Stewardship in the church gets a bad rap because it seems so focused on money and budgets. People don't want their church to be about those things, yet every church requires financial resources to operate. There is a huge ethical, spiritual conflict related to stewardship in the church which we all share.
One way that this is being addressed is to focus on generosity. If you attended the Stewardship Kaleidoscope conference in Charlotte, you found the theme throughout the program. I'm all for being generous. It is, however, an action that follows being grateful in hearts.
I suspect that people in churches are beginning to catch on that generosity is just a code word for stewardship. As a result, it will not be long before we'll need another code word to distract us from the issue of stewardship and giving in the church.
I came to the world of congregational stewardship through a growing appreciation for place of gratitude in our lives.
A lot of the mass-market gratitude literature is focused on feelings of gratefulness and how they make us feel good or happy. It is a fairly benign narcissistic behavior. So, I'm up front in saying that I'm not primarily interested in the feelings of gratitude. I am, rather, more interested in the strategic importance of gratitude as a function of human community. This is especially true for the church, and even more so for congregational stewardship campaigns.
Being Grateful
What if gratitude was not primarily a feeling, but rather how we lived. When we act gratefully, change happens in our lives and in the lives of those with whom we live and work. When we are grateful, and it is reflected in how we live, then we'll see a change in our well-being. Our lives will flourish with perspective and passion.
To practice gratitude is to shift our focus from feeling grateful to being grateful in all we do. Yet, even recognizing this as a good idea is not sufficient, because most of our motivation to be grateful is dependent upon having feelings that lead us in that direction. As a result, we need some thing more than just a belief in being grateful. We can't wait to feel grateful to act with gratitude.
The Five Actions of Gratitude
As I have have discovered over the past several years that there are five basic actions of gratitude. When we do them, it creates an atmosphere, an environment, develops a culture for gratefulness and generosity wherever we are. Each of these actions is a reflection of our being grateful.
SAY THANKS
When we say thanks, we express gratitude. When we say thanks a lot, we change our perspective on who we are and how we fit into the world around us. We begin to see the connections that we have with people. We begin to recognize the contributions of others to our lives. When we say thanks to them, and doing so in a way that is meaningful to the person we are thanking, we are deepening our relationship with them.
After over a decade and a half of consulting and coaching leaders, I'm convinced that most of us go through our lives with a real sense of isolation from other people. All of us often feel alone in the crowd. This feeling of isolation becomes more acute in those times when we experience personal loss or failure. Most of us do not know really who will stand with us if we were to lose everything, suffering the humiliation of failure and loss.
What I have found is that saying thanks in tangible ways builds strength in relationships that enable us to weather the hardest of times.
Our ultimate thanks goes to God in Jesus Christ. However, when we thank others, we are recognizing that the grace and love of God shared with us through others. Our connectionalism isn't just a polity or social media thing. It is the very basis of everything in creation.
To Say Thanks is to act to bring reconciliation and unity into our lives and the world that surrounds it. For this reason, it has a strategic importance that transcends its personal and tactical benefits. It is the fundamental basis of all our relationships, regardless of the setting or situation. You'll see more of this as we go throught he other four actions of gratitude.
GIVE BACK
Currently, the idea of paying it forward has captured the hearts and minds of many people. While worthy of our action, it misses the importance of how giving back can be an act of gratitude. Paying forward is a linear progress of gratitude. Giving back completes the circle of giving that strengthens families, friendships, organizations and communities.
Giving back and paying forward have been the fundamental motivations of most stewardship campaigns. It is a recognition of the integral connection between the past, present and the future. But more importantly, giving back in service is how we tangibly demonstrate the importance that someone or some group has had in our lives. This makes our stewardship or our philanthropy more of a connectional reality than simply giving to a cause. This completeness is important for the church as it provides a stronger basis for our mission to be one of a community of faith reaching out, rather just a program of compassion by the church.
The challenge of giving back is to grasp the big picture. We may be able to list a few people who have made a difference in our lives. However, if we take the time to see the connections that occur in life, we'll see that many people and institutions have contributed to providing us the opportunities that we now have. It is to them that we give back as well.
An essential point for us to understand is that in giving back we are helping to create sustainable organizations and communities. When we contribute to our church, beyond making a donation, we are creating the conditions for someone like ourselves in a future generation to benefit as we have. We are helping to create a culture of gratitude that strengthens the whole arena of our lives.
MAKE WELCOME
For a church to act in gratitude towards new people means that there is an open expectation for them to join, to participate fully and to contribute through the gifts and talents that God has given them. This is a tall task. It requires a kind of spiritual presence that recognizes that the church is Christ's, not the members.
The best material on hospitality that I have found is from Jan Gunnarsson's Hostmanship organization in Sweden. Here is my review of the first edition of his book Hostmanship. Right now the second edition of the book (completely revised) is only available for purchase from the Hostmanship offices in Sweden. I highly recommend it.
All organizations today face competition for talent. This is also true of churches. Talent isn't just ability. Rather it is the whole person including their character of action and relationship. To provide an open, hospitable environment for people doesn't mean that we elevate the more talented above the lesser ones. No.Quite the opposite. Instead our hospitality, our hostmanship, provides room for each and every person to contribute according to their ability. I have found that when people feel the freedom to take initiative to make a difference, that feeling gets transferred to others, regardless of what they can or cannot do. Everyone has something to contribute. Openness provides them that opportunity, and gives us the opportunity to say thanks for their contributions.
This is Paul means in 1st Corinthians 12 when in speaking of the church as a body, he says,
22On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; 24whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, 25that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.
To make people feel welcome is to provide them a culture of opportunity to contribute the gifts and talents that God has given them. It is more than a greeting at the door. It is an invitation to contribute as an act of gratitude to God.
HONOR OTHERS
Honoring others is more than recognizing someone for exemplary service. At a more fundamental level it is also how we relate to one another. To honor a person is to treat them with dignity, respect and caring. We seek to see them as God sees them. To see that gives us not just a new perspective, but an understanding, an awareness of how God is at work in our midst. To treat people with honor, all people, is to have the heart of a reconcilier, a healer, to be a person who encourages others, celebrates their potential and contributions. This is what we all want, and, ironically, we can't true give it to ourselves.
When we honor someone, we are saying to them that I am thankful for their life. To practice this act of gratitude requires humility and a willingness to be open to other peoples' ideas and contributions. This is one of the more challenging disciplines that we must learn. I accept that I am incomplete, yes, even a sinner, and that the completeness of the church comes through the shared giving of people.
For leaders in the church, it means that "I do what I can do, and invite others to do what they can do. Together we make a difference far beyond our individual ability." When we lead this way, "by vacuum" as I call it, it means that we are again openning up the church to the gifts of others. It begins, however, with the respect that each person is due as a child and creation of God.
The question that we should be asking in the church is how do we structure the programs and governance of the church so that we honor each person, not as a member or a donor or a receiver of services, but rather as a person created in God's image with dignity and potential for making a difference.
CREATE GOODNESS
This is the most personal of the Five Actions of Gratitude. To create goodness is to recognize precisely who God has made me to be. I recognize my strengths, my limitations, the life situation that I am in, and discover a call or a passion for something that is an expression of my deep desire for what the ancient philosphers called our telos, the good life, our purpose, or our calling.
Creating goodness is an act that reflects God's goodness in the world. I see this reflected in Paul's words to the Ephesian church.
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (Ephesians 2:4-10-emphasis mine)
The "good life" therefore is fulfilled in us through our calling to faith and discipleship in Jesus Christ, and is reflect in how we live lives of gratitude each day.
The Impact of Gratitude
This understanding of the connection between our creation as God's person and our calling to create goodness in our lives is what I understand as the basis for leadership in the church. For if each member of a congregation were to fully discover their calling to live the "good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" then we'd see people taking initiative to make a difference. This is what leadership is personal action that creates an impact that fulfills a purpose.
When this happens, stewardship is no longer an issue of how do we raise next year's budget, but rather where is God call us to give. And like the image of the tree above, we'll see God's grace and love flowing through the church to touch the lives of people, institutions and communities in ways that we can hardly imagine today. It all begins with saying thanks.
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