Welcome to our 2024/2025 stewardship campaign. I know that most of you did not wake up this morning thinking, “I sure hope Pastor Teer talks about money this morning!” It is easy to think of a church stewardship campaign like an NPR fundraiser without the cool swag (if church swag is what you need, we can talk about that later). Balancing the financial needs of the local church alongside what is pledged and placed in the offering plate is no small feat. I want to thank our Leadership Board for tackling stewardship head-on. And I want to thank you for not walking out when I said, “stewardship campaign.” The weight of this season can feel like an elephant sitting on our chest but if we allow the weight to be a means of grace, stewardship is an opportunity to praise God for all that God has done.
The offering plate carries a lot of weight. Most of the time, nearly 10,075 minutes per week, no one gives a second thought about the offering plates. The plates sit in the back of the sanctuary or the Chapel office. Yet, as Dwayne and Jennifer gracefully guide the plates toward us, and as we pass them along the church pew, we can feel their weight for about 5 minutes every week.
As a teenager, I served as an usher at my home church. As a teenager I could feel the weight of the offering plate as I feared dropping the brass lacquered plate on the slate floors of the sanctuary. Guiding offering plate through the congregation, I noticed patterns emerging. The same patterns still exist today. Some would reach for their wallets and throw in the first bill they grabbed, while others would gracefully place their prepared envelope on the red velvet inner lining. For others, the passing of the offering plate was, and can be today, a time of anxiety and stress.
"Should I put something in?”
“Everyone is watching me. Is this enough?”
“Shoot, I don't have any cash.”
The plate can make us nervous or feel like it is part of our weekly routine. We know what we are supposed to do when it comes along. Drop something in and pass it along. Each week, we hope there is a little bit more to help the ministries of the Chapel thrive and our mission endure. But here's the thing: you could place every bit of money you have in the plate, put every nickel you have ever earned or give until it hurts, and it still would not match the magnitude of what God has given us. The plates we pass are too small for what God has given and will give us. God has given us through Christ Jesus everything, what Paul calls the "riches of grace."[i]
Paul holds nothing back in his praise of God as he opens his letter to the Ephesians. Paul writes, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing."[ii] Not a sprinkle of blessing, not a drip of blessing, but a whole flood of blessing. What Jesus gave the world was all of Himself, the entirety of His mercy, forgiveness, and love. Washed in the grace of Jesus Christ, we have more than we can ever imagine. We have been drenched in God's blessings.
The moment the offering plate comes by, it's not just about funding a building or paying a few bills. Instead, it is a moment to reflect on what we have already been given. Our gifts are simply a way of reflecting the generosity of God. A friend of mine wrote there are two types of churches. The first, you come to church full, and you leave empty. You come in your freedom, but you leave shackled with guilt and demands you will never keep. The second is that you come to church empty and leave full. You come in with guilt, and you leave with the gospel.
The more we command people to be generous, the more tightly they cling to their possessions. The most successful way to make someone worse is to continue demanding that they get better.
Compulsion tightens our hands, hearts, and wallets, but when we encounter the gospel and recognize how much God has first given us, we are inspired to give because we are already free. To the Corinthians, Paul wrote, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich."[iii]
The core message of Christianity is all about the God who, though rich became poor for our sake. It is about the God, who delights in doing for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. Therefore, the call to a life of giving and generosity can only ever be born out of the recognition that God is the one who first gives to us.
Stewardship is less about checking boxes or paying bills at the church. Stewardship is a recognition that God has already given us, given all of creation, the greatest gift of all. Only when we fully grasp this gift – the fullness of Jesus Christ and the grace that freely flows Him and overflows our cups – can we truly understand what it means to give. Giving is not our duty; it is our delight. When we give, we participate in God's Kingdom, joining a story that began before us and, by God's grace, extends beyond us.
So, as the offering plate comes by, remember that what we put in is not about a quota or fulfilling an obligation. The plate is a means of grace and invitation to participate in a pattern of grace that begins with God. When we approach stewardship and the financial support of the church in this way, we are no longer giving og. Out of compulsion or guilt. We are giving as an act of worship, as a way of saying thank you for what we have already received because that is what the gospel is all about. We do not leave church with a list of demands. We live with the freedom that comes from the gospel. God has already done for us that we cannot do for ourselves.
So, as the plate comes by today, and you think about what you'll put in, and as you consider your pledge to the Chapel for the coming year, know this: Whatever you give is a response to a God who has given everything. As you leave the Chapel today, I pray that you walk out not empty but full, carrying the blessings and grace of God with you, knowing that we serve a God who delights in giving abundantly.
[i] Ephesians 1:7, NRSV
[ii] Ephesians 1:3, ESV
[iii] 2 Corinthians 8:9, ESV
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