SermonSuite

Stewardship of Life Institute
The Stewardship of Life Institute (SOLI) is an independent entity, headquartered at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. The Institute (www.stewardshipoflife.org) was founded in 1994 and sees its mission as stewardship education and promotion throughout the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and particularly in the seminaries of the ELCA. The Institute publishes study materials, adult education courses, resources for congregational stewardship education, and much more. Some of these print resources are available free of charge, while others involve a cost. In addition to print publications and resources, the Web site is a resource in itself which would be a valuable “bookmark” in any congregational leader’s Web browser.

del.icio.us (pronounced as "delicious") is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Visit Lutheran Partners' del.icio.us site at del.icio.us/lutheranpartners

The best feature of this site for church leaders at any time of the year is the “New This Week” home page. Well-maintained and frequently updated, the main page of SOLI provides key links to their own new material as well to as good resources from around the Web (both church-related and not, Lutheran and ecumenical) that have to do with stewardship of time, treasure, and talent.

A recent contribution from the “New This Week” site was a link to a column from Church Solutions magazine about giving in troubling economic times, an essay about stewardship of God’s creation from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, a handy list of best practices for year-round stewardship formation from the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, and two columns from SOLI’s own regular contributors.

Each of these sets of resources, posted new every week, are archived on the site so you can retrieve the best material and links from the past five years. This is a great way to use Web resources like this, as a place to literally “hyperlink” your way around to new ideas and fresh insights, along with reminders of well-proven truths from the past.

In addition to linking to resources, articles, sermon ideas, and worship resources from around the church and world, SOLI has a set of regular contributors of original content. Pastor Sharron Lucas writes a biweekly column exploring what it means to live a whole life of stewardship. Topics interact with parish life, family life, and lectionary texts. The author’s thrust is always about the stewardship of all of God’s gifts.

Pastor Robert Blezard, who serves as the Web master and content editor for SOLI’s Web site, writes a weekly brief column that goes together with a weekly e-mail update to subscribers. If you click on the easy “Click to Subscribe” button on the left side of the Resources subpage, you’ll get a weekly e-mail with Pastor Blezard’s comments and direct links to the new resources highlighted by SOLI for that week.

For those looking for fresh and faithful insights into stewardship of money as well as everything else that God has given us, stewardshipoflife.org will be a great addition to your Bookmarks file.

Jennifer and Seth Moland-Kovash serve as co-pastors of All Saints Lutheran Church in Palatine, Illinois and editors for Lutheran Partners and Lutheran Partners Online. More online resources can be found at http://delicious.com/lutheranpartners.