Stewardship

Earn your living in a way that does not harm others.
Be just in the way you treat others.
Be sensitive to the needs of others.
Don't buy what you don't need.
Be honest in all your dealings with others.
Share what you have.
Be gentle with God's world.

-- These words from John offer a basis for an understanding of stewardship in the Christian life. We are a gifted people because God first gave to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Each of us has received gifts of grace and resources, both spiritual and temporal from the hand of God who loves us and bestows them and life itself. All these gifts are given freely and entrusted to our use as we see fit.

-- Stewardship is at the heart of our response to the love of God. It involves our use and treatment of the resources that God has entrusted to us. It includes all dimensions of human experience, from our care of the world around us, to the use of the spiritual gifts and talents entrusted to us, to the ways we utilize the material resources with which we have been blessed. -- Our model is that of the steward. The scriptures are rich with stories and teachings about the steward. It is the steward who has been entrusted with the care of the resouces that belong to another. In the Old Testament the steward was called upon to manage the lands, the resouces, and the people to ensure that the owners' interests were cared for, as well as to ensure that the basic needs of the people were met. The New Testament witness calls upon us to be stewards of the gifts that God has entrusted to us.
-- Hilbert Berger, a pioneer in stewardship education, said it well when he stated, "Stewardship is our response to giftedness." This suggests that, since we have already been gifted, we have no choice in whether we will be stewards. Our choice is whether we will be good or poor stewards of those gifts entrusted to our care.