Financial Stewardship

Responsible stewardship in the church can be defined as the careful attention to the care and use of all of the gifts that God gives us including talents, material goods, and time. Monetary service in the church context is often referred to as receiving, offering, donations, funds, missions, budgets or anything along those lines. In a church, there are generally various church committees who deal directly with financial stewardship within the church. For ages, the only time that members of a church were addressed with the fiscal status of the church was in the Sunday column. Typically the column announces what donations it received from the members how much money the church still needed to meet the needs, but never anything in regards to the member's personal lives.

An increasing number of people are being crushed by consumer debt and money is one of the leading causes for troubled marriages. Even some churches face disorder in their own financial stewardship. In this instance it is imperative that a pastor and members of the church committee consult one another in the church about improvements that can be made. This way the church can preach and teach responsible stewardship with integrity. Some churches have improved procedures with and new donation envelope program.

For the reasons alone, churches have very recently tried to implement the education of monetary duty in the members. Most lessons on responsible stewardship begin with understanding the relationship between money and material possessions is directly connected to their spiritual growth and well being. Churches that have begun this type of education are now teaching the members that financial stewardship should be acknowledged as the blessings of God. And teaching that possessions are bestowed blessings and it is the member's duty to be faithful of those things and maintain them, promote them, increase them, or nurture them as well as give when needed. "Where your treasure is, your heart will be." (Luke 12:34)

However, what worked well for a larger church may not work well for a smaller church. By revamping the donation envelopes the churches mailed donation envelopes as needed, rather than once a year and had added a space where members could request more envelopes instead of waiting for the bulk mailing of envelopes bi-annually. Once a member had requested new envelopes, the church would insert an informational packet with the envelopes that included notes, letters and beneficial information on financial stewardship. With a simple method, the church had educated the members and increased the numbers and sizes of contributions. A program like this one guarantees to enhance the responsible stewardship of the members of the church and in turn will help the church.

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