Stewardship

CHICAGO (BP) -- Roy Brown wasn't sure what to make of the white guy in the storefront window one morning, wondering what he was doing in Garfield Park. Brown, a former west side Chicago gang member, was already a walking miracle. Surviving the streets is one thing, but exiting gang life often entails a premature date of death. Jamie Thompson, the guy on the other side of the plate glass, also is a local with a linebacker's build who grew up one neighborhood east in Humboldt Park. And he ...

Randy Bennett examines the financial realities many pastors may face as they approach retirement. God will bless a church that participates in a retirement plan for its pastor, he writes.

GRAPEVINE, Texas (BP) -- It happens often in Southern Baptist life: A church offers a prospective pastor a salary it thinks is reasonable, and the pastor -- not wanting to appear greedy -- begrudgingly accepts. But down the road, when tax season arrives or when retirement approaches, the pastor realizes he should have spoken up.

Good financial stewardship stems from a right relationship with God, and the Bible has plenty to say about managing God's resources God's way, a group of pastors said during the President's Panel on Stewardship June 14 at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Phoenix.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- The use of God's resources -- stewardship -- will gain a strengthened emphasis in Southern Baptist life, Frank S. Page said in addressing the SBC Executive Committee in Nashville. "If we do not get the issue of stewardship correct, the work to which God is calling us will simply not be done in a way that would honor Him and glorify Him as He would wish," Page, president of the Executive Committee, said during the opening session of the EC's Feb. 20-21 meeting.

Ever since giving a $5 offering from his first ministry paycheck of $45 years ago, Chuck Lawless has continued to discover the vitality of giving to his church.

Would you like to improve your life, improve the lives of others and make our world a better place? Seminary president Jeff Iorg has a suggestion: confront the greed that afflicts our lives and churches.

"Millions of us have experienced the uncertainty of creating a solid investment portfolio as the stock market rises and falls like a rollercoaster," David Jeremiah writes. But, he notes, the Bible's fundamental investment strategy has little to do with accumulating money.

Lessons from a church member's threat to withhold his giving years ago abides with Joseph Bunce, executive director of the Baptist Convention of New Mexico. The foremost lesson: "[E]very gift I would ever place in the offering plate was God's with no strings attached, period."

Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, spoke on “Now is the Time to Lead … But Where?” at the SBC Executive Committee’s Feb. 22 meeting in Nashville, setting forth key concerns in evangelism, missions, cooperation, stewardship and June’s SBC annual meeting in St. Louis.