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by Andy Gustafson, Associate Conference Minister
June/July 2007
Here are two figures to ponder: $7 trillion and $100 trillion. $7 trillion is the estimated amount of annual personal income in the U.S. $100 trillion is the estimated amount of accumulated wealth in the U.S.
In our church stewardship programs we properly talk about our need to be good stewards of our income by giving a generous proportion to support God’s purposes.
Many of our members tithe 10% of their income and many more seek to grow their giving towards the tithe. What we don’t often talk about is that we are also stewards of our accumulated assets.
These assets take many forms including homes, retirement accounts, stock portfolios, life insurance, and savings accounts.
Speaking to the Hebrew people as they prepared to enter the promised land, God warned “When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and you silver and gold is multiplied, and all you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God. Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth.” (Deuteronomy 8:12-14, 17-18).
Faithful stewardship means giving from our accumulated wealth as well as from our income.
Whether it is a gift to a capital campaign, a major gift, or a planned gift as part of our estate planning, our stewardship of our accumulated assets honors God as the source of all we have.
“God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”
(2 Cor. 9:8)