to be continued
confession: last thursday was simply a recovery day. i did nothing, but worked on my message for sunday. it was sorely needed with the week full of distractions. there were a few distractions that day, but none worth noting. so, i skip to friday.
friday, liz and i decided to make all of the changes necessary to go to a "cash-only" financial plan. while we've never had credit card debt and paid our balance every month, we still weren't being the best stewards of our money. God's blessed us tremendously, and we want to make sure that we don't want to unknowingly squander any of it. this month, we started dictated where every penny is spent and all monies are accounted for in our spending. without debt, this will allow us to save more and give more. part of the reason for this household decision is the teaching of dave ramsey. his course, financial peace university, is being taught by our financial pastor, pat jarvis. pat's got it going on and is right in his sweet spot with this course and with his personal counseling sessions. his passion is contagious and it's spilled into most of our staff and certainly it's spilled into me. he and i will be attending a session in the fall that will teach us how to lead our church to be the best stewards of God's money at The Vine. for the first time in my life in church, i feel 100% confident that we're actually teaching stewardship and that when we have a "stewardship" campaign, it will be truly "stewardship." therefore, it actually teaches people how to handle their money. ultimately, i'd love to see the end result being people who are entrusted with a lot b/c they were faithful with a little. part of that obviously includes generosity to God and others. i recently discovered that if every Christian tithed, tomorrow the Body of Jesus Christ could end world hunger. however, less than 4% of "evangelical" Christians tithe. you know why most of them don't tithe? it's not b/c they don't want to, it's b/c they overspend on things they can't afford. there's so much debt that God gets the crumbs. God never wants the crumbs, he wants the first-fruits from the top. people need to stop robbing God, but they've also got to stop robbing themselves too! anyway, i'll stop preaching. if we can teach our church how to manage their money, we'll be able to do more than anyone could ever expect or imagine!
need to confess?
I said...I teach fpu at our church. One more reason why we're your favorite people on the planet. he he
Dave for President. (Ramsey that is...no offense Walters!) (Comment this)