Stewardship as Surrender
Photo by Fred Kearney on Unsplash
by Robert Kim
It’s difficult to write authoritatively on financial stewardship when I often fall into the temptation of viewing money as the source of security, especially when I think about the future of those whom I care deeply about. Despite my own shortcomings, or maybe because of them, God continues to teach me about stewardship. There are three elements of stewardship that stay close to my heart through personal experience.
Stewarding Your Vision
I’ve found stewardship to be an expression of our reaction to God’s sacrificial love. One of the most meaningful gifts I’ve received is a set of experiences that provided a sense of purpose and direction. Those experience include: a) getting to know an orphan in Mongolia who didn’t have the means to pursue college despite her excellent academic track record, b) visiting a former gang leader, who was also my friend’s uncle, at a prison in Mexico and seeing the softness of the former gang leader’s heart toward my friend, c) witnessing a path of a 12-year old Native American boy into a gang life, following his older brother’s footstep as a Native American community in Sisseton couldn’t break out of the cyclical poverty, d) visiting brothels in Thailand and witnessing the economic decisions that prostitutes had to make to care for their children, and e) witnessing the passion of an Afghanistan refugee in Greece who has risked everything to minister Western European nations.
Through all of these experiences, I saw the depth of struggles many around the world face. But, I also sensed God’s deep love for them. After some research, I came to understand a deeper economic structure issues that excluded these people from accessing resources to pursue their dreams with dignity. I started asking questions, such as “What prevented the capital markets from assessing the orphan’s academic talent, and therefore her future earning potential, and finding an appropriate investment solution?” “Is it possible for local businesses in Native American tribe land to mentor young boys to help them see and pursue a path beyond joining a gang?” “With such stark economic divide between the wealthy and the poor in Thailand, could the business community care more for those underserved and help those suffering from endless cycle of sex trafficking?” “How can investors support the mission work of Middle-eastern refugees in Europe?”
These experiences gave me a strong sense of purpose. My reaction to these experiences was a broken heart and a prayer. I remember praying in winter of 2011, “God, I want to invest as much of your assets as possible for the benefit of these people you love”. The prayer led to cold-calling 500+ institutions and taking a 75% pay cut to create a role and invest in social entrepreneurs tackling these issues. Objectively speaking, taking a 75% pay cut is not the craziest thing one can imagine as a response. There are many others who take crazier risks to respond to God’s call. But, even in the small step I took to respond to God’s gift, I’ve seen God honor that and lead me one step at a time, further convicting my heart and confirming my calling. Then, I realized that stewardship begins with our passionate reaction to gifts God gives us—even if it’s a small step. We ought to passionately react, intellectually probe, and act toward our call. Money can only go as far as our vision takes us. Stewarding our vision is a starting point to financial stewardship.
Defining the Boundary of Comfort Zone to Start the Journey
But, the hard truth is that stewardship involves a form of surrendering. And, it’s hard to surrender. This leads to the second element of stewardship—we don’t need to be a saint to begin the life of stewardship. Even after encountering these powerful experiences, I prayed, “God, I’m willing to give you the next 5 years of my life to do whatever you want me to. I’m too afraid to give you my entire future, or even the next 10 years. 5 years seem reasonable since I’ll still be young enough to find a stable and comfortable job if this pursuit doesn’t work out”.
It’s quite possible that God would’ve done more amazing things if I surrendered more. But, God was still willing to meet me where I was. While he continued to push me to enlarge my boundaries, he was willing to work with my risk appetite. The same element applies to financial stewardship. We can think through all of our financial needs and crystalize our risk appetite to develop a “Personal Financial Benchmark” for investment portfolios. Such a benchmark can answer what each year’s return objective is and therefore answers the question of “how much do I need?” By quantifying the personal benchmark for investment portfolios, we can fight the temptation of always wanting more.
Stewardship as Surrender
Once you draw out your boundaries, you can be as creative as possible and discern what or how to sacrifice to live a life of a steward. For me and many families and institutions I manage the assets for, this particularly applies to redemptive investing. As investors, we often think about concessionary returns as a sacrifice. But there are other forms of sacrifice, all centered around the theme of proximity. Proximity is one of the most crucial elements of redemptive investing.
To get close to communities we serve, we inspire to surrender our authority as investors and participate in the suffering of the vulnerable. Just to list a few examples, we can yield our decision making authority and invite the vulnerable into the investment decision process. We can share that authority with those who don’t have that luxury yet have a deeper understanding of the issues we as investors want to address.
We also need to surrender our expertise. Most families don’t realize the value of the expertise their family businesses have developed throughout multiple generations. When those are shared with portfolio companies, you build a relational bridge. Large institutions like the National Christian Foundation also possess unique assets - scale and “last-mile” relationships in local regions - to carry the burden of those in suffering.
Lastly, we need to sacrifice our time to get to know the communities, visiting them, praying with them, and collaborating with them to find a solution. Time spent with them will deepen relationships, and relationships are a key element of redemptive investing. Otherwise, everything is a number on a spreadsheet. As we see each number without a face, we make decisions, at times unintentionally, with less regard for the well-being of those whom we want to serve. We deprioritize those we don’t see. As a steward, our job is to discern what to sacrifice. As we surrender, we partake in the joy of partnering with Christ who can do so much with what we surrender. Surrender leads to expansion of our comfort zone and a joyful stewardship journey.
We are in a unique time. Through COVID-19, the economic divide became more visible. At the same time, we’ve seen more entrepreneurs and investors demanding more out of their talent and capital to serve those in need in the last two decades than we did before. As investors, centering our investment portfolios around our values is not a theoretical exercise any more. I have a good friend who leads a foundation in Louisville, KY. As a steward, he and his team decided to put the mission of creating an inclusive community at the center of their portfolio. They are investing in businesses that hire victims of trafficking, build affordable housing to prevent homelessness, make loans to SMEs in emerging markets to create jobs, and develop renewable energy as climate risks disproportionately hurt the vulnerable. One particular quality I appreciate about my friend more than any other qualities is his freedom from love of money. Because his identity is not rooted in money, he seemingly has exercised more creativity than most asset owners I’ve known to pursue the mission. I pray I can be as courageous as him. I pray that I can use capital as a form of influence to carry the burdens of those who need hope. I imagine a community of courageous, risk-embracing, soul-loving investors who, through their commitments and actions, show the love this world has not yet seen.