that model of love to each other within our walls and to our neighbors outside.”

For that reason, TENS offers resources for year-round formation and holistic campaigns that encourage people to give of their time, talent, and treasure. Anglicans, he says, may have heard a lot of metaphors about three-legged stools over the years, but he says all three legs are “equally important… You don’t just give your money. You also show up, and you volunteer, and you join committees, and you share your wisdom and your ideas. The church needs all of that. What’s a skill or gift you have that you’d like to use for the church?”

TENS Stewardship Resources

Each year, TENS creates a new annual pledge campaign with a new theme, artwork, logos, pledge cards and reflections. “We aim for this to be a year-round tool,” Gerhard said, “so our resources start in Advent, and they go right through Christ the King. There’s a seasonal reflection every time the colour changes in church. There’s another reflection so that you can relate the theme to what’s going on in the liturgy, which is how we as Anglicans see the world so often.”

He adds: “It’s a full package, and it is designed so that if this is your first campaign and you have no idea what you’re doing, you can download it and go with it. But if you’re a veteran fundraiser and you’ve been doing this for years and you know what you’re doing, we give it to you both in PDF and in Microsoft Word so that you can adapt it and change it.”

Annual campaigns aim to fit the needs of small and medium congregations, urban and rural suburban as well, Gerhard says. ” Large congregations such as cathedrals often have their own fundraising systems and staff. “Our products work no matter where you are at, but our sweet spot is more the medium sized parishes. Maybe there’s one clergy or two overworked clergy and a limited pool of volunteers,” he said. “We really are kind of trying to help them be able to run the very best campaign they can with limited people or maybe a limited budget.”

TENS hopes and recommends that congregations keep some formation programs going on throughout the year and provides materials such as weekly reflections. “The idea is that if the only time you’re talking about sharing gifts or stewardship is when the campaign is running, you’ve missed out on all these opportunities throughout the year to relate our gratitude to our generosity; to relate the life of the church to the ministry that we offer.,” says Gerhard.

The creation of the annual pledge campaigns are funded through diocesan partnerships. “We’re trying to make it as affordable as possible, so there’s a diocesan rate and then a congregation rate. If you have fewer than a hundred people on an average Sunday, it’s $100. And if you have more, it’s $250. Gerhard explains that TENS charges something for the pledge campaigns “because it is work for us to produce stewardship resources … but If we create materials and then charge too much for them, that defeats the purpose of trying to grow the kingdom of God and do this work.”

There is also a need for flexibility, Gerhard says. “We’re seeing a lot of resistance to pledge campaigns from our Gen Z members but also from members who maybe have seasonal employment or are a part of the gig economy …where they are making an income, but it’s not predictable like a salary. We’re looking at the truth that it’s a real privilege to have a job in which you can predict next year’s income…. If we’re asking everyone to pledge based on what they think they can do, we’re leaving out folks who really don’t know what generosity is going to look like next year. And so we’re looking at other models.

“A congregation in Houston, Texas, does a campaign called One Hour, One Hour, One Hour, where they ask someone to give an hour of their pay every week to the church, whatever that is, an hour of service to the community, and an hour of service to the church….If you have a week wherein you make more money, you can be more generous. You can always give that hour of service to the world. You can always give that hour of service to the church. … So it’s a very different kind of promise that we’re asking people to make. And it’s unlocking generosity in younger generations or in seasonally employed folks. … Are you any less a part of the community because your financial gift is smaller than somebody else’s? We don’t believe that. We don’t teach that.”

All of the material for the current pledge campaign “Tell Out My Soul” is available on the TENS website: The password is Luke1:46 (Please note that there are no spaces and it is case sensitive). Past years’ campaign materials are also available to use as well if a parish prefers a different theme.

Additional resources

Beyond the annual campaign materials, TENS has many great resources that are free and accessible without a password. Their resource library has articles, toolkits, and ideas for best practices, spirituality and formation, and liturgical resources. There is also an online webinar library, archiving many free webinars TENS has offered over the years.

Signing up for the free monthly TENS newsletter can also help parish stewardship leaders — lay or clergy — learn more.

Webinars

TENS holds online webinars throughout the year on various topics, as well as partnering with dioceses for specific webinars., “Every diocese that’s a partner gets one webinar a year from us to use however they want,” Gerhard explains. “It can be on best practices, which is what most of them use it for, but it can also be one of our more nuanced or deep dive topics of stewardship. I do many, many dozens of webinars a year for our diocesan partners, and I love that work.”

Registration

This year’s webinar for the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa “Why Stewardship? An Anglican Perspective” will be online at noon on Oct. 28.  Register online.