Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

18 THE PASSIONATE STEWARD
than the sum of its parts. Hence, signal moments in our journey as
stewards serve not merely to edify us, but are transformative. Our
understanding of stewardship—personal, corporate, or observed—is
worthless unless we actually put the idea of stewardship into action
in our daily lives. In this sense stewardship falls within the scope of
Aristotle’s Metaphysics: it goes beyond the physical, changing our
hearts, rekindling not only our understanding, but also the very
expression of our human essence—so that by being a passionate
steward, we who are good, do good.
The passionate steward desires to be generous with his or her
time, talent and treasure, and therefore acts upon that desire.
Motivated by an understanding of one’s Christian vocation as a
steward, the individual Christian gives, gives generously, gives
freely, and gives without expectation of reward or recognition. For
the passionate steward such a gift conforms to the norms of
scripture. It is an act of love, freedom and generosity—not an act of
obligation, duty, or social expectation.
However, because of the way the Church has approached
stewardship in recent decades many Christians have come to think
of stewardship as something transitory and transactional. Rather
than according stewardship its rightful place in the ongoing life and
preaching of the Church, we have relegated it to points of intense,
but time-limited focus, such as special campaigns, foundation
appeals, and the establishment of endowment funds. In other words,
the milestones have been permitted to substitute for the journey.
Accordingly, parishioners’ interest is piqued only during such
campaigns themselves, and the life-changing nature of Christian
stewardship is lost. The result is that the Church becomes even
more deeply reliant upon the aforementioned secular models to
provide for mission and ministry. This practice thus becomes
cyclical: the more the Church relies upon special efforts and less on
stewardship, the less it will experience stewardship, and the more
often it will have to administer campaigns.