50 Years of Christian Stewardship Services
This year, Christian Stewardship Services (CSS) is celebrating 50 years of serving individuals, families, congregations, and ministries through faithful stewardship and planned giving. In Canada, the CRCNA is one of the founding partners of CSS and is honored to celebrate this Jubilee year alongside them.
Fifty years ago, leaders from several Christian charities gathered to ask how planned giving might help supporters steward their resources more faithfully while strengthening the work God was already doing. Since then, CSS has quietly and faithfully served hundreds of Christian givers and stewarded millions of dollars for kingdom work in Canada and around the world.
The CRCNA and its ministries were among the founding partners who helped establish CSS as a trusted resource for congregations and members seeking wise, faith-shaped approaches to estate and gift planning. That foundational partnership continues today, with CSS serving as the planned-giving professional services partner for CRC congregations across Canada, offering these services at no cost to CRCNA members.
Over five decades, CSS has remained committed to a distinctive model of service—marked by care, integrity, and humility. CSS receives gifts, stewards them carefully, and transfers them in full to the charities chosen by donors. This quiet faithfulness has earned the trust of churches, ministries, schools, and international agencies and has allowed CSS to grow steadily from a one-person operation into a national team serving a wide range of Christian organizations.
While CSS’s early roots were firmly planted within the Reformed community, its reach has expanded significantly over time. Today CSS continues to serve as a center of planned-giving expertise wherever it is needed, supporting donors as they seek to respond faithfully to God’s provision and supporting ministries as they carry out their callings. Throughout this period of growth, the partnership between CSS and the CRCNA in Canada has remained strong, grounded in shared values and a shared commitment to stewardship as an act of discipleship.
Maynard Wiersma, executive director of CSS, said, “I have been with CSS for 18 years, and during my time here I have witnessed not simply growth but God’s providence—moving through willing hearts, faithful stewardship, and God’s perfect timing. Again and again, I have seen God provide exactly what was needed—through his people and with the timing that could only be his.”
The organization’s Jubilee anniversary also marks a moment of renewed vision. As CSS celebrates 50 years of walking alongside individuals and families in estate planning, it is launching the Jubilee Legacy Fund, an initiative rooted in the biblical vision of Jubilee as a time of restoration, provision, and renewed opportunity.
The fund seeks to remove financial barriers to estate planning for people who value faithful stewardship but lack the resources to access professional support, including widows, seniors on fixed incomes, and young families.
The CRC in Canada celebrates this initiative as a natural extension of CSS’s mission and as a tangible expression of justice, care, and inclusion within the community of faith. It reflects a shared desire to ensure that wise stewardship is accessible to all, regardless of financial circumstance.
“We give thanks for the faithfulness of Christian Stewardship Services, for the vision of its founders, and for the many donors, partners, and staff who have contributed to its flourishing,” said Al Postma, CRCNA executive director-Canada. “We also give thanks for how our partnership has endured across generations. The CRC in Canada is grateful to celebrate this Jubilee year together, and to look ahead with hope to how God will continue to work through this ministry in the years to come.”
