October 2024

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.  Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.  If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.” (2 Corinthians 9:6-9).

This month, as many of you know, marks the annual Stewardship Campaign.  And stewardship is so important because it is a Christian discipline, a Christian responsibility.  As such, I thought it would be a great way for us to kick off this month by taking time to remember exactly what “stewardship'' is.  If you are like most people, you probably associate “stewardship” with “tithing,” so you think about money and finances; and, certainly, finances do play an important part of stewardship.  However, when you take a holistic view of stewardship, it becomes readily apparent that it entails so much more than just giving money.  The Greek word that is used in the New Testament that has been transliterated as “steward” is “oikonomos.”  This word means “the manager of a house or household affairs.”  Basically an “oikonomos” did not own the house which they were charged to oversee.  Rather, they were tasked with managing someone else’s house, from cleaning, to managing finances, to overseeing servants.

The question then becomes: why does the New Testament compare Christians with these 1st Century stewards?  It makes this comparison because we are not our own, everything we have…our church, our home, our money, even our life itself…is on loan from God who has entrusted us to manage these assets for His glory.  So, when we talk about “stewardship” from a Biblical perspective, we are not simply talking about finances; nor are we making a direct connection with giving an offering on Sunday morning, though the offering is an important part of stewardship.  Rather, what we are talking about is utilizing all that God has blessed you with for His glory and for the good of others; this includes your money, your talents, your wisdom, your experience, your life.  Stewardship means, rather than being stingy or hoarding God’s gifts, we utilize all of them properly for the advancement of His kingdom.

And this is why it is so important that we take time to talk about stewardship and giving.  This church, the wonderful, historic, Franklin Presbyterian Church is not our church, it is God’s church.  God has given us this church as a place where we can worship Him and become equipped to minister to those in this community who are lost.  Since this is God’s church, and since God has created and called His church to be a witness and minister to Him, it is our job, as stewards of His church, to make sure that we are managing it in such a way that it accomplishes the mission its rightful Owner and Master has given it.  And how do we do that?  We do it by giving of all that God has blessed us with.  Our church cannot effectively minister to either our covenant partners or to the community around us without the support of people like each one of you.  

And that support does include financial support; our church cannot be effective in our ministry to the community without the generous offerings of our covenant partners.  In fact, without money in our account, our church would cease to exist entirely.  Everything requires money, and that is no less true for the church no matter how unimportant it is in the realm of eternity.  And God understands this; in fact, He’s so aware of the importance of money in this world that He spends quite a lot of time in His Word instructing us about it.  And one of the most important things that He instructs us to do is to give some of our money, some of the money that HE has blessed us with, back to Him and to His church.  But, as I stated above, stewardship is not all about money, money, money;  we also cannot be effective in fulfilling the tasks that God has given us, effective in ministering to our community, without your volunteering of your time and talents, without your sharing of your wisdom, experience, and knowledge, and without your prayers, encouragement, and participation.

But, none of this giving should be done begrudgingly or only out of a sense of obligation; it should be done joyfully and with thanksgiving in our hearts knowing that God has promised if we sow generously, we will reap generously.  Since God has promised us that, if we generously give of our resources, we will reap the rewards of that generosity, shouldn’t that make us all the more eager and excited to give to Him a portion of anything and everything that we have?  I submit to you that it should.  The rewards for giving generously of your gifts and talents are both rewards in the here and now and rewards in eternity with Him.

My hope for Franklin Presbyterian Church, as we look to the future and what God has in store for us, is that we will become an ever-increasing presence in Rowan and the surrounding counties, that our witness and ministry will reach more and more lives so desperately in need of Jesus Christ.  That we can, with confidence, say that we are doing everything in our power to minister to the lost, make disciples, shepherd believers, and be a force for good and a witness to Jesus Christ in all that we do.  I truly believe with all of my heart that we have the right people to accomplish this; we have caring, loving people who truly desire to see the lost of our community come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior; and it is my job, and the job of our Session, to ensure that all of us are fully utilizing the gifts that God has given us to accomplish it.  That, in a nutshell, is why it is so important that we take this Stewardship Campaign on with the utmost seriousness; it is so that we can make sure that God’s church in Salisbury, NC, the church that He has entrusted to us to be good stewards of, is accomplishing His mission in this community and in the world.

May the blessings of the Father and the peace of the Son be with you,

Pastor Keith