Rod Rogers, D.Min.

The Valentine's Gift of Stewardship Teaching

Looking for a creative Valentine's gift? If you're a pastor or church leader, here's why teaching your people about biblical financial stewardship is an act of love.

Here's a great Valentine's Day gift idea for the couples in your church:present them with a sermon series on financial stewardship. I'm not kidding.You can renew their passion for each other by teaching them God's principles offinancial contentment, wise money management, getting out of debt, generousgiving, and true prosperity. So, what's so romantic about getting your financesin order?

It is widely recognized that couples fight more about money-how much to spend,how much to save, how much to borrow, and how much is enough-than about anyother topic. Check out these stats. According to the National Survey of MaritalStrengths, 80 percent of happy couples agreed with the statement, "Makingfinancial decisions is not difficult." Only 32 percent of unhappy couplesagreed. Agreement with the statement, "We agree on how to spend money," forhappy couples was 89 percent. But only 41 percent of unhappy couples agreed.

Obviously, conflict over money is a powerful romance killer. Happy couplesshare similar philosophies of how to manage and spend money. Unhappy couples donot. Clearly, we can  renew marital happiness by creating unity on this touchytopic. But how?

The best way I know to get couples on the same financial page is to teach themthe financial stewardship principles in God's word. My wife Marisa and I havehad our share of conflict over the last 20 years-because she's not yet fullysanctified ;-)-but we've almost never fought over money. That's because we eachentered marriage committed to living out biblical standards of financialstewardship. In the fifteen years I pastored in Denver, Colorado,  I saw manycouples find new marital peace and happiness as a direct result of my annualstewardship series. When couples learned that they are stewards, not owners, ofGod's money and possessions, when they learned their responsibilities to give,and when they learned to live without worry, while trusting in God's promisesto provide, they quit fighting over money. And their marriages weretransformed.

Never preached a stewardship series before? Here are some ideas from my bookPastor Driven Stewardship: 10 Steps to Lead Your Church to Biblical Giving:

1. Don't preach a sermon on giving; preach a series of sermons on giving. In myfifteen years as a senior pastor, I learned that a stand-alone sermon onfinancial stewardship, even if preached twice a year, had little impact onpeople's giving. But the first year I preached a four-week series on thebiblical principles of stewardship, my weekly giving increased 32 percent.Which being translated means we had an extra $20,304 to invest in ministry thatyear. We used the increased offerings to hire a badly needed, part-time staffmember.

2. Preach your stewardship series effectively. A four-week stewardship series,preached once a year, if delivered effectively, can increase your weekly givingby 10–60 percent.

3. Make sure your series is biblical. Spiritual power to change the givinghabits of your congregation resides in God's word, not in great illustrations.Therefore, in every series be sure to open the Bible and expound the followingbiblical truths, in this order:

• Preach that we are not owners, but stewards of God's money and possessions.
• Teach biblical principles of wise money management.
• Next, preach about the biblical principles of giving. If you are new to this,start with 1 Corinthians 16 and 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.
• Always end your series by proclaiming the rewards God promises to faithfulgivers. See Scriptures such as Matthew 6:19–21, 25–33; Luke 6:38; Acts 20:35;Philippians 4:19; and 2 Corinthians 9:6–11.

This Valentine's season, instead of preaching from the Song of Solomon, tryteaching stewardship principles from 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. It's certainly notyour normal Valentine's banquet topic. But in the long run it might just proveto be more romantic.

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