Because you keep up with The Stewardship Foundation, you know that our mission is to champion, evangelize, and facilitate transformational giving as it pertains to gift planning. In the early days, when the foundation wasn’t much more than a twinkle in Joe Finneran’s eye, we turned to the miracle at Cana as a metaphor for transformation.

With the help of friends who own better cameras that we do, we set out to create a visual representation of the miracle of changing simple water to wine. Taking the kinds of jugs and woven baskets usually found only at flea markets or Pier 1, we staged our props in a sunny outdoor location that we hoped might resemble a wedding garden. Our problem? Pouring water into the first jug, having the water turn into wine in the second jug, and spill over into the third jug. Where’s a good miracle when you need one? Our solution came through the miracle of Photoshop and the skills of our good friends and creative team at ActiveCanvas.

This month, we were honored to be “bronze sponsors” at the annual conference for Heartbeat International held in Charleston, SC where over 900 faithful servants gathered to be trained, equipped and inspired to celebrate the pregnancy help movement around the world. We had the opportunity to place a full-page ad in the conference brochure, so of course we used the jugs as the visual metaphor in our ad.

Whenever someone approached our display table, I asked him or her to check out our ad on page 69 and to stop by later with a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether our message resonated with them and if they understood the metaphor of the jugs. I was overwhelmed with the positive support we received about our message. Everyone “got it” and it was a fun and engaging way to get feedback on the idea and promote our gift planning services.

Pray with us that our planted seeds bear much fruit in the coming months.

— Jim Kebe