Exploring Alternatives to 'Stewardship' for Church Anew

In the second part of my posts on stewardship for Church Anew, I explore some possible alternatives to the language of stewardship. I know it’s much easier to critique stewardship than to offer something constructive, so in this piece I share a few directions I hope to experiment with in the coming years: the language of offering, koinonia, women's patronage, and tithing.

"I recognize that I am not offering a single neat or easy alternative, and I am well aware of how deeply ingrained stewardship is in the mainline church (some even consider stewardship the North America’s most important contribution to global Christianity). It will take years of exploration and experimentation to move beyond it. What matters is that we keep seeking language and practices that draw us closer to the witness of the Gospels."

The full blog post is here.

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Toward a Focus on Queer Poverty

A short reflection offered at the Full & Equal: 50 Years in Pursuit of a Promise conference in Minneapolis, MN. I remember the first time I ever heard Bishop Gene Robinson. It was in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air in July 2003. I was closeted, Roman Catholic, studying Latin American Liberation theology at a Roman Catholic university in Texas, and I remember feeling like he was speaking from somewhere over the rainbow. The interview focused on the split in the Anglican Communion, but what I recall is that he spoke of his life and faith in technicolor while I was still living in gray. I didn’t know then all that preceded to make that moment possible. After college, I went to Union Theological Seminary in 2004, joined St. Mary’s Episcopal in West Harlem in 2005, and, on graduating became communications assistant to the new Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, in June 2007. It was a time of both excitement and dread: the first woman to serve as a primate in the...

Welcome!

My name is Miguel Escobar and I am an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Long Island, currently serving a two-year curacy at San Andrés Episcopal Church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. My work centers on the intersection of faith, justice, and economics, including through research and presentations on Christianity’s complicated relationship with money, wealth, and poverty. I write and think about these issues from my location in a parish setting, and more specifically as someone committed to Spanish-language, Latino ministry. As a writer, I focus on how Christianity has wrestled with questions of money from its earliest days to the present. My first book, The Unjust Steward: Wealth, Poverty, and the Church Today , traces how the early Church’s stance on wealth shifted over the first five centuries, going from a position of sharp critique to eventual accommodation, and reflects on what was gained and lost in that transition. I’m currently working on a second book that explores the...

On Greed and the Virtue of Sufficiency (Sermon in English and Spanish)

This sermon was preached at San Andrés Episcopal in Sunset Park on August 3, 2025 and is available in English and Spanish (see below). Listen to the sermon in English here and in Spanish here . / Este sermón fue predicado en San Andrés el 3 de agosto de 2026 y está disponible en inglés y en español (véase más abajo). Puede escuchar el sermón en inglés aquí y en español aquí . Today is the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, during Ordinary Time—a season in which we journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem and have the opportunity to watch him interact with people from many different towns: healing, helping those in need, and teaching about ethical questions. For me, this is a favorite season because we are not focused on the great doctrines of the Church, but on Jesus’ ethical teachings and his reflections on everyday life. Today, we hear his thoughts on something that was part of his world and remains part of ours: greed and the accumulation of great wealth. Before we talk about this, I want ...

Miguel Castilleja Escobar

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