A different kind of Stewardship

At Trinity, we've been doing a lot of worrying about the numbers...the financial numbers, the attendance numbers...it's stressing quite a few people out.

And that's not what should be happening in the church.

Yes, there are bills to pay and pay checks to go to staff members...and it's nice when we congregations are good examples of financial steward in the giving of benevolence.

But, the church is not a place where success is based off of money or the number of people in the pew on Sunday morning, and anyone who tells you otherwise is mistaken (and probably a televangelist)...or they're just in the ministry for the wrong reason (and possibly a televangelist).

On Saturday, I was part of a leadership retreat where we were reminded that Church is one of the few places where we SHOULD be saying "We get to..." rather than "We have to..."

And it was a much needed reminder.

The church should be a place of joy and struggle, of wrestling with what it means to be followers of Christ and how we live that out in our daily lives and how God works to recharge us for this work on Sunday mornings.

So what if we, the church, paused our financial stewardship drives for a bit and focused on relationship stewardship. A kind of stewardship where we say "we are not going to ask for your money, we're going to ask for you...because you are what's important, the rest will take care of itself."

I am a person born at the tail end of Gen X, I am also someone who values structure and finds comfort in the liturgy of the early church that has been molded and shaped throughout the centuries found its way into the Evangelical Lutheran Worship Hymnal that sits on my desk at church. I believe that liturgy is important and that the historic liturgy has amazing power because the liturgy in itself focuses on the one who we come together to worship. The historic liturgy says, through the Word and the Eucharist "Hey, God is working here in you and in a little bit, God is going to send you out into the world so that God can work through you," while at the same time connecting us with our brothers and sisters of other times and places. I can sit in church on Sunday mornings knowing that even though I am almost 1000 miles away from home, my family is doing just about the same thing that I am at that moment...And I know that at some point, my ancestors were a part of what I am a part of, and it helps center me in something that is much bigger than I am.

At the same times, however, as much as I hold the liturgy dear to me...there is an additional component that I think is missing from some churches that can, and maybe should, be attached to the annual stewardship campaign. It revolves around relationships...it says to people coming into the door for the first time "we are so glad that God has sent you to worship with us"...it says to people who are long time members "we are so blessed that God has been working through you in this community for so long"...it says to all who enter the doors, "we honor you because God brought you here and we want to know you and love you as a sister/brother in Christ"

What would it look like if relationship stewardship was the main stewardship program of the church?

But what does it look like? Who are the leaders that we need to ensure that this is successful?

I know the answer to both of the questions depends on the community. Many churches are already experts in relationship stewardship...and, from my limited experience, they tend to be smaller congregations (I'm not saying that all small congregations are like this, nor am I saying that larger congregations don't know how to do this well...it's just an observation).

This is also an observation:
Maybe we need more potlucks, just because...
Maybe we need more community activities to burn off the calories from the potlucks, just because...
Maybe we need to be better at being families in Christ rather than a random assortment of folks that wander in for Sunday worship and then go our separate ways afterwards...

The most memorable thing that Pastor Roger said at our leadership retreat on Saturday was this - "Jesus didn't die on the cross because he was wildly successful in the eyes of the world."

So maybe...we, the church, need to stop for a moment and look at our success in how well we build relationships, how well we do at being a family in Christ, instead of whether pledges for the year were more or less than the year before. Yes, the bills need to be paid. But getting to know people and have a relationship with them as a brother or sister in Christ, that is something we GET to do...and it sure is a blessing.