Stewards of Grace - Better Together
My husband and I have served at Eagan Hills Alliance Church during this very public two-year season of difficulty. Recently, someone asked me, “Why are you still with The Alliance?” It’s no secret that my ministry experience has had some immense challenges, and I know I’m not alone. So many of you have faced difficulty in ministry that was beyond what you felt you could handle. But to be honest, I was a bit taken aback by the question. I hadn’t really considered leaving the Alliance. Don’t get me wrong, there are real hurts that I grapple with daily, yet, I am commanded to continue meeting with the people of God - pressing in to His Kingdom, rather than drawing away - and I have found that I have been covered in the grace of God through my experience of God’s people in our special family of churches. Even in the challenge, I am discovering that a key to perseverance has to do with how the people of God relate to each other. Because of this, the past two years has been more than gritty obedience to a call, it has been a privilege and honor to serve among the saints at Eagan Hills during this time.
I have long considered 1 Peter 4:7-11 as powerfully instructive on how to relate to one another in the Kingdom of God. Peter sets up his instruction about gifts dramatically. “The end of all things is at hand…” In his use of immanence and dramatic language Peter is reminding us that he is reminding us that the veil between the invisible realities and our tangible world is extremely thin. What we do in this life is of eternal impact. “The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.” Peter calls us to be self-reflective - considering our actions and thoughts carefully. Those actions are to be centered on loving one another earnestly and showing hospitality without grumbling. Ernest love and joyful hospitality. Both relational commands to be followed in the dramatic face of finality.
What is particularly instructive about how to relate to one another is Peter’s description of the members of the Body as stewards of God’s varied grace. The members of Christ’s Body receive different gifts, and the members of the Body steward the grace of God through those gifts. At least in this way, God leaves it to us to steward his grace. We should be sober-minded indeed! How we take care of the gifts God has given us will impact how the grace of God is experienced in this world. Peter is specific: we steward that grace by serving one another. Peter also tells us that God’s grace is varied. There are many gifts given to all different kinds of image bearers in the Kingdom of God. Not only is God’s grace stewarded by His people, his grace-stewards, but his grace is full of variety.
This week my 14-year-old son is grappling with the tragedy of discovering that sometimes someone you thought was a grace-steward is really a self-steward. After this discovery, I saw the thought cross his mind to reject all this church stuff - to take everything he had been told about the church and reject it. But I was hopeful for him as we talked through the harsh reality that can so often push us away from each other and from the kingdom. We talked about how we live in the “already” and the “not yet” and often the “not yet” can feel dominant. I suggested that we remember to look to the grace-stewards around us. My son and I experienced God’s grace immediately as we spoke about all the ways we can see the Kingdom at work through His people both in the past and the present. We recognized specific gifts that God had given to people to help us navigate through a difficult time.
The temptation to pull away can be even stronger when the church body fails to recognize each other as grace-stewards. If we consider each other as road-blocks to God or a drain on our energy, we blind ourselves to God’s varied grace which he means to give us. When I consider the members of the body as grace-stewards, I’m happy to go to them. I look forward to what grace God has to give through them. Additionally, we must not forget to recognize the varied grace that God gives. This is an important way God intends us to encounter his grace - through the members of His body; his beautiful variety of grace-stewards.
My encouragement to you is to consider your role as a grace-steward in the kingdom of God. Are you using the gifts that God has given you to serve others? Are you stewarding God’s varied grace? In addition, consider if there are other grace-stewards you are overlooking. Have you withdrawn? Do you see the people of God as barriers to grace rather than sources of it? Who do you struggle to engage with? You could be blessed and challenged by that grace-steward. God certainly intends for His kingdom to be known and experienced through through all of us, using the gifts God has given for His eternal glory.
Of course, I have to put in a shameless plug for the upcoming district women’s retreat October 11-13. Our conversation this year is about the Body being made of many parts and how we are Better Together. It will be an incredible time for the women in your church to enter into the discipline of fellowship, because that is what it is - a discipline where earnest love and joyful hospitality is put to action.
Learn more about the Alliance Women’s Better Together Women’s Retreat We hope to see you there!
Shawna Kosel
NCD Alliance Women’s Director