Together, Love Overflows - Passing the Plate

by Branden Pfefferkorn
Children, Youth & Family

10/26/26

I greatly appreciate the Stewardship committee’s invitation to share my stewardship story with you. I grew up attending a vibrant UCC church in SE Wisconsin. My father served as the church’s Christian education director, and so from an early age I saw church life and youth ministry “from the inside.” My dad then went on to become a pastor himself and took his first call at a small rural church in central Pennsylvania. One of his go-to stories that he shared at many opportunities was about how he organized a church service in his home when he was 5 or 6 years old. He had typed up a bulletin, he put on a robe of some sort, and he invited neighbors to attend his service. After welcoming his very small congregation, the first order of business in his service—much to his mother’s surprise--was to pass the plate and collect offerings.

I think sometimes giving to the church can feel a bit like my dad’s childhood experience. Giving can feel expected up front or immediately, ritualistic, or, in our society, like yet another entity trying to part us from our hard-earned dollars. What I like to consider from this experience, is what our families are learning as we participate in and share resources with our church family. Clearly my father had learned from a young age that “passing the plate” was a regular ritual. I like to think, though, that he also saw what those financial resources did for the congregation in which he participated.

Throughout my church life, I have been in congregations that had more resources and congregations that had fewer resources. When the church was struggling, it was easy to feel like all we talked about in congregational life was money. Where could we cut, which purchase needed to happen now and which purchase could wait, what was the next fundraiser and how about your own or your family’s giving and can you increase that right away?

I feel so blessed to have found St. Paul’s UCC a few years ago and to now serve on the Children Youth and Families committee. You may be interested to know that after attending one of the first Sundays at St. Paul’s, I noticed a congregational annual report and brought that home to review. If I was going to commit to participating in this church’s life, I wanted to know that the staff were well paid, that the program offerings were varied and robust, and that the congregation had enough financial stability to meet its own needs while also recognizing that every congregation is part of a larger community of giving and sharing resources.

To that end, we have sought to instill in our family a sense of shared responsibility and commitment to supporting our church community. When we were setting up allowances for the kids a couple years ago, we let them know that the total would be spread across spending, saving, and church stewardship. We feel it is important to have both our family contributions and also individual contributions from each member of our family. While they understandably don’t always love this choice we made for them, my hope is that they can see and learn through our experiences as part of this amazing church family that we all need to share our talents and our resources as we’re able. Whether that is putting money in the plate on Sunday, scheduling a donation online, volunteering at a church event, donating an item for the upcoming silent auction, or whatever talent anyone can contribute, we all can sustain St. Paul’s UCC as the healthy, vibrant, loving community that it both is and also strives to live more fully.

I hope that you will join me and our family in continuing to support St. Paul’s in all the ways you can as we grow together in faith, in community, and showing the world God’s love in a time that our world is hurting and societal divisions feel like they’re deepening. Thank you for the chance to share my story and for everything each one of you does to make St. Paul’s the incredible source of strength, stability, and compassion that we all so desperately need right now!

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