Purpose of Benevolent Giving at Rehoboth Evangelical Lutheran Church
We the congregation of Rehoboth Evangelical Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation, as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, enthusiastically embrace the call of mission as a fundamental tenet of our ministry to serve others in Christ’s name. We seek to engage the gifts and passions of our members, as well as, encourage benevolent giving to support a variety of mission work outside our own congregation.
Just as members of our congregation share their resources with Rehoboth, so too each congregation is invited to share with their synod and the churchwide organization.
Benevelonce monies that are sent to the synod office under the category of "undesignated gifts"are actually made up of two components: 1) that part which stays with our synod and goes toward the support of its synodical ministries, and 2) that part which gets forwarded to the churchwide office and supports the more global endeavors. The percentage that gets forwarded on to the churchwide office ranges anywhere from 40% to 55% and is determined annually by a consultation between each synod and churchwide.
Designated gifts are of course those gifts that are intended for very specific purposes rather than for support of the synod and churchwide bodies. The synod office can take any designated gifts for special projects going on in each individual synod. The other type of designated gifts that the synod office can process are those that need to be forwarded to the churchwide office. These would include gifts for such things as World Hunger and Lutheran World Relief as well as any missionary sponsorship or any type of project that churchwide has communicated to you that it is collecting funds for.
