“Honor God with everything you own; give him the first and the best.”
Proverbs 3:9 (The Message)
Of the many methods people use to honor God with their money firstfruits giving provides the best motivation for a lifetime of giving. This ancient, Biblical principal teaches us that we are to worship God with our assets and our income. We are to give to Him of our first and best, and manage all the rest in ways that bring glory to Him. We want to encourage you to live a firstfruits lifestyle. Following are some great resources to help you consider the truths in Proverbs 3:9. If you are a pastor or church leader, we encourage you to take this a step further and consider two action steps. First, consider implementing a Firstfruits Sunday in your church. On this special Sunday morning, a variety of methods could be used to teach on Proverbs 3:9. We’ve developed a variety of resources to help you teach the principle of firstfruits to your congregation. You may pick and choose from the various resources, but they are designed to give greatest impact when they are all used to reinforce the theme.
Resources
Poster – This may be displayed several Sundays prior to the Firstfruits Sunday. Call our office to request copies!
Bookmark – Bookmarks can be a great tool to keep reminding the congregation to honor the Lord with their first and best.
Bulletin insert – A fully customizable version which may be used for sermon notes or outline. Click here to access a version which has a brief teaching on firstfruits. This one will reinforce your efforts to teach firstfruits or it can stand alone.
Why Firstfruits? – You may be wondering why you should devote a whole Sunday to the subject of firstfruits. This article by Mark Vincent, briefly describes the importance of doing so.
Sample Sermon – This sermon was written especially for you. Feel free to use all or a portion of it.
The Two Oranges – This skit works equally well for a children’s story and is a wonderful reinforcement to the sermon. Contextualize the skit by making it about whatever produce is relevant to your community!
Firstfruits references – Use these references to assist you in your personal study.
Firstfruits Discussion guide – This guide may be used in a Sunday School class or small group format to explore more deeply what it means to offer to God a firstfruits gift.
Challenging Consumer Culture – For those of you that are still unconvinced as to the importance of dedicating a Sunday to this stewardship topic, read this article by Christine Roush to build your enthusiasm and courage!
Firstfruits Sunday – This piece provides additional ideas to pull off this special emphasis.
PowerPoint Templates – These templates may be used to reinforce the theme all morning long as background for music, sermon, announcements, etc.
The second action item is to evaluate how well your church, as a corporate entity, is doing at implementing firstfruits. It’s one thing to teach firstfruits, it’s a whole other thing to put it into practice. Many of our churches are practicing the “me first” attitude of our consumerist culture. We’ve put together the following resources to help you in this regard:
Transforming Your Congregation to Practice Firstfruits – This piece carefully and clearly outlines the rationale behind congregational firstfruits and offers practical suggestions for implementing a firstfruits spending plan in your church.
A Case Study – It’s one thing to talk about something like this, it’s clearly another to put it into action. Read about one church that did just that, and has never looked back!
PowerPoint Slides – These PowerPoint slides are provided to help you teach your leadership about firstfruits and challenge them to put firstfruits into action!
For more help on implementing a Firstfruits Sunday or assistance in Transforming your Congregation, contact Jon C. Wiebe, President & CEO of MB Foundation! We want to help you honor God with everything you own!
