There are three things that will go on into eternity – God, His Word, and people.  If believers respond to this truth, it becomes a real guide for setting priorities and making life decisions.  These 3 things serve as a motivating influence for believers to be involved in the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.

However, there is another dimension of what God wants to do in our lives and others lives as well and that is to train us as stewards.  In fact, God’s big picture plan is for total life stewardship.  As we grow and develop as stewards it not only enhances our relationship with God and our personal satisfaction that we are going somewhere in life, it also transforms everything in our world as some aspect of growing as a steward.  The end result is that our growth as a Life steward has an additional positive impact on our witness.

Life stewardship is a life long vision of how God wants us to grow and develop our spiritual gifts, abilities and talents as well as how we handle our money, our relationships, our responsibilities, and our spheres of influence.  God’s big picture for our lives is that we might be ever expanding in our growth as stewards, having greater and greater influence and leadership with each passing year.

The Life Stewardship Model Overview

The Life Stewardship Model creates a roadmap for everyone in their twenties to catch a vision for how God will grow them during the course of their life.  Our hope is that at the end of your life you  will have a deep sense of a life well spent and when they face the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, they will hear those words “well done, good and faithful servant”

Stewardship Failure Looks Like:

Our hope is to avoid where many in their 20s end up, and that is a stewardship failure.

The Life Stewardship Model – 5  Key Dynamics

The Life Stewardship Model is fundamentally framed by 5 dynamics.

1. The Growth Model

Henry Cloud and John Townsend in their book, How People Grow put forth this supposition.  “People grow by experiencing grace and truth over time.”  This provides an overall framework for how a person will experience growth over a lifetime. 

2. Season of Life Questions

Beyond the general framework of how person grows we need to add that each decade of life growth seems to be affiliated with some question.  The questions in a general sense are as follows:

• 20s – who am I ?
• 30s – what am I good at ?
• 40s – where will I do it ?
• 50s – what will be my legacy ?

The 20s – who am I ? –  Does any 20 something have a high degree of confidence that they have found their full calling in life ?  More than 95% would say no.  The 20s are the first time that a person really begins to think reflectively.  Now fully as an adult they begin to understand themselves in the context of their past, their present and their potential future.  Who am I really ?  The bulk of who we are and will become is determined in the 20s as young adults explore a variety of experiences.  However experience in itself is not the best teacher.  Evaluated experience is the best teacher.  This is where mentoring and having a mentor cluster is invaluable for having rails to run on.

The 30s – what do I do?  What am I good at? – This is the most challenging decade.  Family (if married), Relationship stresses, finances, expectations placed on you, responsibility.  The 30s is the age of 2nd thoughts.   Am I where I am supposed to be?  Where do I really find meaning in life?  What am I really good at?  What do I enjoy doing?  When dealt with in a healthy fashion, it propels a person into the very productive and deeply meaningful decade of the 40s.  Dealt with poorly and it culminates in a mid-life crisis.

The 40s – where will I do it? – When a person has put their gifts, abilities and skills to use and gained experience in using them and in facing problems and challenges, they begin to see more and more what they really enjoy doing and are uniquely wired to do.  They also begin to discover what environment they most enjoy doing it.  This is where full Life Stewardship really begins to blossom.  However there are 2 dangers during this decade.  First, that a person begins to plateau – they begin to level off and just stay comfortable with where they are at.  Secondly, if they are not reflecting on the key question, of “where will I be most effective”, they can become dabblers – doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

The 50s – what will be my legacy ? – The focus becomes finishing well.  How can everything that God has put into me be harnessed together for a lasting impact beyond my life here on earth.  When this question is answered well it results in convergence – the condition  where my gifts, abilities, skills, experience, place of ministry, influence all come together and create a synergistic impact beyond what I could have imagined.

These phase of Life Questions are further framed in the next section on God’s Personal Growth Curriculum for every believer.

3 .God’s Personal Growth Curriculum

God seems to have a consistent growth curriculum that is on one hand unique to the individual, but on the other hand has very consistent phases that every believer goes through.  Fuller Seminary professor, Robert Clinton outlines these in his book, The Making of a Leader.   They are as follows

•  Phase I: Sovereign Beginnings - God's providential workings through family, environment, historical events that begin at birth.
  
• Phase II: Inner Life Growth - God uses testing experiences to develop character.  A proper Godly response allows a leader to learn the fundamental lessons God wants to teach.  If the person does not learn, he will usually be tested again in the same areas.  A proper response will result in an expanding ministry and greater responsibility.  These areas are usually in the area of integrity, obedience, and hearing from God and acting on it.
  
• Phase III: Ministry Maturing God is developing the leader in two ways in this time: giftedness and understanding of the Body of Christ.  The believer grows in personal ministry, skills, gifts, relational and leadership insights, conflicts, prayer, faith, spiritual warfare, and ministry growth.
  
• Phase IV: Life Maturing Ministry from what you are is emphasized.  God uses the processes to deepen character through self reflection, life crisis, faith challenges and even a feeling of isolation and ineffectiveness.
  
• Phase V: Convergence The leader is moved by God into a role and place where he can have maximum effectiveness.
  
• Phase VI: Afterglow/Celebration  - Lifetime of ministry/growth culminates in an era of recognition and indirect influence at broad levels.