This PDF leader’s guide is a required resource for a Lay Servant Ministries (LSM) advanced course. It supplements the book Earn. Save. Give.: Wesley’s Simple Rules for Money (Abingdon Press; 2015) by James A. Harnish, as well as the free resource The United Methodist Church Handbook (2017–20), Therefore Go: Making Disciples for the Transformation of the World (available from UM Communications).
This LSM advanced course focuses on the following:
- an understanding of John Wesley’s admonitions—to earn, save, and give all you can;
- various scriptures and how they relate to our connectional living, which leads to connectional giving and connecting to Wesley’s teachings;
- the ways in which an understanding of why we give and where we invest our resources is imperative to living our faith through the United Methodist connectional system;
- an understanding of the apportionment structure through the general church, jurisdictions, annual conferences, and districts, and how that relates to the local church and decisions made in the local church;
- understanding and being able to make a presentation on how living in connection as part of God’s creation leads us to giving in support of mission/ministry in that connection; and
- training for Lay Servants to present the connectional giving story to groups in their congregation and other congregations in support of district superintendents.