Articles

Browse articles on stewardship and generosity.

Recent Articles

Diagnosing the Health of Church Giving

Imagine you begin to exhibit health concerns. You present various symptoms that give rise to concern. One response you could make would be to consult the information superhighway, which will give a broad range of possible illnesses from one end of the spectrum to the other. Another response would be to consult a physician.

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Marriage and Money

We've all heard the statistics. Money issues and arguments are one of the leading causes of marital stress and divorce. And this isn't true just outside the church - it's true in our congregations as well. Discussions about money surface all kinds of emotions, and many couples aren't equipped to deal effectively with the topic.

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Why is it So Hard to Give?

It’s no easy task trying to get people to understand the beauty of giving and generosity. Giving is an expression of worship, an invitation to partner with God in everything. It requires you to “place your bet” on the work of God over the physical comfort of predictability. Many of us have felt the discomfort of calculating the amount of money God has deemed his tithe and tried to do the math on how that would impact our wallet.

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The Importance of Financial Habits

Having financial goals is important; without goals, it's hard to know if we're on track when it comes to Biblical stewardship. But goals themselves aren't enough - we also need to instill the habits necessary to reach them. It's great to have a goal to pay off our credit cards, but if we don't put in place the disciplines needed to get there, the goal itself doesn't help us. 

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Financial Surrender

At some point in our Christian walk, many of us come to a fork in the spiritual road where the Lord makes us aware that we’ve been asking Him to join us in what we are doing, rather than us joining Him in what He is doing. That’s often the uncomfortable bottom-line of the choice we have as Christians when making decisions.

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A Stewardship Ministry in Every Church

Here at the Christian Stewardship Network, we believe that God is the provider of all things, and it is He who gives us the power to create wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18) and the direction and wisdom we are to manage that wealth. Because the world's ways of handling money are contrary to God's ways, causing people to fall into financial and spiritual bondage, our mission is to train church leaders in God's financial principles and equip them to teach them to their congregations.

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Financial Success in the Kingdom of God

I've been fascinated by the many new and creative ways people are making a living these days. By using platforms like Etsy, Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube, to name just a few, many people are ditching the 9-5, climbing the corporate ladder, way of making a living. These solopreneurs, mostly the younger generation, are seeking something that the standard career paths cannot provide.

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Help People to Trust God More, and Giving Will Follow

When it comes to giving, a minority of churchgoers are still financially supporting a majority of church ministry. Usually less than 20 percent of churchgoers contribute regularly to their church. This is discouraging, first, because of the lack of resources for the church. Second, because of what it reveals; a lack of trust in God concerning money.

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Financial Discipleship: What is it? Who Should Be Teaching It?

Over the past 20 years, I have seen the language and terminology in the Church around the topic of money change. Truthfully, I've even participated in this by trying to appeal to the people in our Church. As a person who is passionate about seeing people financially free, I've gone to great lengths to improve my communication about money to ensure people understand the information as well as my motivation behind it.

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How to Set Your House in Order

Imagine you’ve been making all the right financial moves for a long time. You estimated your future needs, diligently set aside a portion of every paycheck, invested the money according to a trustworthy strategy, bought proper insurance for your family, stocked an emergency fund, made sure your paperwork is in order (wills, trusts, living wills, power-of-attorney documents), and everything else. If you’ve done all that, congratulations — you’re in far better shape than most people! Now imagine today is your last day alive.

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Giving that God Accepts

Doing what’s right is a struggle for us in most areas of life. Because following God’s commandments goes against our fallen, sinful nature, our attempts to do it right can often take the form of tasks we perform. We do so to prove to God, or perhaps more to ourselves, that we are Christ-like, that we’re doing what’s right.

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The Marks of a Christian Investor

As the world grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the investing world grappled with its own upheavals. If you had money in the markets, you’ll likely long remember the period from mid-February to mid-March when the U.S. stock market fell 35% in just 16 trading days. Never before had the market so quickly switched gears from an all-time high to a bear market.

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The Greatest Hindrance in our Faith, According to Jesus

Jesus met a lot of people throughout his earthly ministry. He dined with the sinful. He met and healed many crippled, disabled, and diseased desperate for his touch. He came to the defense of a woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:2-11) and shared a deep conversation with the outcast Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). He even met with the man notorious for his demonic possession among the tombs of the Gerasenes (Mark 5:1-20). In all of his encounters, he never indicates their qualification to be welcomed into God’s kingdom.

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