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Some 60 percent of Americans spend more annually than their income, according to Newsweek (4/27/01). U.S. consumers are a combined $7.3 trillion in debt.

Credit cards, unpaid bills, bankruptcy, and stress over financial mismanagement directly affect churches. And not just by lowering giving. Poor stewardship hurts the body financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

How can churches help relieve that burden? Here's what five churches are doing.

Money is a deeply spiritual issue, and lasting change must occur from the inside out.

Good Sense is a year-round ministry with three components—teaching, training, and a support system built of both small group and one-on-one counsel. We help people understand that materialism and Christianity are both theologies that vie for their allegiance. While materialism's highest value is possession, Christianity stresses stewardship of God's possessions. The foundational principle is that we do not own our "stuff," but rather God entrusts it to us to serve as his trustees.

Our goal is not just reordering people's finances. Our goal is spiritual renewal as people are released from the demands of materialism to the blessings of godly stewardship. That goal is for everyone, not just people in financial difficulty.

After accepting Christ, Charlie was told the budget course should be the next step in his Christian walk. Charlie was insulted! He was a successful, certified financial planner. But in obedience, Charlie went.

He and wife began tracking their spending for the first time and were appalled at how much they spent on unimportant things. In time, they readjusted their spending to allow Charlie's wife to leave her high-pressure job downtown and begin working for a Christian firm nearer their home. Without her commute, they began to have breakfast together and their relationship grew. Charlie now testifies that learning how to live within godly principles of stewardship improved his finances, his marriage, his character, and his life.

Dick Towner, executive director of
Good Sense Stewardship Movement
Willow Creek Community Church,
South Barrington, Illinois

The median income in our county is 31 percent below the state average; 38 percent of the area households make less than $15,000 per year. Many are immersed in poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, and hopelessness.

We felt called to reach out "to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood" (Matt. 10:6, The Message). But what could our small church of 75 people do? God led us to partner with three other ministries.

When people come to us with immediate needs, through a partnership with Salvation Army, we now provide the volunteers while Salvation Army provides the funds for food bags, gasoline, prescription drugs, and emergency housing.

Once immediate needs are cared for, we offer people an opportunity to take classes on finding financial freedom and to be teamed with a personal financial coach. A Michigan-based ministry called New Focus provided our volunteers with the materials and training needed to lead the classes and serve as coaches.

Finally, for people who have been through the New Focus classes and have become credit worthy, we partner with our denominational leadership and a ministry called Vision 21 to find them affordable housing. We seek abandoned properties in the community, and Vision 21 works with existing federal, state, and city programs to help people purchase the land and build a home on it. Each participant has moved into a new home (in California, no less!) with a mortgage under $100,000.

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