How I Began

In my former life — that is when I lived life on the other side of the collar — I got a phone call from my Pastor. He informed me that he wanted to stop by my house that night for a stewardship visit. Stewardship, to me, was synonymous with money. My money. The money I earned and my church wanted to get hold of. My immediate reflex was to reach for my back pants pocket to make
sure my wallet was safe.

He arrived right on time, and I invited him in. Before he had the chance to talk first, I said, “So how much more do you want me to give than what I’m already doing?” Pastor Don just smiled. Then he said, “You know, Bill, there’s a lot more to stewardship than money.” He then went on to ask if I could start assisting him at worship, since I was already up front, singing in choir, and therefore wore the same type of robe as the other assisting ministers. (What I didn’t know was that our Associate Pastor was about to take another call.) We both had a good chuckle about my misunderstanding, but just as he was leaving – true to form – he said, “But if you could come up with an extra $2.00 per week, I see no harm.”

A year or so after that visit, and many Sundays serving in my new ‘stewardship’ role, it was decided that we would adopt the new “Lutheran Book of Worship” due to be published before the end of the year. Once again, I was asked to study, learn, and help introduce this new hymnal. It was in the Offertory Prayer of that new liturgy where I found a richer meaning to what my Pastor had meant during that first ‘stewardship’ appointment. You probably know the words as well:

Merciful Father, we offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us — our selves, our time, and our possessions — signs of your gracious love. Receive them for the sake of him who offered himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You see, all too often we equate stewardship with dollars and cents. All too little do we move beyond our wallets and bank accounts for the fullness of what stewardship can bring. Walk with me through the prayer above. “With joy and thanksgiving” is the obvious place to start. Before anything else we need to turn our attention to the idea of joy and thanksgiving.

– Pastor Bill Schultz