Category Archives: Money

One Day

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Can’t sleep.

I think too much. I don’t mean overthinking things, I just think about a lot of things in great detail. Especially at night when I should be (was deterimined to be) asleep. But, this works out well since I’ve been neglecting my blog again. Don’t expect a theme or any consistency.

After realizing all the money I was carrying in my wallet was foreign, I decided to go to the ATM across the street a few weeks ago. For the first time in nearly two years I was charged a service fee. A three dollar service fee. Granted, it wasn’t my bank’s ATM, and my bank reimburses me for these fees, but I just found it a bit odd considering I’ve withdrawn money in Afghanistan, Belgium, France, Germany and New Zealand and never paid a service charge. It’s good to be back…

Thankfully, there aren’t very many places I need cash these days, except for the new farmer’s market that is opening up this weekend, right next to my apartment complex! If this works out, I’ll be delaying the purchase of a car by another few months because I won’t really need one. I don’t think I could have picked a better location–it takes me two minutes to walk to work, I can run along the Brazos any time I please and now the Waco Downtown Farmer’s Market will be here every Saturday all year round.

Not having a car is a bit of an inconvenience though, but putting off a purchase lets me continue to be picky. I don’t just want a “car”; there are plenty of Honda somethings and Toyota whatevers in my price range but I’m determined to buy something with a bit more character. I really do enjoy driving and I’d hate to turn it into a chore.

Not having a car makes visiting churches a bit of a challenge too, but it’s not my biggest challenge. I hate trying to find a new church. If you haven’t picked up on it, I’m picky and I think about everything which makes the process that much harder. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for perfection, if anything I’m looking for potential. I’m a bit worn out with mission statements and “purpose”–we have one purpose, to glorify God; when we’re finished with that, we can move on to those “other things”. I could go on, but then I’d have to organize my thoughts and that would mean the opposite of sleep.

Have you ever been to two churches (or five) and thought “if these two groups of people got together, it would be awesome!” It would be awesome, and one day it will be awesome, today is not that day. One day.

Just say no!

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In response to the stories I’ve read on CNN Money – http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/news/0805/gallery.real_people_debt/index.html

Just say no to debt! You don’t need it. It’s not going to fix your problems and neither will a new president. You don’t win with money by buying things you can’t afford. You don’t win with money by borrowing it. To win with money (or at anything in life) requires a change in your habits: refuse to borrow another dime, develop a written budget and stick to it and quit buying things you can’t afford!

YOU are the answer to your problems, which is a good thing because you can’t change the government but YOU can change YOU.

Spring Cleaning

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This seems to be my ‘7th Heaven‘ theme of this season in my life.  I reflect back on the past few months and see it all as a time of clearing space in my life and putting things in order.  I have a lot of clutter in my life — and most of it isn’t bad, but all together it’s been a burden.  The more I think about it, this past year has been a season of getting rid of the clutter and creating space.

I finally wrote out a budget this weekend.  It’s been one of those things I’ve been meaning to do but didn’t want to for fear of having to stick to it.  To be honest, there was actually the reverse effect, it was rather freeing to know how each dollar would be spent before writing a single check or making a swipe of the debit card.  John Maxwell says that a budget is “telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went”.  It’s a miracle that I’ve been able to operate without a budget for this long.  One thing that I have noticed from my budget is that I’m not underpaid, I’m just in too much debt!  I’ve got a new car payment and no new car.  If I were not in any debt I’d have an extra $450 per month to give,spend and save.  Now that is some motivation to get out of debt!

At church today Josh Patterson gave a “state of the union” type address where he talked about the amazing things God did last year at the Village and the direction the church would be moving in 2008.  I had actually already heard this talk (it was given at the leaders retreat last month) but it was just as affirming the second time around.  He talked about how our theology should drive our philosophy which should determine our practice.   It should be on the Podcast soon, so if you ever wonder how the Village operates, this would be a good one to check out.  One thing that is changing is our ministries.  We’re getting rid of a bunch of them.  No more college ministry.  So long single’s ministry.  Goodbye men and women’s ministries.  We plan to minister to singles, college students, men and women but not in individual ministries with individual budgets.  The idea is (as I understand it) less ministries, more ministry.  Ministry at the Village happens in small groups, so we’re pouring all of these ministries into our small groups.  Less clutter.  Another goal is to move our small groups into more multi-generational groups.  Currently our groups are based around life stages — my home group is a single guy’s group with ages from 24-30ish.  This is great for community and fellowship because we’re all realatively at the same place in life.  That said, we’re nothing but a pool of ignorance when it comes to things like marriage, buying a house, or raising a family.  The big goal in all of this is to build depth in our relationships; to answer the question “how do you have community in a church of 5000 people?”

I’ll end with some thoughts from Zig Ziglar.  Go check out his podcast on iTunes.  Ziglar often asks the question “are you a meaningful specific, or a wandering generality?”  What he’s talking about is goal setting.  Without goals in life we do a lot of work but often it’s aimless.  We’re busy but we’re not productive.  We talk a lot but we haven’t said anything.  We make a lot of money but we’ve got nothing to show for it.  We have a lot of ministries but we don’t do a lot of ministry…  The more clutter I clear away and the more specific and intentional I become, the more excited I get at the thought of what God will do in my life.