Stewardship: the care of everything under your authority part II

One way of thinking about our stewardship choices is to consider what else out there is competing for our attention, our money and our time.

Our neighbor Tom Henry (writing as Stewardship Teacher for St. Marks, Baldwinsville) reflects on the competition between everything else and the enormous entertainment industry (think video, iPad, iTouch, gaming, TV, sports).  Talk to my grandparents or play Candy Crush on my phone?  Participate in a fundraising event or watch a movie on my computer?  Get dirty planting trees or play a little golf?  Sacrifice for others or entertain myself? 

"This is the reality of being in stewardship. Everything is a choice and not all the choices have the same marketing budgets.  How do we, as God's people, compete with the tempting and expensive world of entertainment? How do we convince anyone that their money and time buy more in service to others than in amusing themselves here and now? There is a multi-billion dollar industry working to convince you that I am wrong. I have a single, 2000 year old book to convince you otherwise. 

I am convinced that we at St. Mark’s [and Luther Memorial for that matter] can fund any ministry we think is important enough to fund. We can afford our building and every program we can think of within it and outside it, if we truly believe in its importance. It is a faith challenge to give money. So [any] stewardship drive will be about money, but it also must be about faith. In the face of overwhelming competition for dollars, dedication, and devotion from a very entertaining world, the love of God through Jesus Christ must still be most important. And the stewardship challenge is to convince congregations to demonstrate that in their giving."

Thanks, Tom, for laying this out for us.