Here at The Village we want to change the world. Often, that task becomes overwhelming. Just last week, we talked about the task of caring for creation, and what a mess the world is in. And how overwhelming it can be to think about the environment, and the fact that God made us care-takers of this world. We watched a funny clip from a movie about taking baby steps and we reflected on simple steps we might take as individuals to make a difference in the world.
Our Village Kids Leader, Jess Lucero, introduced Cheri to this great video, called “The
Girl Effect,” which introduces a great idea, that again simplifies a huge concept. It takes this global idea of changing the world, and breaks it down into simple actions that we can do that can affect change, that can build momentum over time, to create large movements of transformation. The point of the video is that a small effort, getting a third world girl the uniform to go to school or money to buy her family a cow to sell milk, can change the whole world if we all take on one girl.
Now, a local church, might take up an offering to provide school uniforms, or to provide teachers in a village; especially for girls in a place where there are only schools for boys. Or someone might buy a cow through the Heifer Project, International, which specializes in getting animals to villages which can produce a sustainable food source, like chickens for eggs, or goats or dairy cows for milk. There is another great project that provides mosquito nets to prevent malaria. Preventing disease spread through mosquitos is a huge life transforming initiative. These nets cost $10 apiece and each one can save a life.
But wait. Here is the problem. There are lots of good places to give, but money is tight.
It’s a bad economy out there. We don’t have much to give. And so these days, especially, our charities, are struggling. Those who depend upon the generosity of others, are hurting even more. Programs are being cut. Shelves at food pantries are bare. People are getting desperate. And why? Because we are afraid. We are afraid we don’t have enough to go around.
Well friends, when Cheri & I get scared, we ask God for help, and we turn to the Bible,
because in the Bible I find stories of other people, who have gone before me, who have gotten scared & turned to God for help in times of trouble. This week in worship we read a story from Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 8:1-7 for those reading along at home.
We find this story about Paul encouraging a new young church in Corinth, a tiny little
new church start, like The Village, in the ancient city of Corinth. The folks in Corinth were more wealthy than the church in Macedonia. Paul was encouraging the folks in Corinth to be generous like the folks in Macedonia. Paul raised up the church in Macedonia as a model. Out of their poverty, they begged for the privilege of sharing in the ministry. Can you imagine poor people begging to help others?
The Macedonians were poor and yet they were generous. They wanted to help others. Research shows that Christians at lower income levels, give more per capita than Christians of higher income levels. Why? Perhaps they understand this concept of living simply and being more generous.
Pastor Adam Hamilton writes: “The more we have, the more we waste.” Cheri found an
envelope with $80 in our living room the other day. Do you think a poor person would ever just leave an envelope with $80 lying around? And not know where it came from? We don’t think we are rich. Really we don’t. But we are rich. Really I think it’s Cheri’s Mom’s. She’s 80. She probably forgot she left it there. But she says she does not remember leaving it there, so it’s ours now.
For Cheri’s sermon we were trying to think of something we are extravagant about in our spending. Cheri and I were eating lunch at Subway the other day. Cheri said, “I need an example.” I said, “Well, we know that the biggest part of our extra spending, our discretionary spending – that stuff that we COULD give up if we had to – goes for eating out and vacations.”
“Yeah,” Cheri said, “I could go on our Quicken account and see how much we spent the past few months on eating out. I think it would be scary.” I quickly tried to change the subject, “how about that US Men’s Soccer Team?”.
As I feared, Cheri went and opened up Quicken, and looked at a couple of random
months. We spent roughly $600 on changing the world and $750 on eating out. We can justify that until we are both blue in the face (e.g. we both work hard at jobs that change the world and are too tired or busy to cook some nights, we have kids with activities to get to, etc). But here is the truth, we are appalled. We don’t want to spend more money going out to eat than we spend on changing the world. That’s the bottom line.
Cheri and I (especially Cheri who does our budget and bills) have worked really hard to
pay off some bad consumer debt that we had racked up, in the past years while she worked 50 hours a week at conference minimum salary to turn another church around. We don’t do a lot of unnecessary shopping. And so when something comes along that we care about, we can make a contribution. Not a huge one, but we can write a check and that feels good. We like to be generous. Cheri likes living more simply so that we can be more generous. But we want to be more generous. And we are appalled that we are spending more on eating out, that we are giving away to change the world.
But I did not know we were doing that, until Cheri decided to take a look. You see, one
of the things we do, when we decide to follow Jesus, is to look at every corner of our lives, and consider whether it lines up with how we want to live as followers of Jesus. Jim Wallis puts it this way about finances, “budgets are moral documents” whether they are for governments, corporations, or people. And we have to confess to you, that we want to live simply so that we can be generous. And eating out so much, that we spend more on eating out, than we can give to organizations like The Village, and Equality Toledo, and the MS Society and whatever else, to change the world – well that just does not cut it for us – as a followers of Jesus.
How about you? The Spirit is asking us, where can we simplify our lives so that we can
live more generously. We think one of the reasons we fail to be generous, is because we are afraid we won’t have enough. Cheri asked Wendell to tell us a story this morning in worship because he told her his story and it’s a great one, of him overcoming his fear, to be generous.
Wendell is a teacher at the University of Toledo. Part of being a professor is that you don’t get paid for three months each summer. You have to save all year to get the money to pay your bills, the mortgage, etc during that time. Wendell found a problem this year. No matter what he did, things got in his way. His parents wanted to come visit and it cost him a great deal of money. He was in the process of refinancing his mortgage to get a lower payment when he was told he would need to bring $2,300 to the closing. His car started having problems. Then another’s need came before him.
A student, Christie, needed help. She is a young mom, with a husband who was hurt. She needed financial help. All Wendell could think of was the fact that he did not have enough to get him through the lean time. He felt too much need for himself. God persisted in his prayer time, each day, calling on him to “bless Christie the way he had been blessed”. Blessed was the last thing Wendell was feeling financially. Finally, Wendell, listened to the voice of God and helped a student in need and in an amount larger than he thought he would have ever given. It was then that the mortgage broker called to say that the numbers he gave Wendell were wrong. He did not need to bring $2,300 to the closing but $300. So, despite the generosity, and because of his conscious effort throughout the year, Wendell helped a person in need, brought his parents to visit, fixed his car, and paid his new mortgage past when he next gets paid.
As you approach your finances, especially in this time of need, make a plan. Make it something that can be chopped up into small steps, the baby steps we talked about last week, and then make it happen. Find your small steps and make them happen. You’ll be surprised as the changes you make, change your world and the rest of the world for the better.
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