Toward Creating a Theology of Christian Stewardship

4. “The Church needs to be challenged in heroic giving. No timidity is allowed in proclaiming the Good News and healing of the Gospel. The world’s needs are so great, and the Church’s role in the transformation of the person and of the world so pivotal and essential, that any timidity on the subject is an insult to God.”George Regas

6. Toward Creating a Theology of Christian Stewardship

7. A priest’s responsibility to her or his people center’s very much on enabling them to form their own theologies.

9. “Now Mark, take all of this to your secret place and weigh it carefully.”

10. “Five Pounds of Peanuts in a Three Pound Bag:” Our Agenda! • Pray • Review our direction this morning. • The History of Giving in the Episcopal Church. • Theology: What is it? How do we do it? Why is it important? • What has the entire Old Testament say about Stewardship? • What has the entire New Testament have to say about Stewardship? • Toward creating a theology of stewardship.

11. The History of Giving: The primary ways in which the Episcopal Church has been financially supported • Colonial Period • Revolutionary War to the early 19th Century • The 19th and early 20th Century • The Post 1920 Period • The Period after 1968 to the present

17. The Alabama Plan works because: It asks for and receives leadership from the top. It requires hard work on the part of all those involved. It rests upon strong reflection on the Old and New Testaments, with particular focus on the mind of Jesus Christ.

18. How Anglicans Theologize

19. What is Theology?

20. SCRIPTURE Issue Tradition Reason

23. What does the Old Testament say about Stewardship?

25. Primarily: • Nothing belongs to us. It all belongs to God and we are God’s stewards in the course of our earthly life. • We are called to be a grateful people for all that God has entrusted to us. • We are to live under the law and give accordingly.

26. What does the New Testament say about Stewardship?

27. What it doesn’t say… • Money is important! • That we are to live strictly under the law. (see St. Paul!) • Much about the tithe. (see Jesus!)

28. What Our Lord says is this:God must be central! NOT: • Job • Money • Power • Place • Sex • Booze/drugs • The state • The religious law • “Old Number One!”

29. Look at the Story: • The Widow • The Samaritan • The Prodigal (or the Parable of the Loving Father!) • The Talents • Zacheus • Judas • The saddest of all!!!

30. The Widow and Her Mite

32. The Good Samaritan • “No one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if all he had were good intentions. He had money as well.” Margaret Thatcher

34. The Prodigal

37. “And he came to his senses.”

38. The Parable of the Talents • Chremodephobia! The fear of money.

39. Chremodephobia:The fear of money!

41. Zacheus

42. “Come Down from that tree …. • What went on at dinner? One way or another, Our Lord healed Zack of “Mammon Illness.” (That which makes money central, disfigures relationships, dulls self and makes God secondary.)

44. Judas and his silver • Mixed motives, like us!

46. The Rich Young Man • He defines tragedy.

49. Cultivating a Theology of Stewardship: Why is it important?

50. Many Good Reasons: • It quiets us, freeing and liberating something deep within us. • It helps control some of our fears. • It inspires us to do more for others. • It allows us to concentrate on other aspects of the Christian faith: worship, study, pastoral care, missions, etc. • It aids aids us in putting Christ in the center of our lives.