The Loyal Opposition: Are You Doing Anything Worth Criticizing?

I love a measured, intelligent, respectful, reasonable discussion. But it needs to be two-way (minimum) and out of consideration allow the other person to make their points and explain (defend, if it comes to that) their point of view. Not only as a matter of civility and politeness, but because questions (even harsh reactions) are opportunities to look at one’s own views from a different angle. Criticism is a great way of being jolted into re-examination and out of blithely assuming everyone’s on board.

You learn a lot about your own positions on issues via discussion because it’s an occasion to re-ponder what and how one really thinks about something. It prompts you to reflect, re-phrase and re-articulate. Sometimes to modify and grow, sometimes to affirm and clarify.

It’s not only healthy intellectual exercise, it forms relationship because it begins to forge your history with those who don’t understand the subject the way you do. Even with outright opposition. Or as we parliamentarians like to call ourselves, The Loyal Opposition.

Opposition = Relationship

Unfortunately, you don’t always get that kind of consideration. As humans, Christians sometimes will blow someone off without allowing for the possibility of a thoughtful reply. Or even (horrors!) that we might learn something.

Thus far, the responses to Healing Your Financial Soul have been overwhelmingly positive, and even more so to the seminars. But once in a while there’s an interesting reaction or response. The topic of money will do that. I try to treat them as opportunities, although so far the responses-to-my-responses have been mostly dismissive and closed. Shame, really.

Such an opportunity came up recently and I thought it’d be fun to post a short series of those objections and responses. It would be WONDERFUL if you were to jump in and add your thoughts as well.

What I’ll do is take a handful of negative feedback (veiled so as not to embarrass anyone in the remote happenstance that they see their own comments and are concerned that others might call them out out) along with my points of view.

But you know I like to keep my posts short and to the point, so I’ll begin with the next post.

“I am rich in _____!”

Self-fulfilling Financial Desperation

So, do you feel like you have to make demands on The First Bank of Blessing?

Is your cash-on-hand a matter of self-fulfilling expectation?

Are you tired yet of living life as an apology?

Do you still think it’s humble, noble or even godly, to wish for “not too much… just enough”?

Do you get that “Be it unto you according to your faith,” has broader implications?

‘Cause you’re there.

“I am rich in _____!“

Be True to Your Values

We’re all marketing in one way or another.
Make sure you’re living like you’re talking, or you’ll be caught out.

“I am rich in …!”

Provocation of the Day: Riches in Heaven

This is a huge topic. Which is another way of saying, “Tread carefully, for you tread on both my hopes and offenses.”

If you’re reading this blog from a western orientation, then the double-edged sword of material affluence (materialism on one side, the embarrassment of riches on the other) probably has left you with inner conflict. Specifically, given that you are already pretty rich in this world (objectively and historically), do you feel a certain sinking apprehension about the subject of “riches in Heaven”?

Let me lob a couple of thought-grenades to disrupt your tangle of contradictory thoughts, mixed emotions, spiritual dichotomies and physical stress (your body’s reaction to that inner unrest):

Riches and/or Heaven

Let’s start with Jesus’ direct admonition to his followers about where your time and energy are going:

• “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
• “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19-20)

Now, take Jesus’ illustration of the successful farmer whose material success prompted him to build bigger and better storage facilities (to be relevant to our era, let’s call it “retirement”) and is rebuked by God:

• “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
• “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:20-21)

So there’s a statement of what he was saying not to do.

And then there’s Paul’s advice to his pastoral mentor-ee to pass on to believers who are materially successful:

• Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
• Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.
• In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

Hmm, contradiction, or no?

Personally, in the first case, I had drawn a false equivalency or false contradiction between material prosperity and condemnation from God. But why should I insert an either/or spin when it’s so plausible that the Lord is basically saying not to get tunnel-visioned about success at the expense of spiritual growth?

And then Paul breaks open what being rich toward God looks like for people who indeed have accumulated surplus wealth: character + attitude + action. All good stuff, and Paul seems to be saying that this combination results in exactly what the farmer is rebuked for neglecting: generosity.

Get rich in Heaven

So, here’s the rub: Is it reasonable to expect that there will be those who are, and who are not, destined for different levels of “rich” once we get to Heaven? Obviously not in the cigar-smoking and brandy-sipping sense, but in terms of attaining some celestial currency? Treasures? Accountability? “Good and faithful”?

Given: Ultimately, everyone will be casting their crowns. And before God’s glory any peer-to-peer comparison will be ridiculously moot.

But what if you are living in the wealthy West? Are we fools by default? Is generational momentum in the area of material wealth a blessing, or a curse in disguise? Is preparing for retirement antithetical to being rich toward God? Can you have it both ways? Is it okay to hope you can?

Mind you, if you mash in the parable of the talents and the disparity between the rewards meted out to the two financially savvy and successful money managers… ah, but that’s for another post.

“I am rich in _____!”

Christian investment managers… meh.

Recently I saw a question posted on a Christian group within LinkedIn. It asked whether someone might be more motivated to work with an investment manager who identified themselves as a Christian. Honestly? I hope not.

Jesus wound up one of his more important parables with the statement, “The master commended the [busted and suddenly highly motivated] manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.”

I think it’s because we Christians have been inculcated with a deep-seated distrust and aversion to money itself, so until we get past that we will be vulnerable money managers. I would consider a Christian investment advisor handicapped. Perhaps even booby trapped.

Have you noticed how Christians distance from money by talking about “finances”? You cannot work skillfully with something you’ve been conditioned, and agreed, to distrust. Even despise at some level. So any investment manager is going to be swimming against some pretty deep currents if they’re hoping to produce excellent results for their clients.

We are deeply conflicted about money. Which is why I wrote a book on the subject and do seminars to try to help Christians slough off the church cultural baggage that keeps them stuck in mediocrity (where money would/could/should be a resource, and not a necessary evil.)

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’d prefer to work with non-Christians, but there’s more to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” than income tax returns.

“I am rich in _____!”

Fear not, just love

Sometimes we worry too much about things we don’t make decisions about anyway. If you love the Lord your God with all your life, and prefer others in ways that you’d really be grateful for, then you’re good.

In our dollar-driven culture and economy, that will mean expressing this love with money, as well as your time, attention and effort.

Okay, two posts in a row using a NYT cartoon, but I’m a fan.

“I am rich in _____!”

There’s rich, and then there’s rich

I believe in generosity. And abundance that fuels generosity. Not Christian get rich quick schemes. Not assumptions that Christians are divinely marked for affluence as their spiritual right. Not presumption that being born into one economic culture or another means you were fated by God to remain there all your days. But that you should be free to work out what that looks like, between you and God. And then be generous to others with however little or much you possess.

But usually it’s much.

We were born into a culture, or chose a culture, or were led into a culture, that runs on some kind of economy. And money is the fuel. Since you’re reading this online, I assume you are rich enough to afford a computer, or to rent time on one, or at least to live somewhere that can afford to offer free access. Which means that by any objective contemporary or historical standard, you would be considered well-off, if not wealthy, by the vast majority of humankind.

Whoa! I got bills! Things are tight! I’m not rich!

Actually, today, if you are living on more than $2 a day, you’re better off than half of the world’s population. And that’s literally today’s $2, not adjusted for how much maize you can buy in Ghana, or what a nickel got you at the general store back in the 1900s.

In my Healing Your Financial Soul seminars, I like to quote a statistical model to bring perspective to the material state of people around the world. Especially as a wake-up for North Americans who fancy themselves to be deprived because they’re feeling financially stressed. It’s called, “Who lives in the Global Village?”, updated in 2005 by David Copeland. If the world was a village of 100 people:

• 80 would live in substandard housing
• 67 would be unable to read
• 50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
• 39 would lack access to improved sanitation
• 33 would be without access to a safe water supply
• 24 would not have any electricity (and of the 76 that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night)
• 5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth – all 5 would be U.S. citizens

So, if you have heat (or even air conditioning) where you live; will eat once, twice, thrice or more today, and probably again tomorrow; have clean running water (hot, even) and sewers; electricity to spare for your toaster, coffee maker and smartphone recharger, anytime of day; sleep safely under a roof that doesn’t leak and behind a door that locks if you need it; can get medicine when you need to; and can read this … you are already living like nobility.

Not that we should feel guilty for having these things — actually, it means we’re in a tremendous position to serve the needs of others for these basic necessities and recruit other well-off people to pitch in too.

I guess what I’m getting at is that middle-class Christians who say pretentious, laughable stuff like, “It’s okay for Christians to be comfortable, and even be blessed … but not rich,” need a perspective check. They’re already judging from a privileged position, looking up from an already elevated status. (Financially, at least.)

There’s a Canadian bank that is running a campaign with the slogan, “You’re richer than you think.” I think they have a point.

“I am [already] rich in _____ !”

Language, Freedom and Christian Faith

This is from the preface of the first edition of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1828:

“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed … No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

“I am rich in … !”

Easter performance art

This is a cool, pre-Easter piece of performance art.

“I am rich in …”

TACF Scarborough: A weed in my old backyard

Two Sundays ago, I had the opportunity to speak at the Scarborough campus of TACF (Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. It was a good morning.

Driving in (in just 1+3/4 hrs., and I was hardly speeding!) I was taken back to 6 years of my childhood spent in that area. It was mostly farmland back then; it sure isn’t now. But for me that was a great era: grades 1-6 at Rosedale Public School, living on Oakley Blvd., climbing trees and jumping fences, cutting through backyards (this was before the days of parental paranoia), going to church at Agincourt Baptist. Those years really are formative.

It also reminded me of one of my first recorded negative expectations about The Ministry. Our kindly mainline denominational minister, Mr. Elliott,  had caused a ripple of wry smiles by buying … a green car.

Apparently ministers were supposed to stick to darker colours so as not to draw too much attention to themselves. For a kid with a handful of crazy-coloured Hot Wheels®, the joke didn’t make being a minister sound like fun. Conclusion: I guess I won’t be a minister. Case closed. Seed planted. Cliché perpetuated.

So by the time I entered full-time vocational ministry at the tender age of 40, I had expended a lot of energy avoiding capital-M pastoral ministry by diverting myself with camp counseling, youth work, worship ministry, marriage counseling, and such. Fortunately, John and Carol Arnott in particular, and the Vineyard church movement in general, had opened up my blind spot for ministry as a career. But it took a longer time than was necessary.

Not exactly a tragedy, but it illustrates how childhood impressions become adult strongholds that need to be surrendered to God’s grace and optimism. It was a tare that intimidated the wheat of my calling. Fortunately, God never runs out of ideas and vision for our lives.

Anyway, it was good to be back on the turf. And we had fun with an introductory message about some of the concepts from the book and seminar. Here are a couple of photos taken by Brian Girdwood, a guy I’d seen snapping action shots around TACF for years:

Warming things up at Catch The Fire Scarborough.

I felt the Lord giving me some Spirit-born encouragement on a few points: The musicians going back to their musical roots/DNA for inspiration in worship music; incorporating urban sound, i.e. loops/samples/Mac/DJ’ing in the music; looking to the urban skyline as their outreach.

Getting interactive with an HYFS group activation.

And after a few introductory concepts about how we think/feel/act, and a few icebreakers about why money is such funny stuff, we started mixing things up in the room. These Sunday talky-bits (as the Brits sometimes call them) are a fun intro for the the HYFS way of helping people sort out their inner conflicts with money.

“I am rich in _____!”