Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

Recovering Christian Stewardship from Secular Fundraising 7
and loss”). 2 Only months later, however, it was evident that this
mutual embrace was short-lived. Those who made their way back to
the Church just as quickly left again, thereby returning the Church
to a steady and long-standing decline both in membership and
significance to society at large. Secular society and the Church
seem consigned to share a common, yet separate, existence.
The struggle then becomes how each exists in the balance.
Does the Church pursue a less traditional and “organized” approach
to life, and therefore reflect the current secular desire for
individualism? Does the Church re-engage in its core teachings and
traditions, calling society to become part of the Church? Or does the
Church walk a tightrope, balancing each of these and other
perspectives as an acrobat walks the high wire? These are farreaching
questions: our intent here is to deal with them only in so
far as they pertain to Christian stewardship.
My contention is that ancient as the Church’s ideas may be,
they are, and continue to be, timeless. However, in the ill-conceived
attempt to prove itself to society at large, the Church has
relinquished some of its most important teachings and practices
about stewardship. Over the years the Church has embraced secular
fundraising practices instead of asserting and commending the
fuller principles of stewardship to society. In doing so, stewardship
was reduced to giving—and not only giving, but mere financial
giving. In trying to integrate what is perceived as the success of
secular fundraising, the Church has all but abandoned Christian
stewardship. Indeed, the idea of stewardship has come to be more
associated with the environmental lobby than the Church.
“Fundraising” is all about non-profit management practices,
and goals which are quantifiable and therefore, measurable.
2 Archbishop Michael Peers (Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada), “My
Canada Includes God,” The Globe & Mail, 16 March 2002, p. A17. Also, in the aftermath
of the loss of Swissair Flight 111 off of Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, the Canadian
government prohibited Christian clerics from invoking the name of Jesus in their
prayers for the lost souls and their grieving family members, friends and loved ones.