Calling All REAL Drivers

by Sean Adams

Photo by Samuele Errico Piccarini on Unsplash

I have an idle game on my phone (I try not to let it be an idol game, LOL). That means it works on stuff growing and improving while I'm away. In this idle game, I'M RICH BABY!!! But my net worth IRL (in real life) is a bit short of the multiple-Zillions of dollars made from lemonade stands on Mars. But the truth is just like in the game on the phone, many of us are playing with money. But it's a far more dangerous game IRL (in real life).

We're in a new message series this month: Broke is Normal. Don't be Normal. Be Weird. As you can infer from the title, it touches on the topic of finance and, in a genuine, compassionate, and in your face way, provides a wake-up call to all of us that's been asleep at the wheel when it comes to money.

The numbers don't lie:

• 37% of households carry credit card debt 1

• 43% of people have car loans. 2

• 63% of people with a home have a mortgage 3

• 1/6 people have student loan debt 4

• 1/5 people are paying 50–100% of their pay in debt repayment. 5

• 40 percent of adults can't cover a $400 emergency expense 6

And this is normal. There has been consistent growth in four primary areas of debt — home, auto, student loans, and credit cards. Not only that, the worst part is if debt continues to rise above spending like it is now, it will be unsustainable–possibly creating a debt crisis the likes of which we've never seen. "...debt held by the public will rise from 78 percent of GDP this year to 144 percent by 2049 – more than a third higher than the historic record of 106 percent set just after World War II" 7

I've heard credit called a "license to pretend."

I used to let my kids “pretend drive,” when they were younger. Here’s how: you take the kids to an empty parking lot. You push the seat back and you control the gas and brake, they steer the wheel.

How many of us are pretenders? We pretend like we own a car...we don't own that car. We pretend like we own our paycheck–do you, though? Doesn't Fedloan servicing, Navient, Sallie Mae own your paycheck? Home Loan America or CapitalOne owns a majority of our paychecks. Not only that, we're feeling the crushing anxiety of poor decisions and a lack of patience compounded by our inability to delay our gratification.

Between Social Media and the get it now culture, everything screams at us every waking moment to consume, buy, get it now, before it's too late, and our lack of discipline pushes us to swipe and insert our credit cards or click now. Click now and Pretend you had the money all along, and you're getting a 28% interest loan from CapitalOne to buy that beautiful outfit you saw that one time on Instagram. It's going to come in the wrong size anyway.

We're driving in Fantasy Land, going 180 mph and headed for destruction–for slavery. Slavery? Yes, slavery: The Bible says, "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is a slave to the lender." 8 Oh, we don't feel like slaves, but we are. "Tell me, is it slavery if you get what you want?" YES! It's still slavery! Many of us are riding around in the master's car with a Master's Card in our wallet and going to sleep in Master's Home. You say it's not theirs. It's mine. I'm no slave! My name is on that credit card...yes, as an authorized user to write loans against the credit limit with an agreement to pay every dime back with interest. That's not all the card itself is not our property. Read the cardholder agreement of any credit card: "You must return the Card to us or destroy it if we ask you to."

“Your Credit Card Is A License to Pretend”

So your credit card is a license to pretend, how can this short blog post help you to stop pretending and live in reality, within your means, and free yourself from the master's grasp?

I'll give you two keys to freedom from the shackles of debt.

Key #1 Count the cost

What does it cost you? Take a typical credit card with a $5k balance. We'll say this person has a very high credit score and got this card with a 14% APR and no annual fee. To pay off this card, making only minimum payments would take 22 years, and eventually, this cardholder pays $5,887 in addition to the original 5k. A total cost of $10,887.00 and possibly years of stress, and missed opportunities. Understanding the real cost of any course of action is critically important to success. The Bible tells the story of a man who started to build a tower, but he didn't correctly calculate the cost of the tower, and everyone made fun of him because he couldn't finish what he set out to do (Luke 14:28).

Key #2 Being Content

When I buy something from Amazon, I check three things. 1. Price 2. Whether it's Prime Eligible 3. Reviews. If you're anything like me, you want to know that whatever you're buying has some social proof. Social Proof is excellent, and it's a good thing. Social Pressure is not so great. Just because something is five stars and everyone on Instagram or Facebook has it doesn't mean I need it. Need it so much I have to take out a loan to get it. That's something we all should realize. The use of a credit card is convenient, too convenient. Imagine every transaction to be like going to a bank and asking for money for whatever you're last purchase on Amazon was. My last Amazon purchase was a pack of mini-light bulbs for my refrigerator water dispenser–they didn't work. I'm not joking. It didn't work.

Pretending Doesn’t Work

Just like this normalized view of debt doesn't work out of all the elements that affect this debt problem. The lack of contentment could be number 1! Many of us see a perceived need or problem; we run to a store or Amazon and click or swipe to solve what we thought was certainly a huge need. Once that's over, we feel great, then we after some time we do it again. This routine is called the Habit Loop. It's the explanation behind habits like smoking, drugs, and other forms of addiction, sound familiar?

You + God Can Do This

Being content isn't easy, but with God, you can pull it off. You can have freedom from one of the most oppressive chains of all: Envy. 9 In 2020, make it a goal to put contentment ahead of envy and take time to calculate the actual cost of those quick swipes and clicks. Let's put down our credit cards altogether and ask ourselves what kind of impact could I make on the world if my money were all mine? No more pretending we really have it all under control, when someone else is can hit the brakes. Let's all turn these cars around toward real ownership, real debt freedom, really living within our means. How much could I increase giving to those in need? How much could I invest in the Kingdom of God? How liberating would it be to know that some bank doesn't own everything you have, run by someone you don't know and have never met, whom at any point can call in that loan, destroy that card, and potentially wreck your financial life? I call that freedom, freedom to REAL Driving.

References

1. https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-debt-statistics-1276.php

2. https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/05/28/guess-how-many-americans-now-have-auto-loans.aspx

3. https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/mortgage/u-s-mortgage-market-statistics-2018/

4. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-postsecondary/reports/2019/06/12/470893/addressing-1-5-trillion-federal-student-loan-debt/

5. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/20/how-much-debt-americans-have-at-every-age.html

6. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/22/fed-survey-40-percent-of-adults-cant-cover-400-emergency-expense.html

7. https://www.crfb.org/papers/cbos-2019-long-term-budget-outlook?gclid=EAIaIQobChMItOTr_bPv5gIVRdbACh14ng5oEAAYASAAEgKCcvD_BwE

8. Proverbs 22:7. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+22%3A7&version=NIV

9. Ecclesiastes 4:4 and 1 Timothy 6:6 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+4%3A4%3B+1+Timothy+6%3A6&version=NIV

Mary would have definitely done the dishes at the Last Supper

“Unquestionably it would have been Mary Magdalene who did the dishes at the Last Supper.
Concluded Marguerite Yourcenar.”

It would have been Mary and a few others that stuck around to do the dishes at the Last Supper. That would have been their place in the world, but not in the Kingdom. In a world of social status we try and control more, desire more power and comfort and step on those below us to do so. We all do it.

Only 25% of Americans serve every year and that is only 32 hours a year. Did you know that only 10% of people serve in their American churches today? Many people attend church but never come before to prepare for it or stay after to clean up the dishes.

Jesus says in Mark 10:45, “ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

WHY SERVE?

Mary, by simply being a consistent disciple who showed up to serve, got to be the first to experience Jesus’ resurrection. This isn’t an article about guilt, this is an article about what you are missing out on.

If you want to change the world, serve. Be someone who does the dishes after supper, serve at church, serve in our community and invite others to join the journey. Show up, do the right things and experience the power of the Kingdom.

See you Sunday,

Michael

Dear God, Bless this Mess

“I trust in God as much as God trusts in me.”

These are the words, my 8-year-old son, Mason, declared in the car on the way to the movies Christmas day. At first, I thought what does that even mean? I thought by the times an Old Professor name Bill Dogterom would say, “God is looking for people who are trustworthy.” Then it hit me. Mason hadn't lived long enough to be deemed untrustworthy by world standards. He is very trustworthy. He does what he says he is going to do and generally is consistent. Am I trusting in God or asking God to trust me?

We are so quick to ask God for more and even claim a “faith” in doing so. That's why I warn against 99% of the preachers we see on TV. We often pray and trust God to get us out of a situation we haven't learned from yet. We often ask God to bless our mess when we don't even admit whose fault it was. We ask God to change the hearts of others in conflict but in reality, it's our heart that is hardened.

One of my all-time favorite passages in the bible is in John 14:6, “Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is responding to Thomas, the doubter. Jesus is correlating a marriage ritual of preparing a better life for His bride to His disciples to comfort them. But like many of us do we create our ideas of what we want before we ask what God has in mind. Many of us even act like we know what Jesus is talking about and live a lie and go along as if we understand. I am not saying there isn't ambiguity in following Jesus. That happens. What I am saying is that following Jesus sometimes requires us asking Him for what He is talking about or what He wants us to do instead of telling Him to do what we want Him to do. When we, like Thomas, ask questions like “Jesus we don't know where you are taking us, can you help me to understand?” we can be trusted with answers like Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

Building trust requires leaning on God and not our understanding. (Proverbs 3:5-6). As we begin to seek Jesus and do what He does, He can trust us more. Maybe we should stop trusting God to fix our mess and start Trusting God to make us better through the mess. #gracetogrow.

Do not miss this January series. It will change your life and make you more trustworthy in the Kingdom.

See you Sunday,

Pastor Michael

Curiosity killed the teen fight

So……These two teen girls were about to throw down in the McDs play place in the sliding glass door area. They were cussing and yelling. The adults were furious and yelling at the kids to stop cussing around their children. I didn’t like it either, but I suddenly remembered a saying, “Caring should make you curious.” So I walked up to the girls and asked what started this fight. The answer was shocking, One of the girls boyfriends stole the other girls spicy chicken sandwich. I confirmed it was nothing else and surely it wasn’t. I offered to buy both girls 3 spicy chicken sandwiches each and the boyfriend one. They laughed, agreed and sat down and ate together. In fact, one of the girls played with my 2 year old daughter and was great. I invited them to church and they said maybe but they were grateful for the sandwiches.

“Caring should make you curious.”

I recently learned the we can easily confuse caring for an anxious desire to fix or solve someone’s problem as if their problem’s were our own. That is not caring, but controlling a circumstance. That never ends well. In the story above the parents wanted to control the moment so badly they addressed at a surface level. I do this all the time. I am learning though caring looks a lot different then we think.

Here are 5 ways its look like to truly care:

1) Truly caring should always begin with praying that God help the person in need and help you to love like Jesus.

2) Truly caring should compel you to be curious about what the person is really facing. The bigger the picture the easier it is to see how to love.

3) Truly caring requires you to be present in heart, soul, mind and strength.

4) Truly caring helps you to know when to say no to something beyond your ability to care. Don’t let this be a way out for you because 95% of caring is listening and encouraging, but also use wisdom. I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to do something I just wasn’t capable of.

5) Truly caring should always include you encouraging someone to take their next step in Jesus. Steps could be but aren’t limited to:

1) Setting up a time to talk about why Jesus has helped you if not in that moment.

2) To come to church.

3) To surrender their life to Jesus in that moment.

4) To attend a church more and get involved in a life group.

5) To simply pray for them, a tool we most often overlook.

When it comes to caring in any context become more curious and see what God does.

See you Sunday ,

Michael

Grief and Joy

“Even in healing grief never fades.” The words above came from a friend of a friend who recently walked through a great loss. This has been a heavy week. I have run into grief from loss multiple times. Its something you never get used to as a pastor. I wish I had a cookie-cutter answer for grief and loss, but I just don’t. What I do know is grief is something that Jesus walked through many times and I imagine His Spirit walks through often when it comes to this world. The hard thing I learned about grief this week is its something that never fades in this world. I have learned that grief can be packaged in different ways, from laughter to tears, to anger, pain, and many other things. Grief can be accompanied even with joy. Grief can be so many things. In fact, at the beginning of the greatest message on the Mount Jesus talks about those who are in grief being blessed; not because they have grief, but even in grief they can be blessed. It doesn’t say you will be blessed and grief will just disappear. My wife Mindi has a way with words. Here is an invitation to the grief that she deals with from the loss of a mother even in the midst of joy.

mindileew

Grief is such an indescribable thing. Today the kids and I began our annual Christmas baking- a tradition passed down to me by my Mom. The recipe is in her handwriting and I love that. It brings me great joy and yet at the same time great sadness. Today the kids were asking me about her and the grief hit me. A lot of you, and my friends and family not on social media have experienced a great loss in this season and my heart hurts with you. If you ever want to cry, need a hug, or prayer please message me. Your not alone. #romans1215 #matthew5:4 #job511 #mournwiththosewhomourn

If you are a person who has grief there is a community of Hope not too far away of people willing to sit, hug, cry with you and pray with you, not fix you.

See you Sunday and come even if you don’t feel like it,

Michael