Over the course of this year, I’ve participated in a series of Discernment Summits which gathered leaders from the Synod and the Presbyteries to identify priorities and practicalities for resourcing the church for mission and ministry.

The word ‘stewardship’ featured often in these gatherings. Like many members of the Church I have vivid memories of congregational stewardship ‘campaigns’. Usually annual events grounded in reminding the church that everything we have is given to us by God and drawing on many familiar stories from scripture – the parable of the talents, the widow’s mite, the rich young ruler and many others – encouraging members to consider their levels of giving or inviting them to contribute to some worthy or necessary cause.

The opportunity to reflect on and experience the gift of giving in the light of God’s great and steadfast generosity is always valuable. Stewardship or attending to the costs and material practicalities of the church’s life is a fundamental responsibility and an increasingly delicate balancing act as the church contracts, expectations increase and resources are stretched.

This tension fuels an underlying anxiety about ‘rainy days’ and the need to provision to cover the costs of the unexpected. Sinking funds are simply necessary to manage the (constantly escalating) costs of old buildings. However, sometimes provisioning for rainy days can become a form of hoarding if it gets detached from its grounding in God’s generosity, faithfulness and missional intent. Hoarding actually contradicts what we profess and proclaim.

Since the last Discernment Summit, I started to wonder whether wealth is the only thing hoarded in the church. Should we also be reflecting on the stewardship of our faith as well as the stewardship of our assets?

In the church, we’re very familiar with the advice we frequently receive from politicians when we’ve expressed an opinion in the public space. Usually along the lines of ‘the church should mind its own spiritual business and leave policy or politics to the grown ups’. Unsurprisingly, I generally regard this as a positive indication that the church is doing precisely what it is created to do – proclaiming the gospel in word and deed for the sake of the lost and the least.

However, over the course of my congregational ministry, I’ve had countless pastoral conversations with committed church members earnestly explaining to me that their ‘faith’ was a private matter between them and God, a position that I’ve always found quite baffling. If my godmother (and others) had not talked to me about their faith, their experience of Jesus Christ, their discipleship, I would not now have any faith.

The faith of disciples is a critical element of the wealth of the church. It’s not stored in bank accounts or buildings. It’s storied in the lives of faithful disciples to be shared with generosity and joy at every opportunity.

This perspective was sharpened for me by a column written by Tim Winton in the Sydney Morning Herald (30 October 2024), titled ‘We need to find a new story to live in’. Tim describes the world as being co-opted into a story that ‘urges us to pursue live of endless consumption and pitiless competition powered by the fuels that are killing the world.’ At its best and at its heart, the church doesn’t live in or from that story. In baptism, we are all called into a very different story – a very old and eternally new story that has transformed the world through time and hasn’t finished yet.

In other words, the UCA and all the disciples gathered therein has not finished – our work is to tell God’s different story. In the times that we’re in (but probably in all times) there’s real urgency arising out of the consequences of the ‘world’s story’, so we better organise ourselves to get on with that work which is what the Discernment Summits are seeking to do.

Advent, the beginning of the church’s year, is a perfect time to reflect on what sharing (not hoarding) God’s different story might involve for you and your church next year.