Stewardship in the Local Church

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Stewardship in the Local Church

• Presented by
• G. Edward Reid

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Book Behind the Stained Glass
Windows Money Dynamics in the
Church Authors John and Sylvia
Ronsvalle Publisher Bakker Books, Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 1996
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The Stewardship Project

• 15 denominations over a seven year period from
  1988 to 1995.
• Project was funded primarily with a grant from
  the Lilly Endowment.

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• denominations face a different situation in the
  latter twentieth century than they have
  previously. As congregations place a higher
  priority on issues of comfort rather than
  mission, as denominations strive to be more
  inclusive, and as privatization of religion
  replaces traditional cultural community
  standards, denominations structures in the United
  States are under stress (p. 126).

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The church is turning more inward, more local,
with less of a national or international focus
(p. 24).
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• Money is a measure of devotion, the way we spend
  it indicates something about us sort of like a
  spiritual thermometer according to Jesus. In a
  consumer society, such as the United States, it
  may be the most intentional measurement available
• (p. 29).

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• Church members have changed from stewards into
  consumers. People do not feel that they are
  returning a portion of their incomes to God.
  Rather, they are paying for services rendered by
  the church. If some folks are challenged or
  their needs arent met they will just go
  somewhere else. (p. 31)

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• People in the U.S. make 90 percent more in
  constant dollars now than they did in the 1950s
  but give a much smaller percentage of income to
  the church. Because of the constant marketing
  programs on TV much more of the money is going to
  affluent living (p. 35).

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A massive change occurred in four decades.
Americans switched from an agenda of survival to
a pattern of widespread consumption unrivaled in
even the richest societies in history (p. 36).
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• The surveys done by the Stewardship Project team
  found two very significant points
• First, the felt needs approach may now be
  limiting the churchs effectiveness. Many who
  come to user friendly churches never advance
  spiritually beyond the felt needs level. To them
  Christianity has become a consumer good. Its a
  free ride. It doesnt cost you anything.
  Entertaining persons into the church is a far cry
  from challenging persons to faithful discipleship.

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• The second point was that churches grew faster
  if there was an emphasis on a deep relationship
  with Christ and a commitment to faithful
  discipleship (pp. 44, 45).

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• In addition the felt needs based churches turn
  inward and away from their denominational
  organization and the great gospel commission
  which no individual church could accomplish. It
  is interesting that people will accept the
  disciplined organization required to construct a
  new sanctuary but are not willing to submit to
  the same discipline to carry out the mission of
  the church (p. 52).

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• Another problem noted by the team is that many
  pastors are afraid to mention money in church.
  With the increased emphasis on individualism and
  the related privatization of faith, the pastor,
  who already feels decreasing societal and
  institutional affirmation, has to rely more and
  more on personality. And meeting the
  individuals identified needs can be a relatively
  sure way to be liked. One pastor said, Im a
  pastor. I want people to like me. If I mention
  money, theyre going to get angry and leave.
  Theyll go someplace else. (p. 59)

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• The authors conclude that the role of the
  minister is the key to the stewardship crisis.
  The role of leader becomes moot if a minister is
  not guiding church members on a journey that
  involves either making a major impact in the
  present world and/or securing personal safety in
  the next (p. 63).

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• So in the absence of a compelling vision with
  which to challenge church members to live up to
  their full spiritual potential as described in
  the Bible, the church finds itself bringing in
  people who are asking what the church can do for
  them (p. 64).

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• When the minister, as leader of a voluntary
  organization that sits in a pluralistic culture
  increasingly committed to a private religion,
  subject to the relative merits of what everyone
  else thinks, he is pressured to keep things
  primarily on an even keel. Under these
  circumstances, stewardship becomes a matter of
  just paying the bills and the concept of
  sacrificing for the mission of the Christian
  church is lost sight of and largely unfunded. As
  a result many congregations are turning inward to
  promote a comfort agenda, with serious
  implications for the world wide work of the
  denomination.

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• The availability of money is not the problem.
  Church members have more disposable income now
  than ever before in history. But economists find
  that as incomes rise people typically spend an
  increasing share of their incomes on luxuries.
  Accordingly, with a shortfall of funds on the
  local level there is increased pressure on the
  pastor to keep more of the money in the local
  church and decrease support for the
  denominational levels above.

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• In an atmosphere in which competition for the
  charitable dollar is skyrocketing, denominations
  may not be effectively getting out the word to
  their constituents.

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• Denominational officials face the additional
  tension that while they recognize congregation
  members have the right to expect accountability
  of their institutions, the denominational
  leadership has a responsibility to lead
  congregation members into the deeper truths of
  the faith. One of those truths is that an
  important aspect of Christian discipleship
  involves giving not to get but giving in response
  to experienced grace. (pp. 91, 92)

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• As an example of lack of communication, many
  members are not aware of the many administrative
  services provided by the denomination to the
  local congregation. These services include,
  pastor pension planning and health care, legal
  oversight, pastor assignment coordination and
  resource materials.

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• These and other very vital services provided by
  the denomination need to connect the money sent
  to the denomination with the services that help
  their congregation and pastor to function
  smoothly in a secure environment.

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• The stewardship team discovered that many
  pastors have a misimpression that funds that go
  out of the congregation take money out of their
  own baskets they see these appeals as a great
  big vacuum cleaner sucking money out of the
  congregation. They are wrong! Pastors tend to
  think that if they push missions too hard, it
  will hurt the local operations. Studies tend to
  show the opposite. (p. 97) Pastors should know
  better but they see missions as competing with
  local budget needs.

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• Ideally, congregations remain one of the key
  places where self-centered citizens may be
  transformed into disciples ready and eager to
  become bearers of good news to the needs of the
  world.

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• Another factor that the team discovered is that
  stewardship faithfulness falls off when members
  lose a knowledge of their history as a church.

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• Many local church finance committees are
  concerned with the bottom line of paying the
  bills and therefore missions get only what the
  budget will allow. Furthermore, with little
  financial stewardship education going on in many
  congregations and an aversion to asking people
  for money, current giving patterns often limit
  any missions vision in the church. (p. 109)

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• The result is that many mission decisions are
  made by merely looking at the numbers in the
  budget with no allowance for faith, vision, or
  mission. People are not compelled to give,
  theyre making a financial decision, not having a
  mission experience.

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• Al Taylor, director of stewardship for the
  Church of God (Cleveland, TN) stated, Growth in
  attendance doesnt necessarily mean growth.
  Pastors say, I cant afford to lose any people.
  I say if theyve been here long enough to be
  trained and arent stewards, let them go you
  havent lost anything. Let them go someplace
  else and take a free ride. (p. 117)

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Crisis fund-raising educates people to think that
their money is their own until it is wrung out of
them by some appealing need. Many members
therefore think that they are not giving back to
the Lord in response to His tremendous spiritual
and physical blessings. They think they are
funding the services of the church.
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• Giving is unto Christ. People dont know that.
  They think they are giving to the church, the
  preacher, or the denomination. But the preacher
  was given to them by Christ, as it says in
  Ephesians 411. Christ can do anything with the
  offering of money. He has chosen to run His
  church with it. He could burn it up! In the Old
  Testament He did it all the time. Were only
  horrified by that idea because we have bought
  into materialism. (p. 123)

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• The stewardship study team found a definite
  prejudice in the local church against talking
  about money as a spiritual concept, about its
  discipleship aspects, its lifestyle implications,
  and church members own giving patterns. It was
  noted that finance committee meetings could last
  for three hours or more of talk about balancing
  the budget and yet entirely avoid the topic of
  whether church members are authentically
  responding to Gods grace in their lives through
  their giving patterns. (p. 128)

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