Stewardship & The Emerging Church

I was pointed to an interesting blog entry today and thought I would pass it along to you here. The author reflects on her visit to an emerging church congregation and the one that she's a part of. For those unfamiliar with the emerging church movement and over-simplified explanation would be it is anti-institutional approach to "doing church" for a generation of young adults just coming to age. In the midst of the authors reflection were thoughts about the struggle of this congregation to make their budget, a common struggle for an "institutional" church like ours. I love how she says, "we in our culture have this pernicious reality of being profoundly affluent while having a mentality of scarcity." We have a created a culture that pays $3 for a cup of coffee or $50 for concert tickets, but then complain we suggest that $1 a day will help eliminate our line of credit.

My friend Kelly Fryer writes about this as well in her blog, where she points out that this is a generation that has by and large invented the idea of voluntourism. So we have an emerging generation that goes on vacation to build Habit houses, as well as a retiring, Baby Boomer, generation doing the same. It also appears to me that we have these two generations in abundance here at CLC. It got me to thinking... We, as church leadership, need to show that we are making a difference. Where are we serving the community of Byron? Southeast Minnesota? As we make a difference people get involved. As people become involved and invested in the church they will hopefully grow in faith (assuming they get involved with things like Bible study and worship alongside their involvement in service). As people grow in faith they grow in their giving.

It's a theory... what do you think?