Adam Smith is often credited with creating much of our free market principles as we know today as capitalism. Capitalism has created, at least in the West, a world where anyone can succeed if they work hard, save hard, and spend wisely. Much of our understanding of our resources is viewed through the lens of self interest. We are in control of our money and our gifts. However, we have seen how greed and corruption have affected our world through this Great Recession.
We need to begin to retool our understanding of how we care for our time, talents, money, abilities, and gifts. We need to look at these abilities through the understanding of stewardship.
Peter Block, business consultant and author of Stewardship Choosing Service Over Self-Interest provides some business world insights to stewardship that model what stewardship should look like:
The Liberty Council, a nonprofit organization that defends religious liberties, is encouraging people to “
prayer and religious affiliation has arrived:
When “The Great Recession” began in December of 2007, the stock market lost huge amounts of equity and value. The Bush administration made efforts to keep businesses and banks afloat. The word “bailout” became a catch word in our cultural vernacular. Later, the Obama administration put forward more plans and policies to try to improve the economy. Political pundits and financial consultants keep talking about the “cost” of all of these governmental plans and programs. Numerical amounts of millions, billions, and trillions were used to put a price tag on these programs. Terms like “deficit”, “gross national product”, “credit”, and “macro economics” flooded TV and radio.
Facebook is a wonderful social networking tool that creates online communities for millions of people. Most begin filling out Facebook’s identity questions: name, sex, hometown, birthday, relationship status, and… religion? With 
Running late to meet a fellow pastor, I decided to finish writing a sermon thought instead of leaving on time. I got into my car and believed I could save time by driving fast, really fast, on the New York State Northway (I-87). Driving on the six lane highway provided for an opportunity to pass a lot other drivers. I looked at my watch and saw that I was running 15 minutes late for my lunch meeting.
sentence, but the The New York Times did just that when the newspaper wrote an 
There is a developing movement within literature to chronicle an outsider’s perspective on the strange land of Evangelical Christianity. It seems that the world sees all Evangelical Christians as fervent, ignorant, and misguided by a holy book. Being an Evangelical myself, I can see how the outside world can group all Evangelicals into this stereotype. The media tends to pick up on the extremes of any group, ideology, or religion and usually tries gives us the most radical angle. You would think that I would NOT recommend books about non-Christians views on Christianity, but there are two books that are worthy of your consideration about strangers in a strange land that yield some surprising insights.
Both Christians and secular news organizations alike have commented on the growing trend of Christians fleeing traditional churches. Some have even reported the growing trend of people becoming “less religious”, but “more spiritual”. Christians have lamented the trend of younger families fleeing churches. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a 
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