I don’t usually completely repost someones writings, but since JesusManifesto is down and might be so indefinitely, I figured Mark wouldn’t mind. But what’s written below is not mine, it’s all Mark Van Steenwyk:

A while back, I listed some alternative economic practices.  Here’s a summary of them (go here for more details).

• Abolish the tithe…
• Care for the poor in your midst…
• Financial accountability groups…
• Spend less than 50% of your church budget on staff, building, and office expenses…
• Support local economies…
• When buying “globally” buy fair trade…
• Minimize waste, reclaim waste…
• Share stuff…
• Devote tax returns to the Kingdom, rather than to that “gotta have” luxury item…
• Donate your best stuff, rather than your worst stuff…
• If possible dump your car and use a combination of foot travel, bike travel, and public transit.

My co-conspirator Josh and I have started using Google docs more and
more for online collaboration.  It is a very synergistic way of
brainstorming-from-afar.  We use it for various ministry lists,
descriptions, and action plans.  And we recently came up with more
economic practices for Jesus followers:

•  Whenever possible, foster a gift economy. 
  This goes beyond just sharing stuff.  Instead, it encourages people to
  give stuff without expectation.  For example, we have a weekly outdoor
  hospitality meal called the “Hospitality Train.”  We load up our bike
  trailers, go set up a solid meal, and feed ourselves, our friends, and
  strangers.  And we have encouraged folks to bring something to give
  away next time.  Our hope is that our free meal will help foster a gift
  culture.  We hope that, someday, a sort of Free Market will grow up
  around this economy.
•  Christians should try to open source all of their intellectual property. 
  Instead of seeing our creations as our property, we should see it as
  belonging to the Body of Christ.  I believe that this is more faithful
  to our theology than assuming that we “need to work within the system.”
  We don’t anymore.  There are TONS of alternatives.  If you REALLY
  believed that your message is from God, then why should you make a
  profit off of it?  There is only one real challenge to this (and I
  believe it is a valid one): you’ll get a wider audience if you publish
  through the mainstream publishing companies or release music through a
  record label, etc.  In this case, we should feel free to use such
  methods, but always fight to make things available for free or cheap as
  we foster a better alternative.
•  Garden with friends and share the bounty. 
•  Supplement your gardening with Community Supported Agriculture.
•  Share housing. Yep…I sound like a hippy.  In some
  places like San Francisco, housing is SO expensive that many
  conventional and normal people share housing in order to afford living
  in a home.  In Minneapolis, housing is cheaper, but it is still
  economically beneficial to share housing.  It frees up money for other
  things, fosters sharing of resources, encourages hospitality, and helps
  us live the way that most people in the world live (and the way folks
  in America lived before the 1940s).
•  Start making and fixing more things yourself.  I
  grew up in rural Minnesota.  I grew up sucking at all those things that
  country kids were supposed to be good at: engine repair, agricultural
  skills, fixing stuff, building stuff, etc.  But compared to most of my
  friends who grew up in the suburbs or the city, I am a master among
  men! When you don’t know how to make stuff or fix stuff, you take
  things for granted.  And when you take your “things” for granted, you
  become wasteful and you begin to take your wealth for granted.  Don’t
  throw away that old chair, FIX IT.  Don’t throw away that rice
  maker…FIX IT.  Don’t throw away that bike, FIX IT! Don’t buy that
  Chinese food…MAKE IT YOURSELF.  Don’t go out and buy that $300
  bookshelf…MAKE ONE! Making bookshelves is the easiest thing in the
  world.  Trust me.
•  If you can’t make it or fix it, buy it used. I
  know it looks crappier than something new.  But you’re spoiled and
  should deal with it.  Stop caring about shiny appearances and take some
  pride in the fact that your simpler living frees resources for better
  things.  
•  Instead of investing in your future, invest in the futures of others through micro-financing. Liberating Waste
•  Reclaim Christmas as a celebration of Christ, rather than a
  celebration of affluence.  Celebrate a “Buy Nothing Christmas” or give
  away stuff at Christmas. 

If you have some that you’d like to add, you can comment here or visit our Facebook group page.

“Gentrification: The displacement of poor women and people of color. The raising of rents and eradification of a single, poor and working-class women from neighborhoods once considered unsavory by people who didn’t live there. The demolition of housing projects. A money-driven process in which landowners and developers push people (in this case, many of them single mothers) out of their homes without thinking about where they will go. Gentrification is a premeditated process in which an imaginary bleach is poured onto a community and the only remaining color left in that community is white…”
—Taigi Smith, “What Happens When Your Hood is the Last Stop on the White Flight Express?” from the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism.

Racialicious does a fascinating piece on gentrification which every person in any way connected with gentrification, whether your living in a gentrified, gentrifying, might be gentrified in the future neighborhood, or no someone who does, should read this piece.

Link: The Gentrification Shuffle.