Enrich your harvest festival
Harvest is a time to gather what we have, a time to thank God for all he has given us, and a time to reflect on what he is calling us to create. The Generosity Week resources echo the themes of Harvest brilliantly, with services materials available for two Sundays covering the topics of generosity and gratitude. Generosity Week does not have fixed dates, so can be used whichever week suits your church best.
Choose resources that will engage your community well
The resources available are varied to suit a breadth of church cultures and worship styles. There are service materials for both eucharist and services of the word, resources for small group discussions, and materials for engaging children and young people. You can explore all these resources and more on this ‘Generosity Week in your church’ page.
When deciding which resources to use consider the following questions:
- Who is our target audience?
- How do our church community learn best?
- What could be fun or different to try?
As well as choosing which resources will best suit your context, consider in what setting they will work well. For example, the Generosity Week podcasts have been created with individual reflection in mind. However, you may also wish to discuss them as a small group, encouraging members to share their own stories of generosity.
Invite the whole community
Generosity Week is a celebration of God’s generosity that is lived out in our churches and parishes. It gives us an opportunity to engage with and support the wider community as we celebrate the generosity found among us. This past year we have seen acts of generosity across the nation, and a Generosity Week would be a wonderful invitation for your local neighbours, schools, and businesses to come and celebrate not just ‘our’ generosity but God’s. There is lots of help on how to engage your wider community with Generosity Week in the online guide.
To help you promote your church’s Generosity Week, the National Giving Team have also created a marketing toolkit for you to use, with lots of ideas on how and where you can share this invitation.
Enable people to respond throughout the week
As we reflect on the generosity of our God, we find inspiration to be more generous ourselves. Think about how people in your parish community could respond in generosity, both practically and financially, and how you can communicate the available ways of giving to them. Is your website up to date with how people can give financially and volunteer at your church?
The Generosity Week website has a daily challenge alongside the podcast and biblical reflection. You could encourage your church community to listen, reflect and do the generous activity for the day, or even write your own daily challenges.
Plan to have a time of response together in your Sunday services, as a way of celebrating and reflecting on your Generosity Week. You could have a gratitude wall for all ages to add something that they are thankful for in the first week, and a post-box for people’s generous promises on the second Sunday.
Do what you can – and enjoy it!
You may wish to use all the materials that are available, but we recommend that you consider what you can comfortably deliver with the resources you have available. It’s better to do one or two things well than to overstretch yourself and remember, you can always build on your Generosity Week next year!
We hope that Generosity Week give each of you deeper understanding of God’s generosity towards us and how we can live more generously in our daily lives.
For more advice on how Generosity Week could serve your parish well, please contact a member of our Giving Team.
