Monthly Archives: October 2007

YouTubesday

Video: Thoughts on Money

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It’s YouTubesday again, which means will look at some videos. I’ve put five videos on the player below, all related to finances and the church. Here’s a quick rundown of what you have to watch below.

  1. Nooma – RICH 01:29
    To most people in the world, what we have would be more than enough. Maybe what we have is enough.
  2. Eight Dollar Hot Dog 04:25
    Are God’s children caring for one another? Pastor and author Chris Seay discusses the tension between eight dollar hot dogs and children dying every fifteen seconds because they lack access to clean water. Are God’s children caring for one another? [h.t. joe and people]
  3. THINK OF ME 04:04
    A movie that was presented by Franis Chan and his church Cornerstone. This is the reason they decided against a multi-million dollar church building to instead build an out-door amphitheater for church. The rest of the money was given to help feed the poor around the world. UNBELIEVABLE! [h.t. shlog and Jesusland]
  4. The African Dream: Ending Extreme Poverty 06:54
    This 7-minute short serves to promote awareness on Poverty in Africa – an issue of extreme importance that does not receive the mu This 7-minute short serves to promote awareness on Poverty in Africa – an issue of extreme importance that does not receive the much needed attention it deserves.
  5. Consumerism! The Musical 05:01
    A satire and celebration of the culture we live in.

Money & Stewardship

Financial Straight Talk: Most of Us Have Money

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The brief discussion last week about paying off a home mortgage quickly, has me realizing we need to talk a little bit about finances here. I’ve talked finances many times before and I think now would be a good time to start the discussion up again, both to articulate my views and to encourage discussion about them.

From what I can tell the readers of this blog come from a lot of backgrounds, stages of life, income levels, etc. So, there isn’t a great way to address all of our situations at once. That being the case, I’m just going to go ahead and use some numbers I found on wikipedia for average household incomes. We’ll use $46,326 as the average annual household income. I know many make less then this, and a few make more then this, but we’ll stick with it for the time being, because I think most reading this blog will be making at least that much as a household in the near future if they are not currently already.

I’m not sure how much of my own financial situation I’ll disclose on this blog yet, a discussion and decision still to be made, but I will tell you some of my thoughts on spending, resources, budgets, etc. And the first thing I want to address is this: Most of Us (‘us’ being those who have the technology access to be reading this blog) have money.

You might not have a lot of money coming in (income), or you might have a lot of it already tied up in debts, but you have money. According to Barna [via Boyd], Christians spend 97% of their income on themselves. And that’s not based on how much one makes. We tend to spend what we make, in other words, our cost of living usually matches our income (this is a problem). As a individual follower of Christ, or as a group, or as Christians in general, our ethic on finances and budget should not be to simply be smart spenders of our money, but to use our resources for good in the world. An ‘average’ church of say 10 family units (households from the previous statistic) has roughly $463,260 of income flowing through it. There are necessities, like feeding, clothing and sheltering those in the church, as well as some necessary expenses to remain employed at the jobs that create those incomes, but all in all, there could be a heck of a lot of money being used for good in the world.

The big question is: how much do we ‘need’ to live on. With all the potential for good with our resources, what do we ‘need’?

Blog

On the road again…

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Well, it looks like we’ll be on the road for the next nine days or so. Some exciting stuff, visiting friends and family, attending the CCDA conference and taking one last getaway before we start ‘real’ life up here in Minneapolis. I’m not going to try and post every day while I’m gone, though if I have a chance I’ll put something up. I’m really enjoying the housing conversations and I’m thinking about it quite a bit.

Look forward to chatting more when I get back about October 14th.

p.s.  It’s my birthday on October 7th. The thing I like most for people to do on my birthday is to do something on behalf of me. If I’ve had any sort of impact or influence on you at all, then step out of your box and do something radical in that regard, and if you want, tell me about it. Give away something, bike to work, write a letter, stop shopping, pay off your mortgage, or just smile.

considering church

The Great House Adventure

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Thanks for all the feedback on the last couple house posts everybody! I’m realizing there are quite a few more interested parties then I originally realized. I mentioned earlier that one of the reasons we are excited about doing this, and taking seriously paying off our debt, is that we want to have an opportunity to serve as an example to others of taking debt seriously and paying things off. The ultimate goal for us, is to live on only what we need (more discussion here later) and to continue to even after we’ve paid off all our debt. I’m excited to see the amazing good that can be done with our resources once we are no longer enslaved to our lenders.

This is going to be a relatively short post because I need your opinions mostly. I’ve thought about this before a little, but haven’t come to any serious conclusions. Here’s my question. As a Christian, how should we properly discuss our finances? On one hand I’d love to be totally transparent about it all, because I think our ‘taboo’ nature about finances is what gets many of us in a heap of trouble (and as Aaron said, we want the church to be open about their finances, we should too, we are the church after all). On the other hand, there’s that whole, don’t let your left hand know what your right is doing, etc. Thus the dilemma about how to discuss our finances, paying off debt, giving, setting an example, and still honoring God in it all. So, the question:

What is the appropriate way for me to follow Christ and discuss my finances with the general public (i.e. on this blog)? 

asides

Impotent Church

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I suspect the American Church has been so divided, so influenced by American greed and thus so impotent for so long, most can’t even imagine it being otherwise. Related to this, we’ve relinquished so much responsibility for caring for the poor to the government for so long, most American Christians can’t picture the Church itself, without the aid of government, taking responsibility for this. –Greg Boyd

Money & Stewardship

Paying Off Our Mortgage in Five Years

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We plan on paying off our mortgage in no more then five years (possibly a little more if you include school loans). This is not something that is encouraged or supported in our debt-driven culture. Even with hundred’s of debt relief books and websites out there, I’ve rarely, if ever, heard encouragement to pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible. People always seem to speak of a house as an ‘investment’ and ‘equity,’ rather then acknowledging that it is also debt.

We’ve decided to purchase a home and we’ve decided to be diligent in paying off our mortgage for that home as quickly as possible. Here are some of the reasons.

  • We don’t want to have any debt. For many, taking a loan is a necessary evil to purchase a home (and go to college), but that doesn’t mean we should accept it as good. We plan on paying off our home quickly, because until we do we will be paying interest to the bank and we will have tied much of our income into our loan.
  •  We want to serve as an example of fiscal responsibility. With so few examples and encouragement to pay off your mortgage, I think few people think it’s important or even worthwhile.  I think incredible good could be done with the financial resources we would have available if we did not need to constantly use our income to pay the interest on a house payment.
  • On the practical side of things, purchasing a home now will help us invest our ‘shelter’ money into paying off a mortgage, rather than paying for rent somewhere. We considered saving up the money for a home first, but realized that it might be wiser at this stage to take a loan and pay it off quickly than saving up to pay cash.

Again, this is just a few of the reasons. The goal was to address the financial and ‘mortgage’ side of things and try and explain how what we are choosing does not necessarily fit the ‘traditional’ way of home ownership.

This is also the stage where I would really really appreciate some feedback. Those who own homes might have insight’s I haven’t considered. Those who don’t are in a good place to challenge me on some of what I’ve shared. I think a deeper dialog on this topic would be really valuable. What are your thoughts?

asides

Dorothy Day on War

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War is deviltry. It calls for sacrifices indeed, but not at the altar of love. “Greater love hath no man than this.” A great blasphemy this, to use Christ’s words in connection with men going to war. They go because they are drafted, because they are afraid of what their neighbors will say, because the pay is good, because the benefits accruing afterward (the G.I. Bill of Rights) are great. And they are told by the press and the pulpit that they are going because they love their fellows, and they are filled with a warm glow of self-love. And then they are given their intensive training in how to escape death, how to kill. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his brothers, and the Russians are our brothers, the Negro is our brother, the Japanese are our brothers, the Germans, the Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Jews, the Arabs.
. . .
So let’s not have any more talk about God and country. The battle is for this world, for the possessions of this world.

Dorothy Day, “Letter to the Editor,” Commonweal, May 21, 1948. [via]

YouTubesday

Video: Housing Market Meltdown

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part 1

part 2

I think I might dub Tuesdays, ‘YouTubesdays,’ and post a video I’ve found interesting in the recent weeks. Today, I wanted to post some informational video about the current housing market. I couldn’t find anything more engaging and still informative then a basic interview, but I think you might find it interesting.I won’t really get into it here, but this current time period is one of the reason’s we think now is a good time to purchase a home.