Starts with G-o- and has all the answers...

Even if this blog weren't hosted for free by Google-owned Blogger, I would still think Google is amazing. I'm starting to rely on Google web search, news, and maps for most of my information needs. In fact, at times it's a bit disturbing when I realize I look more often to Google for answers than I look to God in prayer.

Stewardship is one clear example of how looking to God brings more insight than the world's most famous search-engine. Try it - do a search for "stewardship" on Google. Then try narrowing your search for "Christian stewardship."

What did you find? It seems that most of the Christian stewardship sites focus exclusively on financial managment (notice all the sponsored links to Christian fundraising services), whereas most of the secular sites concentrate on stewardship of the environment and natural resources. This Christian focus on financial stewardship to the exclusion of many other resources, including the environment, is ironic in light of God's first charge to humanity, which was to steward the earth he had created (Genesis 1:28). [There are actually many good Christian organizations focused on creation care - I hope to add links to these in future posts.]

The understanding of stewardship that we can receive from God through the Bible is so much broader than what we gain from a Google search. Stewardship is about honoring God with all of our resources -

• our possessions (i.e. money, material goods, time)
• our person (i.e. body, personality, and abilities)
• our position in society (i.e. opportunities, relationships, life experiences)

Stewardship is also not just an individual affiar, but something we exercise together, particularly over

• corporate resources (i.e. creation, community, the gospel)

Which of these resources (or others not listed here) might God be calling you to steward more faithfully right now?

Calling all stewards...with my new cell phone

Welcome to my first blog, and my first blog entry - a rainy Saturday afternoon experiment. Thanks for your patience as I give this whole blogging thing a try. I guess you could say it's been a big week for me, technologically speaking. Not only do I have a new blog, but I also have a new cell phone - my first. I know, I know, "Welcome to the 21st century, Robert."

I tried to hold out as long as possible - I didn't want to become the guy whose phone is always interrupting his life. Heck, I've already got e-mail to do that. But as I continue to move from city to city and state to state, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep in touch with the people I love without a mobile phone. So I have a dilemma: submit myself to the tyranny of a 4-ounce electronic device, or resign myself to the gradual dissolution of long-distance friendships. Of course, as all you responsible cell owners know, there's a third way: I can learn to use my phone as a useful tool without becoming its slave.

Stewardship is all about this third way - not just with cell phones, but with any kind of resource you can imagine. God has created us as physical beings in a world full of stuff, yet somehow many of us (especially American evangelicals) have gotten the impression that God isn't particularly interested in our relationship to ourselves and our stuff. We've come to believe that as long as we fulfill the Great Commandments of loving God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-39) and the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20), then we're in good shape. For such folks, "stewardship" (a Christian euphemism for money management that includes tithing), is a theological footnote, a minor detail in the grand scheme of Christian living.

To hold such an outlook is to acknowledge the theological truth of these commands without acknowledging their implications - which is no real acceptance of truth at all. It's like the paradigm of the rich young man (Mark 10) who, with straight A's on his report card of religious achievement, approached Jesus the teacher to see if he'd completed all his requirements for graduation to heaven. The young man was dejected by the teacher's reply: "There's one more requirement: give away everything you have (you'll find your treasure in heaven) and follow me." He walked away sad. I'd like to hope that he found the faith to obey Jesus and eventually became a disciple, but for all we know, this young man's hope of heaven was derailed. It's not because he didn't try to love God and neighbor (which is what the Ten Commandments are all about), but because his love for God and neighbor were incomplete without his willingness to act as the steward of his possessions, rather than the owner.

I chose to get a cell phone, but I can't choose whether or not I want to be a steward - it's a part of my God-created role on earth. Avoiding stewardship (deliberately or incidentally) results in idolatry. Instead of using our God-given resources for his glory and his kingdom, we end up worshipping those resources and becoming enslaved by them.

Which brings us to this blog. I need your help (and you might need mine)! We're living in a world of countless things, resources, any of which can become our master or our tool for loving God and loving one another. Would you join me in a conversation about how we can choose to steward these resources and worship God with our whole lives?

Thanks for your partnership.