If you read my post discussing the first news article about the Stewardship Conference you know that I found those speaker’s comments to reflect a fairly narrow, “follow the money,” understanding of stewardship.  We now have a news story with the comments of the Rev. Karl Travis, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth, TX, that reflect a much richer understanding of stewardship as a spiritual discipline. This new story, also by Evan Silverstein from the Presbyterian News Service, is titled “Transforming the Understanding of Stewardship.”

The idea is not that the institution needs us to give, but that we need to give for our own spiritual well being.  As the article says early on:

Now the time has come for the emphasis to shift from preserving and promoting the institution to furthering the well-being of its parishioners, especially when it comes to worshipers growing personally and spiritually through disciplined financial giving to their church.

In other words stewardship is not about the church’s need to receive. Stewardship is first about the individual’s need to give.

Just to remind you, Paul considers giving a spiritual gift:

6. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8.if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.  [Romans 12:6-8, NIV]

Rev. Travis talked about stewardship as a lifestyle choice.  He is quoted as saying “Stewardship is about the joyous discipline of thanking God with the
way we live our lives and spend our money and share our money.”  This gets closer to the stewardship of “time, talents, gifts, and service” that I am used to.

The article has a couple of other good quotes from Rev. Travis about stewardship:

If you’ve come to this conference because your church is in rough financial waters and you’re wondering how to increase its budget to pay the light bill, fair enough. But take note: If that’s your initial theological pitch, you’re going to remain in the dark.

and

I have grown tired of the stewardship pitch beginning with the church hat-in-hand. People want now to speak first of joy, grace, the individual benefits of disciplined generosity.

In his presentation Rev. Travis, like Mr. Easley, made reference to Dr. Walter Brueggemann’s “Liturgy of Abundance, Myth of Scarcity” article.

So stewardship is not about perpetuating a particular church as an institution or preserving a denomination.  It is about our relationship to God as a member of a covenant community that is the Body of Christ.

One final closing quote from the article:

Stewardship is an exuberant conversation within which we step
toe-to-toe with the idolatries of this age and declare with a loud and
clear and resonant voice, ‘I am not your slave! I am a child of God,
sealed by the Holy Spirit, marked as Christ’s forever, and nothing you
can ever say or do can ever make that not true.’