President’s Message: The Three Dimensions of Stewardship

I want to share three stories.

Years ago, I was made aware of a student who was working full-time to pay for his education at Asbury University. At one point, his financial situation became too precarious and something had to give, resulting in him deciding to drop classes. Upon hearing this, and in a radical act of generosity, his co-workers pooled their savings and covered his tuition so he could continue his education at Asbury and eventually graduate.

More recently, the 10-year-old daughter of one of our alums created, marketed, and sold beaded wristbands for a school project and decided to tithe the earnings of $52.58 to Asbury for student scholarships.

And, I had lunch with a current student who had been accepted to a prestigious state school program that would assure him a job, cover his tuition, and even pay him a stipend. He chose Asbury instead. Why?

These are but a few instances among seemingly infinite accounts of sacrifice, generosity, and commitment to the whole person education offered at Asbury University. The stories are heartwarming, but they also raise important questions of stewardship. What, for example, is our responsibility to the student and his generous co-workers whose financial sacrifice made his education possible?

Or our responsibility to the selfless entrepreneurialism of adolescent Asburians? What about our responsibility to students who choose Asbury for academic and spiritual criteria unique to our school?

FOR ASBURY UNIVERSITY, I SEE THREE DOMINANT DIMENSIONS OF STEWARDSHIP.

First, we have fiduciary responsibility to faithfully and prudentially steward every dollar that is earned, gifted, and expensed as an institution. Fulfilling this responsibilitydemands clearly articulated budget measurements, accountability to budget management, effective communication, prioritizing the budget items that best fulfill our mission, and operational efficiencies.

Second, in addition to our fiduciary responsibility, we have a relational obligation to our community, our students, our alumni, our donors, and our stakeholders to faithfully manage our resources, particularly as followers of Christ. I have often said that our identity not only speaks to “who” we are; it governs “how” we are. We are at our best when we fulfill our work through the currency of relationship, trust and goodwill.

Finally, stewardship means maintaining a missional fidelity to being a Christian university that takes both of those descriptors, Christian and university, seriously. Part of stewarding incoming tuition, auxiliary, and gift revenue to Asbury is recognizing that those dollars rely on an assumption of our institution maintaining a commitment to our mission of intellectually rigorous and spiritually formative education — academic excellence and spiritual vitality. Simply put, our students matriculate based upon our mission; donors give to Asbury to fulfill our mission.

Stewardship is not just management. It is more. It is our fiduciary, relational and missional responsibility to the students, staff, faculty, alumni and stakeholders — past, present and future — who have strengthened the Asbury architecture through sacrifice, generosity and commitment.

Kevin J. Brown, Ph.D.
President