money stewardship

the last few weeks at immanuel have been our time for stewardship emphasis month.  immanuel is trying to focus on whole life stewardship (rather than just treasure or talents or time).  as such, when it came to my turn to preach on october 7th, i looked at the texts with stewardship in the back of my mind.  what i encountered when reading the texts was that they were actually about stewardship.  not of time or talents or treasure (well, kind of treasure), but instead stewardship of love and relationship.  in addition to preaching, we've had temple talks about giving, praying, and serving as expressions of stewardship.  i am actually a really big fan of stewardship.  i think it's awesome!  if everything (and i mean everything) is a gift from god--created by god, then it makes sense that stewardship could be expressed in everything we say and do as well!

in all of the emphasis on whole life stewardship and the move towards talking about "time, talents, and treasures" or "giving, praying, and serving," i am very aware that we can lose sight of money stewardship.  sometimes i have trouble talking about money.  recently i've been taken out to dinner by various parishioners, which has been wonderful and i'm trying hard to let myself receive the gift of hospitality through dinner, but it's hard.  i've also been trying to figure out my own issues with money.

as a seminarian, the common things seems to be to say that we're "poor seminarians."  in the grand scheme of things, yes, i suppose i don't have as much money as many people in the united states and statistically i fall well below the poverty line, but i also benefit a lot from financial aid for classes and rent, from housing right now while on internship, etc.  there are many in this country and around the world who do not have the privilege of student loans, financial aid, family, etc. to help them during financial difficulties.

so, while others might label me a poor seminarian, that is not how i would self-identify.  i have some money and although the seminary's goal seems to be to make me graduate with my savings account completely depleted (which i am on track to do), i do have a budget.  i am not tied to my budget, but i have one and generally tend to spend less than i budget to spend.

except in one category.

when it comes to giving money away, i am quite diligent about spending everything i budgeted.  in order to figure out that budget, i took 10% of what i am paid each month ($1,100) right away.  that goes back to the church no matter what.  i also decided that i could afford to become a trailblazer for rainbow trail.  that costs $10 per month.  then, i looked at all the other budgets i had, what i needed to save money for, etc. and decided that $150 would be a good total giving away budget.

once i set that budget, it was amazing how quickly different ways i could give away my money came up.  not only that, but i am still pleasantly surprised at how wonderful i feel when i get to give money away!  each month i give $110 to church, $10 to rainbow trail, and then i get to pick wherever i want to give the remaining $30!  immanuel folks were participating in the crop walk and since i was out of town the weekend it took place i couldn't join them.  instead, i donated money for them!  when i attended my cousin carrie's wedding (that i blogged about last week), instead of buying wedding favors, carrie and garrett donated money to the national multiple sclerosis society - new england chapter, so i decided that in november, my $30 is going to go there as well in honor of them and in memory of carrie's dad, my uncle pete.

the struggle for me has not been in giving the money or figuring out who to give it to (that has been the joy!), but instead the struggle was figuring out how much i could give.  i knew i wanted to and once i sat down and figured it out and set an amount, it's been wonderful to be able to give that money away each month.