What is stewardship?
One of the basic misconceptions about stewardship is that it is fund-raising.  It is mistakenly thought of as how Christians pay for the church's budget.  Some have erroneously treated “stewardship” as an awful code word used by church leaders for “money.”

The prophets of the Old Testament warn us against offering material goods as a substitute for offering ourselves to God.  Presbyterians believe that stewardship is an essential aspect of a life lived in and for Jesus Christ—a life of simplicity, generosity, honesty, hospitality, compassion, receptivity, and concern for God’s creation.  Stewardship is certainly more than offering material goods. 

Why do Presbyterians give?
Presbyterians believe that stewardship has to do with how we live—it has to do with our daily commitments to Jesus Christ as Lord.  In worship, we are presented with the costly self-offering of Jesus Christ.  We are claimed and set free by Him, and we are led to respond by offering to God our lives, our particular gifts and abilities, and our material goods.

What do Presbyterians give?
Tithing (the giving of one tenth of one’s gifts) is a primary expression of the Christian discipline of stewardship.  Presbyterians believe that those who enjoy tithing do so, not out of a legalist Biblical interpretation, but out of gratitude to God for God's grace given to us in Jesus Christ.

But tithing is a discipline which applies to more than just financial resources.  When we give only our money, we give very little; it is when we give of ourselves that we truly give.  Presbyterians believe that stewardship is a spiritual matter.  Tithing, therefore, is not just giving our money.  Tithing of our time and talents (as well as our treasures) is an integral part of our faithful response to the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is an offering of one's self to God.  As it says in one of our hymns, “were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

Of course, we sinful human beings often seek happiness and fulfillment by substituting our love for God with any and all other objects of desire—wealth, popularity, social or political power.  In the end, all other desires are really nothing more than our own efforts to meet our love for God with other less valuable desires—none of which can take the place of the One for Whom we were truly created.  We mistakenly assume that such possessions will insure happiness, but the more we own our possessions, the less satisfying they prove to be.  Faith in our possessions is ultimately unfulfilling, because it supplants our faith in the One in Whom we have true purpose.  We may think that we own our possessions, but all too often they end up possessing us.

Presbyterians believe that our very existence is an act of God’s grace.  We believe that all that we have, all that we do, and all that we desire—all that we are—are also acts of God’s grace.  God sees us and our time, talent, and treasures as inseparable.  All belong to God.

Stewardship, then, is really our faith in action.  When we claim to have faith in God, we are actually returning to God.  We are giving to God what is already His and has always been His.  Stewardship is our affirmation of God’s full ownership of ourselves and of everything entrusted to us by His grace.

 As Augustine, one of the church’s great theologians, once said in a prayer: