Tag Archives: stewardship

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The Plundering of My Possessions

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Abba Macacrius, while he was in Egypt, discovered a man who own a beast of burden engaged in plundering Macarius’ goods. So he came up to the thief as if he was a stranger and he helped him to load the animal. He saw him off in great peace of soul saying, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) -From Geez Magazine

Okay, so most folks would say he’s nuts. Yet, we also say God uses all things and everything, and if he can use a donkey he can use a thief. We don’t say the rich young ruler who decided not to give everything to follow Jesus was nuts, we usually just say he was in a tough spot, had to make a hard decision. My take, the monk has got a whole lot more sense then the nutty ruler.

And so I want to bring myself to this view of possessions. I don’t think it’s a bad place to be in. In fact I think if we are really going to be in a place that we are ready to leave everything and follow Christ, then we all better start working on this letting go of our possessions now.

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Random Scraps: It’s not about the Money

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Note: Okay, so I’m going through my old drafts of posts I started but never finished. I feel like I’m so removed from when I first wrote them that it wouldn’t make sense to complete them, but they are interesting enough that they might create some conversation, so I’m putting them up.

Financial clarification #1: It’s not about the money
I felt like it is important for me to address two points that were brought up by readers as to what they understood me to be advocating for: the pursuit of not having money and Poverty as righteousness.
I realize that I might come across as advocating for these two things because what I AM advocating for is so radically different then what are culture presents to us. In a culture that is so focused on the accumulation of wealth a statement like “give freely” comes across as odd and as an extreme. In a culture that says your lifestyle should be grand regardless of income level a statement about living on what you need rather then what you want seems rather backwards.
I know we are trying to talk about finances here, but do me a favor for a moment and forget money exist at all. No such thing as money. My points are still the same. Going to a college like Wheaton makes it difficult for you to question that type of lifestyle since you and so many other “Christians” at the college are living it. Hoarding your possessions is not what Christ calls us to, rather to give freely.

On Clothes.
I never felt too poor to afford something, but I knew somethings where just too expensive. Let’s use the example of clothes. You might find this funny, but in middle school and half of high school I was all about name brands. I wanted the nike swoosh on my shoes and my t-shirt. Here’s how my mom handled clothes. We would look in the closet at the beginning of the school year and decided if and how many jeans, shirts, and shorts I needed. Then she would allot me some money for each item (it was about $15 for jeans, $5 for a shirt, and $10 for shorts). If I wanted something that cost more then that I had to dig out my allowance, babysitting and lawn mowing money and pay for the additional cost.

Jesus does say the Poor are blessed with the Kingdom, that’s at least worth pondering.

There was some interesting thoughts and issues brought up in the comments on two previous post: Your Problem with Giving is Probably you, and A Major Flaw of Wheaton College.

I felt these two thoughts where important to address in our Finance lessons so here is…
Financial Lesson #3: Money is simply a mean’s of trade

One thing my parent’s did a good job instilling in me just by example, was that money wasn’t really a big deal. My dad has switched jobs a lot, and my mom has worked varying amounts (sometimes full-time other times half-time) throughout my life. Never did I feel like there was a correlation between their work and how much money they working making and how well off we were. I never felt poor, I never felt rich. You see, money wasn’t that important, what dictated our lifestyle was our values. My first real job was at Pizza Hut. Before that I had picked up bunches of odd jobs through my dad (he owned a temporary employment service), and I enjoyed that cause they were simple jobs and they usually paid well. But the summer after my sophomore year my dad told me I had to go out and get a job myself. Why? It wasn’t to make more money, it was to learn to go out on my own, it was about values. Money isn’t that important, what should dictate our lives is our values. If God had “blessed” my parent’s as billionaires my dad would have still made me go out and find a job on my own.

I don’t know if that helps to give a little perspective of where I think some of my mindset comes from. The two comments I want to address are: “a person’s goal becomes to not have money” and “poverty is righteousness”
I am NOT advocating for either of these. I think the reason both of these commenters have come to these interpretations of what I have been saying is because money was misinterpreted as being a high priority. Here’s what I mean.
When I talk about Wheaton College and how expensive everything is I don’t mean to focus on the money. I mean to say we are like the Rich Man with the beggar Lazarus outside our gate. It is not about the money it is about our value that God does not call us to store up wealth, he calls us to care for the needs of others.

I would be silly to advocate for “poverty is righteousness.”

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Maybe It was Hypocritical of Me to Finish College

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    I was hesitant to go to college at first. It’s a lot of money for a piece of paper.  diplomaAs Will Hunting would say, “you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you coulda’ picked up for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.” For a while it seemed to me that trusting in pieces of paper was a lack of faith on my part; not trusting in God’s provision for me.  Eventually I came to the conclusion that I had been afforded the opportunity to go to college, an opportunity the majority of the world could only dream of. In this world a degree would give me the opportunity to play a role that could have a positive impact on a great many people, and so I decided to go to college.

Once at college though, I continued to question the value of a college degree, not just for myself, but for others too. It seemed like there where a lot of women that were at college in hopes of meeting the man of their dreams and then becoming homemakers for the rest of their lives (Honestly, this was probably more the stereotype then it was a reality). I think being a homemaker is a wonderful decision, but it does make me question the spending of thousands of dollars for a piece of paper. I’m not saying folks shouldn’t learn and educate themselves, but you could easily audit all the classes for pennies in comparison. I was already questioning the paper, and so it was easy for me to point the finger at folk’s getting bachelors and masters without any real desire to utilize that resource.

And then there is me.  I don’t really need the degree that I have. No doubt the education has been valuable, and I’ve probably had more job opportunity and security because of it, but I still question it.  I’m also at a place now where I never plan on moving up any sort of corporate ladder, or play any role where a degree will give me some kind of upper hand. From now on the value of all that money to pay for this expensive piece of paper will be to bolster my own pride and ego whenever I have the opportunity to say that I’m a college graduate (Wheaton College).

I can’t help but acknowledge the evidence that my choice to go to college has benefited me primarily in being more dependent on my own security rather then God, and also to bolster my own ego. That sure sounds like a hypocrite.

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TerraPass and a mission to reduce my emissions

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(Writing that title suddenly reminded me I have to get our yearly emissions test done)

I just bought a TerraPass.


I wanted to wait till the end of this year to calculate how much gas we used and calculate how much CO2 we’ve emitted.
Our nice little Honda gave us an average of 43mpg over 9,600 miles this year.
That calculates to:

Fuel use:
223 gallons per year

Emissions:
4,363 lbs CO2 per year

A TerraPass is basically a donation to fund clean energy initiatives in the amount that offsets the amount of emissions our car produced.

From TerraPass:

How does TerraPass work?

A Road TerraPass is a decal you place on your car showing that you have sponsored a clean energy project that balances out the environmental impact of your driving.

TerraPass funds clean energy from sources like wind farms, methane capture facilities, and more.

By replacing energy from fossil fuels with clean energy, TerraPass reduces carbon dioxide emissions. These reductions balance the emissions from your car.

TerraPass is audited by the non-profit Center for Resource Solutions to verify the impact of our clean energy investments.

Now, getting a TerraPass doesn’t mean I can just drive around where ever we want to. Mindy and I discussed the goal of reducing the amount of miles we drive over the course of the year as well.
It’s surprising that we drove 9600 miles this year, which averages to nearly 26 miles a day. The large amount of those miles come from trips home to visit family, but it ends up adding up. I’d love to reduce our driving by 20%, but that might end up being too ambitious. That would be 7680 miles or 640 miles a month. We’ll see what happens.

For those in big cities I’d strongly recommend looking into Car Sharing Programs.

P.S. I’m not sharing all this with you cause I’m “into it” or cause “it’s my thing.” I’m sharing it because I’ve recognized that my lifestyle is unsustainable and is thus not being a faithful steward of God’s green earth. I just want to share with you how I’m trying to do that.

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Recycling is Biblical (part 2)

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This is a follow up to my intro in part 1 (which according to my friend Josh, sounded grouchy).

If someone is hoping I’m going to pull out the verse in Habbakuk 13:8 that says, “Any container that can be reused or returned to it’s natural form should. The punishment for not doing so is death,” I’m sorry to disappoint you but that’s not the verse I’m preaching on today.

I’d rather pull a few phrases of Paul, “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial,” and “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God,” and finally, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”

First of all I want to point out that my desire to argue that Recycling is Biblical does not come from a point of condemning those who do not currently recycle. We are not bound by the law anymore and therefore my goal is not to place this as the 11th commandment, but rather to simply argue that it is worth considering recycling as opposed to not recycling as the more “Christ-like” thing to do. When Paul says “Everything is permissible for me,” he is exclaiming the fact that we don’t live under the law, but then he points out it is not all beneficial. In light of that I’ll ask, what is better for you and your great grand children, recycling or not?

Whatever you do, you are to do it for the glory of God. Now, you well know that that does not mean that we are to lie and cheat to the glory of God. There are some things that given the option (between lying and telling the truth) one is clearly not as glorifying, or not glorifying at all. Currently, as it relates to recyclable products in your home, there are two options. You have the opportunity to recycle those items, contributing to a more sustainable world, and not recycling. You’ve got taking care of God’s green earth (recycling, composting, using less trash and less gas, gardening, etc) and then you take not doing those things (draining resources, creating tons of trash, etc). I’m not sure it’s too difficult to argue that one is more God glorifying then the other.

And, last but not least, you have your weaker brother here. There is no law binding you to recycling. There was no law keeping Paul from eating meat. But Paul was willing to sacrifice the exercise of his freedom, so that he did not become a stumbling block for his weaker brother who felt recycling was so important it was almost a sin not to do it. One might choose to recycle, not because they are selfish, nor because they have been compelled by the evidence of the benefits of recycling, nor because of the Scriptures, but simply because they see the trauma it causes their brother in Christ when they don’t recycle.

-your weaker brother

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I’m not “Saving Money on Gas”

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It occured to me the other day when we were driving in the car with the three year old and talking about biking and driving and “saving” gas that I’ve still been buying into this lie.
A while ago I realized how ridiculous it is to come home from a shopping trip and say I “Saved $143.52 today!” The truth is a spent a bunch of money, regardless of how on sale the item I purchased was. That was step one in my reality check.
Today I realized, biking to work doesn’t “save gas” it rather keeps gas from being used that doesn’t need to be used. In the same way, when I choose not to eat red meat (which I grew up not eating), I don’t walk around saying, “I’m saved a pig’s leg and a cow today!”

Very little in my life are necessities, and this is probably true for you as well. I think we can probably make a case for our “need” to go to our job and/or school, and therefore I can understand a “need” to drive to those locations if they aren’t in walking or biking distance.
What I’ve realized though, is I’ve been hoping in my car for far too many “wants.” If using too much gas is a problem, then I need to work on changing my lifestyle and my choices.

That’s I think one of the reasons I find this place the MinusCarProject so inspiring. Here’s the mission statement:

The MinusCar Project exists because I believe people that think that the globe is warming because of human activity, specifically carbon emitting human activity, might be right. Because I think they might be right, I think humans need to change. And because I think humans need to change, I think I need to change.

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Recycling is Biblical (part 1)

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Earlier this week I sent an email out to some friends informing them of the new recycling policies in Nashville.

At the end of the letter I went out on a limb and threw in a statement saying that it’s “Biblical” to recycle. Well, I think it took a few people back and rubbed them the wrong way or something. So, I’ve got to give some explanation.

I think this will only be two parts, but no guarantees.

First of all, with any issue we address as Christians, we need to stop beginning our thought process from a societal worldview. What I mean by that is that the society we live in views the world a certain way and when we look at the Bible and try and consider the most “Christian” thing to do, we must try our hardest to begin thinking about it from a clean slate rather then the already established worldview.
It’s interesting that when I say “recycling is Biblical” that the burden of proof is on me to prove that it is indeed supported by the Bible. If we are going to step back and then we need to consider how Biblical NOT recycling is.
I’ll write more in part 2 about why I think particularly Recycling is a good thing to do and try and support environmental stewardship as a Biblical step. However, for now I think we need to start seriously considering many of the actions in our lives.

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Setting the record straight about Nashville Recycling

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There’s a terrible myth, an urban legend, a horrid lie that has been traveling around the Nashville community concerning recycling. It appears there might be tiny trolls running around putting outdated stickers on Curby’s, whispering in people’s ears when they are sleeping, making prank phone calls and handing out flyers to spread this information.

It must be stopped!


Here’s the truth about your Curby:
you can recycle ALL PLASTICS

any kind of clean, dry paper: cardboard, paperboard (cereal boxes, freezer boxes, and 12-pack soft drink boxes, but not pizza boxes), paper bags, office paper, envelopes, junk mail, catalogs, magazines and phone books.
-aluminum cans and metal food cans (remember that some materials may sit in your cart for a month, so please rinse cans first).
-all plastic bottles.

The one thing you shouldn’t put in there is glass.

I’m not making this stuff up, this is straight from METRO’S recycling website!

Also, while your crusing around metro’s site,
check out the sweet composting bins they are selling.

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“It’s a Small World After All” and Stolen Scooters

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Mindy never had a chance to see the cute, little red scooter I bought for her to use as her primary mode of transportation. A few nights before Mindy was to come back from Minnesota the little red scooter was stolen from next to the front steps of our new home.
I should have expected something like this would happen, mainly because for the last three years now my main mode of transportation was passed on unwillingly to someone else (my bike the last two years, Mindy’s scooter last week) sometime in the fall. I did not expect it to happen simply because the area that we live in happens to be a more low-income neighborhood.

I can easily see how having something stolen so quickly after having moved into a new neighborhood could strike some hestitation or discouragement in a new resident. It was fairly discouraging for me that this gift for Mindy was never going to be given, and discouraging because we need to reconsider how Mindy is going to get to school. Having something stolen is never a comfortable thing, it feels like a violation of ones personal space, it is often an inconvenience, and it further exhausts ones resources

But I think the over all feeling I get from the stolen scooter is best summed up in the lines of a famous song you might all know from a magical boat ride:

It’s a world of laughter
A world of tears
It’s a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There’s so much that we share
That it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small world after all

This might need some explanation. I think the problem often with our choice of location, is that we consistently choose to isolate ourselves from anything and anyone we might consider dangerous. We, regardless of our religious affiliation, choose the safest and most life prolonging routes. If it’s a small world, I’m sure is heck going to do my best to keep myself in the safest part of it. It’s a small world, but in looking out for number one I’m gonna maximize the hopes and laughter, and leave the tears and fears to somebody else. Stolen scooters break that way of thinking.

I can’t help but thinking that I had a part in shaping the life of that person that came by in the middle of the night to take that scooter. I’m convicted with the reality that I have some responsibility in the stealing of that scooter. I know that sounds weird and backwards and wrong, but there is some truth to it I think.

When students in my city aren’t receiving a quality education I have some responsiblity in that. We tend to worry only about our own children and their well being, but as Dr. King once said, “injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.”
A scooter was stolen the other night, someone is being abused, children aren’t receiving a fair education, men are being discriminated against, teens are being hooked on cigarettes, children are working in sweatshops, and the stories continue.

If we, who come from middle and upper class communities, selfishly worry about only the needs and issues that affect us and our surrounding commmunity, we are not doing what we should be doing.

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Buying “Ethical” Shoes.

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UPDATE: I’ve answered my own question in this post Fair Trade Footwear

As my title might hint at, I’m a follower. I’ve meant to get into that for sometime (today won’t be that day), but here is a part of this following thing.

If I’m really a follower of Christ. If I dare to label myself with that term, then I had best be ready to put it into practice. And, I don’t mean into practice every Sunday, or specifically by reading a Bible, saying a prayer or leaving a tract on a table. What I mean is the idea that everything I do should be considered in light of this belief system. It’s no different then someone who holds to any other belief system. If you are to be real and honest about what your beliefs are, and you truly believe them, then everything you do should be filtered through that.

I think that’s what made it so pressing to me to bring up the issue of Real Estate as we were looking at houses and trying to consider what that means and how we navigate that area as Christians. It’s sad, but I’ve never heard a Bible Study or Sunday sermon about the ethics of Real Estate, yet I know that even in my current church, tons of people are buying houses, or considering buying. I see conversations about these things as essential to our faith, much more then an abstract, feel-good verse reading.

This brings me to the topic at hand: Shoes. My current pair are on their way out. My sandals died about a month ago now, so I’m lacking in the “appropriate to wear to work” category of footwear. What I need is another pair of athletic shoes, just your basic cross-trainers or running shoes. But as with any purchase, I want to consider an ethical approach. It really is a WWJD situation (What Would Jesus Do?).

There is a fair trade running shoe shop, but they charge about $200 for a pair! I find it hard to keep within my values of good stewardship for a purchase like that. Then there is always buying slightly used from Goodwill or eBay, something my mom would highly frown upon. Mom wouldn’t like it because it conflicts with the value of taking care of my body (it’s not my own, it was bought with a price). Then there is always the New Balance route, the hip, cool, stylish, and the closest-big-business-but-still-supposedly-sweatshop-free-or-at-least-trying-to brand of shoe out there (I think Timberland is a close second). That doesn’t sit well with my avoid injustice or even the possibility of injustice if at all possible value.

So, what’s a guy to do?