[We continue a look at the basics of church wellness. This week: Stewardship Development.]

Stewardship Development is perhaps the most complicated and overlooked ministry of the church. Two reasons for this: it’s easier and safer to get it wrong, and getting it right pushes us to the limits of our faith.

In grappling with stewardship, we can understand why Jesus devoted an estimated two-thirds of his teaching time to wealth and power. He had no apparent intention of launching an institution featuring intricate rules and layers of power. Jesus called people to deal with Mammon, the false god ruling their lives, and to give away wealth, rather than accumulate more.

We can also understand why Moses established Israel’s foundational confession of faith in a giving-away of the harvest. The Israelites were to know themselves as slaves whom God had set free and as wanderers whom God had led to a promised land, and now they were to thank God by bringing the first-fruits of the harvest to God.

Stewardship Development goes way beyond fund-raising. It goes way beyond meeting an institutional budget. It goes way beyond giving as a token of loyalty to the church. When we reduce stewardship to fund-raising, budget-balancing and loyalty-verifying, we drain it of meaning as a ministry, and we ill-serve our constituents.

The point of stewardship is sacrificial giving. It’s one key way we follow Jesus’ commandment not to be afraid and, instead, to die to self and to live for others.

Stewardship is counter-intuitive. Giving without counting the cost must be taught. Church leaders make a big mistake when they simply conduct pledge campaigns once a year without doing foundational teaching in what self-sacrificial giving means, why it matters, and what the Bible means by giving first-fruits.

Leaders also make a mistake when they link stewardship with the church budget. Yes, tithes were used in Moses’ time to care for widows and orphans and to support the work of the faith community. But giving doesn’t flow from the institution’s need for revenues; it flows from our need to give.

That need to give, in turn, flows from our need to be grateful. Without gratitude, we become hollow shells and distant from God. We take credit for what we have, rather than thank God and acknowledge good fortune. We see prosperity as proof of merit, an arrogant attitude that leads to vanity and cruelty.

Church leaders need to reinforce the true foundation of stewardship by using tithes as gifts back to God, and not as institutional revenues for keeping the doors open. That has two dimensions.

One is to make sure that tithes are used for Godly purpose, for doing the things that Jesus did. That means caring for the sick, proclaiming Good News to the poor and outcasts, working for justice – and more along that line. Our guide is what Jesus actually said and did, not our inheritance of facilities and traditions. Wise leaders don’t spend in order to make life more comfortable for members, but to support members in their world-changing ministries.

The other dimension of using tithes correctly is to use them responsibly. Too many church councils draft a spending budget first and then try to raise funds to make it happen. That is backward. Giving should be tied to the harvest, not to church spending. They compound the error by budgeting more than they reasonably expect to receive – and then calling it a “faith budget.” It’s irresponsible, not faithful.

When church leaders put the spending budget first, they inevitably start by asking what they want, rather than what God desires. It is the opposite of dying to self. In this context, the battle becomes whose spending priorities shape the church budget, who gets what they want, how much staff get paid, and will they honor mission-based claims on funds. This is the wrong battle. The battle should be the individual’s grappling with self-sacrifice, with deciding which god to serve: the God of Creation, or Mammon. That is a huge battle, and until we deal with it, our faith tends to be shallow.

Conducting an annual pledge campaign to meet desired spending plans is simply the wrong approach. And to make matters worse, church members feel obliged to devote energy to managing the budget. Instead of leaving their tithes and walking away, as Moses commanded, they act out an addiction to control by fussing and fighting about the budget.

You can see why I call Stewardship a complicated ministry.
 

About the Author

Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the publisher of Fresh Day online magazine, author of On a Journey and two national newspaper columns. His website is Church Wellness – Morning Walk Media