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[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

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99-064
Stewardship conference challenged to move beyond scarcity to abundance

by Kay Collier-Slone
(ENS) "Inventing the Wheel," a conference for stewardship leaders
sponsored by the Office of Stewardship at the Episcopal Church Center,
brought stewardship leaders and potential leaders from 41 dioceses to
Atlanta April 30-May 2. 

"I expected to go home with a notebook full of suggestions for capital
campaigns and how to's for annual giving. Instead, I have a new
definition of stewardship and excitement for living it out with others
that will make giving an integral part of every day life," one
participant stated.

The energy was abundant and gaining in Atlanta as Bible scholar and
author Walter Brueggemann provided the scriptural foundation for the
definition of stewardship in plenary sessions which considered both Old
and New Testament stories. He challenged participants to ask if the
Scriptural story could truly be our story today. According to
Brueggemann, the principle work of stewardship is to lay out the
Biblical narratives in such a way that people can "get" the message that
there is an alternative to the culture in which we live today--a culture
that produces high school massacres and other tragedies. He sees that
alternative as the narrative of abundance.
Alternatives to culture of death
The reason that people in contemporary society do not "get it,"
Brueggemann stated, is characteristically deeply embedded in a
philosophy of consumerism a "love affair with commodity that is a
spiritually demonic force." "Stewardship is not about raising money for
church, but about asking if there is any alternative to the culture of
death in which we live."

Brueggemann took the conferees on a dramatic trip through the Old
Testament to demonstrate the narrative of abundance "which is ours
through scripture, liturgy and history." The sacrament, he stated, is
about the drama of "more than enough." The narrative of abundance, which
represents the "overflowing, limitless, generous power of God" both
historically and today collides with Pharaoh-- "the belief that there is
not enough"--the narrative of scarcity. 

"The alternative to stewardship is fear," he stated. "Fear that there
won't be enough." It is a belief that is driven, Brueggemann believes,
by the economics of scarcity, which is the invention of Nike and Coke.
"The narrative of scarcity posits that the past is barren of miracles
and the only way to get anywhere is to invent yourself and scramble for
whatever you can get. A past without gifts and a future without hope
gives a present as an arena for anxiety--an anxiety endlessly stirred by
those who generate the great theology of scarcity - a theology which
says our neighbors are a threat; which creates more suicides, murders
and prisons."

Brueggemann proposes that the Christian narrative is a story of lives
rooted in the liturgy of abundance, beginning with the baptismal rite,
with its "abundance of water and grace." "For everyone comes Pharaoh,
and the belief that there is 'not enough.' We must help people know that
the narrative of abundance is ours, that the true story of our lives is
an "invitation to the wilderness where there is bread."

In his second plenary presentation, Brueggemann followed Jesus' concern
with public life as revealed in the New Testament. The Kingdom of God,
he said, is a political metaphor for recognizing life of the culture and
turning it into neighborliness. "Deeply operative among us today is the
mandate to transform," he stated, challenging the participants to
realize that "stewardship is not a little scheme for raising the church
budget," but a call to "re-vision the world as an arena for God's
newness." The great crisis of stewardship is "people who go to Pharaoh's
university and never get it about generosity, but have a hard heart,
embedded in the narrative of consumerism."
A mentality of scarcity
Providing provocative support to Brueggemann's teaching were the
statistical presentations of John and Sylvia Ronsvalle, authors of the
Alban Institute book At Ease: Money Values in Small Groups and Behind
the Stained Glass Windows: Money Dynamics in the Church. Publishers of
annual studies on the state of church giving, the Ronsvalles analyze
giving patterns in both mainline and evangelical Protestant
denominations.

Two particular sets of statistics seemed to hit the heart of the
conferees, surfacing in small group Bible study, prayers and discussions
throughout the meeting. One concerned the 35,000 children under the age
of five who die daily around the globe, mostly from preventable poverty
conditions, according to the Ronsvalle's information. Many of these
children live in areas where there is not even a "cell" of the church,
or where people are "unreached" by the Gospel. 

These deaths take place while in the early 1990's average church members
spent less than $20 a year on global outreach--including activities that
provide temporal and spiritual aid to the children dying around the
globe. And Americans, including church members, spent an average of $164
on soft drinks, $657 on restaurant meals and over $1,000 on recreation
activities per person. In 1995, Americans spent $2.5 billion on chewing
gum, $4.9 billion on movies, $8 billion on adventure travel, $12 billion
on candy, $20 billion on cosmetics and $49 billion on soft drinks.

"Silent emergencies are going on all around us while we maintain a
mentality of scarcity," Sylvia Ronsvalle told the leaders. "We avoid the
topic of money, while $2.5 billion - the chewing gum budget of the
United States, could end global child deaths." Wealth addiction is an
affliction of contemporary culture, she stated: money addiction (making
and accumulating it); possession addiction (spending in visible ways);
power addiction (using money for influence); fame addiction (using money
to move in right circles) and spending addiction (symbolized by the
catalogue culture and desire to spend.) These spiritual conditions which
need attention produce the mentality of scarcity.
Response to God's grace
Adding their emphasis to Brueggemann's, the Ronsvalles urged the leaders
to stress that stewardship is not about paying bills and keeping the
institution maintained, but about a response to God's grace in our
lives.

"For the past five decades, the majority of people in this culture have
significant income over their basic needs. It is essential at all levels
that we:
*	care more about other people who we don't see or know
*	encourage wealthy parishes to leverage giving throughout the
congregation
*	help servant leadership emerge at all levels
*	at the national and local levels we clearly communicate what
monies can buy
		to help those less fortunate
*	fund overseas trips to familiarize people with conditions that
they cannot
		imagine
*	develop curriculum on the spiritual discipline of money and
stewardship for
		seminary training
*	teach across the board that money is stored time and talent;
this theological
	understanding will help develop theological interdependence
Wheels to move forward
The conference title, "Inventing the Wheels" came out of Terry Parson's
awareness that as she travels the church as its stewardship officer,
"good wheels are being created in many places. I wanted to connect the
wheels to an axle so we can move forward." 

One of the wheels which Parsons urged the participants to take home and
put to work to support the narrative of abundance is the regular
practice of Bible study. Each day of the conference modeled this
practice, using a form developed in the Diocese of Alaska. "If you call
the Diocese of Alaska at 10am, a recording says that the staff is in
Bible study, please call again," says Parsons, acknowledging that the
Congregational Ministries Cluster has also developed this practice. 

To be called to move the church from scarcity to abundance is to be
called to be an agent of change. In Atlanta, participants talked about
the objective of being like Jesus, including talking about money only as
much as he did. According to the Ronsvalles, there are 2,171 references
to possessions and giving in the Bible, 714 references to love or
loving, 371 to prayer and 272 to believing.
 --Kay Collier-Slone is editor of The Advocate, newspaper of the Diocese
of Lexington (Kentucky).