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September 18, 2007
Scaling Stewardship in Colorado, Part 2
This week we're taking a look inside what it's like to "do" stewardship in Colorado, defined by our Convention as an "emerging" state. Below are the words of Duane Trimble, State Stewardship Director, for the Colorado State Baptist Convention.
Colorado has more mountains topping fourteen thousand feet than any other state. Over fifty so I’m told. A few hardy individuals can lay claim to having climbed all the fourteeners! I’m not one of them. Since Colorado falls in the “emerging state convention” category, we do face some challenging stewardship “fourteeners”!
Ben Stroup of LifeWay invited me to comment on what it is like being a State Stewardship Director in an emerging state. The title of State Stewardship Director of Colorado Baptist Convention requires modification. Colorado doesn’t have such a critter! What we do have is a Church Health Team largely staffed by persons who have other full time ministry positions outside of the convention roster, myself included. These team members cover a wide range of assignments. One of them is Stewardship Development. Each team member receives a modest stipend along with a ministry budget.
In December of 2001 the Lord took my wife and I in a radical direction. It was dramatic enough to leave a pastorate blessed with a full array of support staff and enough income to provide a more than decent salary and “go west”. We felt called to a struggling church in Loveland, CO, raising the majority of our own salary, and after thirty years of ministry began serving the smallest congregation of my career. But my heart was quickly invested in the challenges of the church and eventually the state convention.
Within a year I was asked to join the Church Health Team serving in the area of Stewardship Development. Having served for several years in Missouri as a pastor/consultant under Jim Rich, then state Stewardship Director for MBC, I naturally assumed that what worked there would work here. As it turned out, I had a few things to learn and a few stewardship fourteener’s to climb.
Be sure to check back in tomorrow to learn more about stewardship in Colorado. By the way, you can receive updates via e-mail automatically when you subscribe to this blog at the upper right-hand side of your screen.
Posted by bstroup at September 18, 2007 1:01 AM
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