Happy New Year! It is that time of year when people reflect on the previous year and begin to make resolutions for the coming New Year. How often do you make and then keep your resolutions? I have not been very good at it in the past. I can usually get to March and then I lose steam. I wonder if it is because my approach or my attitude could have been different? So, this year I am taking a new perspective, and I have a new attitude. I am approaching the New Year from the perspective of being a Steward. I know, I know...when people, especially people in a church, first hear “Steward” they think Stewardship, and then they think money, and then they get uncomfortable. It is not my goal to make you uncomfortable, but I can’t help it if you are excited about my idea by the time you are done reading this article. So I would like to provide some rationale behind my attitude - mostly because I am going to invite you to be a part this 2012 Stewardship perspective.
Christian Stewardship is given a bad reputation because it all too often means "we [the church] need more money now.” It has even become like a bad word in the “commitee world” of churches. While, money is an important part of stewardship, it goes much further than that. As Stewardship committees pull ideas together for their annual Stewardship drives they often talk about Christian stewardship with the phrase, “time, talents, and treasures.” While time, talents, and treasures are valuable aspects to Stewardship, I think it still goes much further. Therefore, it is the hope and goal of the remainder of my internship in Emerson that I work toward expanding or reframing the understanding of Stewardship to mean so much more for myself and for the people in our community - taking the meaning from Stewardship as “something we do” to “who we are.” Afterall, we ARE Stewards, and we can be excited about this. We are loved and cared for by God, and we are freed to love and care for others. It is a part of the very essence of who we are, and therefore we can’t help but live it daily. It is expressed in faith-filled lives of gratitude, joy, hope, and love.
What does this mean?
Stewardship means “belonging to God" - all that we are and all that we have comes from God - All the gifts, abilities, resources, and opportunities we possess are from the Lord. Whether our work is in the sciences, helping the poor, preaching the Gospel, teaching, farming, or managing a business and/or a household, we are all stewards of the abundant gifts of God. Stewardship entails accepting all aspects of our lives as gift and inviting God into each aspect. God loves us and God cares deeply about how we take care of our bodies, emotions, relationships, environment, work, play, etc. God wants to use everything we have to bring about the Kingdom in our lives and the world around us. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians. 10:31).
When stewardship is understood as the faithful lifestyle of being a disciple of Christ, emcompassing every piece of our life: What does that look like for you? How does it change the way you view your future? How does it change the way you view the world and Christ’s call to a love based mission in the world? What stories of joy does it bring about? What stories of hope does it bring about?
(Photo by Guest Blogger S)
0 comments:
Post a Comment