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Problems with Work

May 11, 2016 by Leave a Comment

W*RK – It’s Not Just Anther Four-Letter Word
Problems with Work: Fruitless, Selfless, Pointless, Idols
May 8, 2016
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Any moms in the house? Any moms ever experience problems with making the work of being a mom mix with the work you get paid for? When it comes to moms, I think this is what moms want to do:

momswant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what your kids want you to do:

kidswant
 

 

 

 

 

This is what your husband wants you to do:
husbandswant

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what you really do:
momsdo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day!

Today we’re continuing a series called W*RK: It’s Not Just Another Four-Letter Word. Somehow it seems appropriate to explore this topic on Mother’s Day. But the timing was actually more of a coincidence. And yet there are a lot of tedious things that moms do in their work, just like the tedious things we all have to do in our work. I asked my friends on Facebook what was the most tedious part of your job? I got LOTS of answers. Here’s a sampling:

  1. Answering repetitive questions from customers
  2. Grading
  3. Fighting with computers!
  4. Meetings. Meetings. Meetings. Meetings.
  5. Voicemail
  6. Picking up poop
  7.  Dealing with either difficult, self-centered people or insincere, backbiting people.
  8. Getting an email from someone standing right next to you
  9. Proofing/editing long, wordy facility contracts
  10. Doing internal/external audits of files!
  11. Putting up with racial jokes

One person turned my question on its head saying:

“It used to be cleaning toilets, but when I noticed my attitude and how cleaning toilets seemed to never end! I asked the Heavenly Father to remind me of when I didn’t have those toilets to clean, and how I couldn’t pay for rent, and let me be forever grateful for those toilets! 2 years later I actually smile when I’m cleaning the toilets.”

This person’s great attitude aside, some work is just plain tedious, hard and grueling! I spoke with someone in our church who may just have the most grueling job of all. Sean Ely works on a road repair crew. From April to November he pretty much works seven days a week. The last couple of shifts have been thirty-six-hour shifts! Thankfully the imbalance in the summer is met with time off not working from December to March. He’s worked this job for eight years, but he’s looking for another job. I asked Sean how he gets through it. He said that he prays each day before work. He prays for protection for himself and his crew. He pointed out that highway repair is one of the top ten dangerous jobs. People speed through construction zones while texting, drinking, or driving recklessly. While the job is grueling at times, Sean abstains from using illicit substances on the job like some of his co-workers. He does his best to be a positive encouragement to those around him trying to not get sucked into their negativity. He told me he wasn’t always like this. In his 20s he did a lot of drugs and drank a lot. But now he leads others and serves God by doing excellent work. He pays attention to detail and has a 100% safety track record. No crashes and no damaged equipment in eight years! Other foremen want him on their crews and seek him out. Of course, while Sean is out working thirty-six hours shifts, his wife Jessica, is at home with the kids. Sean said that it’s Jessica’s support at home that really keeps him going. Some of his crew members have gone through divorce because of the grueling nature of the job and schedule. But Jessica is fully supportive. And in the winter he gets lots of time with the kids.

Sean’s experience shows that some work is hard. Really hard. The question on my mind is this: Why is some work just plain hard? Let’s look back at the beginning of the Bible and see what happens to work pretty quickly after God creates. God puts humans in a garden and tells them they can eat anything in it but the fruit from one tree. Well, you know how this story ends whether you’ve read it or not. They eat the forbidden fruit. And all hell breaks loose. The consequences of disobedience become apparent in what Christians call “the curse.” It’s not so much a curse by God as it is a curse of natural consequences of knowing disobedience. God explains it to Adam and Eve:

To the woman God said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
~Genesis 3:16-19 ESV

Throughout this series we’re using a book to guide us through the ups and downs of work: Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller. Keller says of “the curse” that

“Sin leads to the disintegration of every area of life: spiritual, physical, social, cultural, psychological, temporal, eternal.”
~Timothy Keller

Today I want to look at four problems with work:

  1. Fruitless work

Sometimes it seems like work just doesn’t produce any tangible fruit. Did you catch this line in the story from Genesis above:

thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
~Genesis 3:18 ESV

“Thorns and thistles.” That’s not fruit. It’s painful and hurtful. What are we to think of the “thorns and thistles” in our work? If we’re honest with ourselves some of the “thorns and thistles” in our work has to do with our own unrealistic expectations. The “Greatest Generation”, those who lived through WWII were happy with any job that put food on the table. But given the relative abundance of current times, younger generations, myself included expect to change the world with our work. We’re not content just to put food on the table. We want to make an impact. Leave our mark. While I’m not sure these expectations are all bad, sometimes these expectations can be unrealistic. The world just doesn’t work like that. Our work is never as fruitful as we would like. We can get caught in one of two extremes: Idealism or Cynicism. And yet if we go back to the same “thorns and thistles” passage we read:

thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
~Genesis 3:18 ESV

Work on this earth will be thorns and food. I love my job. I love being a pastor. I wouldn’t want to be anything else. Except on those days when I don’t want to be a pastor, and I’d rather be anything else. Yet if we follow Jesus we look for the day when the thorns disappear as God creates a new heaven and a new earth. It’s not Christmas time right now, but the Christmas song, Joy to the World, reminds us of this:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

One problem with work is that until Jesus returns, work will always be a mix of thorns and fruit.

  1. Pointless work

A second problem we all experience with work is pointless work. We’re not alone. The writer of Ecclesiastes, a wisdom book in the Bible, says:

So I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind.
~Ecclesiastes 2:17 NLT

Do you ever feel like your work is pointless and meaningless? Sometimes this is part of a bigger problem. The Agnostic Pub Group that I co-lead with my atheist friend is currently reading a book of essays by C.S. Lewis, best known for his book The Chronicles of Narnia. One of those essays is a transcript of a Q&A Lewis did with a group of industrial workers. Here’s how he began to Q&A:

“My own idea is that modern industry is a radically hopeless system. You can improve wages, hours, conditions, etc. but all that doesn’t cure the deepest trouble: i.e., that numbers of people are kept all their lives doing dull repetition work which gives no full play to their faculties. How that is to be overcome, I do not know.”
~C.S. Lewis (God in the Dock, Answers to Question on Christianity)

Many of us are stuck screwing sprockets, crunching numbers, answering endless calls, sorting paper, or fielding complaints. It all feels meaningless and pointless. I’ve found the solution to this problem. It’s really quite simple. Here’s what I do to get rid of all my meaningless pointless work: I give it to my staff! OK, so that fixes it for me, but not them.

Given the pointlessness of our work, maybe we should just make as much money as possible so we can buy as many pleasures as possible for the time we’re not working? This too is meaningless! The writer of Ecclesiastes who was very wealthy says:

Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.
~Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 NLT

One of the problems here is that we have may have chosen a job based on money rather than one based on your abilities. You just might be more content if you took a job that paid more but did work that was more in line with your passions. Or maybe you take the money you make and you use it to some other ends. Throughout this series we’re looking at eight ways we serve God at work. Here’s the list of all eight:

8 Ways to Serve God at Work:

  1. Do skillful, excellent work.
  2. Further social justice in the world.
  3. Create beauty.
  4. Work from a Christian motivation to glorify God, seeking to engage and influence culture to that end.
  5. Work with a grateful, joyful, gospel-changed heart through all the ups and downs.
  6. Do whatever gives you the greatest joy and passion.
  7. Be personally honest and evangelize your colleagues.
  8. Make as much money as you can, so that you can be as generous as you can.

Focusing in on number eight right now, maybe you work hard at what seems like pointless work, but you’re making a lot of money doing this pointless work. And so the question becomes, what do you do with that money? Maybe the point of making the money isn’t to spend it on your pleasures, but to be generous with God’s work in the world. You give to the church. You give to charities.   You give to the people around you who are in need. You combat pointless work with generosity.

We’ve looked at fruitless and pointless work. A third problem with work is selfish work.

  1. Selfish work

A couple of months ago we took a whole series to look at the book of Esther in the Bible. Esther is a story of a young Jewish woman in Persia named Esther. The king of Persia holds a beauty pageant to find the next queen. Esther, a Jew, wins! Shortly thereafter the Jews are under threat of genocide.
Esther has to choose: try to hide her Jewishness and keep the privileges of her job, or risk her privileges for the sake of her people. Mordecai, her uncle, tells her:

Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?
~Esther 4:14 NLT

You “were made.” In other words, you were put here, brought here, not by what you did but by grace. It was a gift. You didn’t earn your beauty. You didn’t earn your position. It was given to you. What will you do? Will you turn it toward your own selfish pursuits or will you use your privilege to help others? Esther ultimately identified with the Jews and said “if I perish I perish.” She used her work to the good of others rather than her own good. Esther is a foreshadow of Jesus who Jesus identified with us after leaving the palace of heaven and perished, died, so that we might have new life. What will you use your work for? Yourself or others? Dorothy Sayers, an author and friend of C.S. Lewis, said:

“The only true way of serving the community is to be truly in sympathy with the community, to be oneself part of the community and then to serve the work…It is the work that serves the community; the business of the worker is to serve the work.”
~Dorothy Sayers

None of us have perfectly pure motives. None of us work entirely for other-centered reasons. We all need the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ to heal and free us from our selfishness. Timothy Keller says:

“Unless you use your clout, your credentials, and your money in service to the people outside the palace, the palace is a prison; it has already given you your name.”
~Tim Keller (119)

We’ve looked at three problems with work: pointless, fruitless, and selfish work. There’s one more problem.

  1. Idolatrous work

Shortly after the telling of the story of creation in the book of Genesis in the Bible, we come to the story of the Tower of Babel. Here’s what the people of the earth say:

“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
~Genesis 11:4

We see in their motivation to build this tower two idols: the idol of self and the idol of the group. They idolize themselves when they say, “let us make a name for ourselves.”  The idol of self is called “Individualism.” When we worship the self we ignore the needs of others. The subprime bubble is a good example of that. Selling junk subprime mortgages made a lot of money for some individuals while putting many more people underwater in their houses. Work becomes pointless and meaningless when we use it as a way to make a name for ourselves.

The second idol is the idol of the group. The people of the earth idolize the group when they say, “Lest we be dispersed over the face of the earth.”  This is called “collectivism.” We idolize the group when we ignore individual needs. The Industrial revolution and the modern assembly line are good examples. Individuals become replaceable cogs in a wheel.

When we work for the idol of self or the idol of the group our work becomes our identity, rather than Christ being our identity. The way we keep work from becoming an idol is we do honest work while turning to Jesus.

I mentioned earlier that throughout this series we’re looking at eight ways we serve God at work. This is where the rubber meets the road. We looked at the last one earlier, let’s look at number seven now:

8 Ways to Serve God at Work:

  1. Be personally honest and evangelize your colleagues.
  2. Make as much money as you can, so that you can be as generous as you can.

Let’s be honest. “Evangelizing your colleagues” doesn’t sound very appealing. In fact, it’s probably that kind of Christian that most of us are trying not to be. Some of our workplaces are very unfriendly to faith discussions. I was talking with a social worker in our church who told me that it’s considered unethical to talk to clients about her faith. Another person in our church works in the art world. The arts haven’t always had the best of relationships with the church. His fellow colleagues are suspicious of his involvement with church and his faith. So how do we navigate these challenges? Here are a couple of ideas. Like Sean, we do excellent work. We focus on being the best road repair worker we can be. You live out your faith in a way that makes others wonder what motivates you. When they ask, the door begins to open. If you’re in a workplace where it’s considered unethical to bring up faith with your clients, then you bring it up with your co-workers. How do you bring it up? You participate actively in church. When you’re asked what you did this weekend, instead of dodging the fact that you went to church, you mention it. You pray and you wait for your colleagues to ask you about your church and your faith. You learn to ask them good questions like, “Do you have a church family? What’s your experience of church been? Have you ever had an experience with God?” You go from there. One partner in our church takes our invite cards to our big days and hangs them up in his cubicle. He finds that his colleagues ask him about them. He doesn’t even have to bring it up. As you take small steps, you find that it gets easier. Slowly but surely you are able to talk about your faith with your colleagues in a natural, non-obnoxious way. And you let God do the heavy lifting. Your colleagues’ salvation isn’t in your job description. Jesus already took that tedious grueling job. Your job is simply to be a means of God’s grace in the life of those who you encounter. In this way you serve God when you are personally honest and evangelize your colleagues.

There are a lot of problems with work. Work is sometimes fruitless, pointless, selfish, and idolatrous. We serve God at work when we use our work to make as much money as we can so we can be as generous as we can. We serve God at work when we are personally honest and evangelize our colleagues.

Prayer
God, amidst all the problems we face in work, help us be honest. Help us share our faith with those around us. Help us not be tempted to earn money to spend it on our own passions, but help us to be generous with all that you have given us. Thank you for you grace in your son Jesus Christ, who did the hard grueling work of death on a cross, so that our work here on earth might be redeemed and made new. In Jesus’ name and the power of your Spirit, amen.

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Masterminds – Money Masters or Financial Fools

August 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

God on Film: Masterminds – Money Masters or Financial Fools
Sycamore Creek Church
August 2/3, 2015
Tom Arthur

 

Peace Friends!

Today we continue the series God on Film where we’re looking at a different summer blockbuster each week and exploring the themes or ideas that the movie evokes.  Today’s movie, Masterminds, is about a $17 Million bank robbery by a group that isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.  It’s a movie that makes me ask the question, “Am I a money master or a financial fool?”  Ironically enough, this movie was originally slated to come out in August back when we were planning this series, but its opening has been moved to October because of millions of dollars of debt restructuring by its parent company!  When I saw the trailer and learned that Masterminds was about money my mind immediately went to the teachings of Jesus on money:

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
~Matthew 6:24 NLT

Matthew was one of Jesus’ closest followers and he recorded this teaching of Jesus.  But Luke, a doctor who hung out with Jesus’ friends also recorded this teaching by Jesus:

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
~Luke 16:13 NLT

Notice anything about those two teachings?  They’re exactly the same!  Two different places in the Bible.  Same exact teaching down to the letter.  Maybe the Bible wants to make sure that we really get the point.  So here’s the question that it raises for each of us: Will you “master” your money or will your money “master” you?  Today I want to look at three things that financial fools do that allow money to master them and I want to look at three things that money masters do to let God master their money.

Financial Fools Give into PRESSURE
Financial Fools let others make their decisions about money from them.  The book of Proverbs says:

Dear friend, if bad companions tempt you,
don’t go along with them.
~Proverbs 1:10 (The Message)

What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever spent your money on?  Maybe you bought way too many gifts for Christmas when you didn’t really have the money because that’s what you’re “supposed to do.”  Or maybe you go out to eat because your friends are all going out to eat even though you don’t have rent money this month.  Or maybe you just have to have the latest and greatest gadget because everyone’s got the latest S10 iThing Magenta.   I asked my friends on Facebook what was the stupidest thing they’d ever done with money.  I got lots and lots of responses.  I’m talking a TON of responses.  There is no shortage of stories about how people spend their money in stupid ways.  One of my friends who is a bartender said she goes out with friends after work and buys everyone drinks with her tip money.  Then she goes home empty handed!  Another friend a little too embarrassed to claim the spent money publically said in private message (but gave me permission to share), “The stupidest thing I ever did with money was pay $1000 to keep a new boyfriend from going to jail. He promised to pay me back (yeah right) and that it was part of his old life. Young girls are suckers for boys they think they can ‘change.’” Financial fools let PRESSURE make their financial decisions.  Don’t let others decide where you spend your money.

Financial Fools PUT IT OFF for some other day
James, the brother of Jesus, says, “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?” (4:14 NLT).  We make all kinds of “plans” for tomorrow, and sometimes we plan to make a plan tomorrow.  Financial fools say, “I’ll figure out money when I get out of college.”  Or “I’ll figure out money when I get a job.”  Financial fools wait until they get married to learn how to use their money.  Yeah, that’s really easily done.  Two people trying to figure out one of the hardest things to figure out while also figuring out how to live together?  Maybe that’s why finances are one of the biggest reasons for divorces.  Financial fools wait until marriage to figure out money.  Or they wait until they have kids.  Or they wait until they have a better paying job.  Financial fools wait until tomorrow to do what should be done today.

Financial Fools POINTLESSLY Spend
Pointless spending means spending more than you make.  It means not having a plan in place for how you spend.  It’s impulse spending.  John, one of Jesus’ closest followers says:

For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.
~1 John 2:16 (NLT)

We spend our money pointlessly on physical pleasures, creature comforts, anything that catches our eye, or things that make us feel pride in what we own.  One of my friends on Facebook says that she spends pointlessly by shopping when stressed.  I see pointless spending when people tell me they’re using student loans to pay a car loan.  Debt to pay debt.  Yikes!  Pointless spending is using credit cards to buy things that depreciate in value, things like food, gadgets, clothes, and on and on.  Financial fools go into debt for things that you’ll not only be paying on for a long time but you can’t sell them to pay off the debt because they won’t sell for what you paid for them.  Unfortunately, too many of us are sunk in credit card debt.  I heard a great story on NPR (National Public Radio) about a year ago about the struggle with credit card debt.

What I really liked about it was that it described well the real financial challenges people face, the financial trouble they get into, and the way out.  Did you hear it?  This family is turning the corner from their money mastering them toward mastering their own money.  From financial fools to money masters.  Let’s learn three things that money masters do.

Money Masters AVOID Debt by Living Simply
Money masters steer clear of debt because they know a very important truth about debt:

The poor are always ruled over by the rich,
so don’t borrow and put yourself under their power.
~Proverbs 22:7 (The Message)

One key tool to steer clear of debt is the 70% rule.  The 70% rule means that you live on 70% of what you make.  So what do you do with the other 30%?  You give away 10%, save 10%, and put 10% away for retirement.  Most of us aren’t living on 70% of what we make.  We’re living on 110%!  One key way to begin to break the power that money has over you is to give some away.  Giving money away is a discipline that helps put money in perspective.  Christians have been practicing giving 10% or more away for a long time.  Let’s be honest about this.  It’s hard to give 10% away especially if you are not used to it.  But let me put the whole thing in perspective.

Last fall we made a Jack O Lantern out of a pumpkin.  After digging out all the seeds and roasting them, we sat down to enjoy the seeds.  I had eaten most of what I wanted while they were still warm.  Micah, my son, doesn’t like things warm, so when they cooled off and we sat down together, I was mostly just sitting there while Micah was eating cold roasted pumpkin seeds.  At one point I reached over for a couple of seeds and he said, “Hey, don’t eat MY pumpkin seeds.”  His pumpkin seeds?  I bought the pumpkin.  I did most of the work digging them out.  I seasoned them and roasted them.  I put them in the refrigerator to cool them down.  I served them up to him.  Whose pumpkin seeds?  We had a little talk about what it took to actually have pumpkin seeds to eat (work, money, time, etc.).  After a bit of joking, he offered me two pumpkin seeds.

I was reminded in this moment of how we treat God’s resources.  It’s all God’s, and when God asks for some of it back, we say, “Hey, that’s mine!”

I’d like to get down to brass tacks with this whole idea of living simply by the 70% rule by showing you how Sarah and I budget and spend our money.  Financial fools spend pointlessly but money masters spend their money on paper before they even get it.  They make a plan to live into the 70% rule.  Now one big financial change that happened in our life recently was that we sold our house in Petoskey.  We made a good amount of money on the sale.  So the first thing we did was give 10% of what we made to the church’s capital campaign fund.  Then we paid off our two car loans.  That left us entirely debt free!  This month I turn 40, so it took me 40 years to get to zero.  But now it’s time to spend the next 40 years really mastering our money.  So here’s how we’re doing to do it:

  • $180/paycheck for a 10% tithe to the church
  • $350/month (that we were paying a mortgage) now investing toward retirement [One significant difference between our budget and most other people is that the church provides a house for us to live in and pays the utilities.  This is a double edged sword.  While you are busy making payments on a house and building equity, we need to be saving to buy a house with cash when we retire!]
  • $160/month (that we were paying on an auto loan) now saving for a future car

Because our house in Petoskey was our vacation destination, we decided to put aside money each month toward vacations throughout the year.  So we put aside $200/month for vacations.

We also have learned that there are some areas where we tend to overspend.  So what we do is take out cash from each pay check (every two weeks) for each of these areas and put that cash in an envelope.  It’s a cash envelope budgeting system.  Here’s the areas we tend to overspend:

  • $300/paycheck for groceries ($150/week)
  • $50/paycheck for dates ($25/week)
  • $25/paycheck for “blow money” for each of us (to be spent on whatever we want)
  • $20/month for Dad Kid Night Out
  • $20/paycheck for Church in a Diner ($10/week)

I’d like to explain this last cash budget item a little bit more.  It’s very important to understand for the health of our Monday night Church in a Diner.  I budget $10 every Monday to spend at Jackie’s.  Each meal is about $6.50 so the total bill with tax is about $7.  Normally you tip somewhere between 15-20%.  But I just give the whole $10.  I consider myself a “financial missionary” on Monday nights.  Here’s why that’s important.  It costs Jackie’s about $350 every Monday night just to be open for us.  This is their break even amount.  On average we have about 50 people who attend Monday night.  If each person spent about $7, that would be $350.  That’s the break-even point for Jackie’s.  But not everyone who comes on Monday night can afford or wants to buy a whole meal.  So I give a little bit more in the tip to help cover the difference.  I’m a financial missionary on Monday nights.  Now I’ve been told by the owner of Jackie’s that for several weeks now, they haven’t broken even.  They’ve lost money on Monday nights.  So I’m asking you to consider joining me in being a financial missionary on Monday night.  Has God blessed you enough to spend or tip $10/person at your table?  Or better yet, what if you brought someone with you each Monday night and paid for them?  It all goes back to this idea of a budget.  Have you budgeted for Monday nights?  Can you budget to be a financial missionary?

It’s taken us almost forty years of life and eighteen years of marriage to get to this point, but we’re slowly taking steps into mastering our money rather than letting our money master us.

Money Masters ACCUMULATE True Treasure  
Do you know that your heart goes toward where you spend your money?  Jesus teaches:

Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.
~Matthew 6:20-21 NLT

If you want your heart to be in heaven, then put your money where you want your heart to be.  Shell Silverstein, the poet of the famous children’s book, Where the Sidewalk Ends, wrote a poem about this very thing titled “Lester.”

Lester was given a magic wish
By the goblin who lives in the banyan tree,
And with his wish he wished for two more wishes—
So now instead of just one wish, he cleverly had three.
And with each one of these
He simply wished for three more wishes,
Which gave him three old wishes, plus nine new.
And with each of these twelve
He slyly wished for three more wishes.
Which added up to forty-six—or is it fifty-two?
Well anyway, he used each wish
To wish for wishes ‘til he had
Five billion, seven million, eighteen thousand thirty-four.
And then he spread them on the ground
And skipped and sang, and then sat down
And wished for more.
And more… And more… They multiplied
While other people smiled and cried
And loved and reached and touched and felt.
Lester sat amid his wealth
Stacked mountain-high like stacks of gold.
Sat and counted—and grew old.
And then one Thursday night they found him
Dead—with his wishes piled around him.
And they counted the lot and found that not
A single one was missing.
All shiny and new—here, take a few
And think of Lester as you do.
In a world of apples and kisses and shoes
He wasted his wishes on wishing. 
What wishes are you wishing with each dollar you send?  Country songs are good at telling the same basic story.  One recent song is called “Trailer Hitch.”  Watch the video here:

 

You do begin to ACCUMULATE true treasures in one of four ways: give something, give regularly, give proportionally, and give generously.  Some of you today need to begin giving something, anything.  You haven’t ever given anything back to God and today is the day you’re going to take that first step.  Others need to give regularly.  Not just a one-time tip, but a regular predetermined amount.  Some of you are giving regularly but you’re not up to 10% and so you need to accumulate true treasures by giving proportionally.  Then some of us are really blessed financially and accumulating true treasurers means giving much more than 10%, giving extravagantly and generously.  Are you mastering your money by accumulating true treasures?

Money Masters AUTOMATE It ALL
Do you know that S.Y.S.T.E.M.S. Save You Stress, Time, Energy, and Money?  Yes.  What’s your system for automating your finances?  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the books of the Bible teaches us saying:

On the first day of each week, you should each put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don’t wait until I get there and then try to collect it all at once.
~Paul (1 Corinthians 16:2 NLT)

Paul thought that you should have a system for giving that takes place at the beginning of each week.  Money masters do this in all areas of their finances.  They automate their bills.  I love it.  I never have to remember whether I’ve paid it or not.  Money masters automate their savings.  I just set up two new savings accounts at our bank, one for our future car and one for vacation.  I used the online tools to automatically move money from my checking account to those two savings account each month.  Money masters automate their investments.  Money is taken automatically out of my paycheck and invested for retirement.  In each case, I don’t even see the money.  It’s just not there.  It goes to the appropriate bill, savings, or investment.  Now, if this is how I run my financial life, why would I not also automate my giving?  Well, I actually do.  We have our bank send a check to the church every paycheck.  I don’t even have to think about it.  We give whether we’re on vacation or not.  We give whether we remember to bring our checkbook or not.  We give whether we’ve got cash in our wallet or not.  We automate our giving.

Now there is one more way to automate your giving that I learned from a woman who died a couple of years ago.  We received a letter on November 12, 2013 from Neumann Law that Arlene C. Eskes had left $200 to Sycamore Creek Church in her trust.  No one in the office knows who Arlene is.  I found this obituary:

Arlene C. Eskes, 89, of Holt, died Sunday. Services 10 a.m. today at Holt United Methodist Church. Arrangements by Estes-Leadley Funeral Homes, Holt-Delhi Chapel.
Published in Lansing State Journal on Dec. 19, 2012

It made me wonder if Holt UMC knew anything about Arlene.  So I contacted their pastor at the time, Glenn Wagner.  He wrote back saying:

Arlene was a long time member here.  By the time I arrived in 2006 Arlene was living alone in her home and relied on family and close friends for transportation, grocery shopping, and fellowship.   She organized annual Christmas trips for Church members to Turkeyville for dinner and theater.  Her daughter and son-in-law are active members of the Lowell United Methodist Church. In her later years Arlene struggled with health issues that greatly limited her mobility.   I don’t know when or why she decided to leave Sycamore Creek in her will but do believe that for Arlene $200 was a substantial gift…Perhaps she wanted to do her part to support this church that was birthed from Holt UMC.  Thanks for asking.

Friends, when I die, I want my treasures so stored up in heaven, that my money automatically goes to supporting God’s mission here on earth!  To do that, we must remember:

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
~Matthew 6:24 NLT

Will you be a Financial Fool or a Money Master?  Lord, help us not give into PRESSURE, PUT off our financial planning for another day, and spend POINTLESSLY.  Help us rather to AVOID debt by living simply, ACCUMULATE true treasure, and AUTOMATE it all.  In the name of Jesus, the master of our lives, including our money.  Amen.

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Should I Give to the Capital Campaign if I Still Have Personal Debt

March 7, 2015 by Leave a Comment

LaunchPadLogoDear Friends,

I have recently been presented with a dilemma.  What if you are in significant debt but you want to give to the capital campaign?  Or what if you are practicing Financial Peace University’s debt snowball in the midst of our church’s capital campaign.  Should you divert money from your debt snowball to give to the capital campaign?  The answer is: it depends.

While many financial theologians and biblical scholars believe that tithing should be continued even in the midst of debt reduction plans, capital campaigns are giving opportunities above and beyond tithing.  The Bible does not provide a lot of clear direction for moments like this other than general principles about financial stewardship.  So let me offer what wisdom I have after almost 40 years of seeking to follow Jesus and studying the Bible.

I can’t say that you should never divert money from debt to give above and beyond your annual tithe.  Ultimately you have to ask God what God would have you do.  But I think part of that discernment depends on where you are at with the rest of your finances.  If you are under a crushing amount of debt (credit card, student loans, auto loans, mortgage, etc.) and you are generally living very simply bare bones with the basics to help pay off that debt, I think it would probably be wise to let giving to the capital campaign be done by others who are in a more healthy place financially while you keep working your debt snowball plan.  Or if you are barely making ends meet or are behind in your basic bills (housing, utilities, food, etc.), then this is likely not the time to give to a capital campaign short of God sending some writing in the sky.

On the other hand, let me share with you where Sarah and I are at and what we’re doing.  Sarah and I have a mortgage on a house in Petoskey and we have two car loans.  We also have a long history of paying off any debt we’ve accumulated very quickly (student loans and car loans are the only other debt we’ve ever had).  We are planning on selling our house in Petoskey this summer and using what we make on the house to pay off the car loans and tithe to the capital campaign.  We have a clear and realistic plan to get out of debt within the next year.  Giving to the capital campaign will have little to no effect our debt plan.  Because we feel that God is in the plans of the church, we are giving as much as we can to the capital campaign even though we still have some debt.

These two scenarios are the extremes when it comes to debt: crushing debt and debt that will be paid off early in the foreseeable future.  What is wise is obvious at these extreme poles.  Everything else in the middle is a matter of prayerful discernment.  Perhaps if you have debt, are paying if off early, and yet still live fairly comfortably, God might be calling you at this time to make some lifestyle sacrifices to give above and beyond your annual tithe.  This is a decision between you and your family and God.

One thing that we can all give to this capital campaign is our prayers.  Even if you are unable to give because of your current financial situation, now is a time to pray for continued perseverance in your financial plans so that at some point in the future you can give generously to God’s work.  Now is also a time to pray for the church as a whole.  Pray that God would provide for the mission that God has called our church to fulfill.  One of the beautiful things about being part of a faith community is that together we are able to do what none of us could do alone.  Thank you God for fellow followers of Jesus whose strengths help cover my weakness while my strengths cover their weaknesses!

Peace,
Pastor Tom

P.S. You may wonder what Dave Ramsey of Financial Peace University says about this question.  You can find his answer here.  Ramsey asks whether the campaign will incur debt.  While we do not necessarily dismiss taking out future mortgages for building  needs, this campaign is about paying for remodeling with cash and staying out of debt.  Ramsey also wonders about whether an outside firm has been used to manipulate church members. Again, I’m not sure that outside firms always manipulate church members, but this campaign is run entirely internally with some guidance from the book: Money Matters in Church by Steve Stroup and Aubrey Malphers.

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Million Dollar Arm: How To Be Rich

June 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

 

 

 

 

God on Film – Million Dollar Arm: How To Be Rich
Sycamore Creek Church
June 20/21, 2014
Tom Arthur

 

 

 

 

Peace friends!

Today I want to talk about how to be rich.  Yes.  I’m serious.  I know you don’t hear about it very often in church, but I want to talk about how to make money.  Of course your primary way of making money (unless you inherit it) is to get a job.  I’ve got to admit, I’ve got a pretty good job.  Being a United Methodist Pastor, I’m guaranteed an appointment in a church.  So the last time I had to look for a job was back in graduate school.

My primary job in graduate school besides being a student was writing for scholarships.  I spent a good portion of time researching and writing scholarships.  But I also took a job one winter break at a local outdoor store.  I worked wrapping presents that I wished I would be getting!  I would always prime the tip jar with a couple of $10s and $20s.  It worked!

Another set of jobs I had while in grad school was being a guinea pig.  Literally.  When you’re at a research university there are always researchers looking for people to test in various ways.  The pay was dependent on the length and discomfort of the test.  I got very good at looking quickly for what they were paying and weighing it against the inconvenience it would be for me.  On the low end of things there were always researchers willing to pay you $5 to take a five minute test.  Quick cash now!  Then there were more advanced computer tests that would take twenty to sixty minutes.  These would pay anywhere from $10 to $30.  The place I made most of my money was doing MRI studies.  One time I was in an MRI machine playing a video game for about ninety minutes.  I made $150!  There was one research study that looked good at first but not so good upon further examination.  As I read the study it paid very well.  $300 for about three hours of time.  Sounds good.  You got to watch old Duke Basketball games during the three hours.  Still sounds good.  The study was for a new experimental catheter!  I passed.

3 Ways to Be Rich
Here at SCC we have a wide spectrum of people when it comes to making money in employment.  We have some who are unemployable.  Others are unemployed or underemployed.  Then there are those who are well employed or exceptionally-well employed.  I’d like to talk to each level of person today where they are that.  So if at some point you find yourself listening to me teach about a situation you don’t find yourself in, then pray for the person who is in that situation.

So today I’d like to talk about three ways to be rich.  Let’s dive in.

1.     Make All You Can (Honestly)
We read in the beginning of the Bible that “the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15 NIV).  Notice that from the very beginning God intended work to be part of what we do in this life.  We are to work the garden around us and take care of it.  For some of us this might be a literal garden.  For others the gardens around us might be teaching children, working on cars, practicing medicine, or just about any other kind of work you can imagine.  I don’t say “any kind of work you can imagine” because I believe that God would have us work in such a way that takes care.  We are to work and make all we can in an honest way.

So when it comes to work some among us are unemployable perhaps because of a disability.  If you find yourself in this kind of a position, then the work you might do is to volunteer in as many ways as you can.  Your disability may make you unemployable but it does not keep you from being able to contribute in some way to the community around you.  Make all you can by volunteering at your church or one of your favorite local charities.

For those of us who are employable there are two ways we make all we can.  We work and we invest.  You can make all you can at a new job.  Last week I visited Teri Sand who is the Business Services Team Leader at Michigan Works.  She also happens to be a member of Redeemer Church on Holmes.  I didn’t know this before I went in to visit with her.  I was meeting with her because I wanted to understand better the job market that we find ourselves in.  I learned many things that I didn’t know.  I learned that Michigan Works is not just for the unemployed or those on welfare.  It is essentially the Human Resources Department for all of Michigan Businesses.  Teri’s job is to get to know the businesses in Michigan and to find people to fill those jobs!  She offered me three tips for finding a job in today’s culture:

First, you must have computer skills.  In the not too distant past, the way you would find a job was to send a generic resume to the companies you were interested in hiring or you’d cold-call on a business and drop off your resume.  They’d look over your resume and see if you had the skills they needed.  If you did, they’d hire you.  Today almost all applications for jobs are submitted online, and many jobs are posted through social media.  It is not uncommon to put in fifty applications online.  Here’s the trick to applying online.  You must customize your resume to each application.  This is because companies use computer programs to sift through the applications they receive.  If your resume does not include key words they are looking for, it won’t even be considered.  What you need to do is look over the job description, circle everything that is honestly true of you and include those words and phrases in your resume submission.  It’s a different world out there today and you have to have computer skills to navigate it.

Teri emphasized that while online job application is the norm, networking is also still the king.  You have to let people know you are looking for a job.  You have to think about who the people you know know.  You ask your friends and acquaintances, “Do you know someone who could use my skills?”  You need to expand your network.  Attend career conferences and chamber events.  And don’t forget to volunteer.  Volunteering expands your network in ways that you might not anticipate.

The last tip that Teri told me was to remember that finding a job is a full-time job.  If you’re looking for a forty-hour-a-week job, then plan on spending forty hours a week looking for it.

One last tip for those of you who might be beginning your work-life.  The top three job markets in Michigan are Information Technology, Healthcare, and Manufacturing (check out this video on manufacturing).

So we’ve been looking at how you make all you can by finding a new job, but what if you like your job and you just want to make more money doing the same job.  David Bach, author of Start Late Finish Rich, says, “The market doesn’t pay you what you’re worth—it pays you what it has to…and what you’re willing to accept.”  Bach suggests  going to your boss and asking what it would take to get a raise in the next six months.  When you get an answer, then go do it!

Or maybe you like your job but you’re not making enough to pay off your debt ask quickly as you’d like.  Make all you can by getting a second job.  I actually have a second job.  You may not know that, but I write for a youth devotional called Devo Zine.  My wife got me this job.  It is a humbling experience for me.  I get paid $100 a devotion.  Sarah gets paid $200!  She is a full-time writer after all.

So you make all you can by working.  But you also make all you can by investing, or making your money work for you.  When it comes to investing there are three rules: invest early, invest automatically, and invest ethically.

Let’s take a look at the power of investing early.  If you invest $3000 a year in a mutual fund that makes 10% (the historical average of the stock market) until you retire at age 65, here are three different scenarios you might follow:

  1. Age 15-19 (5 years) = $1,615,363.40
  2. Age 19-26 (8 years) = $1,552,739.35
  3. Age 27-65 (38 years) = $1,324,777.67

Did you catch that?  Begin at age 15 and invest for only five years and you make $1.6 million.  Begin at age 27 and invest for thirty-eight years and you make $1.3 million!  What does that $1 million get you?  “A $1 million nest egg will provide you with an income of roughly $80,000 a year for 20 years if you choose to keep the nest egg in an insured account paying 5% interest” (greenamerica.org).  Invest early!

Second, invest automatically.  Have your investments taken automatically out of your paycheck through electronic fund transfer, or through your company’s pension or retirement plans.  You do this by following the 70% Rule.  You live on 70%.  What happened to the other 30%?  Well, you gave 10% back to God.  You saved 10%.  And you invested 10% in retirement.

Lastly, you invest ethically.  If you’re going to make money off of other companies then you might want to know something about what those companies are doing to make money.  Are they employing children in sweat shops?  Are they polluting the environment?  You can learn more at www.greenamerica.org/socialinvesting.  Sarah and I have always invested in socially screened mutual funds.  We find Calvert, Pax, and Domini to be fruitful companies investing and managing money in ethical ways.  You may have heard that socially screened investments make less money.  This may or may not be true.  If it is true, then I go back to the question: how are they making money and do you want to make money in that way?  But it is not always true.  Domini is a socially screened index fund.  Last year it beat the S&P500.

We’ve covered a lot of ground so far about how to be rich.  Let’s briefly review where we’ve been: You make all you can in honest ways by working and investing.  Do you need to find a new job?  Do you need to ask how to make more at your current job?  Do you need to get a second job?  When it comes to investing are you investing early, automatically, and ethically?  We make all we can because God has put us on this earth to work and take care of it.  But what do we do with that money that we make?

2. Save All You Can (Spend Less, Save More)
A second way that you can be rich is to save all you can.  In other words, spend less and save more.  The wisdom of the Proverbs says:

Those who love pleasure become poor;
those who love wine and luxury will never be rich.
~Proverbs 21:17 NLT

The first way you save is to build an emergency fund.  I asked my friends on Facebook about times they found an emergency fund helpful.  I heard stories about car bills, tree roots growing into pipes, furnaces breaking down, driving cars into ditches, a well pump going out, a visit to an ER and unemployment.

One experience I know more fully is the experience of Tabitha Martin, a member of our church.  Tabitha lived with Sarah and me for three years while she was getting back on her feet.  She saved up $3000 before she was ready to move out.  The week before she moved out she was in an accident and while she was okay, her car was totaled.  Because she had an emergency fund she was able to buy a new car, make a deposit on her apartment, and still have $1000 left.  She may not have been rich by many people’s standards, but in that moment she had more resources than she had ever had to meet the challenges that life threw her way.

So how do you save all you can as the summer approaches us?  I asked my friends on Facebook for suggestions on living simply in the summer.  Here’s what they said:

  1. Turn AC down and sleep in the basement.
  2. Buy ice cream at the grocery store rather than the ice cream store.
  3. Grow a garden.
  4. Buy veggies at the farmers market and if you have a bridge card, you get Double Up Food Bucks (two dollars for every dollar you spend!).
  5. Cancel cable and get outside.
  6. Instead of seeing movies, shopping or otherwise paying for your entertainment, go to free outdoor concerts, “movie in the park” nights, feed the ducks, visit new playgrounds, play whatever kind of ball you like best, etc.
  7. Make a picnic and take it somewhere romantic instead of going out for dinner.
  8. Cancel your gym membership and run/bike/swim for your workout instead.
  9. Instead of taking a vacation, take a staycation.  You’ll spend less and be more refreshed when it’s done.

3. Give All You Can (Give the Rest Away)
So you’ve made all you can and saved all you can, what do you do with the rest?  You give as much away as you can!

We find this wisdom in the psalms:

If riches increase, do not set your heart on them.
~Psalm 62:10 NRSV

There is a pitfall if you make all you can and save all you can and build wealth.  John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement highlights this pitfall saying:

Wherever true Christianity spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural course of things, must beget riches! And riches naturally beget pride, love of the world, and every temper that is destructive of Christianity…Do you gain all you can, and save all you can? Then you must, in the nature of things, grow rich. Then if you have any desire to escape the damnation of hell, give all you can; otherwise I can have no more hope of your salvation, than of that of Judas Iscariot.
~John Wesley (18th Century Founder of the Methodist Movement)

As your wealth and riches increase, don’t miss the really important things in life.  Give money back to God.  If you began with 10%, then become an extravagant giver and give 15% or 20% or perhaps God will bless you to give away as much as you live on.  Give money to your church.  Give money to charities.  Give money to the needs that you come across.  Make all you can and save all you can so that you can have the joy of giving all you can away!

Recently our church sent you home with baby bottles to fill up with loose change lying around your house.  This loose change was going to be given to the Lansing Area Pregnancy Services.  I was a little surprised by the results.  Thirty-nine bottles were brought in with $651.60!  This mission of giving was organized by the knitting group in our church.  The knitting group also made and gave 14 blankets, 17 hats & 6 hat/booties sets.  Wow!  All that just from loose change lying around the house.

Friends, the world doesn’t really care how big your bank account is.  For our world to experience the love of God, they need to see that we care.

 

 

Are becoming rich by making all you can, saving all you can, and giving all you can?

Prayer
God, all that I have is yours.  Use my time and my talents to work in this world and take care of it.  As I make money, let me save all I can by living simply.  As I live simply, let me then give all I can so that world will see your love.  Amen.

Questions for Small Groups
Each week we provide questions for small groups that meet regularly to discuss today’s message.  Sign-ups for Small Groups happen in January, May, and September.  Want more info?  Email Mark Aupperlee – m_aupperlee@hotmail.com.

  1. What’s your job search experience?  Where do you find yourself: unemployable, unemployed, underemployed, well-employed, very-well-employed?
  2. Read Genesis 2:15.  What would it mean for you for work to be a God-given command?  Read Proverbs 21:17.  Where do you find yourself indulging a bit too much?  Read Psalm 62:10.  How attached is your heart to growing wealth?
  3. What do you need to do most?  Make all you can?  Save all you can?  Give all you can?  How will you do it? How can we pray for you?
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Getting Past Your Past Money Mistakes

May 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment

past

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Past Your Past Money Mistakes
Sycamore Creek Church
May 18/19, 2014
Tom Arthur 

Peace friends!

Pull out a dollar bill from your wallet.  What has this dollar bill bought?

  1. Food?
  2. Housing?
  3. A vacation?
  4. Gambled?
  5. Sex?
  6. Drugs?
  7. Was it stolen?
  8. Was it killed for?

Money can buy all those things.  It’s an interesting thing to note that it can do good or it can do bad.  That makes me wonder: what exactly is money?  Money is a tool that simplifies the exchange of goods.  It is a widely recognized IOU.  Money is neither good nor bad, although I will admit that at times it feels like it can have a significantly negative power, or lust, associated with it.  But generally speaking, money can be used in good or bad ways.  Many of us have made a lot of mistakes when it comes to money.  Today I’d like to look at three mistakes we make with money and how to correct them as we begin to use money the way that God wants us to use it.

Materialism
The real problem with money is when we tend to pursue it or what I can buy and neglect the more important things in life.  This is called materialism.  Google defines materialism as “a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.”  Too often we are slaves to material possessions and physical comfort.  This can go both ways.  If you find yourself saying, “There’s no money so I can’t do ____________”, then you’re still serving money, not God.

This problem of materialism might suggest that the answer would be to get rid of everything you have and live in voluntary poverty or asceticism.  Is this the answer?  The Bible tends to take a kind of middle route when it comes to money.  Hear the wisdom of the proverbs:

Give me neither poverty nor riches!
    Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.
For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?”
    And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.
~Proverbs 30:8-9 NLT

The wise thing is to make enough but not too much.  Even if you make just enough to squeak by, say $25,000/year, do you realize how much that ads up to over a lifetime? If you make $25,000 from 25-65 then you will have made and probably spent $1,000,000.  Most of us will in our lifetimes manage a fortune.

To prepare today’s message I’ve found Randy Alcorn’s book, Money, Possessions and Eternity very helpful.  He says:

The key to a right use of money and possessions is a right perspective—an eternal perspective…The everyday choices I make regarding money and possessions are of eternal consequences… The key question is not, “Should a Christian own this or that?” but, “Does God want me to own this or that in light of the drain on my resources it will create?”  Will owning this thing keep me from doing other things God wants me to do?

Let’s take another look at what the Bible teaches about money.  In the book of Ecclesiastes, probably best referred to with its Hebrew name, Koheleth, which means “teacher”, we find this passage about money.  (I’ve included Randy Alcorn’s comments in parentheses after each verse.)

Ecclesiastes 5:10-15 NLT
Those who love money will never have enough.
(The more you have, the more you want.)
How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!
(The more you have, the less you’re satisfied.)
The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it.
(The more you have, the more people come after it, including the tax man!)
So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers!
(The more you have, the more you realize it doesn’t meet your real needs.)
People who work hard sleep well, whether they eat little or much. But the rich seldom get a good night’s sleep.
(The more you have, the more you have to worry about.)
There is another serious problem I have seen under the sun. Hoarding riches harms the saver.
(The more you have, the more you can hurt yourself by holding on to it.)
Money is put into risky investments that turn sour, and everything is lost. In the end, there is nothing left to pass on to one’s children.
(The more you have, the more you have to lose.)
We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born. We can’t take our riches with us.
(The more you have, the more you’ll leave behind.)

Thinking about the eternal consequences of the way that we use money is the opposite of materialism and it’s the first step toward getting past your past money mistakes.

Giving
The second mistake we have made in our past when it comes to money is to neglect giving a portion of our money back to God.  We tend to think that our money is, well, ours.  But it’s not.  Everything belongs to God.

The prophet Malachi speaks to the Israelites saying:

Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings!
~Malachi 3:8 NRSV

Wow!  Rob God!?  I certainly don’t want to be guilty of robbing God.  I suspect none of us want that.  But this is what Malachi says is happening when you don’t give back to God a tithe of 10% and an offering which is above the tithe.  Please don’t shoot the messenger.

We can get some basic sense of how we tend to approach giving money away by our taxes.  “The IRS calculates that the average filer spends ten times more paying off interest on debts than he gives to charitable causes” (Randy Alcorn, MPE, 305).  Yikes!  Ten times more on debt than charity!

Today we’re introducing two new ways that make giving back to God by supporting the mission of SycamoreCreekChurch even easier.  Now you can give online:  http://www.sycamorecreekchurch.org/p/index.php/ministries/107-give-online.  It’s really simple.  You can give a one-time or recurring gift using your debit card, or you can set up electronic fund transfer and have your giving electronically transferred from your bank account.  If you’re already using EFT, you can even get online and see your past giving and change it at any time.

A second way we’re trying to make giving easier is through a new offering envelope.  This offering envelope has several features.  First, you can give just as you always have.  Put a check or cash in the envelope and drop it in the offering bucket.  Second, you can take the envelope home and mail it to the church.  Third, you can now give with a debit card right on the offering envelope.  Lastly, you can sign up for EFT right on the offering envelope.  It’s all right there in one place.

Correct your past money mistake of ignoring giving back to God by choosing to tithe from this point forward.  Don’t rob God any longer.

Debt
The most obvious money mistake that most of us have made in our past is through spending habits that accumulate debt.  The Bible doesn’t categorically prohibit borrowing money.  For example, Jesus teaches:

Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.
~Matthew 5:42 NLT

But the Bible does voice serious reservations about debt.  Consider these verses:

Just as the rich rule the poor,
    so the borrower is servant to the lender.
~Proverbs 22:7 NLT

Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another.
~Romans 13:8 NLT

Debt makes three basic assumptions that may not turn out to be true.  Debt assumes that:

  1. You’ll retain your current income (but you might get a pay cut or lose your job),
  2. You’ll remain in good health (but you might become disabled in some way),
  3. Other better or more missional opportunities won’t arise (but you might spend your money today and tomorrow find that you are unable to give to a great mission opportunity at church).

Not all debt is created equal.  Let’s take a look at several different kinds of debt.  There’s secured and unsecured debt.  This means that the debt is secured with something tangible that you’re buying.  Then there’s debt that you take on to buy an asset or a liability.  An asset is something that tends to grow in value and a liability is something that decreases in value.  Here is a chart with examples of each of four kinds of debt.

  Secured Unsecured
Asset Mortgage (Low-Med %) Education (Low %)
Liability Car (Med %) Credit Card (High %)

 

  1. Secured Asset: A Mortgage

The least risky kind of debt tends to be a secured asset.  A mortgage is secured because generally you can sell the house and pay off the loan, and it is an asset because it tends to increase in value.  But given what has happened in the last decade when it comes to housing values and how many people are now underwater with their mortgage, it’s  important to remember that debt, even a secured asset, is always a risk.  Perhaps we need to remember that buying a house is not a right.  Sometimes it is better to rent.  You get what you pay for, housing, and you don’t have to worry about upkeep and things breaking down.  It is worth asking, “Would renting free up your time and attention to focus on mission and calling?”

  1. Secured Liability: A Car

An auto loan is secured because you can sell the car and pay off the loan.  But while it is secured it is also a liability.  The moment you drive it off the lot, it decreases in value.

  1. Unsecured Asset: An Education

Student loans are unsecured because you can’t sell the education to pay off the loan, but a college degree does tend to increase your value in the marketplace and thus it can be understood as an asset.  But many of us don’t need quite as much education as we’ve gone into debt for.  It might be smart to go to a community college first, and then another school second later.  When I was in undergrad I, or more truthfully, my parents paid for $400/credit hour ($1600/course) at a private Christian liberal arts college, WheatonCollege.  One summer I came home and took a course at the local community college, Indiana University Purdue University of Indianapolis or IUPUI.  That course cost my parents $90/credit hour ($360/course).

  1. Unsecured Liability: Credit Card

Now that you’re getting a better sense of how debt works, let’s look at the worst kind of debt: an unsecured liability.  Credit Card debt is generally the worst kind of debt because the kind of stuff you put on a credit card can’t be sold off to pay off the loan.  Once you’ve bought the $5 latte and drank it and peed it out into the toilet, you can’t sell the latte to pay off the credit card!  You have nothing that secures the debt and the latte decreases significantly in value the moment it goes in your mouth.  In fact, you have to pay your sewer bill to have the utility company get rid of the waste!  You may say to me, “But Tom, we pay off our credit card every month.”  This may be true but studies have shown that we tend to spend 26% more on our credit card than when we pay for the same things with cash.  So be very careful how you use a credit card. Most of us probably need to do some plastic surgery: we need to cut the credit card up.

So here are three spiritual questions that Randy Alcorn suggests you consider before you take on any debt:

  1. Is not having enough resources to pay cash for what I want God’s way of telling me it isn’t his will for me to buy it?
  2. Is it possible that this thing may have been God’s will but I don’t have the resources to buy it because of past unwise decisions?
  3. If a lack of wisdom has put me in a position where I can’t afford to buy something, wouldn’t I do better to learn God’s lesson by forgoing it until—by his provision and my diligence—I save enough money?”

Small Groups
The other day I came across this news article in Psychology Today that shed a lot of light on why we spend money the way we do:

Feeling down?  Buy yourself a new pair of shoes.  Or get a new gadget.  That should boost your mood—right? 

Not necessarily.  According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, seeing possessions as a ticket to happiness and success increases feelings of isolation.  But the reverse is even stronger: Loneliness fuels materialism, creating a sometimes vicious cycle.  While fixation on ‘stuff’—especially around the holiday season—is usually blamed on an overly consumerist culture, the study suggests that it’s often a symptom (and a cause) of individual alienation, not cultural shallowness.

“Lonely people have a tendency to become more materialistic over time,” say study author Rik Pieteres, a professor of marketing at Tilburg University.  Some, he notes, may use shopping as a coping mechanism that is driven by the fear of rejection: “A friend might say no, but an iPad never does.”
“The Insatiable Shopper” by Agat Blaszczak-Boxe, Psychology Today

During the month of May you have the opportunity to help get past your past money mistakes by correcting the loneliness that is driving you to spend money in ungodly ways.  May is our GroupLINK month and you can sign up for one of twenty-one summer groups.  Groups are a great way to make friends that will help with the modern disease of loneliness and will have the added benefit of keeping your loneliness from causing you to make more money mistakes in the future.  Not only that, but groups provide you a place where you can build friendships that will help you discern the answers to the tough questions listed above.  Those friendships can help you begin to make wise money choices.  You can learn more and signup online here.

You may have gotten into a pit of debt in the past, but with God’s help you can begin to make wise money choices heading into the future:

  1. Reject materialism,
  2. Give back to God,
  3. Avoid debt.

Prayer
God, give us new eyes to see how our money choices have eternal consequences.  Give us courage to trust that if we give back to you 10% or more of what we make that we will have enough.  And give us the perseverance to avoid debt in a culture that is addicted to buying what it wants right now.  In the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

 

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Money Resources

May 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment

bible-and-financesIf you’re looking for help with money, here are several resources that you  might find helpful.

Online Giving
Give a one time gift to SCC or set up a recurring gift online.

Strapped Sermon Series
Too many of us are living in a prison of financial debt and stress.  The good news is we can learn how to get out of financial bondage.  Let’s get smart with our money and learn practical and biblical principles to free ourselves from being Strapped.
The Buck Starts Here (Manuscript & Audio)
Act Your Wage  (Manuscript & Audio)
Put God First (Guest Speaker: Mark Aupperlee Audio)
Financial Q&A (Guest Speaker: Craig Groeschel Video)

Sermons on Money
These sermons come from various series but each one is about various aspects of money from making money to giving and from saving to budgeting.
Committed to Christ – Financial Commitment (Manuscript & Audio)
The Daily Grind – Financial Margin (Manuscript & Audio)
Not So Random Acts of Giving – Mothers Give More than Money (Manuscript & Audio)
Not So Random Acts of Giving – Big Dreams and Bold Prayers (Guest Speaker: Chris McKenna Audio)
American Idols – Money (Manuscript)
H.A.B.I.T.S. – Tithing (Manuscript)

John Wesley Sermons
John Wesley was the 18th century founder of what became known as the Methodist movement and later the United Methodist Church (among other Wesleyan Churches).  His sermons, while in an old English, still inspire today.
The Use of Money (Sermon 50) — Luke 16:9
The Danger of Riches (Sermon 87) — 1 Tim 6:9
The Good Steward (Sermon 51) — Luke 21:2
On Riches (Sermon 108) — Matt 19:24
On the Danger of Increasing Riches (Sermon 126) — Ps 62:10
Sermon on the Mount, 8 (Sermon 28) — Matt 6:19-23

Recommended Books
The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn
The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
The Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster
God’s Economy by Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove

Classes
Find a Local Financial Peace University Classes

Download Financial Tools:
Personal Financial Profile (Microsoft Excel 37kb)
Personal Financial Plan (Microsoft Excel 37kb)
Monthly Budget Ledger (Microsoft Excel 44kb)

Filed Under: Ponderings Tagged With:

Committed to Christ – Financial

March 31, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Committed to Christ – Financial
Sycamore Creek Church
March 30/31, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

We’re three weeks away from Easter.  Are you excited?  Did you hear that we’ll be 1 church celebrating Easter on 2 days in 3 locations and 4 services?  1 – 2 – 3 – 4!  We’re striving to reach a goal of touching more people with the power of the resurrection than we ever have before.  We’ve prayerfully set a goal of 350 people in worship this Easter.

This past week I was asked why we’re trying to reach 350 people in Easter.  Here’s my answer: Because our mission is to ignite authentic life in Christ.  Because hearts that are made up of fertile soil multiply (see last week’s message).  Because Jesus gave us the great commission (see Matthew 28:19-20).  Because people are hurting and need Jesus’ healing.  Because people are far from God and need Jesus.  Because following Jesus means not keeping it to yourself.  That’s why we’re seeking to reach 350 people this Easter.  It’s our mission!

Next week we’re going to go even deeper into the question of Why as we explore a commitment to witness.  This week as we continue this series, Committed to Christ, we’re looking at our commitments to give financially.

There are a lot of different people in the room when it comes to giving:

  1. Those who are not ready to give.
  2. Those who would like to give but are so deep in debt that they can’t see a way to give.
  3. Those who give occasionally from what’s in their wallet or purse.
  4. Those who give regularly when they’re in worship.
  5. Those who give regularly whether they’re in worship or not.
  6. Those who give the full tithe.
  7. Those who give extravagantly.

In February we took an anonymous survey about your giving.  We had seventy surveys turned in.  Here are the results.  Five people answered that they do not give financially.

Forty-one answered about the amount that they give weekly to the General Fund and the average amount of the forty-one people was $56/week.  Twelve people answered that they give to the Building Fund and the average was $39/week.  Seven people answered that they give to missions and the average was $17/week.  Twenty people answered the question about what percentage of their income they gave and the average was 11%.  That’s really intriguing, isn’t it?  We’ll talk more about that in a moment.

Today I want to explore four commitments to giving, and I want to encourage you to take a further step of commitment in your giving.

  1. Give

 It may seem too obvious to say, but the first commitment of giving is to…well, give.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of the most books in the Bible said this about giving in a letter to a church he founded at Corinth:

You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”
2 Corinthians 9:7 NLT

Each person must decide how much to give.  It’s part of following Jesus.  Someone else can’t do it for you.  You must decide yourself to take the initial step and give.  Some of you do not give financially to the church, and God may be calling you today to take an initial step of commitment today to simply give.

Why don’t people give to the church?  The Barna Group is a religious research group and several years ago they put out a study titled “Why People Do Not Give More” (Source). While the study was about giving more, I think it is also applicable to why people don’t give in the first place.  There were four reasons.  Two were the responsibility of the church.  One was a shared responsibility between the church and the individual.  The fourth reason was the responsibility of each individual.  Let’s look at these four reasons.

  1. “The church has failed to provide a compelling vision for how the money will make a difference in the world…They withhold money from the church because they do not see a sufficient return on their investment.”

This is the responsibility of the church leadership, especially the pastor.  So since it’s our, even my, responsibility, let me tell you what difference your giving makes.  It makes a difference in missions to our community and world.  Your giving makes all these things possible.  On a regular basis we have 5-10 people/month who serve dinner and make friends at Maplewood women and children’s center.  5-10 people/quarter serve coffee and make friends at Open Door Ministries downtown.  Last year 3887 personal items were collected for Compassion Closet.  5-10 people/quarter socialize and make friends at Holt Senior Care.  20-30 people help out with the North Elementary community garden twice a year.  3-5 people volunteer at Recycle Rama two times a year.  We tithed 10%  of our capital campaign funds to foreign and local missions which has amounted to $33,000 over three years or $11,000/year.  Since the birth of our church we have given to missions a total of $153,478.52 or $11,806/year.  Wow!  Because you give we are making a huge dent in the needs of our community and world and sharing God’s compassion with many many people.

So what about our church?  What difference does your giving make in our own church.  Once a month I host Pizza with the Pastor for new people in our church.  Last week we had five people on Sunday and six people on Monday.  That’s just one month.  I’m currently teaching Christianity 101, a baptism preparation small group, and we have four people attending on Sundays and five on Mondays.  Last year at Baptism @ The Beach we baptized six people, three adults and three kids as well as had four adults reaffirm their faith.  Authentic life in Christ is being ignited in new people and they are connecting with God and others, growing the character of Christ, and serving the church, community, and world.  Your giving makes this possible.

What about the people we’re reaching weekly in worship?  Last year at this time we had an average weekend attendance of 194 which included thirty-four kids and eight youth.  This year (if you throw out the one really bad weekend we had the first week of January when the snowpocalypse shut everything down in Lansing) we have an average weekend attendance of 199 which includes thirty-seven kids and twelve youth.  That’s an increase of 2%.  Four times this year our Monday night Church in a Diner has been our biggest service.  In 2013 we saw a 22% growth in average weekend attendance because of our Monday night Church in a Diner.  This creative worship service has had a bigger impact than just in Lansing.  Jeremy, Gretchen, and I recently led a worship with 150 leaders in Saginaw about Church in a Diner.  Our model for ministry is influencing dozens of other churches.  Our big vision is to have seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week.  7 – 7 – 7.  This Easter we’re seeking to be one church on two days in three locations and four services.  1 – 2 – 3 – 4.  We are doing more and reaching more people than we’ve ever done or reached on a shoestring budget.  Your giving makes all this happen!

I find our reach compelling.  I find our ministry compelling.  I hope it is compelling to you too.  I hope you see that what you give has a huge return in people touched and lives changed!

2.  “[Some] people … do not realize the church needs their money to be effective. Their church has done an      inadequate job of asking for money, so people remain oblivious to the church’s expectations and potential.

Just as a baseline let me share with you that the critical items (payroll and rent and utilities) in our budget to reach the people we reach and do the ministry that we do  requires that we receive $4400/week in the offering.  The survey that I shared with you earlier represents $2200/week.  Our critical items in the budget to keep doing what we’re doing requires two times the amount represented in that survey.

One thing worth noting about our giving and our growth.  We are reaching many new people, and it takes time for new people to raise their commitments to giving.  That’s because it takes time to build trust and for new people to see what those who have been around for a long time already know, giving to Sycamore Creek Church is a worthwhile and trustworthy investment.

3.  “[Others] are ignorant of what the Bible teaches about our responsibility to apply God’s resources in ways that affect lives.”

This reason for not giving is a joint responsibility.  It’s both the leadership’s responsibility to teach what the Bible says about giving, and it’s each person’s responsibility to study the Bible on their own and in small groups.  It’s my hope that today we’ll increase your knowledge about what the Bible teaches on money and giving.

4.  “The final category contains those who are just selfish. They figure they worked hard for their money and it’s theirs to use as they please. Their priorities revolve around their personal needs and desires.”

 The first three reasons about not giving had some responsibility of the church leadership.  This reason must be owned by each one of us.  If we’re to grow in our discipleship we must realize that our money is not our own and act in a way that is consistent with that truth.  But more on that in a moment.  So the first commitment to giving is simply to give.

 2.     Give cheerfully

 The second commitment to give is to give cheerfully.  Back to Paul:

You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”
2 Corinthians 9:7 NLT

I’ve got to admit that I have a hard time with this.  I know I’m the pastor, and I’m supposed to be happy to give money away, but sometimes I have to check my own attitude.  This past Christmas season we were walking into Kroger when Micah saw and heard the Salvation Army bell ringer.  Apparently Micah had seen my wife, Sarah, give to the Salvation Army at some other trip to the grocery, and he asked me if we were going to give.  I had not planned on giving anything, but I thought, “I’m the pastor.  I’m his dad.  I’m supposed to help him learn to give.  So I guess I’ll give a little just to make the point.”  So we went over to the bell ringer and I gave Micah a quarter to put in the bucket.  As we were standing there and I was fumbling to get the quarter out and give it to Micah, someone else came by and handed Micah a $5 bill to put in the bucket.  Oh, come on!  Seriously?  I’m reluctantly and half-heartedly giving my son a quarter to teach him something about giving and someone else comes by and hands him a $5 bill to put in the bucket?  OK, God.  I give up.  So I gave Micah some hard cash and let him cheerfully give with a big smile.  At least one of us was giving cheerfully that day.

Do we give only when we feel like it?  Is that what Paul is saying?  Are we only to give when we can give cheerfully?  No.  We’re to always give and to seek to have a cheerful heart when we do.  The second commitment to giving is to give cheerfully.

3.     Give Generously

The third commitment to give is to give generously.

Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head.  Some of those at the table were indignant. “Why waste such expensive perfume?” they asked.
Mark 14:3-4 NLT

The woman in this story gave “expensive perfume” that the people who were with Jesus thought was wasteful.  They had better business plans for how to use that asset.  But Jesus was impressed with her generosity.

The Bible has a basic standard of giving set at 10%.  It is the baseline commitment to giving.  This 10% is called a tithe which literally means 10%.  The basic idea here is that God gives you 100% of what you have and asks you to give back 10%.  10% may seem like a lot to most of you, but it all depends on how you frame it.  Consider this video:

 

That puts it all in a different perspective, right? God gives you 100% and lets you keep 90%.  10% seems like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?  But remember, 10% is the baseline.  It’s the minimum biblical standard.  I think most of the Bible actually encourages us to give even more by living simply and giving generously, even radically.  That means more than 10%.  Back to our survey results.

Twenty people answered the question about what percentage of their income they gave and the average was 11%.  That’s because of those twenty, seven people who took the survey give over 10%.  The highest percentage was 15%.  And these seven extravagant givers weren’t all at the top of the salary scale.  I was humbled to read the amounts they were giving that made up 10-15%.  We have several who are “widows” giving “mites” (see Mark 12:41-44).  Most of us think we need to be making a lot of money before we can tithe.  But that’s not really how it works.  It is unlikely that you will be faithful with much if you have not been faithful with little.  By many accounts, John D. Rockefeller is the richest man who ever walked the face of the earth.  He was also a devout Christian.  He liked to say, “I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my first salary, which was $1.50 per week.”

The third commitment to give is to give generously.

4.     Give regularly

The fourth commitment to give is to give regularly.  Let’s look at some more instruction that Paul gave to the church at Corinth:

On the first day of each week, you should each put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don’t wait until I get there and then try to collect it all at once.
1 Corinthians 6:2 NLT

Paul’s basic idea here is that at the beginning of the week when you get paid, set aside your tithe for God.  Every week.  Whether you’re able to make it to worship or not.  Whether you’re in town or not.  Whether you’re on vacation or not.  You pay your mortgage payment whether you’re on vacation or not.  Why do you skip giving to God?  The IRS understands human nature.  At first they allowed you to save up your tax and pay it at the end of the year, but in 1943 they got smart.  They realized that no one had the self-discipline to save their money and give it all at the end of the year.  So they began withholding your taxes from your paycheck.  While you don’t have to give to the IRS cheerfully, you do have to give regularly.  Is the IRS greater than God?

So here’s what I’d suggest you do.  Give when you get paid, whenever that is.  The best way to do this is to automate the whole process.  I have automated almost everything in my financial life.  I pay very little attention to it.  I pay my mortgage and most other bills with my online bill pay.  Many of you pay your bills with electronic fund transfer.  I recently read a book titled The Automatic Millionaire.  The basic thesis of the book was this: if you want to grow your wealth, have money automatically deducted from your paycheck and put into a retirement investment.  That’s all there was to the book.  Automate it.  If it works with becoming a millionaire, then it will also work with your giving to God.  Sarah and I have automated our giving through our online bill pay so that immediately after I get paid, a check is sent to the church.  Many of you give through electronic fund transfer (EFT).  This winter has been pretty tough at times on attendance.  It would have been even harder on the church if we didn’t have people faithfully giving through EFT.  Give regularly and the easiest way to give regularly is to automate it.

John Wesley, a mentor of mine from afar through his writings, said this about money: “Money never stays with me.  It would burn me if it did.  I throw it out of my hands as soon as possible, lest it should find its way into my heart.”  He knew that where your money is, there your heart will be also.  Give regularly so that your heart is regularly with God.

You’ve heard me talk about giving today, but I’d like you to hear from Susan Kelley and her husband, Jason.  Susan works with the money behind the scenes at SCC.  She does our books, sends out financial statements, and is the office manager.  She not only organizes our money, but she and Jason also give, give cheerfully, give generously, and give regularly.  Here is Susan and Jason:

 

 

Commitment

I don’t know what level your commitment has been, but I know what level my commitment has been.  Today we are all invited to take one step in a new commitment.

Are you ready to grow one or more steps in your giving?

No, I am (we are) not ready to commit at this time.
Yes, I am (we are) ready to give for the first time.
Yes, I am (we are) ready to give regularly.
Yes, I am (we are) ready to give regularly from the “first fruits.”
Yes, I am (we are) ready to take the four-month tithe (10%) challenge.
Yes, I am (we are) ready to commit to tithing (10%) from this point on.
Yes, I am (we are) ready to be extravagant givers (over 10%).
Yes, I am (we are) ready to give automatically through Electronic Fund Transfer
Giving will be a priority in my (our) life, growing to include the following:

Giving will be the greatest joy in life. If I miss a week, I (we) will give twice as much the next week to keep faith with this commitment. I (we) will move closer to tithing (giving 10%) each year. The check to the church will be the first one I (we) write each month.

$ ____________ every week/month/quarter/year for an annual total of $ ____________ to the General Fund.

$ ____________ every week/month/quarter/year for an annual total of $ ____________ to Dr. Mir in Nicaragua.

$ ____________ every week/month/quarter/year for an annual total of $ ____________ to the Capital Campaign.

Name: __________________________________________ Date___________________

 

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Committed to Christ: Because God first loved us

March 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment

We love because God first loved us. (1 John 4:19) Logo 4-color B

Before you made any move toward God, before you discovered or contemplated or considered Jesus’ invitation to follow him, God moved toward you. Before you did or said anything, God declared a deep, abiding love for you. God loves you. God loved you first. This is a life-altering truth.

Our capacity for love is influenced significantly by the love we have received. If our parents and other adults have loved us well throughout our lives, we find it easier to pass along love and encouragement to others.

Following Jesus is a natural consequence of realizing who he is and the greatness of his love for us. John Wesley, who at Aldersgate saw that “Christ died for me, even me,” is but one example of the transformative power of beholding the depth of God’s love displayed on the cross.

Likewise, may you behold God’s love and, as a follower of Christ, evidence that love to others.

Creator God, may my commitment to you be a response to your love and commitment to me, to save, redeem, and use me for your purposes. Amen.

**

In preparation for Easter, our entire church family is in a season of decision and commitment toward the goal of becoming fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. We invite you to join us for Committed to Christ: Six Steps to a Generous Life.

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Step one: Commitment to Christ

March 3, 2014 by Leave a Comment

In preparation for Easter, our entire church family is invited to enter a season of decision and commitment toward the goal of becoming fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ through the series Committed to Christ: Six Steps to a Generous Life.  Each Sunday and Monday as a community we’ll delve into what it means to commit to climb one step closer toward this goal.

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Daily throughout this seven-week series, we invite everyone to take a moment in which to dedicate time to consider personal next steps. Meditations will keep us focused on each of the steps along the way, beginning with this thought for today: Making or renewing our commitment to Christ.

“Come, follow me.” (Mark 1:17)

Knowingly or not, all of us follow someone. We can do so with great intention and care, or we can do so haphazardly, stumbling from here to there but nevertheless moving in a general direction. We identify those persons whom we most desire to emulate, and we make our decisions accordingly. We all have some general conception of what the good life looks like, either through exposure to a model, or by piecing together a patchwork ideal all our own. It remains with us to discern whether or not our focus is on Jesus as our model, or on something or someone altogether different.

As you begin this journey toward living a more generous life, your first stop is Jesus Christ. You must consider his invitation, his life, his path, his truth. You must ask whether or not Jesus is truly worthy of your devotion, your dedication, your wholehearted discipleship. God has supplied you with the grace necessary to bring you to a place where you can consider what a life committed to Christ entails.

Trust him, whether for the first time, or yet again. Turn your life over to him, and see what good and beautiful things he might bring.

Jesus, I wish to be your disciple, and I trust you to lead me in a good way, a way that leads to a generous and beautiful life. Amen.

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Commited to Christ

February 24, 2014 by 1 Comment

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Dear Friends,

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?
What does the Lord expect of me?
What “holy habits” should I cultivate in my life?

For seven weeks beginning in March and preparing us for Easter, our entire church family is invited to enter a season of decision and commitment toward the goal of becoming fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. We will begin a new series called Committed to Christ: Six Steps to a Generous Life.

We are hoping that every person and every family will be present every Sunday or Monday during this season so that we can each commit to climb one step closer toward this goal. We will dedicate ourselves to the Lord and obey what the Lord has commanded, in a spirit of gratitude for all that we have received.

On an introductory week at the start of the program, we will be asked to make or renew our personal commitment to Christ. Each of the six weeks following will emphasize a different area of faithful Christian discipleship: prayer, Bible reading, worship, financial giving, witness, and service.

Here are several things you will want to be aware of:

  • A preview booklet that describes each of the six areas of commitment is available for FREE at the info table on Sunday or Monday.
  • A 40-day devotional book is also available on Sunday or Monday for $4 or you can buy one here.
  • A set of commitment cards that show the various levels of commitment, ranging from limited commitment to full and unlimited commitment can be downloaded here.  You will be invited to complete and turn in one commitment each week during worship on Sunday or Monday.
  • A serve sheet with all the ministries of our church listed can be downloaded here.  You are invited to complete and turn this in on the last week during worship on Sunday or Monday.  Also consider taking a FREE ($15 value) online spiritual gifts survey at www.assessme.org/2364.aspx.

To celebrate what God is doing here at Sycamore Creek Church, the series will culminate in a special Ministry Celebration Sunday with ONE Sunday service at 10:30 AM on Palm Sunday, April 13 (Monday night will meet as usual), where all the ministries of the church will be on display in a service fair in the Connection Cafe.

May God bless each of us as we commit together to become fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ.

Peace,
Pastor Tom

Schedule
March 2 & 3 – Intro
March 9 & 10 – Prayer
March 16 & 17 – Bible
March 23 & 24 – Worship
March 30 & 31 – Financial
April 6 & 7 – Witness
April 13 & 14 (Palm Sunday) – Service (ONE  Sunday service at 10:30 AM; Monday at 7PM as usual)

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