Editor’s note: Monthly articles from LCMS Stewardship Ministry are hosted here on The Lutheran Witness site. Visit the “Ministry Features” page each month for additional stewardship content.
A ditch on either side of the road is still a ditch. The one on the left side of the road will damage your car as much as the one on the right side. Entering either ditch will prevent you from getting to your destination on time, if at all. Ditches come in all shapes and sizes, but there is one constant with them: you do not want to drive into them.
This reality of ditches is true on the wide, flat, fresh concrete of an interstate highway. Well-maintained medians and ditches are full of peril. It is also true of a winding asphalt or gravel backroad in the country. These might be even more dangerous because they do not readily reveal their depth, content and danger. It is true: a ditch on ANY road is still a ditch.
The ditch of anxiety
This is especially true of the ditches on either side of the narrow road of faithful stewardship. On one side of the road is the hazardous ditch that is known as anxiety. This is prevalent in congregations, leadership groups and even among individual stewards. The ditch of anxiety is filled with the fear that if the steward is faithful and is sacrificially living out their identity as a steward, they just might run out of what they need to support this body and life.
This idolatrous anxiety causes the steward to cling so tightly to what they have at the expense of faithful stewardship of the Gospel. This hampers faithful service within the congregation and inhibits faithful outreach into the community in which the congregation has been planted. It creates the wreckage of fear of lack, fear of missing out and fear of being less than we want to be. This ditch crashes faithful stewardship.
The ditch of apathy
The ditch on the other side of the road is not any better. That one goes by the name of apathy. This is an ever-present issue in legacy congregations. The stewards in these congregations look around at their familiar settings and they do not like what they see. The pews that used to be full are mostly empty. The filled parking lots of holiday services stand vacant. The familiar faces grow older and grayer. The children that used to fill Sunday school rooms and parts in the Christmas programs went off to college, only never to return.
Neighborhoods changed demographics, socioeconomics and ethnicity. Rural and city congregations emptied as populations moved to greener pastures. In the face of all this, the steward feels helpless, hapless and hopeless. The fear is that the remnant is powerless to make any changes, and this leads to a general feeling of apathy.
The apathetic steward sighs, shrugs and goes careening into the dangerous ditch of apathy that leaves the carnage of thinking that no serving, no caring and no generosity will ever be effective. This paralyzes the mission of the church, the ministry of the congregation and the work of the individual steward. This ditch crashes faithful stewardship.
Staying on the road
There is only one option. Jesus, the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, is the factor that keeps us on the narrow way. When the Holy Spirit is working through the Word of God taught in its truth and purity and the Holy Sacraments administered in accordance with their institution by Christ, the steward is guided along the winding road of life in this world with a clear vision of eternity in mind. The presence of Jesus in the lives of stewards breeds a faithfulness that keeps the steward out of both ditches, which can and will leave lives in wreckage.
Daily devotions and the weekly Divine Service are where the Spirit does His work connecting the steward to Jesus. In fact, the faithful steward finds that the most important thing worth stewarding is the Gospel. The daily management of all of life and life’s resources serve the purpose of supporting and expanding the work of the Gospel in our families, our communities and our world. Here is where stewardship and mission go hand in hand.
The key to keeping stewards and congregations out of either ditch is keeping the stewards in Christ. Faithful proclamation of Jesus Christ is essential. Deepening connections to the Holy Scriptures are necessary. Weekly reception of the Lord’s Supper is a grand idea as well. If we are stewards of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which we are by virtue of our baptism, then the steward can never get enough Jesus in Word and Sacrament. Faithful proclamation and reception of the Way, the Truth and the Life is the only way to keep stewards and their congregations out of the two equally-devastating ditches on either side of the narrow way.
Called out of the ditches
The road has been paved by the Word of Jesus at the cross and empty tomb. The faithful steward receives this treasure with joy knowing that it is FOR THEM, but not about them. This Gospel then moves them to be even more faithful with what the Lord entrusts to them for the sake of others. A ditch on either side of the narrow way is still a ditch. But Jesus calls us out of it. For His glory and the benefit of our neighbor!
LCMS Stewardship ministry features may be reprinted with acknowledgment given to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
