49: How to Talk About Money, pt. 1

The Faithful Steward

If you're a stewardship leader or a teaching pastor, you know that talking about money to the congregation is hard. It's not comfortable - for you or for the congregation. People get defensive when they feel that you're prescribing rules that don't make sense to them in their situation.

Part of the problem is that over time, we've conflated the concept of stewardship with giving. Stewardship is about managing resources in a God-honoring way, recognizing that He is the owner. But when we run "stewardship campaigns", we're not teaching people about how to manage money in a God-honoring way. Instead, we're focused on raising money for the church. So people come to equate stewardship with giving to the church. Good stewardship means giving more; poor stewardship means not giving enough.

Another part of the problem is that people in our congregations are in all different kinds of financial situations. So inevitably, when we prescribe rules, people respond with "You don't understand my situation." When we dive into the details of giving and tithing and treat these as one-size-fits-all topics, we miss out on opportunities to truly disciple our congregations in real stewardship.

Join us as host James Lenhoff encourages and equips pastors and stewardship leaders to teach the "why" and "what" of stewardship. Learn how important stewardship teaching is in the context of overall discipleship and how to approach the topic Biblically with confidence. And come back for our next podcast episode, in which we'll take a look at the one-on-one conversations needed to teach the "how".

To learn more check out www.GoodSenseMovement.org

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