Why is Stewardship important to the Church?
There are two reasons:
- Church in Wales provides:
- Clergy available to everyone in Wales (wherever they live) for pastoral care and Christian worship;
- The upkeep of over a thousand church buildings (most of them listed buildings and a notable part of Welsh heritage); and
- All kinds of charitable initiatives.
It will be obvious that none of these things can be done without money.
A good part of Church in Wales’ income comes from donations given by Churchgoers and without these donations it could not function. Part of ‘Stewardship’ is the process of encouraging this giving and telling worshippers about Church income and spending.
Church in Wales is quite separate financially from the Church of England and its ancient endowments were taken away at disestablishment in 1920. While it has some centrally held investments built up since then these are relatively modest.
- The second reason is, in fact, much the most important....
A good part of Christian teaching is about what we do with the resources given to us by God... how we use them to look after ourselves and our families... and how we use them to help other people. Stewardship is about this kind of communication.
We have to understand Jesus’ teaching on these matters if we are to understand the message that he brought to us.