Week 6 - Adjusting the Spending Plan


Our worth is not based upon our income; our worth is based upon God’s grace.


Day 33
 
The wise hear them and grow in wisdom;
those with understanding gain guidance.

Proverbs 1:5

 
A few years ago, our church spent the summer focusing on various aspects of health. We wanted our community and its members to explore health holistically, not just spiritually, so we offered a variety of ways to focus specifically on physical, mental, and emotional health. Later, in the fall, I can remember sitting in the office with members of our church’s Generosity Team and putting together a stewardship campaign that encouraged people not only to pledge as an expression of their discipleship but also to be financially healthy as a spiritual discipline so that they could continue to give generously for the ministries of the church into the world.

I was excited for the slate of opportunities that were available for our community. We worked with our conference and offered planned giving workshops. We partnered with local financial advisors to present ways to manage money, such as budgeting and saving strategies. We even invited our community to come for a meet-and-greet with financial planners to create contacts and make connections.

Our high hopes, sadly, did not pan out. Our highest-attended event had twenty people, representing less than 5 percent of our worshiping community on a Sunday morning. One event had twelve in attendance, and nine of them were members of the church staff and their families. I was discouraged and disappointed, and I could not understand why people would not show up.

It’s interesting that in virtually all aspects of life and in our relationships with God, we turn to the church—moments like birth, baptism, confirmation, and death. We want the church to be with us and for us in our times of joy and in our times of sorrow, and in everything in between. But so often, we keep our finances private. We will share publicly our prayer requests about our bodies and our minds, even at times to the most personal of details, yet we keep our finances private. We pray together, we eat together, we worship together, and we learn together, yet we keep our finances private, personal, apart from the community.

What I love about this text from Proverbs is two things. First, the author doesn’t indicate a finiteness to the hearing or growing or gaining. In fact, some other translations use the future tenses: will hear, will grow, will gain. The end result of our learning is not simply to acquire knowledge; it is to grow in wisdom, to gain guidance, and that work never ends.

And second, I love that the subject is ambiguous. There isn’t one who is wise or one who grows in wisdom; instead, it’s you and I and we together, in community. Though we may prefer to keep our finances private, it’s only in giving all of ourselves to God and to the community—finances included—that we grow in wisdom.

As we continue on the journey toward a healthy relationship with God and with money, may we maintain postures of learning so that all we have and all we do would be for God’s glory. Amen!

Rev. Joe Kim
 
 
Saving Grace
Hope-Filled Devotions Along the Way to Financial Well-Being

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Scripture quotations are taken from the Common English Bible, copyright 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.


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