Stewardship has gotten a bad reputation in the church: it has come to mean fundraising. That is unfortunate because stewardship is not at all about fundraising (although the annual fall campaign certainly raises funds for the church). My favorite definition of stewardship is this “doing all that we can, with all that we have, all of the time.”
What is a steward anyway? A steward of old did not own the resources s/he managed. S/he managed the resources on behalf of another. Wise stewardship was to care for those resources in ways that honored the one who owned them. If we are each stewards, what might that mean for us? If we together are stewards of our collective resources as a congregation, what might that mean for us as St. Paul’s?
One of the movements in the past few years of the Church has been to reclaim the word stewardship as a Christian word rather than a church equivalent for a secular, fundraising word. For me, thinking of stewardship rather than ownership is very counter-cultural in our society.
One way the Church has tried to do this has been to move away from a focus simply on stewardship during a six week fall fundraising campaign and towards a year-round stewardship focus, bringing our attention more fully all the time to how we might be more effective stewards individually and as a congregation. In my own experience, stewardship is tied very closely to how I express gratitude for what I have been given.
The stewardship committee has been considering this and shifting towards a year-round model of stewardship for quite some time. We are working towards encouraging year-round practices of stewardship in several ways. We are organizing a Stewardship Formation ministry to provide opportunities for us to share with each other our experiences of how to be effective stewards beyond giving to the church. We will have more information on stewardship formation next week as we continue to listen to your feedback and how we might deepen this journey together as a congregation.
We also are focusing on more effective communication about St. Paul’s stewardship efforts to share stories of how we steward our resources as a congregation: how are our ministries changing lives? How are we, at St. Paul’s, doing all that we can, with all that we have, all of the time?
To do that, we will have occasional ministry reports from around the congregation. This week at the 8:00 and 10:30 services Alex Nelepovitz will tell us about a recent experience at the 20s and 30s retreat. Their story will also be available on the blog. We hope to similar stories of our collective stewardship every quarter or so, and eventually to have them about once a month.
For some, the church has a long history of abusing its power to ask for money. I understand that, and the word stewardship may forever be associated with fundraising or subversive ways for the church to “get money.”
But I believe in gratitude and in transformation. I also believe that we have a generous God. And I believe stewardship can be reclaimed to reflect our generous, loving God, who overflows so much that we respond in kind with generosity and gratitude—not only financially, but in all that we do, with all that we have, all of the time. I hope you will join me on this journey towards year-round stewardship as a practice of discipleship. Stay tuned!
Blessings,
Jeff
