Pastor’s Pen — October 2015

This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant

What is Stewardship? For many people the word “stewardship” needs to be reclaimed. What I mean is, the word is so closely associated with money and the church’s acquisition of it that it doesn’t quite speak to the essence of what we’re saying or doing. Many congregations have used the words “gratitude” and “generosity”. While these are great words, they do not capture the primary concern of stewardship.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “stewardship?” Budgets and spreadsheets? Money? Faith Commitment Cards? A grateful response to God? I would have to say that for many congregations stewardship means “the church is asking for money” or it means nothing at all. If it draws to mind anything, it is the three-week annual financial response that happens every fall to ensure there is enough money to fund the budget for the next year.

While the annual response may be wrapped up in religious language, at the end of the day it is about the need of the congregation to receive rather than the need to of the giver to give. Have I summed this up pretty accurately?

Now that I’ve summed it up, throw it all away and forget it. I want you to throw away any thoughts of stewardship as being the way we, First Lutheran, keeps “the doors open, the furnaces firing, the staff paid, and the lights on.” Why? Because the reality is that stewardship encompasses so much more than money. Stewardship is a way of life. It calls for the bringing together of our faith and the way we live our lives. It is a mindset, a culture, and a discipline that can never be contained in an annual three or four-week financial response. It is, in short, everything we do after we say “I believe”. It is the way in which we use all of the resources that God has entrusted to our care so that we can love God and our neighbor. Stewardship, my dear friends at First Lutheran, is about Love!

Stewardship may not be the best word, but at this point is the best one we have, so perhaps it’s up to us to define it in more precise terms. It is hard to break old habits, and perhaps it is more difficult to break old patterns of how we think about and do things in the church. Our old thoughts about stewardship need to be buried and sent to their final resting place. But I invite you to reconsider and not think of stewardship as way to keep the “lights on” and “programs going,” but rather see stewardship as a new way of life that incorporates our faith and the way we live.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Steve