Trying to follow

Originally Posted in February 2006

The story goes something like this:
A typical church in a well-to-do neighborhood is inspired by the stories shared by a visiting missionary. In an effort to contribute to the needs that the missionary has shared the church has a clothing drive and encourages members to donate their winter coats for those who don’t have a coat to keep warm. The drive is a wonderful success and the missionary sends word of how the coats have benefited the people she works with. This is a wonderful thing.
The following year, the church again encourages it’s members to donate their coats and clothing and again they fill boxes with used clothing and coats. Now we have a problem.

Why is this a problem? The needs of the community are being met, with coats and clothing coming their way. And to the degree that those needs are met it is hard to critique without being looked at poorly. Yet I will still address my concern about the church.

Let me entertain you with some questions:
1. Have you ever participated in a clothing drive?
Having heard about a need in the world, you recognized that you had more then enough for yourself, and you where compelled to share your possessions with those in need.

2. Look at your closet now. Does it reflect those same convictions that moved you to donate your clothes in the first place?

3. More specifically, if I looked at your closet now, would I be able to see your convictions reflected, or would I say you are a prime candidate for our next clothing drive?

See, the problem with clothing drives is that often they result in a “hand me down” sort of charity. We donate our old, out of fashion, and undesirable clothes and make room in our closets for the new wardrobe we’ve been eager to purchase. Not only do we physically clean out our closet, but do it in the name of “charity” as if these actions are a noble act of giving. (If I am not describing you, please don’t feel judged or feel the need to defend your actions). This is a “false charity.”

What am I suggesting instead? I would like to see convictions drive our actions, not events like a clothing drive. If you have two coats and you only need one, then you should give the other away. The next time there is a coat drive your only option should be to buy a new coat and donate that one to the coat drive, because the one you currently have you need. If you have more shoes then you need you should give them away, and if you have more clothes then you need you should give those away too.
A church full of people living out their convictions would have no use for a clothing drive (unless it was to collect new items), because every member would have already given away their excess.

“The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”*

Below is the women and the academy that we helped provide a loan for, from your comments!
The donation for this month is up to you as well! I’m planning on donating to an organization that work’s with children, as I’ll have one of my own soon, and it’s important to remember there are those who might not have the same opportunities if we don’t spread our resources. Read about Margaret and feel free to subscribe to updates from her! Then don’t forget to vote on were this month’s donation should go.

Margaret Juma is a 55-year-old entrepreneur who lives with her husband and six children in Rongo, Kenya. She trained as a community health worker to provide home-based care to people living with HIV/AIDS in her area.

Margaret (pictured with the children) is a proprietor of Westland Academy, initially started in 1998 as a nursery school with 40 children. Since then, the school has grown to 156 children. The school takes children from nursery level to primary level (now in class 6). Out of the 156 children, 63 are orphans, some of whom Margaret has taken into her home.

Owing to increased enrollment in her school, Margaret requires US $ 1200 to renovate classrooms that are in poor shape.

Subscribe to Updates from Margaret!

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Let me start by saying I have been truly blessed to have people regularly stop by and read my thoughts. It’s been encouraging to me in a great many ways unique to the way writing and blogs can produce conversation. Here, I can share deep thoughts I’ve been reflecting on and not only have the opportunity to be listened to, but also to engage in a conversation that challenges my thinking and spurs me on to being a better person.

In an effort to encourage the conversation even further, and to bless you and others through the conversation, I’ve implemented something called Comment Love. Some Random Dude, gave me the idea and I thought it was a neat way to both encourage further conversation and support some good causes at the same time. Here’s the run down of Comment Love:

• Each comment in the May is worth $0.25 that will be given away at the end of the month.
• The comments should be thoughtful and engage in the conversation (no trying to run up the numbers).
• The limit will be $50 (Sorry, the pockets aren’t that deep), but if it’s a success I might try again next month.
• I haven’t decided which organization to give to yet, so I’ll let the top commenters decide at the end of the month (Anyone gonna give Jamie a run for her money?). Here’s the options I had in mind: Kiva, Invisible Children, or IJM

There’s no catch or anything fancy here, just a chance to spread the love a little and encourage the conversation. I have made a few other changes to the blog recently also. Here’s a brief explanation…

• New Design- A while ago I mentioned wanting to change my blog to a dark background to save energy. This was a great design I’ve been hoping to use that recently became available.
• Gravatars- I’ve added an icon/image/gravatar feature, that’s your little profile picture next to your comments. If you haven’t done so already, sign up for one at gravatar.com. It’s extremely easy and only takes a minute to enter your email and upload your image. (If you don’t, I might end up figuring out how to choose one for you myself ;)
• Share This- For those who like passing on blog posts, this link should make it easy. If you do any social bookmarking it’s got everything listed, and if you want to email someone it’s easy as pie, just enter their email address!
• Wordpress 2.1- Not that most of you care, but I upgraded to 2.1, it’s nice.
• Asides- This is going to be a collection of mini random posts that will only be available on the bog, not through the rss or email subscriptions. Stay tuned.

If you haven’t done so already, be sure to subscribe to the blog posts or comments so you can easily keep updated on the conversation.

I reposted about this topic in December, but I wanted to highlight the podcast, which I think is worth a listen. A while ago I chatted with my friend Nate about simple living and some discussion we had had on our blogs and others comments. It was quite interesting.

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For the original post, On Simple Living and living “a dollar above” the poverty line

Note: Okay, so I’m going through my old drafts of posts I started but never finished. I feel like I’m so removed from when I first wrote them that it wouldn’t make sense to complete them, but they are interesting enough that they might create some conversation, so I’m putting them up.

Financial clarification #1: It’s not about the money
I felt like it is important for me to address two points that were brought up by readers as to what they understood me to be advocating for: the pursuit of not having money and Poverty as righteousness.
I realize that I might come across as advocating for these two things because what I AM advocating for is so radically different then what are culture presents to us. In a culture that is so focused on the accumulation of wealth a statement like “give freely” comes across as odd and as an extreme. In a culture that says your lifestyle should be grand regardless of income level a statement about living on what you need rather then what you want seems rather backwards.
I know we are trying to talk about finances here, but do me a favor for a moment and forget money exist at all. No such thing as money. My points are still the same. Going to a college like Wheaton makes it difficult for you to question that type of lifestyle since you and so many other “Christians” at the college are living it. Hoarding your possessions is not what Christ calls us to, rather to give freely.

On Clothes.
I never felt too poor to afford something, but I knew somethings where just too expensive. Let’s use the example of clothes. You might find this funny, but in middle school and half of high school I was all about name brands. I wanted the nike swoosh on my shoes and my t-shirt. Here’s how my mom handled clothes. We would look in the closet at the beginning of the school year and decided if and how many jeans, shirts, and shorts I needed. Then she would allot me some money for each item (it was about $15 for jeans, $5 for a shirt, and $10 for shorts). If I wanted something that cost more then that I had to dig out my allowance, babysitting and lawn mowing money and pay for the additional cost.

Jesus does say the Poor are blessed with the Kingdom, that’s at least worth pondering.

There was some interesting thoughts and issues brought up in the comments on two previous post: Your Problem with Giving is Probably you, and A Major Flaw of Wheaton College.

I felt these two thoughts where important to address in our Finance lessons so here is…
Financial Lesson #3: Money is simply a mean’s of trade

One thing my parent’s did a good job instilling in me just by example, was that money wasn’t really a big deal. My dad has switched jobs a lot, and my mom has worked varying amounts (sometimes full-time other times half-time) throughout my life. Never did I feel like there was a correlation between their work and how much money they working making and how well off we were. I never felt poor, I never felt rich. You see, money wasn’t that important, what dictated our lifestyle was our values. My first real job was at Pizza Hut. Before that I had picked up bunches of odd jobs through my dad (he owned a temporary employment service), and I enjoyed that cause they were simple jobs and they usually paid well. But the summer after my sophomore year my dad told me I had to go out and get a job myself. Why? It wasn’t to make more money, it was to learn to go out on my own, it was about values. Money isn’t that important, what should dictate our lives is our values. If God had “blessed” my parent’s as billionaires my dad would have still made me go out and find a job on my own.

I don’t know if that helps to give a little perspective of where I think some of my mindset comes from. The two comments I want to address are: “a person’s goal becomes to not have money” and “poverty is righteousness”
I am NOT advocating for either of these. I think the reason both of these commenters have come to these interpretations of what I have been saying is because money was misinterpreted as being a high priority. Here’s what I mean.
When I talk about Wheaton College and how expensive everything is I don’t mean to focus on the money. I mean to say we are like the Rich Man with the beggar Lazarus outside our gate. It is not about the money it is about our value that God does not call us to store up wealth, he calls us to care for the needs of others.

I would be silly to advocate for “poverty is righteousness.”