I’ve been reading Alan and Deb Hirsch’s (Twitter | Website) newest book, Untamed and I’ve really been enjoying it. In their chapter called “kultcha-schmultcha” they have a series of things in the culture that need to be addressed when it comes to discipleship. This is a great section because they touch on a bunch of things that are deeply embedded in our culture that are in need of some critical thinking about how they influence and shape our faith, our lives and our discipleship. Their little section on money is spot on. My only complaint is that it isn’t longer, but I know that’s not what they were trying to do – that is, write a long treatise on money. In this section they talk...Read More →
Category: Money & The Church
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July 31, 2010
Money and Discipleship.
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March 25, 2009
Church, Where is Your Money Going?
Letting this quote from Brennan Manning sink in a bit today, “To me, the lack of credibility of the Christian church in America is that we are not professional lovers of God and people. We’ve got this carrying of the Bibles, saying “Praise Jesus!” and we don’t love one another. We don’t reach out and extend ourselves. Tell me the amount of money in your local church that is devoted to, first, the quality of faith of the people and, second, the assistance of the poor. Tell me those two things and I will tell you what I think of your church” Preach in Brennan! Our leadership team is in the midst of asking some important questions around these very two important issues. It’s my guess that most...Read More →
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February 16, 2009
Generosity and Fear
We are living in a time where fear and despair are the overwhelming attitudes. Whether we’re talking about our personal financial situations or our national financial situation or our world’s financial situation these attitudes are prevalent. Fear. Despair. But as those who profess faith and resurrection, we can’t succumb to fear. We can’t ignore the problems of the world, but we can’t let fear be our master. We are not people of fear. We are not people of despair. We are not a people of obligation. Fear leads to selfishness. Despair leads to self-preservation. Obligation leads to legalism. We are people of hope. Hope that comes from grace. Hope that comes from resurrection. Hope leads to freedom. Freedom leads to Generosity. Let us be a...Read More →
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December 16, 2008
Use Cash, Spend Less. Boo Credit.
I read this article on CNN.com today. Bascially it was talking about the shopping habits of Americans this Christmas season. “Most Americans have put themselves on a budget this holiday season and are sticking to it,” said Phil Rist, executive vice president of strategic initiatives at research firm BIGresearch, in a statement. “Retailers are finding that consumers who pay with cash or a debit card may be less likely to make impulse purchases, but recognize that these shoppers are also trying to put themselves in a better financial situation to spend in the future.” I don’t get the feeling that the article is pointing out the problems of this approach, but its funny that this is possibly conceived as bad news. At least, I’ve seen...Read More →
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November 24, 2008
Talking About Money in the Church Part 2 (II Cor. 8)
At The Well we have been focusing on 2 Corinthians 8:1-13 during our offering time (which i talked about at greater length here). If you haven’t read/studied this chapter, I encourage you to do so. For us, this has been a really helpful narrative to filter our understanding of stewardship, generosity and giving through. Here is the section of Chapter 8 that we have been looking at: 8:1 And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond...Read More →
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November 8, 2008
Live Blogging: Financial Freedom / Budgeting Seminar with David Briggs
Notes…. The average households under 35 are saving -16% of their income. Financial freedom has nothing to do with our income. The law of guaranteed wealth: Spend less than you make for a long period of time. Man, these powerpoint slides are from around 1980 or something. Someone needs to read Presentation Zen! :) Comparison to others destroys your contentment. You will always be able to find somebody else that has something better than you. In the comparison game we will never be content. “Most people are motivated to success by the envy of our neighbors” – Ecclesiastes What happens if we buy into the philosophy of the culture? Distorted view of what brings happiness As “stuff” increases… Happiness decreases Money and possessions quickly take control of...Read More →
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July 14, 2008
What are Some Practical Examples of What it Means to be Missional?
In the comments of the last post, Jim asked this question: “I’m just beginning to try to help my established congregation turn itself into a missional focus. I really like the notes and presentation, but where I struggle is where your presentation leaves off…what does this look like practically…what are the practices your community is a part of…in what ways is your community different in appearance, look and action than what I see going on in my established non-missional congregation? just looking for some practical, concrete things I can point to as I think about helping my congregation move in another direction.” This is really a great question! I began to make a comment but realized it was really long and figured it may as...Read More →
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July 6, 2008
The Great Sin of the Western Church?
Last week I wrote about the way that my Zambia has effected me and one of the things that came from it is that we’re hosting a new small group in our house on Sunday nights. We were talking in this new group about how easy it is to departmentalize our lives and so easily miss how the gospel actually calls us to live differently from how we are. Thoughts went to things such as the crusades, the church in Nazi Germany, the white church and segregation during the civil rights movement, etc. Here’s the question that came to us. In 200 years, what will be the great sin that our culture has been blind to? The more we talked, the more it seems likely...Read More →
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May 21, 2008
Growing Generosity vs. Meeting the Budget
A friend and I were talking through some of the characteristics of The Well today and he made an observation that was very, very encouraging. He said to me, “I love The Well because our focus is on generosity vs. meeting the budget.” I think this is a big difference that is also very subtle. I think this is seen in my previous post on the stimulus checks and the church that asked for them. The issue here is that this church’s main goal is not to merely increase generosity. Their main goal is to meet their budget and get out of their deficit. It’s not that meeting their budget is contrary to growing generosity. I just don’t think the best way to grow the...Read More →
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May 20, 2008
Give Us Your Economic Stimulus Check?
Genuine question here: Would the following quote I found on a church website inspire you to give? Would you find this helpful? Offensive? Annoying? Just fine? Here’s an idea! Whether you normally tithe or regularly put a check in the offering plate or just put in whatever cash you can from your wallet when you are at church, why don’t you trying tithing on this unexpected gift from the government? If you give the first 10% to God, you will find that the rest of what you have to spend goes even further than you had hoped. You can’t out give God! We could clear our budget deficit if each one of us would tithe on our economic stimulus checks! And … there are those...Read More →
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May 15, 2008
Economic Stimulus or Missional Stimulus?
I read recently on Al Hsu’s blog this post about how our economy depends on us buying things that we don’t need. That’s sad. Really sad. As Al said in his post, “So what happens if people only buy what they actually need? The economy collapses, because it’s based on us all buying unnecessary stuff? So sad.” Now is about the time where many of us will be receiving our “Economic Stimulus Checks.” To me, this is such a strange thing. Now, I am fairly certain that this will work in some ways. There will likely be a lot of flat screen televisions, ipods, iphones and things like this purchased with this money. I guess that isn’t terrible. It’s kinda like finding a roll of...Read More →
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May 12, 2008
Developing Missional Values, Programs, Budgets, Goals
I am continually trying to work out how to better think through and organize our community in a natural and semi-organic way so that we can best live out or mission and our values. I spend a lot of time thinking about this “organizing for mission” concept and as part of my thinking I brainstormed a generalized flow of thought for how we develop programs, ideas and even budgets. In fact, what you will see below came mostly from a conversation around budgets in our leadership team. We were working through some questions such as: What is a good use of the churches finances? What is a poor use of the churches finances, where do we prioritize our finances at the church? How do we...Read More →
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May 9, 2008
Giving is Only as Strong as Your Mission…
From an article on The Ooze: Our house church has been thriving now for over 2 years and I can honestly say I’ve not once had to preach a sermon on tithing or giving, and yet our small gathering gave thousands of dollars to the help the poor in our community last year. In fact, we’re on track to double last year’s amount, and I’ve never had to beg or plead for our members to dig deep or give more. Why is this? What’s the big difference? The simple fact is that our people can tangibly connect every dollar and penny they give with how it directly assists people in need. We keep nothing for ourselves and give all of the money we receive away...Read More →
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May 6, 2008
Personal Financial Accountability In the Church, A Way Forward
For the first three years of our marriage my wife and I didn’t have any outstanding credit card debt. Then the crap hit the fan. Between some unnecessary purchases, not making enough money, hospital bills, and a string of car repairs, we amassed ourselves some significant credit card debt. Over the last two years we’ve been trying to be more conscious of how we spend and how we save. We’re finally starting to show some signs of progress. Of course, our adoption set us back this past year and we’re in the midst of paying that down. But the good news is that this week we finally paid off my outstanding seminary bill and due to the kindness of some friend we made some significant...Read More →
