The Mindset Shift That's Holding Your Church Back [Why Risk Is Necessary]

Hey, thanks for checking out Church Video School, where we help you grow your church by doing video better. In this post, I’m going to talk about a really important mindset issue to help you start maximizing the time and resources that are in front of you like never before.

Okay, so many of you are probably going to be really familiar with the word and concept of ‘stewardship’ if you’ve been in the church for long. It’s definitely not a word that’s used in the English language much anymore, except in the faith setting. I want to argue why we as church leaders don’t really understand and apply this principle correctly. 

The idea of stewardship, essentially, is that all of the resources at our disposal aren’t actually ours, they’re God’s. They belong to Him in the ultimate sense, and He’s given them to us to use and to enjoy. The word comes from the old position of steward, which was someone who managed the finances and affairs of a large household on behalf of the owner. The steward controlled the money, goods, and people, but he couldn’t claim ultimate ownership of them.

I want to dive in to a particular parable of Jesus to help us understand why I think we’re missing a large part of what stewardship actually means. The passage is Matthew 25:14-30:, often called the parable of the talents. For reference, a talent of gold is roughly equivalent to a half-million dollars in today’s currency.

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.”

We’re going to stop reading there and paraphrase the rest of the passage. The master (who is the God character of the story) returns, and each servant comes and presents their earnings. The two servants who made a return on his investment are praised, while the one who hid the money is chastised for not even lending it to the bankers, where he would have at least received some interest back.

Okay. So if we compare this passage’s picture of faithful stewardship to what’s most commonly taught in churches today, I think some major differences start to appear. Let’s take a look at some of them.

First, in many churches today, there is a “scarcity mindset” that dominates all conversation about money. The first church I worked at was managed this way. I inherited a youth group that had a five-figure sum just sitting in the bank, unused for years. They did fundraisers and put money into that account from all sorts of places, but then never used it. 

Why? Because a scarcity mindset approaches the world from an inherently pessimistic point of view. Lack of resources is viewed as the norm, and so hoarding and protecting resources is viewed as the wisest course of action. Loss avoidance becomes the ruling principle of accounting. Scarcity mindsets cause people and organizations to freeze, avoid risk, and sit on opportunities for fear of wasting them.

What’s so interesting about this to me, is that in this parable of stewardship, it’s the hoarder, the hider, the one that took no risk, who is berated and judged! The servant who made sure that no matter what, he wouldn’t lose any money, is the one who is our example of how NOT to manage money. Have you ever thought about that?

When we sit and think through this passage, we should start to realize that stewardship and investing are actually very related concepts. I’m not talking about stock markets necessarily, but the general idea of putting capital in a position to get a return. For me and the youth group I led, this meant that I actually used those funds to replace a dysfunctional A/V system and renovate the room we met in, plus offset the cost of our camps and retreats. I wanted to make sure that money actually ACCOMPLISHED something, because sitting in the bank, it was doing absolutely nothing.

And so I think that’s going to be a big paradigm shift for a lot of us - that being a good steward and spending money might actually go hand-in-hand! That the WORST thing some of us can do would be to take the resources and opportunities we’ve been given, and just sit on them for fear of failure. God richly rewarded those servants who took his money and doubled it, and that just can’t happen if you don’t take any risk! 

So that’s one key area of stewardship that I think a lot of us are susceptible to, that we see the amount of money going out the door as a measure of our level of stewardship. 

Now, there are other biblical teachings for sure that caution against wasteful spending, so don’t take this as license to spend whatever you want. Wasting money on things that don’t get a return, and wasting money by not even giving it the opportunity to earn a return, are in my opinion almost the same thing. 

I want you to start taking the word “spend” out of your vocabulary, and replace it with the word “invest.” Are you SPENDING money on a book, or training, or gear, or are you INVESTING it? If you’re just spending it, then yes, you’re wasting the money. But if you’re putting it into something that you should be getting an equal or greater return from, you’re not spending it, your INVESTING it! You don’t need to be a Wall Street trader to be investing every day - you just need to change your mindset about how money works.

HOWEVER - I think there’s one more aspect of stewardship that many of us are missing even beyond succumbing to this scarcity mindset, and it’s that stewardship applies to a LOT more than just money. 

Money is definitely a tangible resource that we want to be smart about managing and using for God. But God gives us more than just money to steward - he gives us individual talents, he gives us opportunities and he gives us influence and power. All of these things need to be managed or stewarded in such a way that they earn a return for God, and for the betterment of others.

However, the one area that I think is actually MORE valuable than money often gets totally overlooked and it’s this: TIME.

TIME is, if you think about it, actually our most valuable resource. There is always more money, influence, power, and opportunity out there, but there is never more time. Time is a resource that we have no control over the abundance of, and it’s always getting smaller. I think that we, as people and as church leaders, honestly do a pretty poor job of stewarding our time, and as such, waste perhaps the greatest gift that God has given us. 

So how can we be better stewards of our time? Here are a couple of ways.

First, be disciplined. Simple? Yes. Easy? Not at all. Being disciplined with your time is one of the absolute hardest things to do, especially in an era when we have more control over where our time goes than ever before. Lots of us want the flexibility that comes with remote work or less direct supervision, but quite honestly, not a lot of us have actually earned that level of freedom! 

My good friend Jake Gosselin, who runs Churchfront, is an incredible example of this. As someone who sees Jake off-camera all the time, I can tell you that Jake does not waste a day. He manages his time like it’s truly his most precious resource, and I know that if I call him anytime between 7am and 5pm Sunday through Friday, he’s going to be at his office, working. Every. Single. Time.

And you know what? God has blessed his discipline and stewardship of time. If you had to give an account for where you spent your time over the last 6 weeks (coronavirus excepted) to your boss, or to God even, would you be proud handing that over, or would you have a knot in your stomach and be preparing your excuses? If you want to truly be a good steward of your time, you have to be disciplined. Make a plan for your day, and work your plan!

That’s the first thing, and it’s pretty straightforward and obvious, I think. The second way we can be better stewards of our time is a little bit less obvious, but just as powerful in my opinion, and it’s this: Don’t be so zealous to save money that you waste time like it doesn’t even matter.

Being “self-taught” in anything is pretty highly applauded our culture. It shows that you’re more talented, or hardworking, or committed than other folks who learn stuff with the help of guides or coaches. But I want to poke a pin in that balloon a little bit, and ask the question, “Is that really the wisest option, overall?”

Take piano or golf, for example, two things I’ve been learning over the past 3-4 years. I haven’t paid for any lessons, and I’ve definitely gotten better. But when I think about all the TIME that I spent learning at like, 1/4 of the speed I could have with just a little bit of coaching, and I’m not sure that the money I saved makes up for the time I spent toiling away trying not to hit shanks or play the wrong notes. 

So there you have it: stewardship is so much more than whether or not you spend money; it’s approaching life with an investment mindset and doing the best you can earn a return on everything you’ve been given authority over: your money, your influence, your position, your opportunities, and your time. Don’t let fear of loss or failure cause you to waste what you’ve been given, and stop talking about “spending” money and start “investing” it instead.

I’m sure some of you watching have stories, either good or bad, about church stewardship, so if you do, share them in the comments below so we can all enjoy them. Thanks for reading