Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

22 THE PASSIONATE STEWARD
of administration and organization, but they are wholly inadequate
when it comes to teaching good stewardship. Good stewardship
stems from our fundamental understanding of the radical values of
the Gospel, and that faith in God which together motivate our desire
to return generosity for abundance.
In many ways, Canadian Marshall McLuhan’s declaration that
“the medium is the message” could not be more clearly illustrated.
If popular secular practices such as emphasizing large gifts and
offering donor recognition are the medium by which we raise
money, then the message is that to give freely and joyfully of our
time, talent and treasure is unimportant. Lex orandi, lex credendi—
what we pray and do become our creed. God save us from an
approach to stewardship which makes an idol of money or greed.
Secular models of fundraising simply do not teach
stewardship, and are almost always contrary to our creed and values.
Stewardship considers the soul. Secular fundraising does not. Our
growth into passionate stewards is about inward change for outward
action throughout our lives. Secular fundraising, by contrast, has a
definite telos—its primary focus is an ordered end, a destination,
generally quantified in financial terms only. For a Christian, a
fundraising campaign can never be more than a milestone in one’s
lifelong journey, while for secular fundraisers, a gift can be the
completion of one’s philanthropic goals.
The Church needs to recover its first principles. We cannot
simply surrender to secular methods because they seem to “work,”
or because they have kept us from the brink of bankruptcy before.
Stewardship is not about sending the right person to ask for the gift,
nor is it about dangling donor recognition and sycophantic praise in
front of parishioners in the hopes of prying open their purse. What
is at stake here is nothing less than our Christian values, and our
faith in the Gospel itself. We are mistaken if we believe that when
it comes to money, and when money is what pays the bills, we have
little choice but to jettison our Christian convictions.