Financial Peace

Sixty-five individuals just finished a 9 week course called Financial Peace University.  It was awesome.

Here are some of the highlights straight from the mouths of our participants.

- "I just saved $1,000 for the first time in my life."

- "Having an emergency fund in place gives me peace."

- "My spouse and I are now communicating regularly about finances, it's wonderful."

- "I did my taxes on my own!"

- "I paid off $2,500 in debt!"

- "My husband and I now have a shared language about money.  Now we can have money conversations instead of money fights."

- "I cut up ALL of my credit cards.  I will NEVER go into debt again."

During our course, we learned the "Seven Baby Steps" of financial peace:

1) Save a $1,000 emergency fund (do this fast, do this now, have a garage sale this weekend!)

2) List all of your debts, smallest to largest.  Pay minimum payments on every debt and then ATTACK the smallest debt with every other dollar you can find.  Once you pay off that smallest debt, roll your payment over to the next smallest.  This is called the debt snowball.

3) Save 3-6 months worth of expenses.  This is a complete emergency fund.

4) Put 15% of your income toward retirement in a 401K, IRA, Roth IRA or other tax-favored accounts.

5) Start saving and investing for your kids college education.

6) Pay off your mortgage early.

7) GIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE.

During our time together, we regularly looked at one another and said, "I have never really talked to anyone about this before."  Conversations about handling money God's way can be so freeing when they lead to new behaviors, greater purpose and clearer vision about how to handle the resources God has given us.

At the end of the day, it's not about getting out of debt, it's not about saving more for yourself, it's not about giving more to the church.  Rather,

It's about becoming more and more like God.  God is the ultimate giver and he wants you to experience the joy of becoming like him.

If you weren't able to make it to the course, but are interested in learning more, go here.  Also, let us know if you would be interested in going through Financial Peace University and we can point you toward other courses in our area or even consider offering the course again here at Centennial Covenant Church.

Between this course, our Sunday morning connecting hour class on Jesus and finances, and the High School curriculum "Generation Change" more than 90 people have been learning about and growing into lives of handling money God's way. 

Praise the Lord that he is moving in this way in our community.

The Light's Better in Here?

Senior Pastor, Steve Thulson

Remember the classic sitcom “I love Lucy”? At least on really old TV re-runs?

One evening, Lucy’s husband Desi comes home from work and finds her on hands and knees scanning the living room carpet. When he asks “What are you doing?” she explains: “I’m looking for my earrings.” He’s puzzled. “Don’t you keep them in the bedroom?” “Yeah” she says, “but in here the light is better.”

I can’t say I’ve ever searched for lost earrings, but I’ve done plenty of looking. What gets lost for me ranges from my favorite coffee cup to letting Jesus be my strength for a life in his love.

Sometimes – especially when it comes to looking for what matters most in life –  I’m looking in places where I’ll never find what I need and want.

Why do I look there? Because there “the light is better.”

 Down deep I assume that the solutions to my problems are what I (or others helping me) can understand, manage, and fix. The “better light” for finding lost peace might be getting more money, getting more safety, or getting more liked by others. For a group like our church, we might assume that what’s needed will we be found where we have the “light” of certain programs, traditions, policies, or events.

Could it be that what is most lost is in some other place?

Like the depths of our hearts? Could it be that what alone can show the way is some other light? Like a dark place of loss called Golgotha?

What if the greatest of losses – every single one we endure – can there be drawn into the THE Light of an empty tomb, into “the life that is truly life”?

It’s worth looking there, don’t you think?

(P.S. I never watched all that much of “Lucy.” I found the story in a good little book on organizational health by Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage, page 6.)

A Celebration of Generosity

                                     

Senior Pastor, Steve Thulson

When word came – first to our Pastors, then our Elders, and finally our Congregation last Sunday morning – there were jaws dropping, tears, applause, even cheers. When a few days earlier, Ministry Assistant Jamie Durbin had opened the church mail and saw the anonymous check from a brokerage firm, she had to ask Ron Mol if she was seeing the comma and dot in the right places.

For the reduction of our mortgage debt, Centennial Covenant received a gift of $400,000!

We praise God for his gracious provision, and thank these generous friends!

This reduces our debt from $1.2 million to $800,000 which will allow far more of the ongoing generous giving from our other 175 households to be applied to direct people-to-people ministries.

Last Sunday we shared even more beautiful examples of generosity.

-          Each week, our children place coins from their allowances in a basket – gifts for Jesus and his work. Darlene and Stefany have observed, though, that some kids – from a family scraping by at the poverty-line – tend not to put in just coins, they put in dollar bills. They make sacrifices.

-          Last week we received thank-you notes from two families in the community who had been in financial crisis due to unanticipated health problems. We had been alongside them with gifts from our Benevolence Fund.

-          We have been experiencing a gradual but steady growth in ongoing financial support of our core ministries and mission, getting closer to the levels we approved last Fall!

Don’t you think these gifts are from the Spirit and please the Father every bit as much as the extraordinary donation to reduce our debt?

And then there’s the generous grace of God we celebrated last Sunday in Dale Flander’s strong teaching and stories like Donna Osborne’s. She told us how her lost hearing seems to be returning at least in part. And even greater is the powerful freedom she has experienced by God enabling her to forgive a man who kidnapped and terrorized her years ago. Dale’s reminder was to let such “highs” be windows to everything our Lord is doing all the time – even in the “lows” when his goodness is not quite as evident.

God is good. All the time. And all the time, God is good. Right?

Healthy, Missional

Maybe you’ve stumbled on this phrase in conversation, read it in a book, heard it in a sermon, or seen it printed in a church bulletin.  We, as a gathering of Christ followers, desire to be healthy and missional as we seek to glorify God by “following Jesus on a shared journey of transformation in his mission to our broken world” (hint: that’s our church mission statement for those who haven’t come across it before :).

What does that mean?  What does it mean to be healthy and missional as Christ followers?

That’s a great question, let’s explore.

Healthy: we don’t want to be unhealthy. We are not seeking brokenness, infighting, distrust, and discord.  Rather, things like balance, rhythm, engagement and rest, confession, grace and truth, and compassion all come to mind.  All communities, whether churches, clubs, schools or companies, have the potential to form harmful or healthy patterns and characteristics.  We at Centennial Covenant seek to be mindful of our health as individuals and as a community in all areas of life.  We want to be healthy.

Missional: God has been at work in this world from his time of creation and he is still active today.  He has a purpose, a vision, a direction for all things.  He is on a mission.  As Christ followers, we want our lives to be about His mission.  We want to be people who join in the work that God is already doing.  We want to be missional.

So, how do we measure that?  How do we know if that is where we are and where we are headed?

It’s not an exact science, but the denomination we belong to, the Evangelical Covenant Church, has spent some time thinking about this question and they have come up with a great list.  This list is not a perfect measure, but it is an excellent point of reference as we ask ourselves and we ask one another, are we healthy and missional in our lives of discipleship.

Here is the list: 10 Healthy Missional Markers
(you can find the full version online here)


1) Centrality of the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16)

2) Life transforming walk with Jesus (John 3:3,30; Phil. 1:6)

3) Intentional evangelism (Matthew 28:18-20)

4)Transforming communities through active compassion, mercy and justice (Micah 6:8)

5) Global perspective and engagement (Acts 1:8)

6) Compelling Christian community (Acts 2:42-47)

7) Heartfelt worship (Psalm 138:1a; John 4:23)

8) Sacrificial and generous living and giving (Romans 12:1-8)

9) Culture of godly leadership (Hebrews 13:7)

10) Fruitful organizational structures (Exodus 18:13-26, Acts 6:1-7)
(Again, the full version can be found here)

I invite you to wander through these 10 markers over time, read the passages, and examine whether God is drawing you to a growing edge in any of these areas.  Then share with a friend or your family.  Tell somebody what God is telling you.

Looking forward to continuing with you on this shared journey.

Grace and Peace,
Karl

Feedings #1

My wife calls me a “reading machine.” I do love books. And now my Kindle! I tell her this addiction is not as bad as drugs (“it could be worse!” is a noble life-philosophy I fall into now and then). Assuming that feeding our minds is a primary way we grow our lives, I want to pass on a few of the many books, as well as films, that have blessed me in recent days.

YOUVERSION Bible for mobile devices – FREE!
Let me start with the B-I-B-L-E! This is not news to many, but anyone with a smart phone needs to download the free app: “YouVersion” Bible. It gives you quick access to 20 different English translations, as well as several other languages. It’s quite easy to navigate between passages and versions, and offers various reading plans and ways to make notes. This is a wonderful gift to the body of Christ from our Covenant denomination’s largest church – LifeChurch in Oklahoma. You might consider making a donation to this project. And then get the Word into your mind and life!

BOOKS?
After priority mind/life-feeding time in God’s Word, I do appreciate being enriched and challenged through various authors. Here are a few of many worth the time.

• Philip Yancey, What Good is God? In Search of a Faith that Matters
Powerful stories from Yancey’s encounters with people around the world who are living demonstrations of God’s good in the thick of injustice and suffering – e.g. South Africa prisons, urban AA groups, Chinese house churches.

• N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters
The great New Testament scholar helps us see what real life transformation from God is all about.

• John Grisham, The Confession
An engaging novel that will get you thinking about capital punishment.

• David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
Randy Stensgard got me into this powerful challenge that calls us back to basic disciple-making.

• Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer
The newest biography of the great German Pastor/Theologian hanged by the Nazis.

• John Perkins, Welcoming Justice: God’s Movement Toward Beloved Community
A “patriarch” of Christ-following racial reconciliation, and founder of the “Christian Community Development Association” should be known by all. In digital form, this little book is free!

• Michael Ward, The Narnia Code
If you love C.S. Lewis and his famous stories for children of all ages, you need to check out this remarkable breakthrough in seeing a playful and meaningful paradigm imbedded in The Chronicles of Narnia. Darlene and I enjoyed meeting Ward last summer in Oxford. His work, being hailed by virtually all Lewis experts, was introduced in his more scholarly Planet Narnia.

FILMS?

• The King’s Speech deserves Academy Awards and then some. Great acting gives us a true story of strength being drawn out of great struggle.

• Another true story with a similar thrust is Temple Grandin, the brilliant – and autistic! – CSU professor.

• Since I mentioned Michael Ward’s book, I will also commend the second Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I would even say that its departures from the original story even enrich and further develop Lewis’ parable of a journey through the enemy’s lures into God’s light.

A Window (on Everything) Called "With" #1

A powerful little word – “with” – has become increasingly important in my life. I call it a “window on everything.” It especially gives at least a glimpse of God as he truly is. And that becomes a way of looking at everything, and even a way of living in “the life that is truly life” (1 Timothy 6:19).

It makes a difference. What if our Maker is not a solitary “Force,” but Father-with-Son-with-Spirit in a perpetual communing of joyful love? What if he chose not to be distant and silent, but to come close as one named Jesus and called “Immanuel” – “God-with-us”? What if you and I increasingly entrusted more of ourselves into this holy and loving Presence? What if we ourselves grew into being more “present” – genuinely with God, with all his good gifts, and especially with family and friends, neighbors and colleagues, strangers and enemies? Wouldn’t that make a difference?

It’s needed. Did you know that we can be immersed in beauty, goodness, and truth, and yet not be aware and responsive? I can be with certain people, and yet not be with them: in close proximity, yet not listening, not participating. Just ask my wife. Have you been there? Or should I say not been there? Do you ever want to ask someone: “Are you with me?” Is that ever your question for God? Do you ever sense that is his question for you?

Are you with me?

Now and then this year, I want to let you in on some things I’ve been pondering for a long time, some things getting a bit clearer because they’re settling into my living a bit deeper. I hear a call from God into daily living that’s less about what I “should” do “for” this and “against” that, and more about being present in his Presence. I want to explore some biblical and life-feeding realities where “with” makes all the difference:

• God as Communicating Love – “the Word” who as God was “with God” and who “became flesh” (John 1:1, 14) to be “God with us” (Matthew 1:23)… not some deity “out there” somewhere.
• Salvation through Christ as “participation” in him – dying, rising, seated and reigning with him… not just accepting what Christ did for us as our substitute (see Romans 6:3-8; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 2:6; 2 Timothy 2:11-12; Revelation 20:6).
• Belonging to God as a deeply and widely secured “covenant” with him… not just off and on spiritual interactions (Luke 22:14-20; Hebrews 8).
• The Bible as a way into opening ourselves to its truth with the One who is Truth… not just using it for information about him (see John 5:39-40).
• Praying as communing with the Father, Son and Spirit… not just expressing requests to him, much less at him (see Romans 8:26-27, 34).
• Church as a family with its Father, as a body with its Head… not as events we attend, shows we watch, obligations we perform, or institutions we run (see Colossians 2:16-19).
• And then everything – working and playing, serving and leading, managing time and money, dealing with hopes and fears, opportunities and pressures – as consciously with a risen Jesus and with those people he places in our lives – i.e. “in his name”… not just doing good on our own for him and for them (Colossians 3:17).

Such “with-ness” is simple, and yet anything but simplistic. For example, a genuine journey with Jesus means hearing him say baffling things like “it is for your good that I am going away” (John 16:7). To live with Christ includes seasons where he seems distant and silent. The light of his presence sometimes gets more obvious as we move through places of great darkness.

Does any of this resonate with you? Stir your curiosity? Bring up some questions or stories you might share with me? At the very least, are you willing to consider (with me) this window called with? You can check out future reflections at this site. If you subscribe HERE, you can get word of new postings (by email, RSS feeds, Facebook, or Twitter). Look too for some other reflections – e.g. good readings and films that have been gifts for me – all with God and with you I pray!

May you know for this day and for this new year: “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).

Steve Thulson