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Stewardship ministry is important. If you’re reading this article, you probably already know that. But you may need to convince others. Further, stewardship ministry isn’t automatically effective. In this article, we’ll examine important elements of a fruitful stewardship ministry and cast vision for what that might look like at your church.
Stewardship Ministry is Foundational
Stewardship ministry isn’t just for large churches, or for churches that have been around a long time. It’s foundational in producing the kinds of disciples that God is looking for.
In Joshua’s farewell address to the people of Israel, he challenged them to choose whom they would serve. Would it be God, or would they adopt the gods of their land of slavery or those of the peoples God was driving out of the Promised Land (Joshua 24:14-15)?
Jesus offered a similar choice in the Sermon on the Mount – but in Jesus’ address, the decision was between serving God and serving money (Matthew 6:20-24). The lesson was clear – we can’t serve both God and money; we have to choose.
And if we don’t intentionally choose serving God, the current of our culture will lead us to drift into serving money. No believer would intentionally choose to serve money. The constant barrage of marketing messages, the easy availability of credit, and the emphasis on instant gratification create a consumer mentality that lures us in that direction.
Our congregations are learning about money. If the church isn’t participating in that conversation, then all the messages are pointing us away from serving God and toward serving money. And if we’re leaving that foundational choice to chance, we’re surrendering the opportunity to create an environment of discipleship. Stewardship ministry prepares the soil of our hearts for fruitful spiritual lives.
Defining the Fruit – Discipleship
Over the years, many churches have equated stewardship with giving. We have “stewardship campaigns” whose goal is always around funding something of importance to the church – a building project, an outreach program, etc. If we talk about money from the pulpit, it’s nearly always in a context of giving. Our messaging around finances focuses on the church rather than on the believer.
But stewardship is about more than giving. And the fruit of stewardship is best evidenced in spiritual growth in the lives of our congregations, not by trends of offerings or donor metrics. Those measurements have their place, but they’re not measurements of stewardship.
So how do we establish discipleship as the fruit of our stewardship ministry and ensure that the pursuit of the ministry is spiritual growth?
- Differentiate between stewardship and giving. It starts with understanding and communicating that stewardship and giving are two different (though related) disciplines. The foundational truth of stewardship is that God owns everything – as a result, He cares about all that we do with money – not just what we put in the offering plate (whether literal or metaphorical). Stewardship includes our earning, our giving, our saving, our spending, and our handling of debt – and the Bible speaks to each of these areas. To be faithful to Scripture, we need to teach on each of these aspects of stewardship.
- Retire the “stewardship campaign”. Discipleship is not a campaign – it’s a lifestyle. And since stewardship is part of discipleship, the same is true. Stewardship needs to be a way of life, not a limited-time campaign whose focus is on raising money. Capital campaigns and other fundraising efforts certainly have their place, but we need to be careful not to use the word “stewardship” in this context. Fundraising campaigns are about the church; stewardship is about the disciple.
- Separate stewardship teaching from fundraising. As a corollary, it’s important to distance stewardship teaching from any fundraising campaigns. Even if we don’t equate stewardship with giving, if our teaching about stewardship accompanies a fundraising campaign, the congregation makes the connection. And they equate the idea of stewardship with “the church asking for money.”
Preparing the Soil – All of It
We’ve said in many places that because stewardship is about discipleship, it applies to the entire congregation – not just to one or another segment. And because it’s about discipleship, the stewardship conversation should be one dialog with the entire congregation – not separate conversations based on financial condition.
- A Unified Conversation. Character traits developed by stewardship – things like contentment, gratitude, patience, and perseverance – are important for all believers. The stewardship discussion needs to focus on these before it addresses more specific issues related to debt, generosity, etc. Additionally, single-emphasis stewardship conversations tend to ignore opportunities to think and act more broadly in the area of Biblical financial management.
- Beyond Debt Conversations. Believers who are struggling with a significant debt load need instruction and encouragement to make adjustments in their finances. But the conversation is more than just getting out of debt. A focus only on debt fails to address generosity and may encourage believers to postpone giving. It also misses key elements of saving and earning, both of which can be important aspects of addressing debt.
- Beyond Generosity Conversations. Addressing believers who are well off often focuses stewardship discussions strictly on generosity. And while this is important, it’s not the only aspect of stewardship. Conversations like this tend to zero in on giving but may neglect opportunities for investment and even leveraging efficient debt in a way that benefits others, such as providing housing or jobs. It also ignores the possibility of over-earning and the potential for dialing back on earning in order to devote more time to volunteering, serving others, etc.
Producing Healthy Fruit
- Biblically Balanced. First, stewardship teaching must present a balanced Biblical perspective, taking into account the whole counsel of Scripture. The Bible gives us examples of faithful disciples whom God blessed materially and others who lived out their lives far from luxury. We see times of wise saving and other times of lavish giving. Any teaching that consistently emphasizes one passage or one idea without also acknowledging Biblical contrasts leads to a distorted view of stewardship. This is where the so-called prosperity gospel, for example, gets it wrong.
- Christ-centered. Fruitful stewardship teaching emphasizes that our stewardship is not primarily about us, but instead about bringing glory to God. This places the focus on discipleship rather than on financial “accomplishment”. As with other aspects of discipleship, stewardship is about what God does in us, not what we do for God.
- Grace over guilt. Some stewardship teaching – especially teaching targeted to those who are struggling with debt – focuses on past mistakes and produces mostly guilt over those mistakes. We’ve all made decisions that we’d make differently given another chance, but effective teaching focuses on the path forward, not the path behind. To be sure, we need to learn from those mistakes, but God’s grace covers our faults and frees us from guilt. We may face some consequences of bad decisions, but the key is not guilt but rather dependence on God’s grace to lead us forward.
Cultivating across the Congregation
Stewardship, like other foundational spiritual disciplines, must be lived out as part of an integrated discipleship lifestyle, not as an isolated practice. As a result, the most effective stewardship teaching doesn’t all emanate from a centralized ministry. Instead, it permeates the congregation through many different ministries.
- Benevolence and Beyond. The Benevolence ministry is an obvious place to start incorporating stewardship teaching and principles. Offering stewardship training enables the benevolence ministry to do more than meet a need in the moment. Beyond stewardship training, many Benevolence ministries would benefit from being able to offer stewardship coaching. Experienced coaches help clients walk through application of stewardship principles to their own finances. Benevolence in the context of stewardship can empower a person to live out a financially sustainable lifestyle. This may help prevent financial crisis in the future.
- Congregation Constituencies. The affinity-based ministries prevalent in most churches can all benefit from stewardship teaching. Stage-of-life ministries, such as children’s, youth, and young adult ministries, can strengthen the discipleship of their participants through stewardship teaching. Marriage ministries and pre-marital counseling can greatly strengthen relationships through effective stewardship instruction. Women’s ministries, men’s ministries, and others can all strengthen the spiritual lives of their members through stewardship training.
- Stewardship in Small Groups. In many churches, the small group ministry is the primary tool for discipleship. This is a great place for stewardship training, as group members walk through life together. Small groups provide an ideal environment for mutual encouragement and prayer through an often difficult subject. Most groups probably have people in different financial conditions, so solid stewardship training can provide great “iron sharpens iron” opportunities.
Start with Staff
Stewardship training isn’t part of most seminaries or most leadership programs. As a result, many church staffs don’t have a cohesive, holistic understanding of stewardship principles. And it’s hard to lead others in a direction that the leaders themselves haven’t gone.
Often, the best place to begin a stewardship ministry is to lay a foundation with the church staff. A church staff that is learning and practicing Biblical financial principles develops an appreciation for the importance of stewardship. This positions them to lead the congregation in the direction of Biblical financial management.
Equip and Deploy
And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.
2 Timothy 2:2
Churches that disciple effectively know that discipleship is not something that leadership does to the congregation. It’s something that the congregation does with each other. Leaders identify spiritual gifts and empower the congregation to use those gifts to build up the body.
In stewardship ministry, one application of this principle is identifying those who manage their finances according to Biblical principles and training some of them as stewardship coaches to walk alongside those who are struggling financially. In this way, we empower some to serve in an area of giftedness (and often passion); we provide guidance for those who need Biblical financial training; and we increase the bandwidth of the ministry to encourage and empower the congregation in stewardship.
Engender Trust
One barrier to stewardship conversations is trust. Many people feel guilt over their finances – either from past unwise decisions or from the false guilt of “having too much”. And Western culture is personal and private – most people are not open to discussing financial specifics outside their families.
As a result, it’s important to center conversations on Biblical principles and to allow financial details to remain as private as people need them to be. Groups can develop accountability in stewardship without needing to know numbers. A question like, “How faithful are you in giving?” allows a believer to reflect and respond authentically without having to disclose income and giving numbers.
Keeping the conversation at the level of discipleship rather than insisting on the sharing of financial details engenders trust and encourages more widespread participation with a helpful level of accountability, while also steering away from potential judgmentalism.
Harvesting the Fruit of Stewardship
We mentioned earlier that the real fruit of stewardship isn’t measured in church budgets or offerings received. Instead, it’s measured in lives changed by application of Biblical financial principles. That can be harder to quantify, but imagine a few possibilities:
- A believer who is struggling with debt learns how to guard against materialism and alters his spending patterns, freeing up money for debt retirement and beginning to give.
- Another believer who earns a significant amount of money catches a vision for making a kingdom impact with her resources and begins setting aside a generosity fund in addition to her normal giving.
- A couple who have focused their entire marriage on their careers realizes that they have more than they need, and begins to dial back on hours on the job in order to spend time with family and serving in the community.
- A high school senior gets more intentional about choosing a college and ends up saving tens of thousands of dollars in school debt, avoiding significant early-career financial struggles.
- A young couple preparing for marriage realizes that they have very different financial priorities and assumptions and works through those before the wedding, minimizing money-related stress early in their marriage.
Transformed finances and transformed lives – these are the real fruits of stewardship. And these fruits can be seen across congregations who have a holistic understanding and practice of stewardship.