stewardship

I am yapping in front of the church again tomorrow, begging for money. So now I am preparing my thoughts .....

I am an accountant by trade - you might not suspect it when you get to know me, but I will prove it to you with one little statement: I like budgets. I like having a plan and a direction; Jim Wallis wrote that a budget is a moral document because it tells us what we value and what we put our faith in.

Stewardship is not just about pledge drives; stewardship is also about vision and about making tough choices, and since I have been named stewardship chair for this year, I am going to be talking a lot about that. And the importance of vision and tough choices is very apparent during the budget process. The vision comes from the staff. If you want to be invigorated about this church, sit down and talk to Joe about what he wants to do with music in the next year to bring people here closer to God and to grow this church. Or Evan with the youth. Or Minot with the new accounting software he covets.

The tough choices are obvious too. We could spend our contributions many times over before we ran out of worthwhile projects. The church council ultimately has to make those decisions, and that is the part of this process that is not fun at all. It is, however, a part of stewardship.

The simple message I have this morning is that every person associated with Travis Park church has a role in stewardship. Now is the time for us to do our part.