While stewardship is often conflated with "fundraising" or "giving", to minimize it to only a financial understanding is to ignore what God has taught us through Jesus: everything comes back to relationship.
First, our relationship to and with God, and then out of that our relationships to and with one another.
When we are in right relationship with God, God is at the center of everything in our lives. This includes how we prioritize and spend our time, how and where we share our gifts and talents, and how and where we give our money. Even saying "our" is tricky--God has given us everything in our possession, and all of it ultimately belongs to God.
Imagine you have a jar. The jar is mostly filled to the top with different layers, with each layer representing the time you commit to something. School, work, family, friends, extracurriculars. The last thing that needs to go in the jar is a clementine/mandarin orange--this is our time given to God.
If you try to fit the orange in last, you won't be able to close the jar.
But if you start with the orange--start with God--and fit the rest of the layers in, everything fits. The jar closes.
Putting God first makes room for everything else. Good stewardship of our time is God's invitation to put the most life-giving, nourishing part of our life first: God! We share our time with God by spending time in prayer, regularly going to worship, studying God's word, and serving through the church.
What does it look like to share your talents with God?
We have all been blessed with gifts from God. We often call these “spiritual gifts”, which are biblical and given to everyone.
But...what if you don’t know what your talents are?
There are many wonderful spiritual gifts assessments/inventories available for you! If you would like to fill one out online, click on the button below. It will take you to a site operated by the United Methodist Church, who is a full-communion partner of the ELCA. If you're more of a paper copy kind of person, grab your assessment at church. Once you've filled things out, we have a few things to help you with your next steps: what to do with the assessment, how to discern what God is calling you to do, and how to use your gifts for God's glory.
All too often we treat money as a dirty word. It's also a sad reality that many churches have and continue to use financial offerings in such a way that they cause deep, painful harm to their congregants. How then are we to talk about money and giving to the church in a world where this abuse has happened? In a world that teaches us that what's mine is mine?
We go back to scripture. God's word frequently talks about and teaches us how to be good stewards of our resources, whether they are money, food, property, land, or other goods.
Jesus regularly taught his disciples, the crowds who followed him, and the religious authorities of his day that money, wealth, power, and goods were not meant to be hoarded and used only for our own benefit. A disciple of Christ used their worldly goods to serve God through caring for the body of Christ, which is the Church.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes that God's faithful people gave themselves first (8:5). He also tells us that they gave as they were able to give, and sometimes they gave beyond their means (8:3).
In the Acts of the Apostles, we learn that "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved" (Acts 2:44-47).
Giving back to God, whether through our time, talents, and/or treasures is a spiritual discipline and part of the life of all faithful people. It looks different for each of us--no one amount of praying, serving, or giving makes someone better or worse than another.
If you would like support discerning how God is inviting you to share your treasures and what it looks like for you and your household, please reach out to Pr Jenna through the church office.
Or, if you are ready to make a financial commitment to supporting the mission and ministry at St. Andrew, you can do so online through our giving portal (button below) or through the physical offering plate in worship.