Too often, stewardship campaigns get bogged down in a need to “make this year’s budget.” This four week stewardship sermon series encourages us to take the long view of God’s mission instead, celebrating our chapter in the everlasting story of God’s vision for the church and the world.
Legacy: Series Outline
Week 1: A Future Not Our Own
Scripture: Numbers 27:12-20
For many, this is a difficult passage–the idea that God is “punishing” Moses for his earlier faithlessness by not allowing him to see the Promised Land. However, God also offers Moses the opportunity to demonstrate the harder faithfulness of trusting God to ensure his legacy continues beyond his own life, by appointing, empowering, and commissioning Joshua to continue in caring for the Israelites. Do we trust God to carry our legacies into the future, beyond our own control and even beyond our own sight? Do we have the faithfulness to put our plans in others’ hands?
Week 2: Our Ancestors’ Faithfulness
Scripture: Ruth 4:9-17
The story of Ruth has several small scenes of everyday faithfulness amongst hardship, most famously when Ruth refuses to abandon her mother-in-law, Naomi, but also in Naomi’s courage in going home without a husband, and Ruth’s courage in going out to glean. This final scene acts as the culmination of all these small faithfulnesses, as Boaz commits himself to marriage with the foreign widow he loves. The story ends with a genealogy that draws the legacy of Ruth, Boaz, and Naomi out to David. In our Christian tradition, we extend that lineage all the way out to Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. If it were not for this domestic drama of faithfulness, Joseph might never have been born, to shield, care for, teach, and support Jesus. What might your congregation’s small faithfulnesses engender, decades or even centuries down the line?
Week 3: How Will We Be Remembered?
Scripture: Matthew 26:6-13
Set between the plot to kill Jesus and Judas’ betrayal, this small scene at dinner carries extraordinary tension within the story of the gospel. That tension is betrayed by the anger of the disciples, who see a woman caring extravagantly for Jesus and find reasons to criticize her. It is not that Jesus does not want to see money given to the poor–in fact, Jesus has multiple times encouraged the wealthy to sell all they have–but that he sees the extraordinary compassion in the woman’s act. Jesus proclaims that “wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her. Just as Jesus’ own sacrifice is the crux of the good news of the gospel, so will this woman’s sacrifice stand as a human echo of what it means to give our all in love. ” Encourage your congregation to reflect on how their own lives and legacy might be told in remembrance of them.
Week 4: Building on Christ
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:1-15
This scripture offers two images for how our legacy is created, one agricultural, one architectural. Whether you use both or focus on one, each offers a beautiful reminder that our legacy is not of our own making, nor to our own glory, but is a gift of God to God’s glory. As your people envision where their generosity might take them in the following year, invite them to see their lives and legacy as the place where God’s legacy is shown.
Ministry Resources
Legacy Liturgy, including
Legacy Stewardship Resources
Legacy Graphics (editable Canva templates)
Deep Well Worship 