Defining "Stewardship"

In February of 2003, I was in Boston on business and was invited to have dinner at a very nice restaurant with the incoming president of a 6th generation family-owned company and his executives. The entire city was in the midst of a record snowfall and the dinner was a leisurely one because, I think, all the parties were avoiding having to venture into the bitter cold.

As we talked and ate, I asked the gentleman who was just about 40 at the time, how his family had been able to achieve the milestone of successfully turning over the reigns of the family business to him after already having survived five prior generations. I told him that I worked with companies everyday that had difficulty transitioning to the second or the third generation, and yet his family had clearly done what seemed impossible for most. He didn’t hesitate in his reply and offered a one-word answer: “Stewardship”.

I paused and then said, “In the South where I come from, that word has a connotation of donating money to the Church. What does it mean up here?”

He laughed and commented, “We’ve always defined ‘stewardship’ as ‘leaving things better than you found them.’”

Delightful as the evening was and as insightful the conversation, that definition has haunted me ever since. Over the last few years, I have become increasingly concerned that we, as a nation and a culture, have lost any sense of stewardship. The idea that we would leave anything better than we found it seems so distant in a culture where our political leaders seek to remain in power at all costs with no sense of fiscal discipline. Stewardship requires sacrifice today so that we preserve for tomorrow’s generations.

The idea of preserving for tomorrow was very much on the minds of the founders of our country when they agreed on the very mission statement for our government; the preamble to The Constitution and its final purpose, “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

This journal seeks to explore and expound on the ideas related to stewardship and the role of government and the people in our nation.

Since that evening meal on a snowy night in Boston, and upon these recent reflections on the intent of those who risked everything to found our nation, I have thought it ironic that the gentleman who shared his views on stewardship with me shares the surname of one of our original patriots. His name is Kevin Hancock, president of Hancock Lumber.