Ask, Thank, Tell: Improving Stewardship Ministry in Your Congregation

Undoubtedly the best guide to congregations wishing to help people on their faith journey I have ever read. It is a pragmatic and inspirational guide to stewardship that every Christian should read.

This is a helpful "how to" book for pastors and lay people wanting to assist congregations to understand financial stewardship in a theological context as over against raising money to make the budget. Author Charles Lane challenges readers not only to ask people to give, but to thank them when they do, and to tell the story of what their gifts make possible. Lane is strong on the idea that none of what we hold belongs to us, but to God. He goes so far as to say that what we have isn't a gift from God, because then we could do whatever we choose with it. What we have is on loan from God to be used wisely in God's behalf. What we give back to God is not a gift, but a return of what belongs to God in the first place. Once we get that straight, we begin to understand what stewardship is really about.