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Wednesday, August 3, 2022

 

                                   DISCIPLESHIP MUST BE PRIORITY

 

            I’ve been sharing over the past couple of weeks the concept of generosity and discipleship being related to each other. Many of us in our churches spend quite a bit of time on discipleship. Sometimes because we take to heart the scripture that tells us that we are to go and make disciples. Sometimes because we are told we have to prepare an intentional discipleship plan. Sometimes for other reasons.

           


            But I’ve seen enough discipleship plans to know that time is spent on worship, service, teaching, spiritual practices, etc., but few contain an emphasis on giving and generosity. Giving and generosity needs to be apriority whenever we are focused on discipleship. An article I was reading said it this way “if…two families who have the exact same financial means and one gives liberally while the other gives very little, the issue is typically not financial capacity. The issue is spiritual.”[1]


            Our relationship with Christ obviously affects our lives; I think we can agree on that. But our growing in our relationship with Christ also changes our giving. Larry Burkett (an American radio personality whose work focused on financial counseling from a Christian point of view) said that a person’s giving is probably the single best objective indicator of their relationship with Christ!

            Wow! So what does that mean for us specifically?

  • ·         Pastors must make themselves aware of the giving of their “flock”
  • ·         Financial leaders, by definition, may very well be the best ones to talk about generosity and convey it. Have you asked them not “can you give more”, but “tell me a little about why you are so generous to God and to the church”?
  • ·         The topic of money and possession appears in over 2,000 verses in the Bible. Why should we be nervous about speaking about money?
  • ·         Money is a problem for us, for many in our congregation, in our community and for many churches.


Discipleship and generosity work together and must be tightly woven together!

 

Please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or susanranous@unyumc.org if you’d like to talk about this and how stewardship at your church can work together with discipleship and the intentionality of it all!



[1] Fund the Vision: Short-term Tactics vs. Longer-term Planning (Generis, 2022), p. 12.

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