God’s Steward Investor and the Great Commission

by Don Simmons

I want to challenge those of us who have achieved basic financial competency and have plans in place for our investments to earn financial returns. If we truly believe that God owns all of our resources, we must believe that includes our investment holdings as well.

We need to become God’s steward investor, one who is charged with managing His resources for His purposes.  He is the true owner, and we are his managers, his oikonomos. An oikonomos, in a Greek household, was the manager of the owner’s resources. As God’s oikonomos in the 21st century, the investments under our management are actually assets that belong to God himself.

An oikonomos commits capital with the expectation of furthering the kingdom of heaven on earth. These steward investors do this by seeking to achieve not only financial returns, but also positive spiritual, social, and environmental impact. A steward investor knows first and foremost that they are a fiduciary,  managing someone else’s resources.

Fulfilling the Great Commission through Investment

Inherent in the term “Business as Mission” is the word mission. Ever since Jesus sent out the seventy-two  into his harvest field, and then charged the believers gathered after His resurrection to go and make disciples of all nations, many followers of Jesus have accepted the call to go as missionaries.

Often willing to risk what’s familiar for what’s foreign, what’s comfortable for what’s complicated, what’s predictable for what’s problematic, men and women stake their lives on God’s faithfulness to go ahead of them and produce fruit from their ministry for His kingdom.

Many of us have never embraced vocational missions for many reasons. Those reasons are not at all bad. But instead of going, my friend Dick says, “we salved our consciences with donations and occasional prayer for the lost and those on the field. We resigned ourselves to having missed the opportunity to  personally be part of the Great Commission. We now perceive that at this time in our lives we can’t actively participate in global Gospel outreach.”

But Dick and I have good news: it’s not too late to be part of the global movement to bring the good news of Jesus to the billions of unreached people around the world.

We have a duty as God’s oikonomos to build His kingdom through investing in businesses that are impacting their communities through their local marketplace and are focused on multiple bottom lines.

Investing in for-profit businesses with missional purposes

Unfortunately most Christians think and behave as though donations are sacred and investments are secular. What I mean is that we consider charity to be the best solution for accomplishing the great commission, supporting missions, or alleviating poverty. But, investments can be far more powerful in achieving these results.

As an investor in a missional business, you can be more than just a financial partner, you can also be  a prayerful partner. You can come alongside the business owners, managers, and employees involved in the daily operation of the business.

From Greed to Generosity

All of our resources, including investments, are meant to be managed in a way that honors God and fulfills His purposes. The New Testament epistle writer James says, “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.”

While the impulse to protect what we have saved is natural, we must be willing to let go of our fear of not having enough and our hoarding to excess. We need to freely and courageously deploy our resources to build God’s kingdom.

Instead of prioritizing  ourselves and our personal financial goals , God’s steward investor leverages resources to build investment portfolios that effectively balance financial returns with spiritual, economic, and environmental ones. If you still have a missional mindset and a heart for seeing the kingdom of God flourish on earth, consider the power of investing your resources for eternal impact.

For more information on becoming a steward investor, visit www.thestewardinvestor.com. Together we can grow the kingdom of God through offering investment capital to missional and redemptive businesses.

>>Read Part 1 in the Series

>>Read Part 3 in the Series

>>Read Part 4 in the Series


Don Simmons has over thirty years of experience building and managing a boutique investment firm in upstate New York that he founded in 1988. A CFP® Professional with a degree in counseling and post graduate training as a portfolio asset allocation specialist, Don fuses professional portfolio strategy with investor psychology and behavior to provide  a well-informed perspective on our role as Christian steward-investors.  With nearly a quarter billion dollars of assets under management, his firm consistently ranks among the top 1% of financial  advisor practices in the United States. Read more…

 

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