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 _____!“

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 _____ !”

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 _____!”