On Stewardship

As a CPA and an accounting professor, it is probably not too surprising that I have sat on the Stewardship & Finance committee at my church for the past six years. This is a committee that connects two distinct responsibilities - helping to set and manage the church budget (finance), as well as encouraging people to dig deep in ways that respond to God's love through faithful and generous giving (stewardship). I am comfortable with what it means to carry out the finance role of our church committee. I am much less comfortable in figuring out how to motivate people to increase their levels of stewardship and giving to the church, in part because this is such a personal, private journey for people. My goal is to help shed a little more light on our own family's journey and what stewardship means to us. 

I am someone who is naturally a saver. I saved just about every penny of all of my babysitting jobs as a teenager. I saved almost every bit of the first four years of part-time work. A total stranger once stopped and asked me if I was a tightwad. My nickname among my high school friends was the Frugal Shopper, because I hated spending money. 

But in recent years, I have tried very hard to transform myself from someone who is a "saver" into someone who is also a "giver." I somewhat feel that I cheated at this. I have heard narratives from people in the early throes of marriage, with almost no money, who still managed to tithe and give 10% of all income to the church. This is not my story. When we were broke and had almost no money, we gave almost no money to the church, because I felt depleted and that we had almost nothing left to give. 

Instead, what happened is that my husband and I made a conscious decision when we graduated with our PhDs and began working full-time as professors that we would tithe and give 10% of our earnings to our church. It was a decision we made knowing that our incomes were getting ready to rise, and that we never miss the extra money if we acted as if we never have it. (And can I just say, I feel extremely self-conscious talking about money because it is so personal and value-laden and private and just tacky if you are too open and up front.) 

But through this process, what happened as we started tithing is that my attitude about money slowly started changing. Instead of worrying about maximizing the amount that we saved, I instead tried to challenge myself to maximize what we gave. I began to see opportunities everywhere where we could make a difference, and tried to jump on it. If an organization or an individual or a cause was in need of financial support, I challenged myself to give if possible. 

And one thing I have learned is, the more we open our hearts to giving instead of clinging, the more we are opened to the notion that nothing belongs to us at all, that it all belongs to God, and we are merely charged with being the best stewards that we can. 

Everyone is called to a different journey in life. No one's calling is quite the same. But I know that once I opened my heart to the idea of living generously, rather than living in fear, so much that I thought was impossible began to seem quite possible. And I think that is the essential meaning of stewardship - the idea that all things are possible with God. And what a blessing that is.