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How Stewardship Builds Relationship

by Mary Schinke, Warden of St. John's, Washington, CT
October 2007

Pastor Gail invited me to speak to you about the spiritual component of Christian stewardship. This is a somewhat daunting task because, as the my parish’s stewardship committee discussed Christian stewardship at numerous meetings, it became clear that there were as many different experiences as there are committee members. And I would expect that the same is true for this parish. But still in discussing the impact of stewardship on our lives, some common themes emerged. And perhaps more important, it became clear that having the conversations about the spiritual gifts of stewardship helped each of us bring to the forefront of our minds and articulate the power of stewardship in strengthening our spirits, bringing our families closer and most of all deepening our relationship to God.

Christian stewardship is different from nonprofit philanthropy. When you give to a museum, you help fund the operation of the organization. And like a museum, a parish church needs money to operate. But Christian stewardship involves a great deal more than funding the operation of a worthy institution. It is one of the tools we have for exploring God’s love for us.

In our stewardship committee meetings we talked about different approaches various branches of the church have taken towards stewardship. There’s sacrificial giving, tithing, pew rentals, bequests, naming opportunities, selling tickets to high holy days. All of these approaches have their benefits for the recipient and the giver, but they may miss the mark. One of the ways I’ve come to think of stewardship is giving until it’s scary vs. “tipping” God. I’ll handle tipping God first. If you like the church, like the services, like the programs, or don’t, you can express that with a contribution that like a tip in a restaurant expresses your satisfaction or dissatisfaction. But that tip amount doesn’t really have any impact on you, the giver. Many waiters and waitresses make a living off of that dynamic. But, I doubt that God views stewardship as a sort of applause meter for how well we like the service.

According to Jesus’ teaching, God wants more for us. Jesus talked about money a lot, and I imagine that was because he knew how important it is to us and how important it is for us spiritually (and sometimes difficult for us) to manage it’s place in our lives and how important it is to the world that we be good stewards of money. Whether we have a lot of it or very little of it, money has an unparalleled ability to command, distort, consume our focus. I would bet that Jesus talked about money so much because, the more we can get right with our money, the more freedom we will have. And stewardship is one way for us to shift our focus away from mammon and grow in our relationship to God. For me that’s where giving till it’s scary comes in. Giving until it’s scary is stretching myself a bit beyond my comfort level; giving something that I will definitely notice; an amount that matters to my bottom line. It’s meant being a bit worried about whether I would be able to honor my pledge. In my experience, it always works out. More than that, I can see more clearly how it’s God that provides for me. And in the end what started as a precarious feeling pledge is transformed into a joyful gift out of bounty.

Every year our parish treasurer calculates the percentage increase that would be needed from every family in order to balance our budget. It varies, but the first year I served on the stewardship committee that percentage was 20%. And balancing the budget is a great accomplishment. But a 20% increase in your pledge may not be that transformative amount, an amount that does something for you spiritually; it might take 50% or 100%. The critical point is not to miss the opportunity to really examine your relationship to God and the role of your giving in that relationship.

The way I get to my pledge is another blessing of Christian stewardship. It’s an annual discussion my husband and I have. In the beginning it had to be a family discussion, because we were considering giving amounts that matter too much to be made without a partnership discussion. What we found is that having the discussion, was a spiritual gift. We had to talk about what we have. We had to talk about where it came from. We had to talk about how we feel about the church and how we feel about God. And we had to talk about what we have to give thanks for. The first time we kept putting it off. We’d say we’ve got to talk about stewardship, but not now. We’ve got to decide about our pledge, but we have to do something else first. We kept putting it off; just didn’t want to have the conversation. It was scary and unpleasant; we were being asked to give up some of our money. Now it’s become a happy discussion each year that we look forward to. It’s an opportunity to take stock, examine our lives, and realize and remember and give thanks.

Stewardship is an opportunity to reflect on our blessings, recognize the source of our gifts and respond to the source of those gifts with thanksgiving. Each of us has many gifts. We have families, homes, food, clothing, cars, hobbies and talents that bring us joy. Our money is one of those gifts. How do we get money? Sometimes we are given it by family; sometimes we work for it; sometimes we make it work for us by wisely investing it; and sometimes we have a lucky windfall. But how is it that any of these methods come to pass? Who gave us the intellectual and physical capability to make money? God is where we got what we have. And we all know, that when someone gives you a gift, the right thing to do is to thank them. Now we can’t possibly begin to repay God for all that he is given us. And scripture tells us, he doesn’t require that. But one of the gifts we have from God is His church. And we can express some measure of our thanks and our love by supporting his special institution in this world.

There again, God blesses us. In the bible, God says you won’t build me a house I will build you one. God doesn’t have boundaries; he’s operating all over. The church is only one of God’s arenas. And who benefits most from the existence of the church? Not God, us. He doesn’t need our church’s, we do. We need to come to church as a place where we can focus, our children can learn, and we can be refreshed, and be fed, and be comforted and be strengthened. Our giving, benefits us.

Stewardship is a mechanism through which God can show us that he has provided for us and will continue to provide for us. God is not a hot investment. It’s not that we can put in $1 and get back $10. This is not about testing God. Jesus didn’t jump off the cliff in the desert, and neither should we. It’s not about being irresponsible in our personal finances to see if God will bail us out. I admire the faith of the widow who gave all she had to the temple, but this is a journey, and I for one, am no where near the widow’s mite. But if we start taking the steps, step by step, to exercise our faith and trust in God by giving something that matters to us over to Him, I am confident that our church’s will continue to flourish, more importantly, God’s work in our world will move forward with power, and most of all each of us will thrive in ways we haven’t even imagined. This is most important because as each of us individually grows spiritually, we will transform ourselves, our community and the ripples of that transformation will have no end.

Think about it. Pray about it. Discuss it with your family. Engage in the spiritual opportunity that is Christian stewardship.