When I say the word stewardship, what’s the first word that comes to mind?

Money.

Exactly. And this tells us something about how badly we’ve misunderstood stewardship.

Biblically, stewardship is much larger than money. Stewardship is our faithful response to everything God has entrusted to us: our time, our abilities, our relationships, our bodies, our possessions, and creation itself.

I’m looking forward to a day in our churches when the first response to my question isn’t “money,” but “discipleship.” Because that is really what stewardship is about.

Think of it this way: stewardship, at its best, fosters discipleship. By discipleship I mean learning to dedicate all that I have and all that I am to walking in the footsteps of Jesus. A disciple gradually learns to ask not simply, “How much of my money should I give to God?” but a much bigger question: “How shall I live faithfully with everything God has placed in my hands?”

Discipleship leads naturally to generosity.

Generosity can take many forms. Money, yes. But also, how we use our time and talents; how we dedicate ourselves to one another; how we care for our bodies; how we use and share the material goods entrusted to us; and how we protect and cherish the natural world for those who will come after us.

Generosity leads naturally to assets for ministry and mission.

Generosity provides the Church with the resources needed to carry out the work of the gospel. Some of these assets are financial. But others are people willing to teach Sunday School, sing in the choir, serve breakfast, visit someone who is lonely, sit on Parish Council, maintain a building, welcome a newcomer, pray faithfully, share professional expertise, or simply notice that something needs doing and quietly do it.

When these assets are faithfully put to work in ministry and mission, something wonderful happens: people grow as disciples.

Stewardship that begins with discipleship initiates a kind of virtuous cycle: discipleship leads to generosity, which leads to assets for ministry and mission, which leads to deeper discipleship. Then greater generosity. Then more assets for ministry and mission. And faithful ministry and mission form people more deeply in the way of Jesus. Stewardship at its best is, indeed, a virtuous cycle that begins with discipleship.

In a recent conversation, I quipped, “If we insist on making stewardship about money rather than discipleship, then we should be taking a very different approach to it. We could start with a 50/50 draw at church on Sunday mornings.”

And, a cynical approach to stewardship might be to say, “And why not?” If the goal is simply to raise money, there are all kinds of ways to do that. We could hold casino nights. Sell more things. Run bigger fundraisers. Find better marketing techniques. And, of course, the church needs money, but our enterprise is not a money-making business. We are in the disciple-making business.

The distinction matters enormously. Fundraising asks, “How can we get people to give more?” Stewardship asks, “How can we help people follow Jesus more faithfully?” Sometimes following Jesus more faithfully will indeed mean giving more money. It also means giving our time. It means discovering and applying a talent. For some, if not all of us, it means offering hospitality, forgiving somebody, mentoring a young person, caring for an aging parent, or showing up faithfully for a neighbour.

The goal is not to persuade people to surrender a larger percentage of what belongs to them. The goal is to help one another discover that everything we have belongs to God, entrusted to our care. For this reason, stewardship belongs at the very heart of Christian formation rather than being hauled out once a year when the budget needs balancing.

The annual financial appeal matters. Budgets matter. Giving matters. The Church needs money to do ministry, but it’s part of a larger conversation about the kind of people Jesus is forming us to become.

So, like I said, I look forward to the day when I’ll stand in front of a congregation and ask: “When I say the word stewardship, what’s the first word that comes to mind?”

And instead of hearing money someone will call out, “Discipleship.”

When that happens, I’ll know we’re getting somewhere.