Family finds new ways to save, give
By Lorena
I found this in a newsletter around my house, and I couldn't resist the temptation to share it. It makes me wonder if I was ever brainwashed enough to buy into this sort of stuff.
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John’s family had committed $7,500 to their church’s capital stewardship program, but after private prayer and study, John came to believe that God wanted them to double that amount. He knew this challenge would not go over well with the rest of the family, as they had already made significant adjustments to commit to the $7,500 mark. Yet in obedience to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, he gathered them all together and revealed his heart’s desire.
His proposal was that each family member would pray during the week to ask God to reveal to them how and where current expenditures could be freed up to increase giving. Then, on following Sundays, they would again meet to discuss each person’s ideas. As a family, they would then assign a dollar amount to each suggestion and decide whether or not to pursue it. If God showed them nothing, the family would be free of the projected commitment of $15,000.
Four weeks later, John’s five-member family had come up with a surprising number of wide-ranging cost-saving strategies. The major saving concerned the family’s routine of dining out four times a week, a luxury on which they were spending more than $100 a week. They adopted his suggestion of reducing this habit to twice weekly, and donating the saving of $50 a week to the church’s project. In the same spirit, they reevaluated their auto and home insurance premiums, cablevision, and magazine subscriptions, food purchases, and auto usage.
Even the younger members of the family found creative ways to make their own contributions. Henry, the middle school son, began taking his lunch to school rather than buying it, thereby saving eight dollars a week. He also suggested having his weekly ten-dollar allowance cut in half. His elder sister Bessie, a high school student, volunteered to cut back on her weekly social outings with friends, which released another $30 monthly toward the effort.
When totaled, the personal sacrifices of each family member amounted to a figure of just over $100 per week--$15,600 over the course of three years! Greatly encouraged, John discovered they could more than triple their original commitment of $7,500—to $23,000!
“I never dreamed we could do it, but we are thrilled God could use our family to help grow our church this way,” John said. “And the extra blessing is that we’re a stronger and better family for it.”
Not surprisingly, the suggestions were easier to come up with than they were to practice and maintain. Golda, John’s wife, admitted there was an initial period of adjustment for each member of the family, but added that things soon became easier.
“We came to discover that what we had thought of as necessities were not, after all,” she said. “Though it did take three months for us t o come to that realization.”
Struggle is part of the nature of sacrifice, but this family’s story illustrates what one family, firmly committed to its faith in God, can achieve through sacrificial giving to advance the cause of Christ.
I found this in a newsletter around my house, and I couldn't resist the temptation to share it. It makes me wonder if I was ever brainwashed enough to buy into this sort of stuff.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John’s family had committed $7,500 to their church’s capital stewardship program, but after private prayer and study, John came to believe that God wanted them to double that amount. He knew this challenge would not go over well with the rest of the family, as they had already made significant adjustments to commit to the $7,500 mark. Yet in obedience to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, he gathered them all together and revealed his heart’s desire.
His proposal was that each family member would pray during the week to ask God to reveal to them how and where current expenditures could be freed up to increase giving. Then, on following Sundays, they would again meet to discuss each person’s ideas. As a family, they would then assign a dollar amount to each suggestion and decide whether or not to pursue it. If God showed them nothing, the family would be free of the projected commitment of $15,000.
Four weeks later, John’s five-member family had come up with a surprising number of wide-ranging cost-saving strategies. The major saving concerned the family’s routine of dining out four times a week, a luxury on which they were spending more than $100 a week. They adopted his suggestion of reducing this habit to twice weekly, and donating the saving of $50 a week to the church’s project. In the same spirit, they reevaluated their auto and home insurance premiums, cablevision, and magazine subscriptions, food purchases, and auto usage.
Even the younger members of the family found creative ways to make their own contributions. Henry, the middle school son, began taking his lunch to school rather than buying it, thereby saving eight dollars a week. He also suggested having his weekly ten-dollar allowance cut in half. His elder sister Bessie, a high school student, volunteered to cut back on her weekly social outings with friends, which released another $30 monthly toward the effort.
When totaled, the personal sacrifices of each family member amounted to a figure of just over $100 per week--$15,600 over the course of three years! Greatly encouraged, John discovered they could more than triple their original commitment of $7,500—to $23,000!
“I never dreamed we could do it, but we are thrilled God could use our family to help grow our church this way,” John said. “And the extra blessing is that we’re a stronger and better family for it.”
Not surprisingly, the suggestions were easier to come up with than they were to practice and maintain. Golda, John’s wife, admitted there was an initial period of adjustment for each member of the family, but added that things soon became easier.
“We came to discover that what we had thought of as necessities were not, after all,” she said. “Though it did take three months for us t o come to that realization.”
Struggle is part of the nature of sacrifice, but this family’s story illustrates what one family, firmly committed to its faith in God, can achieve through sacrificial giving to advance the cause of Christ.
Comments
But even though I know that they will only use the money for "the lord's service," I wouldn't give them a penny. I would not contribute my money for such a useless cause.
What bothers me is the techniques they use. They write a little fiction story to tell the brainwashed people exactly what to do. It looks innocent, but in reality they are puting their nose in the intimate lives of these well-meaning individuals. To go as far as to suggest that kids give up their allowances is nothing short of ridiculous.
Give all resources that would otherwise be wasted on altars, organs, ritual toys, ad nauseum to people who need it!
It's disgusting that churches use charity only bring in new converts.
Regardless, they wanted control of the masses. Tell them they'll burn in Hell for not bowing down to their pagan man-god and they won't try to over throw the government and they'll pay for "indulgences". Burn anyone who disagrees with you and call them heretics or apostates and make an example out of them so that the other poor iliterate folk will be too afraid of the church and Jeebus to stand up. Make the "heretics" look like the liars, like their disobedient, and that you need to purge the church of such filth! That will keep the simple folks mouths shut in the future and it will keep the money rolling in.
The Protestant churches pride themselves in breaking away from Rome, but they haven't really. They still celebrate the pagan holidays, traditions, sabbath, etc. and they still warn people of the fires of Hell for non-conformity! That keeps people attending church every week and dropping money in the collection plate. That keeps pastors, ministers and priests from having to work like the rest of us.
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