Nothing in our churches causes more negative behavior than saying the word "stewardship."

I am a Christian educator who has worked with both adults and children in the educational ministries of the church. When I was approached to take on the position as chairperson of the conference’s Stewardship Task Force, I tried to pass it off by saying that I knew nothing about the subject. I was told that was the prime requirement for the position. They were looking for someone who had an open mind.

We’ve all heard that one before, but I like to learn new things and stretch my knowledge, and the conference offered a trip to Lake Junaluska for training. So, I went, and I trained and did a lot of research on my own. A whole new understanding of stewardship was opened up to me, and I became excited about this ministry area.

I learned that stewardship is not fund raising, although that is a piece of it. Stewardship is an expression of our faithful living as people of God and followers of Jesus Christ. It is a spiritual matter—what we do after we say, "I believe." It acknowledges that our Creator gives all we have to us. In return, God asks only that we return a portion or a tithe of what we have. Stewardship recognizes God’s sovereignty in our lives.

In the Old Testament, the faithful gave of their firstborn livestock or the first of the harvest. This was indeed a faith issue, for they trusted that after they gave that portion to God, the Lord would provide more. Stewardship calls us to trust that God will provide all our needs.

In the Garden of Eden, humanity was charged by God to care for the earth. Adam and Eve were given dominion over the animals and care of the garden. This is the stewardship most people know about. When we waste the earth’s resources or spend our money on unnecessary things, we are not good stewards of what God has provided for all of humanity. Stewardship is taking care of what God has provided.

As baptized members of the church, we have been endowed by the Holy Spirit with spiritual gifts. Discovering them and finding places of ministry where we may use our gifts is stewardship. When we joined the United Methodist church, we pledged to uphold the church with our "prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service." This is a pledge of stewardship.

So why don’t most of us know all this? Why does stewardship have such a poor image? The problem is that we usually hear about one part of stewardship, once a year in connection with the financial campaign. If we lifted up holistic stewardship all year long, we would soon recognize how it permeates the lifestyle of all true disciples. Pastors could preach stewardship every single Sunday and most of us would not know they were doing it.

I have worked in the area of stewardship both as an organizer of the annual campaign and member of the stewardship committees of both churches where I have served. I have been on the front lines of financial campaigns for many years and have done everything from large dinners to member visitation programs, including the Circuit Rider format.

It wasn’t until I took on the conference job as one who preaches the message of holistic stewardship that I began to get enthusiastic about it. I see stewardship everywhere when I read my Bible. I hear stewardship in most sermons. I try to include stewardship learning opportunities within the educational ministries of the church, from offering classes on budgeting for families to deliberately limiting craft materials in children’s classes so they learn to share limited resources and work together. It’s everywhere if you know how to listen and where to look.

The vision of holistic stewardship is that congregations would immerse themselves in its many different forms all year long and that the financial campaign would not be a time of tribulation for pastors and church leaders. It would mean that pledge campaigns would be a time for the celebration of all the missions and ministries of a congregation and a commitment to do more to spread the Good News. It would mean that we would have more than enough financial resources, more than enough laborers in the harvest and that all would be undergirded in prayer.