A Brief History
Of American Stewardship

By the Rev. Dr. William O. Avery
Copyright © 1995, Lutheran Laity Movement.

PREFACE

As the twenty-first century [dawns], the concept of stewardship remains split in two antithetical directions. On the one hand, stewardship is a term found increasingly in secular literature to refer to care of the environment and, more recently, to the way one fulfills one's employment. In secular usage, stewardship usually has a very broad meaning: humans are to be caretakers of creation or managers of what belongs to another.

On the other hand, within the church, stewardship usually has a specific, circumscribed meaning as the finances of the church. Of course, people within the church — both laity and clergy — do realize that the term can have a broad meaning. When asked to define stewardship, every church group to whom I have spoken is able to give a broad definition such as, "trustee of what belongs to God."

However, the practices and rhythms of congregational life do not reinforce the wider definition. That is, each year there is a budget to prepare as well as a strategy to meet the budget. This annual reality, for which the congregational stewardship committee takes major responsibility, keeps bringing home the message that stewardship means the finances of the church members for the church. Within 99% of the congregations, stewardship means money — money for the church!

Therefore, two critical questions must be asked before we can judge whether stewardship will be a meaningful concept into the twenty-first century. First, can the split between the two meanings of stewardship be healed so that church members can live a wholistic understanding of stewardship such as is envisioned in this booklet? Second, is stewardship the best concept to use to refer to the finances of the church, or do we need a new term for church finances? After all, stewardship became popular as a "polite" way to talk about money for the church without seeming crass or offending anyone's sensibilities. Some writers have claimed that the term stewardship is actually an impediment to the church's full exploration of the biblical connections between faith and money.

I have written this brief history because I believe the concept is both essential to the church and because I think a wholistic understanding of stewardship can be incorporated into the life of the church. By tracing the history of American stewardship, we have a way of understanding how past viewpoints and experiences affect and govern our attitudes and behavior today. By understanding our past use of stewardship, we can be freer to heal the split which has occurred to this concept.

I want to thank the Lutheran Laity Movement for Stewardship, and especially Executive Director Clint Schroeder, for the invitation to write this brief history. LLM has a long history of keeping a lively and timely discussion of stewardship before the Lutherans in the United States. I also want to commend Arthur L. Larson, a member of LLM, who embodies the best of stewardship. Through his generosity a stewardship professorship has been established at Gettysburg Seminary, stewardship councils are functioning at most ELCA seminaries, and, in the last two years, a Stewardship of Life Institute has been established.

 The Rev. William O. Avery is Professor of Field Education and the Arthur L. Larson Associate Professor of Stewardship and Parish Life at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and executive director of the Stewardship of Life Institute.