Financial First Aid - Christianity Today

Some 60 percent of Americans spend more annually than their income, according to Newsweek (4/27/01). U.S. consumers are a combined $7.3 trillion in debt.

Credit cards, unpaid bills, bankruptcy, and stress over financial mismanagement directly affect churches. And not just by lowering giving. Poor stewardship hurts the body financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

How can churches help relieve that burden? Here’s what five churches are doing.

Making Sense of Mammon

Money is a deeply spiritual issue, and lasting change must occur from the inside out.

Good Sense is a year-round ministry with three components—teaching, training, and a support system built of both small group and one-on-one counsel. We help people understand that materialism and Christianity are both theologies that vie for their allegiance. While materialism’s highest value is possession, Christianity stresses stewardship of God’s possessions. The foundational principle is that we do not own our “stuff,” but rather God entrusts it to us to serve as his trustees.

Our goal is not just reordering people’s finances. Our goal is spiritual renewal as people are released from the demands of materialism to the blessings of godly stewardship. That goal is for everyone, not just people in financial difficulty.

After accepting Christ, Charlie was told the budget course should be the next step in his Christian walk. Charlie was insulted! He was a successful, certified financial planner. But in obedience, Charlie went.

He and wife began tracking their spending for the first time and were appalled at how much they spent on unimportant things. In time, they readjusted their spending to allow Charlie’s wife to leave her high-pressure job downtown and begin working for a Christian firm nearer their home. Without her commute, they began to have breakfast together and their relationship grew. Charlie now testifies that learning how to live within godly principles of stewardship improved his finances, his marriage, his character, and his life.

Dick Towner, executive director ofGood Sense Stewardship MovementWillow Creek Community Church,South Barrington, Illinois

Poor Helping the Poor

The median income in our county is 31 percent below the state average; 38 percent of the area households make less than $15,000 per year. Many are immersed in poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, and hopelessness.

We felt called to reach out “to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood” (Matt. 10:6, The Message). But what could our small church of 75 people do? God led us to partner with three other ministries.

When people come to us with immediate needs, through a partnership with Salvation Army, we now provide the volunteers while Salvation Army provides the funds for food bags, gasoline, prescription drugs, and emergency housing.

Once immediate needs are cared for, we offer people an opportunity to take classes on finding financial freedom and to be teamed with a personal financial coach. A Michigan-based ministry called New Focus provided our volunteers with the materials and training needed to lead the classes and serve as coaches.

Finally, for people who have been through the New Focus classes and have become credit worthy, we partner with our denominational leadership and a ministry called Vision 21 to find them affordable housing. We seek abandoned properties in the community, and Vision 21 works with existing federal, state, and city programs to help people purchase the land and build a home on it. Each participant has moved into a new home (in California, no less!) with a mortgage under $100,000.

Five families have been through all three steps of our ministry, none of which we could have done on our own.

Richard Bean, pastorClearlake Church of the Nazarene,Clearlake, California

Debt Free in 2003

Five years ago the Lord moved me by the number of Wednesday night prayer requests for relief from debt. People were in bondage, and God wanted to set them free.

So I asked the financial planners in the congregation how to best counsel people in debt. In 1998 I collected their advice and preached four practical sermons on how to get out of debt. I challenged the church to be “debt free in 2003.”

The sermons instructed people to list their bills from greatest to smallest. Then, pay the smallest. Next month, apply that same amount of money to the next smallest debt, and so on up the list.

At that same time, we launched “Debt Free” Sunday school classes, which run quarterly, giving people further training and accountability.

To demonstrate our commitment to eliminating debt, we asked people to give us a list of their outstanding bills. The first Sunday of every month, we draw a name and pay the bills of one family, up to $3,000. We also held a double tithe Sunday, and the church paid off its mortgage.

As God has freed people from their debts, they suddenly had extra income. So we began unexpected ministries—150 clubs that select and make investments together, home ownership seminars, and even a small business exposition.

Three years into the five-year campaign, I re-preached those four sermons. Today, roughly 35 percent of the church is either debt free, or on their way.

James T. Meeks, pastorSalem Baptist ChurchChicago, Illinois

Cooperative Coaching

Covenant Presbyterian Church has long emphasized benevolence. But we realized that we were giving “Band-Aids” for financial pain, but little true healing happened.

Through a ministry called New Focus, we made a difficult break from being a hand-out program to a ministry that sought changed lives.

We also decided to extend the outreach of our ministry by partnering with Harvest Chapel, a small, downtown church that serves low-income families. We offered our trained volunteers and finances to help Harvest Chapel meet the needs of those in their congregation. We also helped them purchase and renovate a building to house their minstries.

“It has been amazing,” says Tom Camp, pastor of Harvest Chapel, “to see these two fellowships from different denominations and socio-economic backgrounds come together, united in Christ to minister to the whole person.”

The key to our ministry’s success is personal financial coaching. During an 11-week class, each family unit is

assigned a co-coaching team (one veteran and one in training) to confidentially discuss debts, choices, and goals. Time with the coach team is allotted during each weekly session, but many coaches contact their families during the week to encourage them. Our coaches provide the hope, support, and accountability people need to make lasting change.

After five years of this ministry at Harvest Chapel, we feel that God is leading us to coordinate other churches in our community. We have invited leaders from more than 50 area churches to join us in this effective ministry.

Janie Gruen, New Focus CoordinatorCovenant Presbyterian ChurchWest Lafayette, Indiana

Living Room Lessons

Paul Hughes is an experienced financial advisor by day. At night he opens his home as a comfortable place for friends to gather and talk about an uncomfortable subject—money.

Paul is one of several small group leaders who lead a 12-week course sponsored by Crown Financial Ministries. Nationally, Crown classes boast an average $30,000 in reduced debt per participant, $7,000 in increased savings, and an increase in giving from 4 percent of income to 8 percent.

After looking at several different programs to help people with money management, we chose Crown because it enables participants to face their challenges with the encouragement and accountability of peers in similar situations.

“One couple confessed that they really wanted a new couch,” relates Paul. “The husband didn’t think they needed one, but the wife insisted. When we talked about it at group, we all identified with the struggle between wants and needs.

“After discussion, each couple in the group decided to forgo one ‘want’ and instead buy furniture for missionaries. Everyone felt better knowing we had spent our money wisely and more in line with biblical principles.”

Richard Kidd, pastorKempsville Presbyterian ChurchVirginia Beach, Virginia