Many of our  congregations have an interest in offering stewardship education classes to help their members align their religious values and principles with their personal financial decisions and charitable giving.

Giving—the sacred art is a book that lends itself nicely for use as a small group ministry or discussion series, with its six chapters featuring stewardship themes relevant to religious communities:

•  Giving as a Sacred Art and Giving as Worship,
• Giving as Stewardship: Managing our Abundance,
• Giving as Holy Obligation:  Transforming Identity Through Discipline,
• Giving as Redemption: Restoring Money as Life-Giving Legal Tender,
• Giving as Charity: Providing for the Needy with Compassion, and
• Giving as Justice: Believing in and Working Toward Righteous Equality.

While this book is very inclusive in its theological and religious perspectives, it uses traditional religious terminology and references.

With the objective of creating a study guide with references to our Unitarian Universalist principles, purposes, and traditions, I sought the author’s and publisher’s permissions to create a study guide.  The study guide is designed to help Unitarian Universalists navigate the theological terrain of the book more easily and glean the most from its rich content.

I hope this study guide will help those in your congregation make wise financial choices that include greater support of your congregation and those causes that promote our faith principles in the wider world.  I would love to hear how you use this resource and what your users find most meaningful and inspirational.

For the free downloadable version of the UU Study Guide for Giving–the sacred art:     Giving the sacred art UU study guide May 2011