Stewardship
Would you drive three days straight for just one day at an expensive resort, only to get up early the next morning for the three-day drive home? Would you go to the Grand Canyon and linger for just five minutes? People who travel like this miss out. It doesn't work. These travelers say, "What was the big deal with the Grand Canyon anyway?" or "Why don't I feel rested?"
You can drive hard on the stewardship journey only to wake up the next morning and say, “What was the point?" That is because stewardship doesn't make sense outside a relationship with Jesus. We talk about the godlike power of money over our lives but could we hope to resist that power without Christ? We talk about using money to communicate God 's values, and we want to promote the whole gospel to a broken world through our money, but that’s hard to do without a relationship with Christ. We talk about giving the first and best of who we are and what we have, and that can be done for a while by suffering through it, but duty and obligation leave bitter tastes.
Too often stewardship education efforts are about funding church ministry rather than an invitation to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. This leads members to believe their church talks about money to keep the lights on, or to have better facilities than the church down the road.
But stewardship, giving, and generosity are not about meeting budgets. They are about meeting God. When we get in touch with an overwhelmingly generous Creator, then a generous response makes complete sense. We give as a response to God’s love and grace.
See you Sunday!
Missy