"Honoring Our Past, Building Our Future"

My Stewardship Journey  

My stewardship walk has been and continues to be a journey....a journey that reflects a combination of growing in my relationship with God both spiritually and financially; my devotion to and my engagement in worship; learning from the lessons of Jesus and the Word; working toward better work/life/faith balance and working at putting my priorities in proper order. It is a constant push to work hard at not taking God for granted in my life!

And I thank God for his patience and devotion to me, despite my frailties and for the opportunity to strengthen my relationship and work harder at walking the walk by stepping up my stewardship commitment! This is one of the many wonders of God. We can count on his mercy, blessings and love to be there for us even when we may not feel we deserve it.

And God finds ways to help us continue our journey to strengthen our faith even when we are slow, reluctant or unclear how to do so! You see I believe it was God's way of nudging me toward expanding my understanding of and walk in stewardship, when Byron Harrison, Chair - St. Paul's Finance Committee asked me to serve on the Stewardship Committee last year as a means of linking the work of the Finance Committee and Stewardship Committee together. I must admit, that I really had little understanding of stewardship prior to my service and I certainly did not "get" how important it is to my personal faith walk. Through the training I received in the value and importance of Stewardship and my service on both committees, I now realize how important stewardship is for my personal walk of faith and how important stewardship is to maintaining and sustaining our church.

The first and most important lesson I learned regarding stewardship is that all that I have has been given and all of the blessings I receive each and everyday, come to me from God. All that I earn and each and every blessing I receive, right when I need them most, come from God; often without me "officially asking for blessings" through prayer. God KNOWS our needs and He ACTS upon them in our lives even when we don't realize we need them or when we forget that God is in control and try to handle our challenges on our own!

And for that great care, understanding, daily protection and support, all He asks of us is to give Him back ten percent (and more as we are able) of the resources he provides us, as a reflection of our appreciation for his blessings and to "pay it forward" so that our church, can do all of the great work that it does to support our faith journey and serve our church and surrounding community. Deuteronomy 14:22-29 states that one-tenth of all that comes into our possession, belongs to God. And when you think about it another way, God is so generous, he wants us to keep 90% of the resources He blesses us with and only asks that we give 10% back to Him through our financial commitment to our church. All that we have is a gift from God and He expects us to be good stewards over our resources that have been bestowed upon us.

By serving on the Finance Committee I also learned and gained greater understanding about our responsibility to be good stewards to our church so that St Paul's has all of the resources it needs to support us in our faith, our minister, staff and all of the costs required to be paid to operate the church each day and do the great work St Paul's does to support our community in need.

Where I must step up my stewardship is making the timeliness of my tithe a priority and that will be my focus for 2012. I travel a lot for work and must follow through on my financial commitments to St. Paul's even when I am away from home. Just as we are responsible for meeting the needs of our households in a timely way, we are responsible for meeting our proportionate share of the needs of our church. We cannot meet the needs of our households if our paychecks aren't on time; nor can our church meet its needs if our tithes don't arrive on time.

When my eyes and heart were finally opened to my duty and responsibility to tithe, I must admit that it was truly a walk of faith, because in my mind I was afraid because I didn't really think I could afford to do so. In actuality, I couldn't afford NOT to do so. And since making the commitment, God has provided me with all that I have needed to meet my other financial obligations; especially when an emergency arises, somehow (God) it all works out!

Father Wright's sermon on stewardship helped me take the first step. He encourages us to start with prayer and reflection on our blessings; simply step back and reflect on how God is and has worked in our lives; in the lives of our loved ones, friends and in our work. Next, we should engage in a conversation with God through prayer to determine where and how we should start our stewardship commitment. Then it is important to work the numbers and make a plan with the engagement of the entire family. It is important that we involve our spouses, children and other household family members so that they too can become engaged in stewardship with us.

What made it even easier was that Father Wright encouraged us to start where we are comfortable giving based on our personal circumstances. This is a personal determination based on what you, God and your family are comfortable with. One can start by committing to 5% with a plan to work your way up to 10% over time. Whatever you, your family and God work out is what is best for you. The important thing is to include God in on the determination of the plan. He will guide you in a way that you will be comfortable with. In fact, I now understand the passage that Father Wright shares with us every Sunday as we prepare to give our offerings from 2 Corinthians 9-7 that states "Every man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver".

Based on this passage I believe God wants us to give from the heart and not simply out of obligation or because we believe that because we give, God will bless us. God is in the blessing business and by his nature He blesses us because we are his children. When I give my tithe now each time, I feel good about giving; I do actually feel cheerful about it! LOL!

After prayer and planning, make the commitment and do your best to stick to it. Of course life can get in the way of our best laid plans; so if you hit a bump in the road, do your best to work through it and maintain your stewardship commitment like we must do with our basic necessities like food, housing and transportation. But if your circumstances change for the long run, you can always modify your pledge for the remainder of the year.

And now as I grow in my stewardship walk, I am learning that in addition to financial stewardship in connect to God and the church, I believe God wants us to also be good stewards in other important ways in our lives as well: good stewards of our bodies in terms of what we eat and in jest and that we exercise; good stewards of the 90% of our personal finances that He entrusts us with (I am pledging to complete the Financial Peace Course that I started and didn't complete in 2011 in 2012); good stewards of our relationships with our family, spouses, children, co-workers and strangers; and good stewards of our time, talents and treasure through our work within the church.

The best thing of all, each and every new day offers us a chance to take a new step toward God and a new step toward being better stewards as God wants it. So today could be your day to take the first or next step toward your stewardship promise. Once I put my faith in God and make the commitment to tithe and give ten percent whenever, I run short he provides, each and every time! It is a walk of faith and God always provides! I am thankful to have St. Paul's as my church home and each and every one of you as my members of my Church Family to support me in my walk of faith and stewardship!

Yours in Faith!

Nancy Flake Johnson