22 Days: Stewardship

2 minutes a day at 2 pm for 22 days…Pray for Western Hills.

What does stewardship mean?
Stewardship is one of those words that I wished we had a substitute for but we don’t. Any other word we try to use falls short. In most church settings, “stewardship” means money. That honestly short changes that word. We’re guilty of it as well…our “Stewardship” Team is really our finance team. Everyone ought to be stewards, good stewards. Not everyone needs to serve on the Finance Team…but I digress.

For us, stewardship is asking the question of how are we investing our TIME, our TALENTS, and TREASURE. (Yeah, I know…the alliteration police called and they want their “T’s” back.)

When I say “WE” I mean two things. I mean individually – you and me. How do YOU invest your time, your talent, and your treasure. I also mean “WE” as in “US,” Western Hills. How do WE invest our time, our talent, and our treasure.

Where ever you spend the most time, energy, and money – that is what you value most. Look at you calendar and your checkbook. That is what matters to you. Does it match up with the heart of God? And the church needs to answer that question as well. Where does it budget? What does a church ask of her volunteers?

I was at a national youth pastors conference when Doug Fields asked us – “If you could tell your volunteers how to spend 10 hours of their week, how would you tell them to spend it?” Of course, we all said disciple, hang, and invest relationally in teens. He then just zinged us all by saying – “Then just do that. Quit making them prepare lessons, run meetings, or do your errands. Set your volunteers up to hang and relate to students.” It stuck with me forever. It speaks to this issue.

The next point I’d make is this – it’s not just about money but it includes money. It’s a total package question – time, giftedness, and money. If one of those three aren’t lining up, then we’re less than whole in our worship.

Tomorrow, I’ll unpack how stewardship speaks to our questions.