Today’s guest post comes to us from Rick Warren for Pastors.com.
It’s impossible to estimate the kind of good the church could do for the world if every believer was financially healthy and spiritually mature in the area of generosity.
The problem is, the church is hurting in this area–badly.
I believe we, as church leaders, often underestimate the amount of financial pressure most families feel because we want to trust that people would be open about poor financial management. But the fact is, people are private about finances.
And pastors, we’re not immune. Many pastors have a hard time teaching about money because of the personal guilt they feel about their own financial problems.
Debt is a problem we can’t ignore any longer. But how do we get out from under it?
We’ve got to commit to these eight steps and help the people in our congregations do the same.
- Commit to becoming debt-free now. Pastor, this is the most difficult step of all, but it’s also the most important. You’ve got to make a commitment to do this, and you’ve got to lead your congregation to do so as well. It’s absolutely crucial.
- Start paying God and yourself first. If you want to get out of debt, you’ve got to start tithing 10 percent (paying God) and saving 10 percent (paying yourself). People in debt will balk at this. They don’t understand how tithing and saving will help get them out of debt. But if you wait until you pay off all your bills, you will never save and you will never tithe.
- List all you own, owe, and earn. You’ve got to keep good records. You need to know where your money has gone, where it’s going, and where it’s coming from. People say money talks. It doesn’t talk! It just walks away quietly. Then you get to the end of the month and ask, “Where did my money go?” If you’ve ever asked yourself that question, you don’t have a budget and you need one.
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Your partner in ministry,
Nelson
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