Posted by Jonathan Wise on Nov 17, 2008
I think I should probably limit the scope of what it is I’ve been pondering lately. What it boils down to for me is understanding our individual responsibility to Matthew 28:19.
As I’ve said a couple times before, its apparent to me that individual Christians have, in general, relinquished their individual responsibilities to what they view as the church. (And as an aside, I don’t really talk about anything in this topic that I haven’t seen in, or struggled with, myself, so if I sound accusatory, understand that I’m accusing inclusively!)
What I mean by this is that we’ve forgotten how to serve on our own. Most (or at least, many) of us are pleased to be involved within our churches if asked. And somehow we’ve forgotten that being in our church does not necessarily mean that we are making the best use of what God has given us.
Yes, there are lots of good local churches who have an external focus, as well as an internal one, so if we sign up with them, and are obedient, we may get the benefit of their external focus. But we shouldn’t forget that we arrived there only because our “church” told us too.
Our current church, for example, is in great shape. We have a healthy congregation of believers who are actively involved in the church, we serve our community in more ways than I can count, and we support over 2 dozen international missionaries. And serving in one of those capacities can provide great opportunities for individuals to live out the Great Commission. But living it out as a side-effect of being involved in a church is not the same as living it out personally.
What happens when that church organization is absent from our lives? What happens in our day-to-day routine when there isn’t a church staff member directing our attentions? What happens if God sends us to another country where we don’t have the benefit of a constantly available organization to direct and shape our obedience?
Another thing I should clarify is that nothing I’m talking about requires a complete redirection of our lives. Not everyone is called to full-time ministry, and not everyone is gifted for it. I’m a software developer. I have other interests and other skills that I enjoy pursuing, and may one day get to use professionally, but its fairly clear to me that my primary professional pursuits will be technology. And its fairly clear to me that God has blessed me in this area. But that doesn’t give me the right to walk past hurting people and ignore them, just because I’m not a professional minister.
No, in fact, our duty is the opposite. And we needn’t wait around to be told (again) to do it — read Matthew 25:34-46. This, in fact, is each of our primary purpose: Love God, Love Others. And I italicized those two words because that’s whats most important about all of this:
- Our primary purpose: Not our local church’s (except that each of us are a part of the Church.) We’re not instructed to wait around until our pastor tells us that its Community Service Day before we do anything about the hurt of those around us. Each of us is expected to take responsibility for it in our own lives. Not because we love other Christians. Not because we love acting righteous. Not because someone at church told us we should. We should do it out of a natural expression of love for our God. Its OUR love for God that compels us to act — not our church who is asking for our obedience.
- Our primary purpose: What we do for a living is not our primary purpose. Hopefully we work at it in a way that is honoring to God, but its what we do when we’re free from responsibility that indicates the leanings of our heart. I can be the best employee in the world, and I can volunteer all my free time at church, and still miss my primary purpose: experiencing the love of God and sharing it with those around me.
When I’m in love with God, I will feel His heart for others. When I feel that, but do not love others, then I have failed at my purpose. I have failed at the two most important commandments in the Bible! (Matthew 22:37-40)
If we wrap our heads around this, it can change how we live our lives, it can change how our churches work, and it can change our politics and our world view. If we truly governed and led with Christian values — not Conservative, not Republican — but actual Christ-like values, where love comes first, everything would change.
In fact, the next biggest challenge I’m struggling with, once we’ve bought into this, is how can we differentiate ourselves from the secular world who is doing a better job than we are at offering this kind of love to the hurting? If it were only Christians handing out sandwiches to homeless people, or running soup kitchens, or doing relief work after natural disasters, then we’d have no problems. But Christians won’t do these things until someone organizes them, and instructs them, so the secular world has picked up the slack. And now, when we do show up to help out, what do we have to offer that demonstrates how great Christ’s love is? When we are no more compassionate than our non-Christian neighbors, and in fact, are comparatively deficient in initiative and personal responsibility, what makes our contributions unique?
We should absolutely go to our churches, participate, help out, contribute to that local family, give and receive instruction and leadership.
We should absolutely do the best we can at our jobs, and function within them with Christian ethics, and seek to honor God and our employers. And we should absolutely give back to God what He has blessed us with.
But what do we offer to “the least of these?” What do we offer to the people to whom we are not accountable?
Its what we do when there’s no one telling us what to do that I am most concerned with.
And when the world looks at us and sees us an ineffective, self-righteous, unloving, ignorant, afraid and stuck in our own little communities, they are not seeing Christ. And you needn’t look very far to discover how seriously we, as individuals, are failing.
If we’re ready to change this, my suggestion is that step 1 is to shut up, and step 2 is to dig in. But that’ll have to wait for another post…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Nov 13, 2008
So I debated long and hard about whether or not to write this post, or relate this story. I wanted to use it as a logical next step in our (yours and my) on-going conversation about effective Christianity, but Matthew would seem to suggest that it would be best to keep my mouth shut.
I wouldn’t want a blog post to destroy the effectiveness of the effort, but I don’t think I have any right to continue my ranting if we’re not practicing what we preach… So, comments are closed for this article. I don’t write it seeking reply or affirmation, but as a bridge between the previous posts observing some problems, and any follow-up posts I might write proposing solutions. Plus, I couldn’t shut up about how mad Tim Horton’s made me, so that kinda blew my ability to be discrete.
There will not be another self-congratulatory post like this again. Only our commitment that I won’t rant on this site about problems that we are not willing to work to resolve. When I say things like “Christians need to roll up their sleeves and dig in,” we desire to be a part of that effort. And when I say things like “Get out of your church,” I mean to do just that.
This was the scene in our kitchen last Friday night after the kids went to bed. We made 24 lunches — good ones, ones that we’d eat and feed our kids. We searched high and low for biodegradeable, disposable coffee cups, getting no help from the grocery stores, that sell only plastic or styrofoam, and no help from a certain coffee shop who hides behind ridiculous corporate policies. We finally prevailed upon a friend to nab us some from church.
Aside from that, there was no mission, no organization and no team. No instruction and no one in charge. Just a Biblical mandate and a desire to understand how we, as individuals, are supposed to apply it to our lives.
Saturday morning, I drove up to Toronto and picked-up a friend who lives there. We loaded up our back-packs with the lunches and some coffee, and took the subway downtown. We walked for about 5 hours, sometimes finding clumps of homeless people together, sometimes walking for blocks without seeing a single one. Often we’d pass someone, or nearly pass them, before we realized they were there — the down-trodden have become so invisible in our big cities.
Some of them were happy to see us, eager to talk and share our company for a few moments. A few were barely coherent, mumbling to themselves, but accepting the gift. Some didn’t get up from sleeping on the sidewalk, under a tattered sleeping bag or blanket, so we set our brown bag lunches down beside them and continued on. A few declined our offer, or accepted it grudgingly when we explained we didn’t bring any money to give them.
All of them were desperate for something.
I’d like to say we did this strictly out of the kindness of our hearts. But my motives likely weren’t that pure. I think I did this because I’m a little upset — if you haven’t picked that up from some of my posts lately:
I’m upset because if you look at the organizations and the people in your communities who do this kind of thing regularly, I think you’ll find that many (if not most) of them are non-Christian. Secular organizations are leading the way in a ministry that every single Christian should feel compelled to do — no matter where they live, or what their lives are like.
I’m upset because individual Christians have relinquished their personal responsibility to their confused definition of “the church.” We think the church is the building we go to on Sunday, and the staff and volunteers who work there define it, and we’ve totally forgotten that each of us is the church.
That listening to a sermon and joining a small group… that’s not living like a Christian. That’s living like a follower — a consumer! Living like a Christian means that we are each servant-leaders. We each have a mandate to live out Christ in our lives. We can’t wait for a pastor to pull together a missions team — we’re already on a mission.
I’m upset because I’ve been waiting around for someone to tell me what I’m supposed to do here. I’m upset because someone, over a year ago, told me that they didn’t think I was fit to serve God, and I actually believed them. I actually gave credence to a flawed human being, with questionable motives, over what I know the Bible says to do. I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me “OK, you can come out of timeout now. Here’s what I want you to do.” And that’s not God’s instruction for me at all.
I’m upset because everything I’ve ever needed has been provided for, and even though I’ve attributed those blessings to financial obedience and a willingness to serve, its never occurred to me that just obeying isn’t enough. If I went to work and did only what I was told, I might keep down a job, but I certainly wouldn’t be where I am in my career. If my boss expects initiative from me — if I expect it from the people I work with — how much more does our God, who’s blessed us beyond what we can understand — expect it from us?
I’m tired of useless Christians. I’m tired of the people who leave their church just to use their faith as a bludgeon. But I’m just as tired of people who don’t leave their church at all.
I’m tired of waiting for someone to tell me that God wants to use me, and how. I’m tired of people who won’t serve unless they’re asked. The Bible doesn’t say “Go to your church leaders and ask permission to make disciples!” The Bible doesn’t require an organization supporting or defining your efforts. If you are called to a place of leadership where your ministry is a facility for the ministry of others, then that’s great. But if you’re not, you’re still called to ministry! Right now!
That doesn’t mean I’m opposed to accountability. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek both God and Godly council. It just means that we have to get up off our butts and stop waiting for someone to call us by name to a specific task. We’ve already been called by name, and our task is clear. Why is the secular world doing a better job of behaving like Christ than we are?
I don’t know about you, but I’m of the opinion that if Christians want to make an impact on our society, we need to stop yelling at people, and start serving them — and serving with them. To quote a late-90s Christian rock band: sometimes God’s children need to be seen and not heard.
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Nov 11, 2008
Last week I wrote two posts about some problems I’ve observed. One was about neo-conservatism in U.S. politics, one was about Christians in general. Some people liked one post a lot more than they liked the other, which is curious to me, because I felt I was writing about the same thing: a general self-righteous uselessness among those who claim the name of Christ.
Yesterday I posted a speech by the President-elect about religion. In it, he talked about his own, and about how he perceived was the best way to reconcile his belief system against his role in politics. And what it boils down to is fairly simple:
You can have faith without reason — but you cannot lead without it.
For a disappointing majority of Christians, their faith is not a rational one. Many of us believe what we do because of routine, because of emotional experiences or because we were raised that way. When pressed to defend our faith, we have no more useful answers than someone defending their favorite sports team — people don’t like the Leafs or the Habs, the Giants or the Packers for intellectual reasons. They may say they have some, but when it comes down to it, its just a stubborn belief that they are right.
For a disappointing majority of Christians, a stubborn belief that they are right about their faith is sufficient to get them through life. Sure they may occasionally get into a debate with someone about it, but they aren’t likely to persuade or be persuaded. At best, it’ll escalate to an emotional yelling match between two uninformed, irrational believers.
But that’s OK, because afterward they’ll go home, and continue to live their routine out until they die, having had little-to-no impact on the world around them.
However, should a Christian decide to go out into the world around them (Matthew 28:19-20), and try to lead or try to reach, they’ll find fairly quickly that an unquestioned, irrational faith is useless to anyone who doesn’t share it. They can shout what they believe at the top of their lungs, but without reason behind it, they’re no more useful to the world than a crazy person standing on a street corner predicting the apocalypse. In fact, you need look no further than a few influential sites on the Internet to discover that Christians are generally seen as ignorant and backward.
We have allowed the passionately stupid to rise as leaders within our ranks, simply because the volume of their ranting seems to hold conviction.
An irrational, thoughtless faith may be useful within our community, but if we want to lead the world with it, we’re going to have to answer with more than “do this or you’ll go to hell!” We’re going to have to provide some reason behind the principles we believe in.
This may seem a little scary — and that’s OK, because it is. The reality of life is that not everyone will choose Christ (Matthew 22:14). We have to accept the fact that not everyone will decide to believe what we do. But if we desire to be in leadership — if we want our countries to behave as Christian nations — we have to be able to lead those who don’t share our beliefs. If we can assume that the Bible contains principles useful for instruction and useful for government and leadership (and it does) then we need to discover the universally applicable reasons behind those principles.
We cannot lead our countries (our employees, our families) without reasons behind our convictions. It is not enough to say “the Bible says so!”
The good news is, I can’t think of an example of a Biblical mandate that doesn’t have a rational explanation behind it:
The Bible says not to steal… because stealing is corrosive to a community.
The Bible says not to commit adultery… because adultery destroys families.
The Bible says not to murder… because murder kills people, duh!
But it goes beyond the obvious. In the Old Testament, God’s people were apparently inexplicably commanded not to eat pork (Deuteronomy 14:8). Maybe this seemed like an irrational commandment, until you realize that pork is the hardest kind of meat to make sanitary. Is it possible that God gave that instruction to His children to protect them from disease and infection? In the Old Testament, God commands his armies that to defecate in their camps would make those camps ceremonially unclean. Is it possible that God told His kids that so they wouldn’t poop where they slept and ate?
In fact, I challenge you to find a single instruction in the Bible for which you cannot find a principle with sound reasoning for society at large - Christian or non.
See, God doesn’t expect us to follow stupidly, or blindly. He, in His grace, has arranged a path to salvation that can be achieved without any kind of intellectual challenge. But with equal grace has given us a Way that withstands the examination of all our intellect.
Would it be ideal if, instead of leading non-Christians, we could convert them all to our belief system, so that they’d do exactly what we tell them without question? Maybe, maybe not. But the Bible says that won’t happen anyway. So if we desire leadership — if we desire for Christian principles to be applied to the government of our countries — we’re going to have understand why those principles are valuable, and be able to communicate the reasoning behind them.
Reason transcends religion and irreligion. Fortunately, our God is a logical one, and our faith a reasonable one. (Acts 17:2-3)
This means, you’re going to have to question your faith — other people certainly will! You are going to have to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling! Its not enough to believe irrationally! If you want to teach, you have to understand!
This means that if you’re opposed to gay marriage, you’re not only going to have to find a part of the Bible that teaches against it, but you’re going to have to understand why it does.
This means that if you think we’re supposed to be at war with Iraq, you’re going to have to find a Biblical reason for it AND you’re going to have to be able to explain the logic behind that mandate.
If you’re for the death penalty, you can’t just say “an eye for an eye,” you’ll have to explain why that works — and why it works better than the alternatives.
And if its a matter of religion for you that every American is entitled to have a gun in their house, not only should you find a verse that says something along those lines, but you’re going to have to understand that verse well enough that you can communicate the principle apart from the religion.
And if you find those things challenging, then you begin to understand how your faith might be useless to the world around you. How being a conservative does not guarantee that you are the right person to be in government. How saying you’re on a mission from God might not hold any water for the people outside your church body — in fact, it might make you look a little crazy if you follow a God that cannot withstand even a little intellectual cross-examination.
Fortunately, that’s not the God we follow. That may be the God we’ve communicated for the past few decades, but that’s not who He is. Its my firm belief that when God said He created us in his image, that doesn’t mean we necessarily physically look like Him. It means that He gave us, above all other creatures on the planet, an ability to think, to communicate, to investigate and to understand. We are more than just the sum of our parts because God wanted people He could walk with, talk to, and reason with.
If you choose not to reason, and prefer to follow blindly, that’s OK. He’ll accept your child-like devotion, as perhaps being the best you can offer. But if you want other people to follow what you believe, you’re going to have to communicate a God who is relevant to their lives — who’s teaching is useful and practical, that stands up to examination, and in that investigation, reveals itself to be divine.
I am discovering that this is a difficult challenge. It actually means that we, as Christians, have to question the things we shout at people. It means that no part of our faith should be taught to others until it has been understood in our own lives. It may mean that some of the principles that we have come to accept as religious (or near-religious) guidance are not actually in the Bible at all (I’m looking at you, capitalism!)
It definitely means that we are not going to be really effective in leading in our communities, countries and in our world, until we have sought God’s heart — not just His Word. It may even mean that our faith isn’t useful to others until its been tested.
It also means that we’ll never, ever make it. That God’s work will always be completed by God, and not us. No matter how effective we are at communicating what we believe, it will never be us who causes life change. But we are responsible for planting seeds, for demonstrating His love and leadership. If we sow seeds of discord, of fear, of hatred or intolerance, than that is the God we are communicating to our world. And we fail as His ambassadors.
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Nov 09, 2008
This is why the guy is uniting people, not pushing them apart. Imagine if both the ardently religious and irreligious were able to be this respectful of each other. Imagine if Christian’s could again be effective enough that people would want our leadership.
This video is fantastic, and well worth the 40 minutes, or so. But if you can’t put that much time in, and you’re a Christian, watch the first 15 minutes so you can hear the man’s testimony.
My favorite quote: “People are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack.” Amen, brother!
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Oct 30, 2008
So yesterday’s post rankled a few visitors, and hopefully got some people thinking. Politics have never really been that interesting to me before say… 2001, but lately I find myself pretty passionate about what’s going on in the world. Here’s another thing I’ve found I’m pretty passionate about: what’s going on in the Christian world.
Politics aside, and the fact that the “Christian” right sometimes makes me a little ashamed to be associated with them, I’ve observed some pretty bizarre non-political Christian behavior in my time, and I think I’d finally like to say a couple things:
#1 - Church is for non-Christians. Church is also for Christians.
I’ve heard, and been a part of both sides of this argument. There is one camp who holds that church should be accessible to seekers, to people interested in finding out more about what we believe, so the weekend experience should cater to those folks — at the expense of everything else a church typically does. There’s another camp that believes church is some kind of holy huddle, where we should stick to our comfortable, and to the outsider, often bizarre little rituals, because those make us feel righteous.
The truth lies in the balance.
Church should be accessible to seekers. Guests should feel welcome walking into our meeting place, not intimidated. They should find things there that are familiar to them, and comfortable. Church should be culturally relevant, and the message should be offered in a way that the average person can understand and relate to.
However, to do so at the expense of the existing believer is foolish. Christ told us to go and make disciples — not converts. It is not enough to stop at milk — church needs to offer meat to those who are growing. Serving is not discipleship. Its an important part of becoming a disciple, but there is much more to a relationship with God then having the basics down and serving somewhere.
I realize this can be a difficult and expensive balance to find. How do you keep your message relevant to seekers, while guiding existing believers to new depths in their faith? The answer isn’t that hard, so I’ll give it to you:
The weekend is not enough.
It is not all about the weekend, its all about every single day of the week, walking in faith together with each other and with our savior.
How that takes shape is up to each church and each community, but you can’t stop at the basics, nor can you skip them. Maturity requires both.
#2 - Your church is not the Church.
Our pastor said it well this weekend: each church building, and each body of attendees is simply a localized expression of the Church. Your church and the people who attend it may prefer a traditional worship service with hymn books and wooden pews, and the community in which God has placed you may respond to that. Conversely, your church might want to worship with videos, moving lights, and arms waving to choruses led with electric guitar and drums. Neither church is right, neither is wrong.
God is interested in what’s in your heart. If, in your heart, Amazing Grace on a pipe organ is the most meaningful form of worship you know how to give, then its beautiful to Him. If, in your heart, rocking out to Kutless truly brings you closer to Him, then that’s beautiful too.
You have no right to go around and tell other churches that they’re wrong because you don’t like their music, or their worship style, or their failure to find meaning in some obscure punctuation in the book of Numbers. God is sufficiently equipped to dissolve any organization that He feels is not honoring to Him. Observe point number 1 and have the maturity to put the effectiveness of a given church above your own personal preference.
Here’s another interesting fact: your church contains members of God’s Church!
Each member of your church is uniquely made by God for a specific purpose, and as such, is a member of the global Church body that is His bride. Within your church are people who God has called to a specific ministry — and that ministry may not be something your church offers. When that happens you have two choices, church leaders:
1) Encourage them, disciple them, affirm them, support them and release them to do the work God laid on their hearts — whether its in your building or outside of it.
2) Get the heck out of their way.
Your local church has responsibilities and goals it needs to pursue, but if those responsibilities and goals preclude the possibility of an individual member of the body of Christ pursuing their God-given responsibilities or goals, then you have a serious problem with your organization. Your local church is not the Church. The Church is a world-wide phenomenon with God at it is head, and each of us as members of the body.
#3 - Get out of your church
Seriously, just shut up and go help someone. Us Christians love to feel important while we sit in our comfy buildings, and our like-minded communities, passing judgment on the world around us, but here’s an interesting fact: Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus instruct us to judge non-Christians. God reserves the right to judgment, because He knows that no matter how pious you are, there is horrible, ugly sin in your heart, and it precludes you from that job.
What Christ actually told us to do is to help the hurting, feed the hungry, speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. You can’t do any of those things locked up tight and safe in your nice-looking, mortgaged-to-the-hilt church buildings, or in your self-righteously separated-from-the-world homes. You’re going to have to get outside your Home Team, your Prayer Meeting and your Sunday Evening Hymn Sing, and actually demonstrate Christ’s love — with your hands, your feet, your money.
No, it is not enough to pay tithe on Sunday, and give a little extra offering to a missionary. That is relinquishing your responsibility to someone else — and its no wonder so many of us turn up our noses at people who’s world view is different than ours. We have no “world view” — we only ever see the inside of our sanctuary or our house.
Your local church is a great place to learn and to serve. It should also be a great place to bring your non-Christian friends. But its not “going.” Jesus said “Go and make disciples.” He didn’t say “stay where you’re comfortable and hope seekers stumble upon your meeting place.”
So many Christians rant about how they don’t like things in the world, but all they do is rant, and vote for the person ranting about the same things as them. We have, as a resource, the example of Christ, and letters written by people who walked with Him and who actually worked with Him. We should be the ones with answers to our society’s problems — not the ones causing those problems. And sometimes — most of the time, actually — the answer will be to shut-up, roll up your sleeves, and dig in next to the non-Christians around you who are trying to fix things.
These are not random ramblings. These are observations from our lives and experiences. Claiming Christ obviously doesn’t mean any of us claims to be perfect. But we could still do a lot more good if there were more of us in soup kitchens, on missions field, and in our world and our communities demonstrating God’s love in earnest, before we open our mouths or target people with our wrath and vitriol against the world.
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jul 10, 2008
I don’t know Todd really well, but he (and his wife and their brood of children) are going to be missionaries in Turkey. In the short time I did know him, he taught me something very important, that I remembered tonight…
I have never seen Todd without a smile on his face. We worked together at our church in New York, where I was a part time production director for our weekend services, and Todd was our audio guy. The first time he came in on a Sunday, there was a mis-communication about times. He ended up there early, and I ended up there late.
When I arrived at the church, Todd was standing outside the front door. Since they were saving up for a missions trip, they only had one car for the whole family, so he’d been dropped off — an hour and a half before I got there. It was the dead of winter in New York, and the guy was standing there in the cold waiting for me.
With a smile on his face.
This guy was a professional audio engineer, well into his career, who’d given it up to get ready to go the missions field. And because of where God had called him to go, he had to make some money working for us. We were a bunch of 20-somethings pulling together an intensely fast-paced ministry by our shoestrings, some bubble gum (literally, on at least one occasion) and the seat of our pants. And we probably didn’t give him half the respect he deserved.
But I never once saw him without that smile on his face.
One time, stressed out about something or other that had probably gone wrong, or was about to go wrong, or might go wrong if the solution we’d patched together at midnight the night before fell apart, I asked him how he could always be happy. And he told me:
You get to choose your attitude.
And he was right. Right now, things aren’t terribly fantastic in our lives. For everything good we want to do, or give, or accomplish, something comes along and craps on it, or somehow screws us out of more time or money or resources than the little bit we could manage to share. And it looks to be continuing that way for at least another two months. But I was reminded tonight that I’m actually pretty spoiled. And that my idea of a rough week, or a rough month, or a rough summer… well, it would probably seem pretty good to a lot of other people in the world.
So I’m trying to choose a better attitude.
Posted by Jonathan Wise on May 04, 2008
Let’s try this another way. Here’s how to be, happy — my formula, anyway. If you’re interested in other formulae, I’m sure there’s someone out there who can fill you in.
WORK
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.
- Colossians 3:23-24
Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.
- Proverbs 22:29
Find out how God has gifted you, and do that thing with your whole being while you’re at your job. Honor God by honoring your employer — work hard; be honest and ethical about what you do.
Honor your co-workers, give credit where its due, don’t step on other people to get to the top — get there by being the best you can at what you do.
To the best of my ability this has been my goal, and at 27 I am respected as an equal by professionals who are 15 years older than me. My job is not perfect, and some days it downright sucks, but I am happy and successful at work.
MONEY
On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.
- 1 Corinthians 16:2
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
Let no debt remain outstanding
- Romans 13:8
Show me a wealthy Christian, and I will show you a person who gives faithfully and generously to ministry.
This has always been a struggle for us — some months are easier than others. Some months are downright difficult. The Old Testament says 10% is a minimum, and its our earnest goal to be tithing at least there.
The Bible also says that if you give faithfully, God will take care of you. He has proven that promise to us again and again. Each financial growth point in our marriage can be correlated with our giving. The better we get at giving God back a portion of what He gives us, the more He blesses us with.
I’m not going to discuss specifics, but we have financial goals we’re working toward (also based on Biblical principles) and we’re on track to get them. My wife can work if she wants, but she’ll never feel like she has to work just for us to get by. For as long as we’ve been tithing regularly, my income has been more than enough for us to live comfortably.
The second principle to financial success is to eliminate debt. Aside from our house, we’ll have no debt by the time we’re 30 — the same time I’ll hit another financial goal I’m working toward. Its our plan to never carry credit card debt again after that point.
We’re not quite there yet, but we’re working hard, the reward is increasing exponentially, and we are happy.
TIME
I will show you my faith by my works. . . . For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
- James 2:18, 26
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
- Galatians 6:9-10
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
- Mark 16:15-16
A reader of this blog once posted in a comment: Love God, family, world. Serve in that order.
It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
No matter what your job is, or how good you are at it, you need to be giving your time and energy to the body of Christ. One way we’ve found to serve God is to serve in our church humbly. If your church isn’t geared for that, serve in your community as a Christian (and consider finding a new church.)
Serve your family. This means being with them and investing in them. Doing things together, challenging each other. Not missing an opportunity to play with your kids, or date your mate.
Serve your world. For some people the world is a very small place. Perhaps some disability prevents you from traveling too far from home, and your “world” is just a few blocks surrounding your house. That’s fine. The rest of us have no excuse. Get off your comfortable seat and go see what else God made. Serve people in places you’re not comfortable with! Share your blessings with people who can only dream of what you have. The reward is more incredible than you can imagine.
OPPORTUNITY?
Here’s the great thing about this plan: you don’t have to do anything you weren’t built to do. God made you for these things — they are in your nature. Maybe you don’t feel them all the time, but when you’re in the center of His will, you’ll know happiness.
Of course there’s more to life than just money, work and time… but those are pretty big categories. And really the intent is just to rebut the popular religion — the belief that we are each the center of our own worlds. The original plan for happiness and success came from your maker, who knows better than you do what will make you happy, and who made you creatively as a small but important part of a greater work of art
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Mar 09, 2008
For as long as I’ve known my bride — even before she was my bride — one of the things we’ve most enjoyed doing together is dreaming about the future. At some point this may be a problem in our relationship — eventually we’ll be too old to have a future to plan for. But that’s a good 60 years out, and who knows, maybe we’ll enjoy planning our funerals too.
One of our first “bonding moments” was at an amusement park called Canada’s Wonderland. We were both 17, we weren’t even officially dating yet, and while our friends went on the rides, we sat together and dreamed out loud about what we wanted from life. We talked about how many kids we want (Nicole wants 4, I want 2, we’re still debating), where we wanted to travel (I wanted to take her to Europe, but I explained that we’d have to go to Asia first) , we even planned to move to the States some day.
And even now that we’re an old married couple, its a bit of a default position when we get bored: what do we want to do next?
So as we sit around biding time, waiting for the next adventure to arrive via maternity ward, I can’t help but plan for the next chapter. Its a little strange when you realise you’ve accomplished 10 years of dreaming and now you’ve got another 10 years to plan out. I guess there’s this realisation of adulthood that’s sinking in. I’ve never really thought of myself as grown-up — I always had more I wanted to accomplish before I considered myself there. But we’ve got those things all checked off the list now, and I guess I have to concede that we’ve arrived…
So what’s next? Once Abi arrives the countdown begins for the move home. We’ll settle into an apartment somewhere near where we went to school, re-connect with old friends, and… then what?
- To be honest, we don’t really know! I can tell you that we’re planning 6 years out, and no further. That we’ve understood that there are not just 3 gateways to freedom like we thought when we were younger, but there are four: high school, college, career and debt.
Two college degrees, four vehicles (plus a motorbike), and countless moves, all in the name of getting to our goals as fast as we could, have introduced us to the cold reality of North American capitalism. Debt is almost this “for-granted” thing in our society, and the closer we come to eliminating our debt, the more I’m angered by how it suppresses us. Our number one goal when we move home is to finally and completely eliminate all our debt by the time we’re 30. When we’re close to that goal, then we’ll think about signing a mortgage. And we intend to stay as debt-free as possible.
My first real awakening to the shackles of debt came when two of our friends began preparations to move to Africa as missionaries. Its a wonderful pursuit that they’ve been after since they were teens themselves, and it intrigued me enough to look into the qualifications their missions organization required. Know what was near the top of the list? You must be debt free. Not even a car loan.
I can safely say that we’re in better shape than most. Our individual debt is well below the average and primarily made up of “good debt.” My credit rating in college was abysmal, but once I married an accountant, she began the long process of whipping me into shape. I’m proud to say that we use cash for all our purchases, have (or had, until we decided to move) a decent amount of money in savings, and have a strong credit rating in both the US and in Canada. But we’d frankly rather have zero debt.
So that’s priority number one. A house is in there, and I recognize that means more debt, but we won’t approach that decision lightly. We’ve been watching the market carefully for the past couple years and its obvious that now is not a good time to be investing in real estate. We’ll move on that when we’re good and ready.
- Another thing that we’re learning, and that is surprising to me as a priority, is community. We wouldn’t have made it here without the community we discovered and helped build, and frankly its become a lot less comfortable here without it. We’re not sure where God would have us involved back home, but we’re aware that this time we shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket. We’re eager to find a church and begin serving where ever we can lend our strength to that good work, and as before we’ll dive into that head first. But we’re also going to look for ways to be involved in other communities — both for our own emotional well-being and because God expects it of us. Christians should not keep to themselves in their comfortable little churches, we should be ambassadors. We’ve never hesitated to serve in our churches and in other countries, but we’ve dropped the ball on serving our communities. We plan to learn how to do that… I might even have to break down and introduce myself to a neighbour or two…
- I’m going to pursue writing. I had something of a revelation over the past months, which took the form of those Embracing my Inner Geek posts. I began writing those because I realised it was important for me to acknowledge my primary strength. For the longest time I’ve wanted to be good at something other than technology; to pretend that was just my day job. But the reality is, I’m good at what I do. God’s blessed me with an amazing career, and I should thank Him for it and praise Him for who He made me.
When I got to that point, everything made sense. I’ve tried so many times — more times that most of you know — to change directions. I’ve even gone as far as applying to college. And every time the door closed. It was like God saying: look at what’s in front of you! And when I finally did, most of the rest of the stuff (most of it) just seemed to fall into their naturally ranked positions.
The number two thing I love doing is writing. I used to love poetry, I have been an avid reader since I was a little boy — I came home from Kindergarten in tears when I realised that they weren’t going to teach us how to read and write until 1st grade, and I’ve been blogging my heart out on the web for nearly 7 years.
I love literature, and although I have no proper training or shaping, I think I want to pursue it as a hobby. Do you know I haven’t really had a hobby for over a decade? You don’t have time for such things when you have ambitious dreams to chase after…
So, my goal upon our return to a country where I can work for anyone I want without the need for government issued paperwork, is to get a free-lance writing gig at a local newspaper or magazine. I know I have a lot to learn about the field, but I’m willing to be humble (I think) and start from the beginning.
I’m not sure what’s tougher about moving home: leaving behind what we worked for and lived in, or acknowledging that this chapter — the past 10 years of our story together — is over. Sitting, as we are, in this sort of purgatory between chapters, the slow flipping of the pages of the universe, we realise we’re a little bit excited about what comes next. Its 6 years. Don’t ask me where that number comes from, but I know it for sure: the next chapter is 6 years, and then all bets are off and we start fresh chasing the next story God has to tell.
Until then, maybe things might not be as exciting or as different or as adventurous as we might be used to, but I think they’ll be good anyway…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Feb 29, 2008
Joey, James, Shannon, Jon, Paul, Karl, Alicia, Caroline and sometimes William, Cherish and Sarah: We love you guys!
Thank you so much for a couple of final get-togethers. It was so great to see you all again and realise how much you’ve grown and how much you’re continuing to grow. We are proud of each of you, and know that each of you guys are God’s kids and His servants.
Of the things we’ve worked at while we were in New York, the little team we built together — the things we taught you; the things we learned while we were teaching you; the ways we served together; the events where we all had fun together — our Vertical Production Team is one of the best gifts God gave us.
And a huge thank you to Linda, Barb, Margaret and all the other moms who encouraged us and supported us, and who allowed us to stand with them behind these amazing young people.
We will make it a point to see as many of you as we can every time we come back and visit New York. And you’d better all come meet Abi before we leave!
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Feb 19, 2008
Thank you guys so much for the video. It was a wonderful bookmark for this chapter in our lives — one we will always look back on fondly, with you guys in so many of our memories.
We are so very proud of each of you, and how you’ve grown in the past year and a half, and it was a priviledge to have been a part of that. There will always be a place in our hearts for you…
