Faithful Stewardship
Howard Dayton is a friend and hero of mine who started a wonderful organization called Crown Ministries. Crown takes the concept of financial stewardship and trains thousands of men and women to be faithful with their financial resources. I have called Crown a healing-and-deliverance mission for the vast number of people who need to be set free from financial bondage.
Years ago, Howard created a diagram that helps us keep the goal of faithful financial stewardship in mind.5 You can use the diagram below to evaluate your own stewardship and as a goal to work toward. I keep it close to my heart as I look at our own finances and as I seek to fulfill my responsibility to train our children in this most important, but often overlooked, area.
Take a look at each area of the diagram, and rate how you are doing as a faithful steward of your finances. Next, rank each area of the diagram from 1 to 5 below (1 = “doing well,” 5 = “needs immediate attention”), and make a decision to improve where needed.
Avoiding debt ______________
Seeking counsel_____________
Practicing honesty___________
Giving generously___________
Spending wisely ____________
Working hard ______________
Saving consistently__________
Training children ___________