Review of “Your Money God’s Way”

Your Money God’s Way deals with the questions of financial stewardship, debt, and savings.  As these issues have become major concerns for our society, then they in turn become major concerns for our churches.  There’s no magic to attending church that protects you from financial concerns.  Sometimes money worries can even be exacerbated by the church when Christians buy into certain horrible myths and thought processes about money.  Rev. Amie Streater looks to correct these “counterfeit claims” by replacing them with “timeless truths.”

 

The book is very strong on practical advice.  Rev. Streater introduces some of various pitfalls in which people find themselves and then offers simple, concrete steps on how to start working your way out.  The church talks a lot about tithing and stewardship.  This book suggests ways to live it.

 

The only potential negative I would offer is you should be sure to know Rev Streater’s target audience before reading.  The people she sees are in situations of financial distress.  While there are some good tips for those simply looking for budgeting advice, most of her rhetoric is focused on those individuals who find themselves in deep debt.  So if that’s not where you find yourself, you may find this book less helpful.

 

I rate Your Money God’s Way 4.5 out of 5 stars.

 

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m reviewing books as part of the BookSneeze program through Thomas Nelson Publishers (http://booksneeze.com/).

Advent Reflection — Second Week

This Second Sunday of Advent we prepare for the coming of Christ.  Isaiah tells of a voice crying out in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord (Isaiah 40:3-5).  There is a lot to be done when the king arrives.  John the baptizer travels and preaches in Judea, preparing hearts for the Messiah with a message of repentance (Mark 1:1-8).  He uses baptism as a sign of the new life that the people are entering.

We prepare for all sorts of things.  As a Boy Scout the motto “Be Prepared” was quickly impressed upon me.  In our daily lives we make lists, carry cell phones, or stock extra supplies in an attempt to be prepared for all eventualities.  It’s good to feel prepared, that we’re ready for what uncertainty may come.

So how do we prepare ourselves as part of Advent?  I remember as a student the season of Advent being so full of tests that I felt I missed most of it until Christmas vacation.  As the busy time of decorating, shopping, and parties fills our time, how do we prepare our own hearts for the Christ child?  How do we slow ourselves down to once again see and hear the wonder of the Advent season?

This week I invite you to spend some time in wonder.  You might find it in silence or in the boisterous laughter of an infant.  Outdoors marveling at the changing of the seasons or inside bundled up next to a crackling fire.  In conversation with a good friend or in a room filled with family.  Or in one of a hundred other ways that is special to you.  As you find wonder this week, think also of this season of Advent.  To prepare your heart for the coming of Emmanuel, God With Us.

Comics and Itinerancy

As I listen to friends talk about comic books and authors, I’m struck by some of the similarities to the Methodist itinerant system.

My friends don’t like particular authors.  Sometimes it’s writing style, dialogue, character development, or something they just can’t quite put their finger on.  They just don’t gel with all authors.  There’s nothing wrong with that; you can’t please everyone after all.  So my friends run into a problem when an author they don’t like is picked to work on a story for a character or team they love.  When this happens, they have two options.

#1) Buy the book anyway.  They tell themselves “I love (Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Alpha Flight, etc) enough that maybe things will be ok.”

#2) Wait until a new author picks up the book.  ”This author is so bad even seeing my favorite character can’t dull the pain.”

Option 2 might surprise you.  If they love that comic title so much, why wouldn’t they buy every issue?  Why would a fan ever consider skipping an issue?

They can do this because they know comic book authors rotate.  With the major labels like Marvel and DC, authors move from title to title.  So often if they’re willing to wait on their favorite title, the author they don’t like will leave and a new one will come.

A similar phenomenon happens in the United Methodist Church.  Since Methodist pastors move around, you can count on them not being at one church forever.  Several years ago Methodist pastors moved like clockwork every 3 years.  The denomination is moving to longer tenures but clergy still move regularly.  What this can mean is that church members who have a problem with the current pastor will leave until a new pastor comes and then return.  (I’m sure this happens in other denominations but I can only write what I know.)

It feels like the same theory as the comic books.  And in some ways it is.  However, there’s one major difference.  Comic book readers can only make their voice heard through sales.  Church members have the opportunity to voice their concerns and try to work out solutions with their pastor.  It’s not a perfect system but it’s certainly better for the health of the church.

Judging

“You’re just unattractive inside.  I really despise you.” Those were some of Serena Williams’s words to the chair umpire during the US Open Final.  The judge made a controversial call at a critical moment of the game.  Emotions were running high.  Did the judge follow the exact letter of the rule?  It would appear so.  Had Stosur not gotten her racket on the ball would any call have been made?  That’s tougher to say.

 

Even with all of that being equal, those are some harsh words from Serena.  It’s a snap judgment, based on one event.  One call and Serena can look into the soul of the umpire?  Why are we so fast to judge?

 

In many cases, they do one thing that we see as a slight and all of a sudden they are among the worst people in the world.  One mis-deed and we consider them worthy of our condemnation.  Or sometimes we just disagree and choose to vilify the other person.  We do it in arguments, debates, politics, etc.  “How can they believe such a thing?  They must be a bad person.”

 

Unfairly, the same thing is being done to Serena.  She gets labeled as hot-headed, angry, mean-spirited etc.  Sports writers and announcers are having a field day going after her.  I worried myself about walking the line where I’m not judging her.  Using her words as a negative example, how much am I adding to the story?

 

We judge people all the time.  I have a confession to make.  I have a strong tendency to judge those that I feel unfairly judge others.  As soon as I hear about someone casting judgment on another, they drop a peg or two in my book.  There’s something there about the log in your own eye but that’s another post.

 

Judgments are easy to make but they are lazy and dangerous.  We forget the complex nature inside each of us that makes us individual.  We forget that we’re all children, all made in God’s image.  We do violence in our hearts, as bad or worse than anything physical.  Violence that cuts into not only the heart and spirit of another, but also our own.  Violence that wounds the heart of the one who made us and loves us.

Unannounced Hiatus

If any of you are still following me, you will have noticed that I haven’t posted in a long time.  Last fall I took a class that required me to blog twice a week, which scratched my writing itch but I did not feel they were appropriate to post here.  Also I was writing my commissioning papers in addition to finishing my final year at Duke Divinity, so needless to say I was writing a lot and none of it for this forum.

I’m also struggling with what it means to have a blog, especially after some of the nastier exchanges I have read recently.  But that will be its own post in short time.

This is just to say, I still exist.  The future of the blog is in some doubt but if you’ve stuck with me this far, we’ll see where it may head together.

Family by Faith

The last week of June I helped lead a middle school mission trip to Atlanta, Georgia.  The youth had the opportunity to see life in a very urban setting, something many of them had never experienced growing up in Denver, North Carolina.  They worked with some distinct populations, including the homeless and the elderly.  I believe everyone on the trip was touched and changed in some way while there, myself especially.

Twice I connected with people I barely knew simply through matters of faith.  The first was Samuel, who I met at one of the churches where we worked.  As far as I could tell, he is not on staff there, just a member who volunteers his time.  We talked about the church and the youth.  He shared some fascinating insights about early Hebrew culture.  As our conversation drew to a close, he called me “brother” and drew me into a bear hug.  Now I’m fairly tall at 6’3” but Samuel enveloped me.  I experienced an amazing feeling of acceptance from this man I had known for all of five minutes.

The second was Braden, one of the interns at the church where we stayed.  I had talked with Braden a few times during the limited free time I had in the evenings but did not know much about him.  The same day I met Samuel I ran into Braden shortly before lights out.  He seemed edgy and distracted, a far cry from the easy-going student I had gotten to know.  As we talked I discovered that his grandmother was in the hospital and the doctors had not given her much time.  I asked if he would like to pray and we stood there in the hall as I offered a short prayer for his grandmother and his family.  At this point the walls crumbled a bit and Braden released some of the emotions he had been carrying.  We didn’t say anything else; no more words we needed.  I hugged him and then moved on to get the youth ready for lights out.

Having both of those experiences in the same day really stood out to me.  I probably won’t have another conversation with either Samuel or Braden.  Yet we shared something that day.  We had an honest connection as family.  Not a family by blood, but one born of water.

Reposted from http://ddsfieldedusa.blogspot.com/

The Joy of Water

One of my responsibilities at Salem has been working with the day camp.  During the summer, the church’s afterschool program becomes a day camp for children in the community.  In order to gain more experience with children’s ministry, I lead a devotional one day a week for the day camp.  With forty to fifty kids signed up, these devotionals require a fair amount of planning, finding something that will speak to the kids within the camp’s weekly themes.  My first one followed a script that a previous intern developed after graduating from Duke, a devotional series that draws on the style of Godly Play.  For the second devotional, however, I was on my own.

The weekly theme was Lake Week.  I settled on a devotional about baptism.  I quickly realized that there was more major concern waiting for me.  Since the majority of the kids are not church members, I could not assume they were all Methodist.  In fact, most aren’t meaning that not all of them have been baptized yet.  So I need to ensure that my message, while staying true to the Methodist beliefs of Salem and myself, would not leave out those from other backgrounds.

I explained baptism in a general manner and then specifically with regards to the United Methodist Church concerning infants, noting that Methodists do baptize older children and adults as well.  The focal point was that in the Bible water is often a sign of God’s love for us.  So when we see a baptism, we recognize that as God loving us.  As I concluded I splashed droplets of water over all the kids.  Their screams of surprise and joy reminded me that God loves us in surprising ways.  What better way to say thank you than with our joy.

Reposted from http://ddsfieldedusa.blogspot.com/

Young Reminder

Sometimes we need to be reminded of what is truly important. I know how easily I get into a groove of doing church work and allow my time to become my job rather than my calling. But God has a way of showing up and reminding me what I am missing.

Last Friday the children hosted a lemonade stand as a fundraiser. In addition to the lemonade, they also sold baked goods, tie-dyed T-shirts, Silly Bands (a collectable new to me but very popular in the church) and painted tiles. Although I was off on Friday, I went down to the church in order to get to know some of the children better.

I was their first customer, so I took the opportunity to browse the tables. I settled on a cup of lemonade, two muffins, and a shirt. As I went to pay, this tile caught my eye. Very familiar words leaped from the marble surface in magnificent gold as I heard the prayer of countless preachers in Goodson Chapel. “May the words of my mouth and thoughts and meditations of each and every heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord our rock and our redeemer” (Ps 19:14).

The tile is now on my desk at the church to remind me from where I draw my support. A valuable lesson from the hand of a child.

Reposted from http://ddsfieldedusa.blogspot.com/

Review of “Tithing”

Money has long been on the “do not discuss” list for dinner conversation.  This makes the topic of tithing, the spiritual practice of giving resources back to God, a tricky topic indeed.  How should we then address and understand this discipline?

Douglas LeBlanc’s Tithing is not a theological treatise on the spiritual discipline.  Rather, LeBlanc shows his journalism roots by interviewing several tithers about their experiences.  This approach offers the reader an opportunity to see the discipline from a number of different perspectives.  Hopefully LeBlanc has made the book more accessible to readers of various faith traditions rather than arguing from his own.  From Episcopal churches and Christian non-profit organizations, to Seventh Day Adventists and a Jewish rabbi, LeBlanc covers a number of viewpoints.

Tithing does a fair job of explaining our need to give.  However, I believe readers should hear a note of caution about the benefits of tithing to the tither.  There are numerous spiritual benefits for generosity and giving.  However, the book suggests that tithers also reap economic benefits.  Believing that giving to God ensures one’s own financial security is a misunderstanding of why people should give.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m reviewing books as part of the BookSneeze program through Thomas Nelson Publishers (http://booksneeze.com/).

Tongues of Fire

Duke Divinity sponsors a field education blog that I am contributing to.  You can find it here (http://ddsfieldedusa.blogspot.com/).  I decided I would cross-post my entries over here as well.

Like most field education students, my first Sunday at Salem United Methodist Church was Pentecost. I really appreciated how the church weaved several aspects of Pentecost into the service. The confirmation students officially joined the church on Sunday. Since we recognize Pentecost as the birth of the church, this makes a lot of sense. But I had not ever really stopped to consider putting the two elements together. I hope the youth recognized the significance of the timing but even if not, I found meaningful.

Part of the Pentecost service incorporated a dance by seven girls in the children and youth program at Salem. They had three banners, some ribbons, and two flags in the color of fire (red, orange, and yellow). The two flags were the most interesting part for me. At the end of the dance, two girls stood in the center aisle and waved the flags overhead. For a period of time the rippling of the flags was all you could hear. The routine gave me a real sense of the freedom and movement of fire which brought alive the story of Pentecost for me. The sight and sound of the flags rippling like tongues of fire above the heads of the congregation offered a glimpse of what that fateful day in Jerusalem might have looked like.

To all those students in field education placements this summer, to all those persons in their congregations, remember this. You can’t bottle the Holy Spirit or control it. It moves free like fire.