stewardship
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
Here’s the problem: church leaders have misunderstood stewardship.
Generally, for church leaders stewardship is limited to money and financial accountability (i.e., how are we using our money wisely?). While money is important, it does not capture the fullness of how God provides for His creation and how God calls us to steward His creation by creating us in His image.
Related to God’s providence, where in a previous post I talked about how God created everything from nothing, there’s another part of the story that often gets missed: God is the provider, sustainer, and steward of His creation.
The God who created everything from nothing cares about His creation and sustains everything. In The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition Reform, Roger Olson argues, “creation ex nihilio is true not only of the original creation but of the enter creation and every individual being in it at each and every moment” (506). Creation depends on God for its ongoing existence at every moment (Jones 79). Christianity rejects the Deist belief in a god who created the world and walks away. God cares about His creation; He is intimately, actively engaged in sustaining His creation. In describing the doctrine of providence in Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically, Beth Felker Jones states, “the doctrine of providence is divided into three categories: preservation, God’s work and will in upholding all of creation, concurrence, God’s work in and with all He has made, and governance, God’s work in guiding all things to the purpose for which they have been made and God’s active rule over creation” (Jones 91). God sustains all that is, God works with all that is, and God is bringing all that is to God’s good ends. In Create vs. Copy: Embrace Change. Ignite Creativity. Break Through with Imagination, Ken Wystma says, “our Creator God is still active in creation…. God created in the past, is creating now, and will create in the future” (43).
More importantly, just as God is actively sustaining His creation, God calls humanity to make something of the world and to care for it.
In Genesis, while there are six affirmations of the goodness of God’s creation, on the sixth day God says His creation is ‘very good’. What makes creation ‘very good’ compared to ‘good’ is God’s image, the imago dei. One of the fundamental Christian belief is that God created mankind in His image meaning every single person is created in God's image and humanity collectively is the image of God (note: the Hebrew work for mankind is ‘adam’ which is both singular and plural and becomes the proper name Adam). In Culture Making, Andy Crouch says, “God himself makes an “image” [icon] of himself. Humankind’s “images of God” are always deficient and destructive, the Hebrew Bible insists, but God’s own “image of God” is the summary of everything he has made, crowned with the words, “it was very good” (21). Humanity is unique from the rest of creation; the image of God separates humanity from the rest of God’s creation.
There are three main implications of the imago dei:
To be created in the image of God is to share God’s characteristics. Where Scripture uses many adjectives to describe God (i.e., God is perfect, good, patient, kind, love, holy, etc.) humanity shares in God’s characteristics having been created in His image. Although the image of God has been distorted by sin, through the power of the Holy Spirit Christ has restored the image of God for those who believe.
To be created in the image of God is to share God’s capacity to create. After God creates humanity in His image, God commands Adam and Eve to God then commands them to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” God tells Adam and Eve to make something of the world (sometimes referred to as God’s ‘cultural mandate’. However, Genesis affirms that God created humanity in His image “so that” they may rule over His creation. The image of God is what enables us to have dominion. Without God’s image, humanity would not be able to rule.
To be created in the image of God is to share God’s responsibility for creation. We not only share in His characteristics, including the ability to co-create create along-side God, but our capacity to rule comes with a responsibility to steward His creation. God has entrusted the care of His good creation to humanity. In Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology, Thomas Oden writes, “humanity is given dominion and stewardship over the earth…the stewardship of creation was entrusted, according to Hebraic religion, to one particular part of the cosmos – humanity…humanity is called to order the world rightly under the permission and command of God, to make appropriate use of God-given rational capacities, strengths, imagination, and courage, and to shape the world in a fitting response to God’s unpurchasable gift of life” (138). Wystma says, “we not only have the capacity to create, we also have a responsibility to create and be creative” (27).
All this is to say: stewardship encompasses all of church administration, not just money.
God created everything from nothing. He cares for and is continually providing for all of His Creation. And by creating us in His image, He calls us to do the same. When church leaders reduce stewardship to be only about money, not only is there a risk of misusing or abusing resources the church possesses (i.e., people, policies, facilities, relationships, etc.), but there is a risk of missing the beauty of God’s providence and what it means to be created in His image. In Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, Andy Crouch says, “the misuse and rejection of God’s gift of image bearing takes the form of idolatry and injustice” (12).
Ultimately, administration is one of the ways church leaders manifest and exercise the image of God by stewarding His creation. By becoming a church leader, we accepted responsibility for every aspect of His church; we have accepted God’s command to stewardship. While that may seem like a daunting task, that is the task to which we have been called.
References:
Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch
Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power by Andy Crouch
The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition Reform by Roger E. Olson
Create vs. Copy: Embrace Change. Ignite Creativity. Break Through with Imagination by Ken Wystma
