By Brendan Manson / President of Fellowship Development
Lent invites us to take a sacred pause. Over 40 days, the Church enters an intentional season of repentance and renewal, reflecting on God’s saving work through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We embrace the Cross. We anticipate the empty tomb. And overall, we seek to return to the Lord not merely with sentiment, but with reordered lives (Joel 2:12-13).
Lent is formative; it exposes our weaknesses and reorients our hearts toward God. Within that reorientation we find the true foundation of stewardship and generosity.
Christian generosity naturally flows from hearing and receiving the gospel message. When we recognize what Jesus Christ accomplished through resurrection, our hearts turn outward in charity. At Calvary, we see the measure of divine generosity; at the empty tomb we see its triumph and hope. It was this gospel reality that moved the earliest Christian community to action and generosity. After encountering the risen Christ and receiving the Spirit, “all who believed were together and had all things in common … distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:44–45). Lent helps us to recall that, before generosity becomes a budget line or campaign strategy, it is primarily a response to God’s grace.
In the life of the Church, in our schools and in our ministries, we give because of God’s saving work. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We do not repair bathrooms, replace roofs, or expand classrooms only to improve or enhance our facilities. We steward spaces because they serve a mission we have promised to advance. Beautiful spaces facilitate hospitality and discipleship. Resources fuel ministries that bring souls to God. Framed this way, generosity moves beyond institutional maintenance and becomes participation in God’s ongoing work among his people.
That outward participation has always marked the church’s life. Almsgiving offers one of its clearest expressions. Lent brings almsgiving into sharper focus, both spiritually and historically. Jesus calls his disciples to pray, fast, and give, and he provides a cohesive framework for repentance (Matthew 6:1–18). Prayer reorients our love toward God. Fasting disciplines the body and loosens our attachment to excess. Almsgiving directs the fruit of prayer and fasting toward love of neighbor and concrete generosity. The Lord shows us that genuine conversion, especially during Lent, leads to visible generosity.
Lent calls us to self-reflection for the sake of conversion, not self-absorption. Conversion marks the true starting point for stewardship. When we confess Christ as Lord, we acknowledge His authority over every dimension of life — our thinking, our desires, and the way we steward our resources.
So in this season, let us fix our eyes again on His saving work. Let us stand at the foot of the Cross and remember the cost of divine love. Let us look toward the empty tomb and remember the hope we have received. And from that place of gratitude, let our generosity rise — not from compulsion, but from worship. What we have received by grace, let us now extend in thanksgiving.
