Rethinking Our Theology

Tuesday was a jammed packed day at the Rethinking Stewardship conference.  On Monday we discussed Rethinking Our Culture and we continued to rethink.  In the morning we discussed theology with Fred Gaiser, Martha Stortz, and Eric Barreto.

Fred started the conversation about theology by looking at some biblical text that are not often used in discussing  stewardship.  The one he focused on was Deuteronomy 14:26 "spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together."  What a beautiful text!  So often scripture is used to tell people exactly how to spend their money, but instead here is a scripture verse that says spend your money how you want, but do so in a way that is celebrates what God has given you.  Let's get away from stewardship being a program to get people to pay the church's heating and light bills and instead turn towards stewardship as a way to celebrate and rejoice together. 


Martha's presentation was about finding a Luther understanding of stewardship - we are all priests, we are all neighbors and we are all Christ.  Stewardship is part of our vocation, our calling, as part of the priesthood of all believers.  We become stewards when we care for our neighbors, and through being stewards others see Christ in us.  I believe it was in Martha's presentation that she had a picture of a woodcut or sculpture up on the powerpoint.  It was of a woman standing with a basket of fruit and lifting her hands to the upper corner where their was a young boy with an apple.  Was this woman giving the fruit to the boy or was she receiving the apple from him.  In being stewards, we become both givers and receivers.  


Eric focused on Luke and Acts as ways we interact with scripture when it comes to possessions, money, the poor and the rich.  He discussed a variety of verses from Luke and Acts to illustrate how scripture is used in churches across the world to discuss various topics within the idea of stewardship.  


Some questions that arose for me during the Rethinking Our Theology portion of the conference were:

• What subliminal messages are we sending about God through stewardship practices within the congregation? 
• Why do we always focus on the budget and church attendance instead of growing faithful disciples of Christ?
• How can we rethink scripture to better preach on being stewards and not budget-meeters?
• Why do conferences never order enough vegetarian meals?  (random side note, I had to walk to Chipotle for lunch since my group was one of the last to get lunch and they ran out of vegetarian meals) On a related question: if people are not vegetarian but prefer to eat vegetarian if there is an option, why do they not write that down in the food concerns portion of the registration form?