“We are still in a place where congregations set a budget and say that’s our stewardship benchmark. If we reach this arbitrarily decided dollar amount, we have been good stewards…So what a child grows up with in a congregation…is, “Here’s the amount we need; help us meet it,” rather than, “Generous God, generous life.” So on the whole, if you look for the drumbeat of stewardship, this tape recording that is always playing in the background…does not even agree with Christian theology. It is operational, rather than theological and they are not congruent.”
Mark Vincent in Growing Up Generous: Engaging Youth in Giving and Serving, ed. by Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, Elanah Dalyah Naftali, and Laura Musegades (Herndon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2000) 49.