FIGURING OUT A WIN/WIN

The man who came through my door was 50 something. His name was Tony. He was polite. He was looking for gas money. Initially, I decided to buy him $20 in gas. The conversation continued though and I discovered that he worked on air conditioning units. Specifically, he focused on performing annual maintenance of units in hotels. He also worked on residential units. An idea began to form in my mind. I needed my air conditioner cleaned. While I couldn’t loan my friend $60,000 for their business, I could hire a needy guy  for work I needed done. I hired Tony to clean my air conditioning system after calling a reference he provided from a local hotel.
 
Tony offered great service. He diligently cleaned my outdoor unit. Tony inspected my indoor unit, checked all our duct work and the air flow from individual vents. I researched what would be a fair price for his service while he was working. When all was said and done, Tony set a receipt on my breakfast table, stepped away and said, “You write down whatever you think is fair.” I paid for $20 dollars in gas, a gallon of cleaning solution and roughly another $40 dollars in cash. The total was less expensive than most service, but very reasonable pay and Tony walked away with enough extra solution to do a couple of more jobs. I also kicked in some rags to help him out. We both walked away feeling like winners. Best of all Tony walked away as a worker rather than a welfare recipient. Dignity is hard to put a price on.
 

THE LESSONS LEARNED

1. I don’t have 60k to loan, but God puts people on my step that I can help with what I do have.
2. It takes some time and creativity to figure out solutions that help everyone.  You can’t be in a hurry and figure out a solution like Tony and I did. You have to work at it.
3. When there is an exchange for assistance it helps preserve someone’s dignity. I don’t have any problem giving without any strings attached. We do it all of the time. Sometimes though someone needs the gift of work as much as they need the money.
4. Entering into partnerships to help someone yields a very different relationship. Tony and I have a different connection from the people that I have given gas to in the past. I haven’t found words to describe it.
5. I still have a lot to learn about giving.

 
Well, I hope this helps you consider what you have and how you can help someone in need.  Perhaps, you have a skill.  For example, I know a dentist who has had a significant rise in the number of people who need dental work, but can’t pay for it.  He is doing more and more work for free on people.  May be he can’t do everything they need done, but sometimes he can at least get them out of pain.  That’s his gift.  What’s yours?
 

——–

Hi John.
Last Wednesday I read your post on the Practical Disciple and was inspired to share a story with you. The day before, Tuesday, I was supposed to be at Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center, near Little Rock, AR, on a private planning retreat. However, a saint of the church had passed away the previous Friday, and I was honored to be asked to preside at the funeral on Tuesday morning. Afterward, I went back to the church office to wrap up a few things before heading back to Ferncliff for the rest of the week. While I was there, my secretery ushered in a visitor, ‘Penny’, whom I had met before, and helped with a utility bill. Penny had moved to Arkansas from Atlanta when she needed to be with an ailing parent. Then, she herself had fallen gravely ill, and ended up in a coma for three weeks. While in her coma, she experienced God, and saw and talked with her mother, who had passed away some years before. She woke up and found her family planning her funeral.
 
Tuesday, when she showed up in my office, she handed me a small bag of change and said, ‘This is all I have left for my business, and I need some things to happen today. God told me to sow this somewhere, and I didn’t know where to go, so I came to you, because you didn’t laugh when I told you my story (about being in a coma and experiencing God and her mother). So I need for God to work some things out for me today, I need to know that I’m going the right way with my business, and so I’m doing what God told me to do.’ I took the change, and spent some time talking to Penny. It turns out she had been so involved with organizing and running a local community-wide celebration that she had not been able to devote as much time as she could to her business (a consulting group with three employees that provides assistance with social networking and internet websites). Her water and electricity bills were due within the next few days, and there was no hope of money coming in for at least two weeks.
 
I had been thinking about getting our church more involved with social networking, but had not had the time or energy to devote to it, so this was a God-send for me personally. I called the chair of the committe who manages our publicty budget and got permission to hire Penny’s company for three months. This paid about half of her utility bills. Then, I used some discretionary funds to pay the other half, telling her that I was ‘sowing’ these funds with her, and that if they came back, that would be great, but if they didn’t, I would consider them well spent.
 
Only then did I tell her that I wasn’t supposed to be there that day, that I was only there because someone had a funeral. We were both a little overwhelmed in that moment, both by God’s providence and by the enormity of what we were able to accomplish.
 
I thank God for placing Penny in my life on that day at that time, and I am thankful God helped me to see a creative and useful way to help her and to help our church.
By the way, the change she handed me totalled 192 pennies and about 5 dimes, nickels, and quarters, for a grand total of$2.50. I’m still pondering where to sow this precious gift, but am sure God will tell me where, when the time comes.
God is good!

–

Again, thank you Erin for living faithfully. God bless your ministry and God bless Penny. Erin Potter Kaye is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Camden, Arkansas and I am delighted to have her as my very first guest post.
  

I often tell people that the two most transformative disciplines that I can encourage people to do beyond prayer and scripture are maintaining a sabbath and tithing.  Why?  Simply put, those two disciplines cut to the heart of two core life elements that we are addictively attached to–Time and Money.  As I move into 2010 I have struggled with a clear resolution for the year, but I feel an emerging intention to experience more contentment with less.  Less what?  Less things.  Less hurry. Less scurry. Less stress.  I would like to experience the mundane blessings of life as profound. Mundane blessings like enjoying a meal with my family, hanging a load of laundry on the line, taking a hike in the woods, playing a board game with my children, having some people over to the house to kick back around the fire pit while playing songs, telling stories, and laughing until our bellies hurt.  To realize that I need a radical reordering of my relationships to time and money.  I need to radically reorder my management of time and money.

This past Monday I took a step toward experiencing more with less.  I shared my step on Facebook and had my longest status thread of comments ever.  What I did was called “freezer cooking.”  If you haven’t heard of freezer cooking, its taking a day or part of a day to cook in bulk and stock your freezer.  Given the strains of the economy and my desire for more of life with less strain I decide to try this.  Let me preface my story of Monday by telling you first that I bought a chest freezer for my wife for Christmas.  She loved it.  It cost may be $200 brand spankin’ new and if I periodically keep up with this freezer cooking strategy it will probably pay for itself very rapidly.  If you are reading this and thinking, “but I don’t have a chest freezer sitting in my garage”, continuing reading anyways.  Why?  Tomorrow I am going to have a post just for you that will tell you adjustments you can make for limited freezer space.  The tips below though will still help you.  Let’s move on to Monday.

When I woke up on Monday, I had in our new chest freezer 2 pounds of ground beef and a pizza. When I went to bed Monday night I had the following:

• 3 9×9 chicken and broccoli casserole dishes
• 2 9×13 chicken and stuffing dishes
• 2 chicken spaghetti dishes
• 1 sour cream enchilada dish
• 1 massive beef and spaghetti casserole
• 1 pizza
• 2 individual packaged pounds of ground beef frozen raw
• 3 individual packaged pounds of ground beef frozen browned and drained
• 2 1 gallon bags of beef stew
• 1 gallon bag of chili

Now I have to confess I didn’t cook it all.  I used a $75 gift certificate someone gave me at Christmas to buy the chicken spaghetti, beef spaghetti and sour cream enchiladas.  Everything else though, I prepped and/or cooked that day.  I probably had a little over 4 hours total time in the kitchen.  My 16 year old daughter spent some of the time in the kitchen with me and a friend of hers even popped in for few minutes and helped with the chili.

If you are at all interested in doing this (and I highly recommend that you do) then here are some tips for how to do it, how it saves time and money and some hidden benefits.

10 HOW-TO TIPS

Blessings to you on Thanksgiving Day.  I hope you take time to express your thanks to God.  Consider slipping off on your own for 30 minutes to just sit in God’s presence and with joy voice all of the ways you have seen God’s gracious hand at work over the last year.  Extol God for who God is.  Let God know just how much you love Him.  You might find it meaningful to journal a gratitude list.

Lastly, for all you shoppers on Friday.  Realize how little of your gratitude on Thursday probably had to do with things.  When you buy, buy thoughtfully.  Find gifts that will make a meaningful difference in someone’s life.  Be a good steward.  Recognize that jumbo sale may not be such a savings if it floats around on a credit card for a while.  Don’t get sucked into hype.  Just purchase those things that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt will bring gratitude and meaning into someone else’s life.

Again, thank you for reading The Practical Disciple

Today’s post is a gift to anyone with debt.

Turn a television on, open the paper, or just listen to passing conversations and at some point you will hear people talking about the economy.  The reality of just how messed up the economy is came home to me recently when I visited a friend who was losing her position as a pastor because the church she worked for couldn’t afford to pay her any longer.  Between wealthy members losing their wealth and a massive building debt, tough choices were forced upon this congregation.  Numerous families are also feeling the squeeze.  The December 2008 edition of Harper’s Index revealed these startling statistics: 47% of Americans say they live “paycheck to paycheck”.  21% of these individuals say they make over $100,000 per year.  I don’t know how that statistic hits you, but it is mind numbing and frightening to me.

One of the biggest demons in this whole nasty affair of money is a massive amount of consumer debt.  Debt wreaks havoc on you mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  When you are in debt you fail to give.  You get driven by fear and hard earned dollars that could be used to honor God or compassionately touch the lives of people in need get siphoned away into a nebulous black hole of interest payments.  When you are carrying debt Jesus’ warning in the gospel of Matthew that we cannot serve both God and mammon becomes a harsh and in some ways shameful reality.

So what do we do about it physically?

I think one of the most practical Christian authors out there addressing the situation is Dave Ramsey.  What he has to say works. His book, The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness, is an excellent resource for anyone out there plaque with debt.  I have never had massive debt, but I have had a few times where I needed to aggressively lean on the principles that Dave puts forward to get me back on track financially.  It works so I it is my recommended resource of the month.  For those of you feeling the crunch of the economy and in need of relief of this very real physical and spiritual threat of debt here are a few core components of what Dave recommends.

1)  Stop accumulating debt.  Physically eliminate cards or make them terribly in accessible.  I can’t recall if I read in Dave’s book or where, but I read about one woman who froze her credit card in a block of ice so that she couldn’t impulsively use it.  That may sound wacky, but it’s not as wacky as needlessly spending money you don’t have.

2) Create a budget and live within that budget. If you are not familiar with creating a budget there are numerous resources online that can teach you to do this.

3) Save and set aside a $1000 emergency fund before resolving debt and do it fast. This is often a very difficult concept for people to grasp.  Why would you do this?  What you don’t want to happen is for your debt resolution efforts to be constantly derailed by crisis. Getting out of debt is as much or more mental than mathematical.  You need to create momentum and sustain it. Having an emergency fund allows you to do this.  Getting hit with an emergency like the radiator on your car blowing and finding yourself amassing yet more debt while trying to resolve debt is incredibly disheartening.  It can even halt your efforts entirely.  Being able to cut a check for that blown radiator is the most amazing feeling.  You want to regain a sense of being in control of your finances once again, rather than living at the whim of your circumstances.  An emergency fund does that and is essential.

4)  Eliminate debt using what Dave calls the debt snowball. Pay minimum payments on all of your debts except your smallest.  Apply as much money to resolving that debt as you can.  Once that is resolved you take the money you were paying toward that first debt and apply it on your next debt along with whatever minimum you had been paying.  With each debt resolved you tack on what you have been paying toward the resolution of the next.  You can read more details about the debt snow ball at Dave’s website by clicking here.  I have done this before and there is something very freeing and relieving as your list of debts shrinks.   It is also becomes very empowering to begin making greater and greater payments.  Once again eliminating debt is as much mental as mathematical.

So what do we do about it spiritually?

1) In your budget make room to give to God even as you are resolving debt. This is a very basic application of “first fruits” giving.  As a spiritual and mental discipline consider writing you offering check first each month.  Not only is this a practical application of first fruits but it is a concrete expression of “Seek first the kingdom of God and all of these other things (the basic needs of life) shall be added unto you.”

2) Confess. Some people are in debt because of circumstances outside of their control.  Perhaps, you have been hit with an unforeseen medical emergency or loss of job.  That’s not your fault and you are not guilty in anyway.  So don’t worry about confession.  If however, you have been an irresponsible steward, living outside of your means, then you need have sinned and need to confess.  With out recognition and some true remorse you will likely find yourself back in the same financial messy behaviors again.

3)  Pray to discern need versus desire. I have always had the income I needed to meet my true needs.  When I have had debt it has typically been because I allowed myself to mistake desires for needs.  The desire most frequently mistaken for need is immediate gratification.  Debt is often a result of wanting something now that we could have debt free if we would just save and buy it later.  Learn to discern.  Pray for help in that.

4)  Pray for God to guide you in being a better steward.  The Holy Spirit will illuminate your mind as to what are very good and very bad decisions if you will ask for help and then pay attention.

I hope these suggestions are helpful.  Debt creates a prison of the heart and mind.  It shackle physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual resources that could otherwise be serving God.  If you are in debt I hope you will take some concrete practical steps today to begin escaping that prison.  God’s blessing to you as you do so.