The Master's Joy
by Susan PowellGiving has become sexy of late. News articles are tracking trends among the cyber-riche, who are changing the face of philanthropy in the western United States. Last February, Ted Turner tried to provoke a philanthropic competition among billionaires by prompting Fortune magazine to profile the "Forty Most Generous Americans." He fears that the image-conscious well-to-do hold onto their shekels in order to make the Forbes 400. Worth Online predicts a "$10 trillion transfer of wealth" in the next generation and asks, "What ethic will govern the disposition of the enormous wealth assembled since the Second World War?"
Dennis and Eileen Bakke's answer is stewardship - a sleeper of a topic that they are determined to make relevant. Solicit Dennis's input on the subject and, if you don't duck fast, you'll get a sermon. "We Christians have distorted a perfectly good word," he says emphatically. "Stewardship is not primarily about the money you give away. It's about the part that you keep." Stewardship Sunday - that staple on the liturgical calendar of North American Protestantism - is misnamed, since it focuses on giving to meet the financial needs in the church budget. Certainly, tithing (the biblical practice of giving away at least ten percent of one's income) is a vital part of worship for Jesus' disciples. Yet when one gives money away those funds become someone else's responsibility to "steward." Says Dennis, "How you steward that part that you keep - that's the hard question! That's what we need to talk about more often!"
It's not by accident that Dennis holds strong opinions on the topic. Throughout their marriage, Dennis and Eileen Harvey Bakke have made the conscious study and practice of stewardship a central focus. Along the way a number of curious journalists have in turn studied the Bakkes. Terry Eastland, in "This Is Not Ours: Good Stewards Hold All Things Lightly" (Washingtonian, July 1991), surveyed many of their involvements - Dennis's company, their home and children, their role in a local school, their family foundation - as examples of living out the biblical mandate to steward not just money, but all of God's gifts. "This is not ours" is a refrain heard often from the Bakkes. As Dennis defines stewardship, "We start with the premise that God is the owner: 'The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.' The second part is that we are called to be persons who take care of what God owns. We're stewards." Jobs, children, money, relationships, knowledge - all are to be tended and invested for the glory of God.
In truth, much of the public fascination with the Bakkes stems not from their many fruitful activities, but from the simple fact that they have enough money to render the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes devoid of temptation. Yet both Dennis and Eileen wince in the glare of the public spotlight, particularly when cast as experts due to their financial status. Our culture tends to expect wisdom from the wealthy. While the Bakkes have a lot to say, they prefer to be regarded as fellow pilgrims rather than sages - albeit pilgrims with unusual material resources.
Our culture also treasures stories of enterprising individuals. Dennis is as big a dreamer and entrepreneur as one would ever hope to meet, but an individualist he is not. When he and Eileen credit many of their best ideas to friends and family, their references are not Emmyesque nods to mom and dad. Listening to them speak, you get the impression that these people do very little on their own. In fact, it sounds like they undertake almost nothing in their lives - including spending their money - without a conscious effort to do so in community.
It all started, as usual for Dennis, with one of his big ideas. In 1981 he and partner Roger Sant founded Applied Energy Services, taking advantage of a new law that allowed private energy producers to sell electrical power to public utilities. Now known as AES Corporation: The Global Power Company, AES buys, builds, and operates energy plants around the world. From China to Maryland to Argentina to Kazakhstan, AES has proved a great success - but nothing was certain at the beginning.
Eileen jokes that many of their major family decisions have been made on long car trips. A little over a year into the start-up of AES, Dennis and Eileen were expecting their first child and enduring the financial ups and downs of the new company. On a drive through the mountains of West Virginia, Dennis began to dream out loud. "What are we going to do when this company takes off? Someday this could really be big - and what are we going to do with all the money?" Ever the practical one, Eileen reminded Dennis that he had not been paid the month before.
The conversation continued, however. As they talked, a common desire emerged: to help others implement their own dreams for the growth of God's kingdom. Wary of making such a decision alone, they turned to their extended families for help. After several family consultations they decided that God did not want them to wait for a large amount of money before beginning. To unite their two large families in a common project, to think strategically about the stewardship of their resources, and just to have fun together - this dream couldn't wait. Dennis and Eileen borrowed about $12,000 from the bank and Mustard Seed Foundation was born.
With the rapid growth of AES, Dennis and Eileen quickly encountered tough lifestyle questions. How much should they spend on themselves? How and where should they choose to live? How much should they give away through Mustard Seed Foundation (MSF)? How much should go to church and other needs? Two resources proved invaluable in this process: the study of Scripture and the counsel of their "covenant group," a dozen or so friends from their church who had joined together for spiritual encouragement.
If all they had belonged to God, the group decided, the first task of stewardship was to get to know the Owner. What were God's desires? What could they learn about his character and use of resources? A natural place to start was the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. They compared their own use of resources to those of the faithful and fearful servants. Then Jeannie, one of the group members, noticed something at the end of the master's commendation of the faithful servants: "Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master" (Matt. 25:21, 23).
"Enter into the master's joy" - that line resonated deep in the Bakkes' hearts. Declares Dennis, "If stewardship isn't a joyful experience, we're probably missing the boat. There is nothing more important about stewardship than that first principle."
As the group continued their studies, a second theme emerged: God's activity throughout Scripture shows attention to planning, orderliness, excellence, and accountability. Planning was not too much of a stretch for a businessman and an educator. The Bakkes and the Mustard Seed board chose to be intentional about their grant-making, avoiding the pull to react to every need that came their way. At a personal level, Dennis and Eileen regularly stopped to evaluate and to consider next steps for themselves and their children. But where could they find accountability for their choices?
By this time, the Bakkes' covenant group had been meeting weekly for several years for Bible study, prayer, and mutual accountability. They had talked about everything - children, jobs, personal struggles, even sexual issues - except personal finances. As Eileen remembers, "Finally, after about six or seven years, we said, 'Guys, if we're going to really do this we have to share our budgets and our financial information.' Well, let me tell you, that is tough."
The group was anything but uniformly well-to-do; some were just squeaking by financially. Wouldn't it cause embarrassment and create the potential for serious envy if each family revealed their financial worth and spending habits? In the end, some, though not all, of the group chose to go ahead. The Bakkes asked their friends to review their finances and to challenge them on any number of financial decisions.
For example, the group weighed in on the question of how much the Bakkes should give to their church, a relatively new urban congregation in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. A true ten percent tithe to the young church, they decided, would be too much - it would run the risk of encouraging dependency on the Bakkes' provision instead of God's. So the covenant group assisted Dennis and Eileen in setting the amount of their church giving.
The accountability didn't stop there. "Much of stewardship taught and talked about tends to be the stewardship of giving away,"says Dennis, "but a lot of the resources that you've been given are for your use." Often, Christians divide their paycheck into "my money" and "God's money" - part to be used "God's way," and the rest to be used "my way." But while the Bible doesn't allow for that kind of dualism, it doesn't say much about household budgeting, either. How were they to choose a standard of living? What constitutes "need," anyway? Eileen describes the tension they felt:
In our society, and particularly in the church, we have two extremes. We lived on Capitol Hill and we worship in an inner-city church. There's a great temptation to say that simplicity and poverty is the way that God would have us all go. He would have us all sell most of our clothing, have one car, live in the smallest house possible, and give the rest away. That's one extreme.
Then we have another extreme that is equally dangerous, which says, "If you are really spiritual and you are following God, he will bless you abundantly and you will be wealthy. You will have more than you know what to do with." Both of those are partly true but partly heresy.
Again, the covenant group was crucial in resolving this dilemma, as Kathy, Rich, Jerry, and others led the group to consider the issue of "calling." An individual's calling - the way that person is gifted for specific tasks - was best discerned, they were convinced, in community. So together they examined each person's circumstances and desires, the people to whom they were relating, their personalities and gifts, and their resources.
On another long car trip, this time to a wedding in North Carolina, Dennis and Eileen tried to put together the puzzle pieces for their own lives. Dennis, they decided, was called and gifted in business, particularly in enabling others to use their gifts in the workplace. Eileen's strongest bent was to nurture children as a teacher and mother, and to extend hospitality to a great variety of people. Both felt called to deep involvement in the nurture and discipleship of their two large extended families. And both had a keen interest to match resources (including their own finances) with needs around the world. These callings - the overarching vision by which they would weigh the value of any particular job, expenditure, or decision - became a map for their lives.
"Needs," then, were defined as the resources necessary to fulfill their callings. Theory was quickly put to the test when the Bakkes decided to build a new house in Arlington, Virginia. How big? How fancy? The call to hospitality seemed to dictate a large house. On one end of the social ladder, Dennis was coming into contact with an increasing number of US and international government officials. On the other he coached a football team of South Arlington boys, many fatherless. The Bakkes wanted a home where both presidents and budding linebackers would feel welcome and at ease.
The result is a well-appointed, but not ostentatious, house which stays well stocked with friends, family, and ice cream. Being faithful stewards of their house usually is fun, but requires disciplined obedience as well. Sometimes, when it would be easier to say, "We're too tired," or "The kids might break something," it's not easy to remember to whom it all belongs.
If you study God's character, you can't get away from giving. The Father's giving - ultimately expressed in the gift of his Son - is lavish, self-sacrificial, and full of grace. Dennis and Eileen looked at their own abundance and crafted a principle for their lives: "Let's use the minimum we can to meet our own needs, consistent with our callings. We will give everything else away, whether it be money or whatever else." To this day they take an annual inventory of everything from money to cars to hockey sticks. "Has it been used in the past year? Do we need it?" If not, it should be given away.
The vast majority of the Bakkes' money is given away through Mustard Seed Foundation. The growth of MSF in many ways has mirrored Dennis and Eileen's personal journey to understand biblical stewardship: joy in the process, careful planning and accountability, giving as much as possible, and doing it all in community. Due to the paucity of grant money available for explicitly Christian purposes, the first guiding principle of MSF is to fund "those projects which seek to draw disciples to Jesus from every 'unreached' community, city and culture and which attempt to redeem society's structures and institutions," according to the Foundation's 1997 annual report.
True to Dennis and Eileen's calling, the second principle of MSF is "stewardship of the gifts and callings of the Harvey and Bakke families." (That took perseverance at first - it was no easy job to build consensus among the Norwegian farmer-stock Baptist Bakkes from Washington state and the patrician Presbyterian Harveys from South Carolina.) MSF's third principle grew out of the conviction that "the Church [is] the bride of Christ and God's primary representative in the world." Over time the board decided that local churches were best able to provide accountability for MSF's grantmaking, and so every grant award matches some amount of church support. The fourth principle is an emphasis on empowering individuals in community - "especially those committed to the world's largest, poorest, least evangelized urban communities."
Most of MSF's grant opportunities have grown out of the interests and travels of individual family members. Brother Ray Bakke, a missionary statesman who has made a lifelong study of the world's largest cities, has solicited grant applications from ministries among Cairo's garbage dump dwellers, Bangkok's children, and Chicago's housing projects. Church planters Warren Harvey and Dan Thompson have taken leadership in designing scholarships for international theological education. Interior designer Marilyn Pearson, pianist Corean Bakke, and pastor/artist Brian Bakke have championed writers, painters, film directors, and musicians pursuing their art for Kingdom purposes. MSF has grown far beyond those first few grants in 1986; in 1997, the Foundation made over four hundred fifty grants totaling $3.2 million. The creativity and diversity of MSF's grants stem from the focus on calling: What niche does God call MSF to fill? What special interests and abilities have been given to the board to develop? How can they empower applicants to fulfill their own callings?
Though he was Lutheran born and Baptist bred, Dennis would no doubt join his Presbyterian relations in affirming an adaptation of the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: "What is the chief end of giving? To glorify God and enjoy him forever." That, then, is the Bakke/Harvey family's answer to the question of what to do with all your money. Call your friends and family together. Get to know the Owner. Emulate him in his character and activity. Discern his unique call on your life. And enter into the Master's joy! *
Susan Powell was Associate Director of the Bakke's Mustard Seed Foundation for several years. She is praying for the gift of interpretation necessary when her toddler nieces call to talk with "Ashoo." This article originally appeared in re:generation Quarterly, Winter 1998 issue. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
Print
Email
Comments
Be the first one to add a comment.
To post a comment, please login or register