On Sunday, July 12, 2009 immediately following the UTO Ingathering Eucharist at General Convention TENS is once again sponsoring a luncheon celebration to honor the 2009 Apostles in Stewardship and winners of Best Practices Awards.

To view the biographical information of the four individuals to be honored as Apostles in Stewardship click on the title above or set your web browser to: http://tens.org/docs/ApostlesStewardshipAwardWinners.pdf

By going to the URL noted above you will find an invitation to this event, an order form for tickets, and a press release regarding the program. Tickets can also be ordered online from the TENS online store at "Event Tickets."

You can help underwrite this event with a financial gift in honor of one or more of the 2009 award recipients. Donors will be recognized in the commemorative event program. Gifts of at least $250 will qualify as “underwriters.”

If you are a bishop or deputy to General Convention you have also received this information by regular mail.

2009 Apostles in Stewardship Award Winners

"First Fruits" Best Practices Awards

In 2009, the Apostles in Stewardship Awards program once again includes the recognition of “Best Practices” in stewardship ministries in The Episcopal Church.

Each diocesan bishop of The Episcopal Church was invited to nominate a program, project, parish, committee or individual exhibiting best practices in stewardship education, training, recruitment or communication.

The three winners selected from the fourteen submissions are:

”Which Star Are You Following?” a diocesan-wide program from the Stewardship Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan during 2007 and 2008 that encouraged members to “try out the tithe” for three months.

St. Augustine’s in-the-Woods, Freeland, WA. A family sized parish that have taken stewardship formation seriously. Parish leadership took a serious look at their then collective current understanding and practice of Christian Stewardship and moved intentionally from an understanding of stewardship as focusing only on money to understanding stewardship as about who we are as creatures of a generous God and what our response should be as a result of that realization.

“Multiplication of Abundance” at St. David’s Episcopal Church in the central Indiana community of Bean Blossom is a program that successfully molded the concepts of a long-range parish plan, a 50th anniversary celebration, a capital campaign, and uniquely tithing their capital campaign funds for community outreach.

Click here to read more detail of the winning submissions and to order a CD resource documenting all of the submissions.