What Is Our Season of Faith?

The 14th edition of Our Season of Faith is just ahead, September 21 through October 12.  If you're new to First Christian, you probably don't know how OSOF started or what it's all about.  If you've been around a while, maybe you've forgotten some of the wonderful details and need a short refresher!

Our Season of Faith
A homemade recipe for stewardship

Out of steam!

Fifteen years ago, First Christian Church finally ran out of steam.
Woosh.
There must be a better way.

We’d completely exhausted our enthusiasm for stewardship consultants who appeared each year with their plans for committees and subcommittees and training sessions and dinners. Surefire ways to raise the annual church budget. Foolproof.

There was the stairstep campaign which compared stewardship to climbing stairs. On a diagram, (everybody got their own copy), church families found the step on which their giving stood, and the campaign pressed them to climb their giving just one more gentle step.

One more painless percent.
Go ahead.
Give it a try.
It’s easy.

And how about the remarkable campaign where saddle bags packed with information and pledge cards traveled among church families, one family delivering the financial mail to the next Those old days were filled with case statements, tailored reports and analytics.

Year after year, stewardship was like that iconic 1960’s Coca Cola commercial that promoted Coke as “That refreshing new feeling.” And year after year, with each new feeling, stewardship became an unrefreshing drink despite all the sugar. Pulpit sermons preached it. Pressure and persuasion in equal portions.

Well, fifteen years ago a committee convened to find a better way. They searched for a homemade recipe to add faith back into the financial soup. What emerged was Our Season of Faith, a tasty concoction that combined tablespoons of generosity, responsibility and gratitude with heaping helpings of spirituality, self-awareness and compassion. Stir vigorously until a deeper sense of purpose and meaning emerges.
Simmer on low and serve.

These days the recipe is simple, the ingredients the same. Across four Sundays each fall, OSOF offers an open invitation to embark on a stirring journey to experience uplifting spiritual growth. Each year’s trip finds mountains of inspiration to take travelers from the ordinary to the unforgettable. It’s a buckle-up-and-get-ready adventure. OSOF sounds like a travel guide!

Among some great outings, the summer we spent on John Glover’s farm growing an acre of vegetables as a way of growing our own spiritual gardens was maybe our most memorable and rewarding excursion. And in 2023, Brock Lee, a talking member of the cabbage family, led us through Broc-tober.

At journey’s end, stewardship is the concluding extension of every trip, a final spiritual expression. Giving becomes a defining, concluding moment of faith. And the results have been glorious. Without talk about goals or budgets or steps or saddlebags, First Christian has transformed sharing our resources – time, talents and money – from a conversation about raising dollars and managing finances into a demonstration about living a life that reflects God's values. Our Season of Faith is home cooking – a recipe for stewardship where the essential ingredient is faith.

This September, it will be time to hit the OSOF road again. Watch for details about our itinerary.

​Your travel guide is coming soon.

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