Faithful Stewards
Each month, we send out a note from Erik reflecting on life in the church, current happenings, and more.
September 11, 2026
Dear City Church,
This past Sunday, I introduced our new sermon series at City Church, entitled Prophet, Priest, and King. For the rest of September, we will reflect together on the church’s Who We Are statement as refracted through the lens of Christ being a prophet, priest, and king. As the one mediator between God and humanity (1 Timothy 2:5), Christ fulfills three archetypal Old Testament offices. Now, through faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we likewise carry out the functions of those offices. By receiving Jesus as our true prophet, priest, and king, we live as proximate prophets, priests, and kings in the world before others.
Stewards
In the first of the four sermons in this vision series, I described the most fundamental of all human roles: we are images. In Genesis 1:26 God says: “Let us make man [i.e. humanity] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." That means humans ought to live as God’s images within creation, bearing witness to his glory through all that we do. Although the original image in which humanity was created has been marred by sin, Jesus’s coming as the true and perfect “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) renovates that image. Through Christ and by faith in Him, we are restored into the full image bearers we ought to be. That is how, through Christ, we can act as faithful stewards in the world.
One of the primary ways our stewardship manifests today is through how we use our money. It’s easy to equate stewardship solely with the money we give to church or to other Christian ministries. Many churches hold an annual Stewardship Sunday where members are asked to pledge an amount they will donate to the church in the year ahead. These pledges enable churches to know how to budget and allow churches to prudently plan for ministry expenses. Over its 20-year history, City Church has never had a Stewardship Sunday; instead, we’ve relied on the willing giving of the congregation, making an aspirational budget and trusting that God will provide.
True stewardship involves more than just the money we give to church. Stewardship includes how we think about all of our money. If God is the Creator, then everything lies under his control and comes from him. All we have is His, and we bear responsibility for how we handle all of it. So stewardship includes what we do with our money: how much we spend on our houses, how often we dine out, how much we save for retirement, and where we invest our money. Therefore, our faith should intersect with all of these decisions. Those decisions, in turn, will determine how much we are able to give to God’s work in the world and how much we can give to the church.
City Church Finances
Every summer, the City Church Treasurer offers a budget update that both looks back on the past fiscal year and looks forward to the next fiscal year. But since it usually occurs in August when people are on vacation or otherwise distracted by long summer days, that update is easy to miss. Here’s a quick summary of where City Church stands. City Church finished our last fiscal year (which ran from July 2025 through June 2026) at 93% of our budgeted congregational giving (we received about $960,000 of our budgeted $1,032,000). That means we were 7% short (or around $72,000) of our total budget. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. City Church has substantial cash savings, and we have been able to meet all of our expenses.
But that shortfall from FY26, combined with a budgeted increase in congregational giving for FY27 (to a total of $1,109,000), means we need to bring in 15% more in gifts this year than last year. There are two ways for this to happen: 1) more people giving to City Church; or 2) people giving more. My hope is that both will happen. My hope is that City Church will continue to grow in size, adding more people as regular attenders, as members, and as givers to the work we’ve been called to in Richmond. And my hope is that those who are already giving will grow in their generosity to the church. Over the last 20 years, God has been faithful to City Church, and we have every expectation that He will continue in that faithfulness. In fact, it is God’s faithfulness that has allowed City Church to give away over 20% of everything we’ve received to our ministry partners in Richmond and throughout the world.
Giving to City Church
If you have never given money to the church before, my encouragement is to start somewhere. Begin giving something. Maybe you’ve heard about giving a tithe (10% of your gross income). While that is a Biblical threshold for giving (and what was expected of Old Testament Israel), it may feel overwhelming to you. Don’t worry about 10% for now. Start with 5% or even 1%. The most important thing is to give something to God’s work in the world. It is an act of faith. As such, it will put you in a position where you are less controlled by money. Over time, you may find that you can begin to give a greater percentage—2% or 6% or 12%. The reality for many people at City Church is that a 10% contribution wouldn’t be enough to engender faith. We have so much that, in order for us to give sacrificially and generously, it requires giving a greater proportion of what we make.
If you are a regular contributor to City Church, my encouragement is simply that you reconsider what you are giving. Many of us who contribute regularly have automated our giving through recurring gifts or online banking. It’s possible that you haven’t updated your giving in some time, despite changes to your income due to annual raises or cost-of-living adjustments. Now is a good time to re-evaluate if your giving is commensurate with all that God has given to you.
One other thing the Bible is clear on is that financial stewardship should be connected to worship. That’s a downside of the practical efficiency of online banking. It’s become so easy to separate our financial contributions from our weekly worship of God. We try during our worship service to always announce the place of giving, but it’s a message that easily gets lost amid other announcements. As you think about what you can give, also think about the reason you give: your worship of a steadfast God.
Giving to City Church is easy. You can use this link to access our online Giving Page. Alternatively, you can mail checks to the church at PO Box 5583, Richmond, VA 23220. While we don’t pass a plate every week at City Church, you can give cash or checks to a member of our staff or leadership on any Sunday. You can even hand me crumpled dollar bills or a fistful of coins, as some of City Church’s youngest members do. I treasure those donations as a sign of their learning about faithful stewardship. All gifts, however they come, will be processed and receipted by our financial administrator, Val Catrow.
What is it that allows us to act as faithful stewards of our financial resources? It’s the certain confidence of knowing that Christ has been faithful for us and to us. Our faithfulness is a response that flows from his faithfulness. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). Because of what we’ve received from Jesus, we can be faithful stewards of our finances, yes, and even of our very lives. All for the sake of the gospel.
Stay Well & Do Good,
Erik