Ep. 080 - Teaching Stewardship to the Next Generation

Episode Transcript

Spencer
As stewards, one of our chief responsibilities is to pass along what we have learned throughout our life to the next generation as parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles. Every member of the family of faith can teach children the importance of being a steward of God's resources. Today we will discuss teaching, modeling, and practicing stewardship to the next generation.

Austin
So, Spencer, this is a topic we come back to a couple times. It kind of comes back to that idea from Ecclesiastes, where we think about passing wisdom as we pass along resources, whether that's wealth or things. We always want to be passing along wisdom. And so today we want to dive in and talk about how do
we disciple the next generation, whether it's our kids, our grandkids, our nieces, our nephews. Whether it is the children of the church or just people that we have interacted with, we really want to think about discipleship as this lifelong process of becoming more like Jesus. As we are stewards of his resources, we want to teach the next generation:
what does it really look like to be a steward of his resources? So today we're going to take a look through Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and really unpack what does Moses call the people of God to, and how does that reflect how we are to disciple the next generation, to be generous stewards of God's resources? And so this is done through teaching, modeling and practicing.
So we're going to come back to those three themes kind of throughout this time. But Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way and when you lie down, and when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.
And so as we unpack this, these sets of verses, the very first thing we have to see is that Moses calls Israel to have these words written on their hearts. We have to embody a lived faith that says, the Word of God is living and active. And I want to spend my time in the Word of God. Just like Psalm 119, it's the treatise on the psalmist love of the scriptures.
We have to have a heart of love for God's Word to be transformed by God, to be good stewards of the resources that God has put on our hearts. And so I think really at the foundational level of stewardship and discipleship, we really have to ask these questions. Do our hearts really long to know the scriptures for themselves?
Am I willing to be transformed by the scriptures? Do I regularly put into practice singing, praying, reading, meditating on the scriptures? As followers of Jesus in faith, we prayerfully submit ourselves to God's Word, attune our hearts and our ears and our minds to these words of God. Because the reality is the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. So as we think about how do I be a steward if I am not internally being transformed by the gospel, by the words of God, then I will not live out what it means to be a good steward, and therefore I'm not going to be able to disciple the next generation.
What are some other things? Just as we think about this baseline of do I have the words of the Lord on my heart? Before we dive into what are some really practical applications of how we can be good stewards and then disciple the next generation to be good stewards?

Spencer
The first thing I think as you hit is we have to be transformed. We can't give away what we don't have if we don't have the love of God as that first thing in our lives. Why are we thinking about how to train the next generation? There needs to be that passion within our own lives. We need to guard that.
We need to protect that. Above all else, guard your hearts, as it says in Proverbs. So as we guard our hearts and as we try to protect our hearts against the idols of this world, if we're mindful of that, that is a huge step. Because if we're being pulled away, if we're being dragged away and enticed by the things of this world, there is no way that we can pass on a level of love, a level of stewardship that really the Bible calls us to.
So it all starts with that. But I think as we come then to the teaching side of things, what we end up seeing is that it's the same thing. It's just embodying and transferring that via our words. And so coming back to scriptures that talk a lot about how we steward our time, our financial resources, our relationships, you know, one that we come back to so often in our household,
Matthew 6:19-21, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. You know that that whole focus of if I'm putting my, treasure into the things of this world, if I'm, if I'm hoarding those, if I'm keeping those, my heart is going to follow in that direction. But having a baseline number of scriptures, I think that we come back to that we remind our kids of our grandkids, our nieces, our nephews, just really any of the next generation that we have any influence upon that can be really powerful.

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. And this aspect of teaching, it is continual through our lives. We teach them with our words, but we can also teach with our actions. And I think this is where, you know, I, I love James K.A. Smith and a lot of his cultural liturgies that he writes about and there's so much information that we get on a day to day basis.
And we often think that education is the way that we can transform the next generation. And yes, I do believe that teaching concepts is really critical. But if we're just teaching concepts, there's oftentimes of what Jamie would say is there's a fire in the heart. And so if we're trying to pour water on the head when there's a fire in the heart, then we're somewhere off balance here.
And so I think there's a constant flow of information, of scripture, of prayer that we need to set forth in front of our kids so that we're renewing their minds day by day. But then it moves into this idea of practice. And I think Moses in these verses again reminds Israel, teach the commandments and you do it diligently when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, when you rise.
These are very embodied things that Moses is talking about while we are walking through the desert, are you teaching your kids? When you lie down at night, are you teaching them, when you rise, are you teaching them? Are you really being diligent rather than saying, hey, we're going to do a family devotion once a week, and we're going to talk about money this week, and we're going to talk about sex next week, and we're going to talk about this other thing.
Are we just being scattershot, or are we really being diligent in every moment we’re taking it captive and asking questions of our kids. How do we think about this? How do we wrestle with this? And I don't do this, great. But I think this is the call. This is the level of discipleship that Moses is calling the people to.
It's really diligent.

Spencer
Well, and it's moment to moment like you talked about, there's no better time to talk about the uses of money than when you're in the Kroger checkout line and you know, your seven year old wants to buy that extra candy bar, and you say, you know, starting to have that conversation of, well, we can use the money for this, or we can use the money for this.
But helping to clarify, okay, there are uses of resources. Buying a candy bar is not always bad. There can be times of celebration, however, there's always this trade off. And if we can help our kids, our grandkids, the next generation see the beautiful uses of those resources, how they can be used to empower others, how they can be used to give then we can can frame the trade off that we really face, which is am I going to use this over here for maybe my own pleasure, in a way that is not consistent with who I want to be.
On a day to day basis. Again, there's times of celebration. There's wonderful times that. Yes, we want to, take that path, to take a vacation, to be able to enjoy something wonderful to eat or whatever it might be. But doing that as a spur of the moment type of thing consistently is not going to be acting in that stewardship side.
And, you know, if our children can see some of the amazing things that resources can be used towards and really get excited about those, then we can start to say, okay, well, if we do this, then we don't have these resources over here on this side of things. Now, I think where this bites us, that sometimes we don't acknowledge is, you know, we can't go out and have a more luxurious lifestyle, you know, that we experience and then our kids see us experiencing and then turn around and say, oh, well, you know, you can't do this over here.
We can't hold them to a different standard that we're holding ourselves to, because they will call out our hypocrisy quicker than anyone else in the world because they see us all the time.

Austin
Absolutely.

Spencer
So there's there's a lot to I think, think through here. But it's the normal. It's the day to day elements that we can have those open conversations of: I don't have as much to give, to these, these resources to, other opportunities. If I use them over here for a more luxurious vehicle or, you know, these toys or whatever they might be.

Austin
Absolutely. Well and I love that idea of my kids at the checkout line, because inevitably, no matter what store we're at, it's always, can I get a candy bar? Can I get something else in? And my answer is always no, but they always ask, and we want them to feel the freedom to ask. And, you know, there's one time out of maybe a thousand that I'll say, yeah, let's go ahead and get it.
And their eyes light up and there's so much joy that, like, dad is a cool dad today. But I think the reality is like as we're training them of like, no, this is not a regular [sic] expectation that you should have that every time we go to the store you get a treat. That's not a good that's not setting them up to say no,
we need to be willing to say no, to have our lifestyle have limits set around it. And then, like you're saying, it's okay to celebrate. It's okay to be a cool dad and get a candy bar for your kids every once in a while. But not every time. Because again, [sic] if we're continuing to satisfy our wants and our needs in an immediate way, over and over and over again, it it trains us from a young age to expect that my needs are immediately going to be met whenever I want them to be met, or my desires are to be met whenever I want them to be met.

Spencer
Because the thing is, your kids, they're not going to desire and come after those carrots. They're not going to say, gosh, dad, we've got to get another bag of carrots. We've got to get, another pack of, you know, lasagna noodles or something like that. No, they know that there's there's some over here and that's important. But our culture has conditioned us to try to, to grab for things and within immediacy of just these desires that aren't even very good for us most of the time.
So counterbalancing that and fighting fire with fire, you know, reminding ourselves that no, there's something more that I'm excited to be called to, that I can give towards, that I would be sacrificing if I went this path.

Austin
Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, we, so last Christmas we decided to give our kids each a little bit of money so that they can give to another organization. And first time through doing this, they were so overwhelmed. My daughter was like, how am I going to buy seeds to get it to this farmer? She thought she had to buy it and it was just hard for her understand.
But now we're going through this 30 day prayer time for the church in Iran and Afghanistan, and our kids are like, dad, when you gave us that money last year, I want to do it this year for the church in Iran. And so they're starting to see these glimpses where it's these little things where we've kind of instilled little moments where, okay, we're deferring gratification, we're delaying gratification.
We're teaching them in little bits over time that their little elementary and middle school minds can comprehend, that then hopefully they build into better practices. And that's kind of where we want to head next, is that we start with teaching. We move to modeling, we show the kids, hey, no, candy bars are not always going to be what you expect at the end of a grocery trip.
Most of the time it is, we're buying our needs to make our food and then if there are times to celebrate, then we celebrate. But as we model that, as we model giving, as we invite them into charitable conversations, then we move into this practice, this embodied physical practice. And Moses, if we come back to Deuteronomy 6, he talks about binding the words of God as a sign on your hand, as front lets between your eyes write them on your doorpost.
It's really this embodied faith that we have to come back to that the reality is it can't just be me doing it all the time. It can't just be them watching me put the check into the offering plate at church. They need to be given the resources to be able to participate as well, as dad invites them into giving to these charitable institutions that we love and that we see man, the beautiful things that God is doing.
They get excited to say oh dad's going to give me money to do this. And after a little bit now they're thinking, well, I can give money to do this, but we have to help them place money in their hands for them to be able to be the ones that practice that lived, embodied faith.

Spencer
Right. And we do that via different rhythms, like you talked about, I mean, on a month to month basis, if they're getting some kind of allowance, as small as it might be, if it's $10 on a month to month basis and they have $1 that they put monthly in the offering plate to get in the cadence of giving a tithe.
That is so helpful because as they get older, then they have a better sense of how they can, contribute, to the offering when they are doing things like babysitting or mowing the lawn or reffing a soccer game or some way that they get paid. We've seen that transition happen with our kids, where they just expect, okay, these are the resources that came in.
This is what I'm going to give back to the Lord. I'm going to pray, you know, that maybe I even give above and beyond that, you know, but getting into that rhythm where they know what's going to happen because they've practiced it and we've talked about this a little bit. But another thing that really strikes me as anything that's worth doing is worth doing poorly the first time, first three times, first five times.
And so there's so many families I think that get into this and they stop because the first time it wasn't great or they didn't know what to do, or the second or third time it, you know, there are questions or they felt uncomfortable or whatever it is. It’s going to take months of doing something like that to feel like you're gaining any traction.
It's going to take a long time, you know, for the kids of making decisions like, you know, your daughter, was there feeling overwhelmed before they start to, you know, get the hang of it. It's just, you know, it's like, shooting a basketball or driving a vehicle. You're never going to do that well the first time.
Just expect it. But the 100th time, you have a better set of expectations. You have your bearings, you know, generally what you're going to do.

Austin
Right. Well, even as I think about it in my own life, as I look back on my daughter last year and I'm like, she was overwhelmed by the the complexity of choices that are just in front of her for one organization. As I look at the multitude of charitable institutions that we could give to, it is almost endless.
The reality is, are we called to this or that? And within those two frames, is it this organization or that organization? Okay, well within that organization, am I giving to a single missionary? Is it to a general fund? If we don't start, then we're always going to be overwhelmed by the abundance of choice that we have. And so I think this is where one of the things that our church often comes back to is that we regularly remind ourselves that the sacraments, in this case baptism and Eucharist, are outward signs of an inward spiritual grace.
If my heart has been transformed by the God of the universe, who has called me by name, who has welcomed me to be his steward, I need to not just have this inward spiritual grace. There needs to be some sort of an outward sign. And so this is where that practice again comes into play. And, you know, I think about over the course of my working career, there have been times that I've missed putting the check into the envelope.
There have been times that I've given twice in a month, and I think the kids need to see that too. And for them to have that grace of, hey, you've been transformed by Jesus. Continue the practice, continue the practice, lay that firm foundation that when the offering comes by, you're giving into it and you see Mom and Dad do it.
It's a beautiful thing when they really start to witness it, participate with you, it takes maybe that multitude of choice and narrows it down and say, okay, no if I just take one little step of faith today, then the Lord is going to continue to help me tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

Spencer
Well, and we have that opportunity to in some seasons, just have that as our rhythm. We're not going any deeper. We're not considering any new organizations or people that we're going to give to, we're really not even doing, a deeper dive on, what the Bible might say. There are some seasons where we just need to say, okay, I've done, the research, I've done the deep work.
I need to just embody that in this season because I'm feeling overwhelmed. I can't do any more. But I'm still giving, and I'm still in this cadence, in this rhythm. But then there's other seasons where we can really apply more focus and more diligence to say, okay, Lord, are you calling me to something more? I have space, I have much more space to carve out to listen to you.
I can then have conversations with the spouse or with other loved ones, to hear what their thoughts are too. I think there is this level of expectation sometimes that we will hold ourselves to if we do a really deep dive and we're really engaged and we're locked in, and then something else happens in life that we feel bad if we're not quite at that space again.
But if we're still going through the cadence and still going through and trying to be faithful and participating, then we can come back to that. But there's so much that we could be overwhelmed with, that I think as God invites us, we can take a step towards Him and hopefully just make that a normal part of our practice.

Austin
Right. Well and I think about to as kids enter different seasons of life, there's different ways that we can invite them in. As young elementary school kids, maybe it's they're getting $15 of allowance and you put a little bit of money into a savings account for them, and then they can see, oh, the savings is accruing. And maybe if dad, if I ask dad, hey, can you push a little bit more into my savings?
I see it accruing faster. And so then there's small ways there. And then as they maybe get into early middle school, hey, now you've got some money that you've built up that you've saved, you've seen how this works. Let's go ahead and have you participate in buying some of those bigger things, whether it's your clothes or your shoes or participating in some of those bigger decisions, then as they start earning money on their own, saying, hey, we want to give you a goal to earn X amount of money before you go out, before you turn 18, before you graduate high school.
And so giving them saying, hey, we're going to start you off because you don't have the capacity to work. You don't have the capacity to mow the lawn at eight years old or to babysit a toddler when you're eight. So we're going to help you to start. And then as they get a little bit older, hey, here's a little bit more ownership that you need to take.
And then as they get a little bit older, hey, here's a little bit more ownership that you need to take. I think just the ways that we think about this, it can be that structured environment where we're giving kids a little bit more to participate with as they get older.

Spencer
And as they do every season that they get older, they have more choices. And as they make positive choices then those choices expand. As they make choices, also we allow them to fail and help to debrief that with them because there's nothing like failing to help us make a better choice the next time through. So it may, it might be that they, buy something at the store that cost them $60- $70 and they got bored of it.
Whether it's a game, a video game or a board game or whatever it might be, they get bored of it in the first week and they say, was that really worth it? I waited so long and I worked so hard to get to this point, and now it's a letdown. Okay, the key I think there is carving out space to debrief that with them.
How did those emotions feel? And then how do you want to engage the next time that you're faced with a similar decision? But again, to your point, applying kind of all along the way, what are the choices that we're framing for them that they can make, whether it's, you know, beginning in middle school, let's just say buying their own clothes and seeing, okay, if I go to this name brand over here, I pay three times as much as I do for maybe the same exact, article of clothing quality.
You know, at KARM, you know, whatever it might be. So those kinds of things. And then as they get to high school, I think, you know, you and I have talked about, some families that we've seen, they'll set actually a number of like, hey, we want you to earn this much by the time you get to 18, maybe it's $10,000, maybe it's $5,000, maybe it's some other number.
But having some kind of a build towards a primary reserve, that would be one of those steps that will be good for them to have throughout their entire adult lives. Because if they start and maybe you're even matching it, maybe it's, you know, you say $5,000 and we'll match your dollar for dollar. And then, you know, they graduate and they've got $10,000, you know, in the bank.
That's a good, healthy primary reserve to begin with going into their adult years.

Austin
Absolutely. And I think, you know, as we kind of taper off and finish out this episode, I think the reality is we need to have our hearts transformed by gratitude throughout this entire process. Gratitude that God is our provider, that as resources come in, as we teach them, we're constantly coming back to man. Look at what the Lord did.
Look at how he provided. He has been so faithful with us and we can steward these resources to bless him, bless others around us. And I think about Colossians 3:15-17 here, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” I think that really needs to be our heart. It's this posture of constantly coming back to the Lord, celebrating who He is, celebrating what He has done, doing that as a family, doing that in the little moments where when your kid comes up to you and says, hey, I want to give to this, let's celebrate the Lord that He has been generous to us.
Clients, if you want to talk to us about what does it look like to steward your family, to shepherd them, to guide them into wise spiritual decisions about money? We would love to have that conversation with you and we'll see you again next time. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclaimer
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.