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Mark Scandrette

• Herausgeber: IVP
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 361

Beschreibung

If you already own a copy of Free, use the password found in the Group Learning Guide to access eight supplementary videos.Why does chasing the good life make us feel so bad? We dream big and spend our money and time chasing our dreams—only to find ourselves exhausted, deeply in debt and spiritually empty. Mark and Lisa Scandrette realized at the beginning of their lives together that what they want, what they need and what they were being told to want didn't sync up. In Free Mark (with a little help from Lisa) shares the secrets of how they bought a home and raised a family debt-free in the most expensive city in the United States—and how they've enjoyed good relationships, good adventures and good food along the way. Packed with helpful exercises for getting a handle on your money story, and designed for healing and generative money conversations with friends, Free gives you a path to financial freedom and spiritual flourishing that awakens your heart and energizes your soul.

Leseprobe

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FREE

Spending Your Time and Money on What Matters Most

MARK SANDRETTwith Lisa Scandrett

Foreword by Richard Rohr

www.IVPress.com/ books

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InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com E-mail: [email protected]

© 2013 by Mark Scandrette

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at www.intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by Biblica, Inc.tm Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

While all stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Design: Cindy Kiple Images: town of music: Ken Jacobsen/Getty Images sketched banner: ©Aleksandar Velasevic/iStockphoto

ISBN 978-0-8308-9551-9 (digital) ISBN 978-0-8303-3649-9 (print)

Mark

For my father, Rich, who taught me to be intentional, frugal and generous, and invited me to live into the question “What Matters Most?” And for my mother, Barb, who showed me how to celebrate life, shop resourcefully and love courageously.

Lisa

For my mom, Susan Sands, who modeled contentment and resourcefulness. And for my dad, Jim Sands, who showed me the joy in generosity and trusted God for my future.

Contents

Foreword by Richard Rohr

Why We Wrote This Book

How to Use This Book

A Prayer of Abundance

Introduction

1: Name What Matters Most to You

2: Value and Align Your Time

3: Practice Gratitude and Trust

4: Believe You Have Enough

5: Create a Spending Plan

6: Maximize Your Resources

7: Live Generously and Spend Wisely

Conclusion

Notes

Acknowledgments

Group Learning Guide

Self-Evaluation

ReImagine page

Likewise page

About the Author

Endorsements

Foreword

Many before me and the wise Mark and Lisa Scandrette have said something like “Your checkbook and your calendar reveal your actual belief system.” Religious faith that does not become this real and this practical is largely an illusion and a pretense for the human ego and for the world. It really does come down to how we use our time and our money. These reveal the real “gods before us.”

Jesus makes the point in the Sermon on the Mount that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be” (Matthew 6:21). And yet I might dare to reverse his statement and say, “Where your heart is, there your treasure will also be.” I think that where we offer our heart soon enough determines where we place our financial interest and our daily attention. Both are true. And in either case, they follow one another.

It is interesting to me, actually, that Jesus uses the word heart at all. Is this teaching mere sentiment? Lightweight religious feeling? Or was he way ahead of his time in recognizing what neurobiology and groups like HeartMath are only discovering scientifically today? We now know that there are millions of neurons in the heart region, that the heart does “know” things, passionately—for good and for ill. Deep beliefs and convictions are held there, and the mind usually follows to validate the inner passion—even among people who think they are pure intellectuals. So all of our Valentines and romantic songs were not about mere emotion and passing feelings.

This heart center often determines what we do see and what we do not see, what we give credence to and what we deny, what we “irrationally” love and what we “irrationally” fear—but now “rationally” we think. So I can see why often heart-based congregations, with exciting arm-raising worship, warm fellowship and people who pray from their hearts in their own words (we Catholics tend to read prayers!), often bear much good fruit in the long run. I have seen it again and again.

This is not to say that head should not be brought to work together with heart. Many evangelical and Pentecostal Christians would help themselves—and the rest of the world tremendously—if they would do a little honest study and reading outside of their rather small comfort zone. So maybe I will add a third thing that reveals your actual belief system: the only way we know that you are in love with God and not just your own self-image is whether you do go outside of your own comfort zone!

If you are a white middle-class American, for example, and all your beliefs end up making God look like a white middle-class American, sharing all of your usual prejudices and illusions, I doubt whether you have met the Eternal God at all. You surely have not met Jesus, who always took the side of the outsider, the handicapped, the excluded and the poor. That hardly needs any demonstration since it tends to be the narrative of most of the four Gospels.

Christianity is in such a state of defensiveness and “circling the wagons” today, in great part because we have not taken the time to make the gospel something beyond an exclusionary ideology that merely serves our needs. People do not trust or admire us anymore as a result.

People are not sure of what or who we Christians love, but they sure know who we do not love, and from our historical record they also know that we do love war, arms, possessions, pleasure, control and social honor—things far removed from one of Jesus’ strongest and clearest dichotomies, “You cannot serve both God and the system” (my translation of Luke 16:13 and Matthew 6:24, and a fair one I think). Amazing that we made such absolutes of other things that Jesus never talked about at all, while here he is absolutely definitive and we explain it away.

I sincerely thank Mark and Lisa for taking the time to write something very concrete, practical and programmatic for us, while being very inspiring and hopeful at the same time. This book is “definitive.” By that I mean it is clear and helpful—and in a very kind way. This is not more ideology from above, not guilt from below. I am honored to write a few words to encourage your reading here, and just hope my own kind of definitiveness is not the kiss of death to something that could truly open your mind, your heart, and your entire worldview to God’s big picture.

Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M.

Center for Action and Contemplation

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Why We Wrote This Book

We live in one of the wealthiest economies on earth. Yet many of us feel crunched for time, stressed in our finances or perplexed about what makes life meaningful. Our culture is driven by a sense of scarcity, fear and an unquenchable quest for more. If we don’t make conscious choices to resist these impulses, the force of a materialistic and consumeristic society will make most of our decisions for us. The scripts we’ve inherited about material prosperity are wearing us out, robbing our joy and destroying the planet.

A Crisis of Money, Meaning and Global Sustainability

If you are reading this book, you are very likely in the top 5-10 percent of global wealth. As people living in postindustrialized countries we must wrestle with our contribution to the crisis of global inequity and ecological destruction. The 12 percent of us who live in Western Europe and North America are responsible for 60 percent of global private consumption.[1] We should be haunted by estimates that it would take four to seven earths to sustain us if everyone on the planet had the same ecological footprint as the average American.[2]

Our overconsumption is largely fueled by a debt-based public and private economy. The current US national debt is estimated at $16 trillion.[3] As of September 2012 the average American household was $6,772 in debt, with the average indebted household owing $15,328 to creditors.[4] If we feel strapped in one of the wealthiest and most stable economies in the world, what about the nearly three billion people on earth who are living on less than $2 a day?[5]

Our challenge is to pursue a standard of living that can be shared by all. To love our neighbor as ourselves we have to consider how our individual actions affect our sister across the street and our brother on another continent. We might not be able to fully grasp the scope of the problem or offer a complete solution, but we can wrestle with the weight of our relative privilege and disproportionate consumption. For the sake of our global neighbors, the planet and future generations we’ve got to find a way to be less wasteful and consumptive, discovering a more sustainable version of the American Dream.

We are encouraged by the growing awareness among people of faith that the gospel of Jesus is holistic and touches every aspect of our lives. We see Christians of every variety desiring a life of faith that includes being a good neighbor, valuing relationships, cultivating an inner life, caring about people affected by poverty and consciously becoming better stewards of creation. However, this good vision for the church will remain largely unrealized unless practical realities and competencies are addressed. Many of us are too busy or distracted to sustain a life of compassionate engagement. We live lives of hurry, worry and striving, finding little satisfaction in our manic work and recreational activities. Instead of being free to create beauty, nurture relationships and seek the greater good, many of us feel stuck in lives dictated by the need to pay bills or maintain a certain (often consumptive) standard of living. We can’t have it all—the prevailing level of consumption, a life of deeper meaning and relationships and global equity and sustainability. To realize these good dreams we must adjust our values and practices and seek creative solutions.

Few things in life shape us more than our choices about how we earn, spend, save and invest. Most of us will spend a third of our time at income-producing jobs. How we choose to manage those earnings largely determines whether we are free to serve the greater good. Yet, rarely have religious communities, in particular, done well at addressing money and work as areas for discipleship—other than the occasional sermon about giving. Perhaps we unconsciously tend to separate money and work from the center of our religious lives, making an artificial and unhelpful distinction between what is spiritual and what is temporal, and thereby less important. In a holistic understanding of the gospel every part of life is sacred and integral to what it means to be a follower of Jesus. This means we must learn to talk more honestly and openly about the details of our financial lives as an essential aspect of Christian discipleship.

The current generation coming of age is hopeful and motivated to seek solutions to the world’s greatest problems. Students today are passionate about issues of global justice, including poverty and human trafficking, and want to make a difference. Often these dreams are in conflict with family expectations: “We didn’t spend $150,000 on your education so that you could waste your life as a non-profit worker living in a slum.” Often the impediments are more personal and practical. Students today make financial decisions between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four that will largely shape how they will spend the next thirty to forty years of their lives. Many will leave school with significant debt. Some will go on to graduate school, incurring further debt. Most will unconsciously adopt the culture’s habits of consumption. We’ve sadly watched many young people who had amazing and creative ambitions settle into dream-killing debt-maintenance jobs. We believe that with strategic action this pattern can be changed.

This book addresses the unique challenges and opportunities presented to people living within the dominant culture of the postindustrial world, a culture that places particular value on material prosperity, instant gratification, debt-based economic growth and rapid economic progress. We recognize that people living with less privilege under other circumstances might have different primary issues to address—though we believe that a perspective of abundance and the practices of gratitude, trust, contentment and generosity translate across cultures.

We hope to offer a resource that connects personal economic practice with spiritual values, questions of meaning, global justice and ecological sustainability. To do this we’ll touch on topics like taxes, insurance and debt reduction, but this book is not intended to be authoritative in matters of tax law, banking or investing. For specific guidance on these and other matters we recommend seeking specialized resources or consulting with a qualified tax accountant or trusted financial adviser.

It’s often easier to talk about the national debt than our personal finances, or to complain about predatory lending and the evil of corporations than to face the greed that resides within. While the impact of larger systems should not be minimized, our primary focus here is on personal values, beliefs and financial practices. If we believe “another world is possible,” then the place to begin is with ourselves—choosing to surrender our personal kingdoms to the good dreams of God for our world.

Core Beliefs

The gospel invites us into a life of radical contentment, generosity, gratitude, trust and simplicity. We can reimagine our assumptions about time, money and material possessions to pursue a life of greater freedom, leveraging our time and resources toward what matters most.

Three core beliefs have shaped the development of this book:

We were created with a purpose, to seek the greater good of God’s loving reign. Human beings long for a deeper sense of purpose. According to Jesus, we “are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14), created to do and bring good to this world (Ephesians 2:10). The wisdom of this teaching encourages us to stretch beyond the mundane concerns of our lives to be animated by a calling to be agents of healing and restoration.

We have enough. The ancient voices of Scripture affirm that we live in a world of abundance, where the Creator provides all that we need. “You [God] . . . satisfy the desires of every living thing”(Psalm 145:16). Rain falls and sun shines on the earth, producing the goods that sustain us. We are invited to celebrate this abundance with thanks, to trust God for what we need, to be content with what we have and to share with those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and lonely.

We can make intentional choices about how we spend our time and money. We’ve been given incredible power to imagine, learn, grow and choose how we want to live. Living well requires vision, self-awareness, discipline and the development of practical skills. As those created just “a little lower than angels and crowned . . . with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5), we can make choices to become more content and free to spend our time and resources on what matters most. We think that to make life-giving changes that last, we need a source of energy and love greater than our own. The promise of the gospel of life is that if we do what we can, God will help us do what we cannot under our own strength (Philippians 2:12-13).

This book is the result of our lifelong journey exploring and integrating these core beliefs into our lives. While for the sake of clarity this book was written in Mark’s voice, it is our shared story. Lisa’s voice will appear at the beginning of chapter three and in many of the sidebars (along with occasional observations by our daughter Hailey). Simplicity is one of the vows of the intentional community we helped form and participate in. Seven years ago we began leading workshops on simple living and invited participants into practice-based groups where they were supported as they took steps to simplify their lives. Over the years we developed and refined the six-week curriculum used in those groups, which is the basis for the tasks and exercises contained in these pages. This book is a follow-up and specific application of Mark’s previous book, Practicing the Way of Jesus, in which he advocates for an action- and group-based approach to spiritual formation.

We can choose to pursue meaning, value people, engage the world’s needs and move toward a rate of consumption that is more globally sustainable and equitable. We can be free to spend our time and money on what matters most.

How to Use This Book

We imagine you are reading this book because, like us, you’re searching for a way to live more gratefully, creatively and sustainably. That journey takes great courage, and we hope this book can offer some help along the way. Your story and the good dreams that are deep inside of you are important and unique. We believe that the steps in this book can move you toward a life of greater financial freedom, deeper meaning and a lifestyle that is more sustainable—personally and globally.

Our goal is to help you develop a perspective and practices that empower you to be as free and fruitful as you can be, living from a deep sense of purpose for the greater good. We’ve designed this book with seven steps to help you clarify your life vision and values; cultivate practices of gratitude, trust, contentment and generosity; and develop practical skills to align your money and time with the deeper goals and values you’ve identified.

The seven steps are

Name what matters most to you.

Value and align your time.

Practice gratitude and trust.

Believe you have enough.

Create a spending plan.

Maximize your resources.

Live generously and spend wisely.

Through each of these steps we are inviting you to live into the question, How can I be free to pursue what matters most—to risk being fully alive? In order to help you accomplish these steps, each chapter includes tasks, exercises, experiments and conversation questions.

Exercises are designed to be done while you are reading the chapter. These will help you to prepare your heart and mind to complete the tasks. Most chapters include self-evaluation surveys designed to help you reflect on where you are and where you want to be. Journal entry prompts are also included to encourage you to explore your story and reflect on what has shaped your perspective and practices. We are going to ask you to take an honest look at what your values are, where you spend your time and how you manage your money. That kind of honest assessment and transparency may seem scary. But trust us, taking an unflinching look at how you’ve been adversely affected by certain choices is one step toward a better way. We all have unhealthy patterns with time, money and consumption, which have led to things like worry, busyness, debts, obesity, clutter, stinginess or obsessive frugality. We’re invited to face these struggles with honesty, believing that we were made for something better. Facing these shadows brings them into the light where they no longer have power over us. If we first deal with heart issues (our beliefs, attitudes, motives and way of seeing), the practical details of how we manage our money, time and possessions are navigated more easily.

Experiments are actions we will be inviting you to take to help you become more self-aware and to integrate what you learn into your everyday life. We start from where we are to move toward greater wholeness. If you feel discouraged or trapped by your current situation, we invite you to discern your next step toward abundance, gratefulness, contentment, generosity, sustainability and trust. This book follows an action-reflection method. The experiments are designed to help you become more conscious of your thoughts, motives and behavior, and to risk an action that might open you up to new possibilities. A variety of experiments are included. Choose one that is appropriate to your situation and desire for growth, something that both fits your comfort level and stretches you in some way. If the suggested experiments don’t quite fit, feel free to improvise. The key is to do something tangible and measurable to see what effect that action has in your life. Be specific and know that intensity is important.[6]

Tasks are specific assignments to help you develop a tangible plan for spending your time and money. Since this book is something of a time, money and life management boot camp, in each chapter you will be invited to take an intentional step toward more order and clarity in your life. Each task will take between two and six hours. If you complete all the tasks, you will have a comprehensive simplicity plan that you can refer back to, to help you stay on track.[7]

Conversation questions are designed to encourage your further development in dialogue with significant people in your life. It’s a lot easier to make changes in life when you take steps along with someone else. We highly recommend working through this book with at least one other person—your spouse, a supportive friend or a small group. If nothing else it would be good to enlist the support of friend who can listen to and encourage you in the process. A friend or group of friends can give you the positive peer pressure and support to make changes that would be more difficult on your own. In each chapter you will find questions to spark conversation. (If you plan to go through this book with a friend or group of friends, a group study guide is included as well as access to eight online video curriculum sessions.)

The exercises in this book can be done in eight weeks, but it might be worth spending extended time working through the steps and chapters over twelve to sixteen weeks if time allows.

A Prayer of Abundance

In the process of growth and change, you may find it helpful to have a daily meditation to guide your thoughts, remind you of your intentions and call on God’s help. Consider using the following prayer each day as you work through the steps in this book.

I know that I am cared for by an abundant Provider.

I choose to be grateful and trusting.

I believe I have enough and that what I need

will always be provided.

I choose to be content and generous.

I know that my choices matter for myself, for others

and for future generations.

Help me to live consciously and creatively, celebrating signs

of your new creation that is present and coming.

Creator, who made me to seek the greater good of your kingdom,

Guide me to use my time, talents and resources

to pursue what matters most.

Teach me to be free,

to live without worry, fear or greed in the freedom of your abundance.

Give me my daily bread, as I share with those in need.

Thank you for the precious gift of life!

Which line of the prayer do you most resonate with?

Are there any statements in the prayer that you struggle to believe or sound too good to be true? Why?

Introduction

Making Space for Life to Grow

The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

Luke 8:14-15

Growing up, my family was a bit odd. In the 1970s, when most people who could moved to the suburbs, we bought a little house in an older part of the city.[8] In an era of dual incomes, conspicuous consumption and shopping malls, my family chose to live on one salary, my dad’s Army Reserve job, and my mom made the unfashionable choice to stay home to raise us four kids. I was the kid with the brown bag lunches and high-water, hand-me-down jeans. We owned one car, a rusty old station wagon with fake wood paneling that sat in our garage most of the week. Rain or shine my dad biked five miles to work each way in his military fatigues. For much of my childhood, our television was under lock and key. Six of us shared one bathroom, which made getting ready for school and church a challenge—creatively solved by having one person on the toilet and another in the shower, with a third person at the sink brushing their teeth.

Being odd in the ways we were had some advantages. We knew our neighbors well and went to local schools and shops. Mom had time to make nutritious meals and to be a hospitable neighbor and caring friend. Dad’s job allowed him to be home by 4:30 each day. After dinner we had many leisurely hours to enjoy reading and discussing books at the table, playing volleyball in the backyard or going on walks together along the Mississippi river. Our life was simple, connected and largely local.

When I was twelve Dad accepted a promotion that would provide new opportunities and pay $10,000 more a year—a lot of money back then. But the job required him to transfer to a new city every three or four years. The summer before my senior year we moved from Minneapolis to rural Alabama. With the money made from selling our small city home, my parents bought a large brick house in the country with a built-in swimming pool on two acres of land. It had four bedrooms, two living rooms, a formal dining room and not one, not two, but four bathrooms! With my dad’s larger salary we could afford many things we’d previously gone without: better clothes, a house full of new furniture, stereo equipment and our first home computer. Living in the country, we quickly became a three-car family. Suddenly we went from being oddly simple to “those rich Yankees out on King’s Hollow Road.”

Our larger house and pool were great for entertaining, and living in another culture broadened and enriched our horizons, but there were also unanticipated consequences to our new life. Uprooting from where we’d lived for thirteen years was traumatic and often lonely. It took thirty minutes to drive to school, to work or to church activities. With more stuff came more responsibility—cleaning the pool, mowing an acre of lawn, maintaining three vehicles and scrubbing those four bathrooms! Dad traveled regularly, worked late and often came home stressed or exhausted. On good days we celebrated our new opportunities and friendships. On bad days, Dad voiced his doubts about whether the increase in status and pay were worth what we’d lost by moving. His honest reflections about this transition left a lasting impression on me about the trade-offs we make with any decision.

What Matters Most?

When I was in college, beginning to clarify my life vision and values, I compared the two versions of “the good life” that I’d experienced. Of course there were benefits and costs to both circumstances, but I decided that if at some point I had to choose one over the other, meaningful work and relationships were more precious to me than money or things. I felt a hunger awakening inside of me for a life of greater freedom to pursue what matters most.

One of the things that mattered most to me was a girl I’d left behind in Minnesota. Lisa and I met at camp when we were fifteen and sixteen. After moving to Alabama I spent much of my spare time writing letters to Lisa and a lot of my money calling her long distance. During our second year in college, we began to consider marriage. We had an instant connection and over time discovered that we wanted many of the same things out of life: to be God-oriented, to create a loving family, to serve needs and to live simply and creatively. Looking around us, it didn’t seem like most people were free to pursue their deeper values and purpose. We began to ask ourselves, “What choices can we make now to be free to pursue what matters most to us in the future?”

Over the next few months Lisa and I talked extensively about our shared dreams. We imagined living in an old house in a large city, raising kids, offering hospitality and caring for needs in our neighborhood. We hoped that one of us would be able to stay at home to nurture our kids, that our home would be a place of hospitality, and that we would be free to spend our time doing work we were passionate about, having the flexibility to work and serve together. We began to realize that our dream was not about a particular job or a career, but more a way of life—and a pretty idealistic one at that. But we also believed that this was the kind of life we were called to, and we would make any sacrifices that were necessary.

What quickly became clear to us was that we wouldn’t be able to pursue this dream and an American lifestyle of consumption at the same time. We decided to choose time and freedom over money and stuff. During this process, we began to pay more careful attention to the wise and crazy things that Jesus said about wealth, meaning and material possessions.

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. (Luke 12:33)

Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. (Luke 12:15)

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink. . . . Seek first [God’s] kingdom. (Matthew 6:25, 33)

We began to ask ourselves, “What if we tried to live by these teachings instead of the culturally dominant messages about success, security and prosperity?”

Common Messages We Hear About Money and Prosperity in Our Culture

“You deserve better.”

“Satisfy your cravings.”

“You can never have enough. More is always better.”

“The kind of work you do determines your worth.”

“First take care of yourself, then be generous with the leftovers.”

“Happiness comes from wealth.”

“Wealth equals success.”

“Resources are scarce. Take as much as you can.”

“Having resources provides security and control.”

“Pursue wealth and security at any cost.”

“If you have money, God has blessed you or you’ve done something right.”

“If you don’t have money, you’ve done something wrong or you don’t have enough faith.”

“We don’t talk about money!”

We realized that unless we became more conscious and intentional about our financial and vocational choices, the force of a fearful and consumptive culture would make most of our decisions for us. We were already feeling the pressure to follow this script: “Go to college. Study hard. Land a good job. Buy the American Dream.” There seemed to be an unspoken expectation that each generation should be more economically and professionally successful than the previous one.

Raised in the Christian faith, both of us grew up hearing stories about saints and heroes, like Saint Francis and Sister Clare, Hudson Taylor and Amy Carmichael, who took more radical and unconventional paths. They quit school, aborted their careers or gave away their possessions to pursue a deeper purpose. What if we started making our decisions based more on a sense of calling than on the material expectations of our culture? Could we find a way to be more content and less consumer oriented, spend less time earning and more time serving, and discover ways to live more consciously and generously?

An Experiment in Radical Simplicity

We decided to begin taking risks to experiment with voluntary simplicity. We got engaged, quit our university studies, gave away many of our possessions and moved to the inner city to serve at-risk children and families. The guiding principles for our “experiment” were largely inspired by the ancient Scriptures and the teachings of Jesus:

Be grateful and content with what we have.

Make work and financial decisions, whenever possible, based on a deeper sense of purpose and calling.

Be resourceful and ecologically conscious.

Trust God and ask for what we need.

Budget and make clear financial plans.

Avoid debt.

Be generous and use resources (time, money, talents and possessions) to do good.

Before we began, I remember sitting in the library at my university racking my brain to figure out how we could avoid the trap of increased consumption. As a thought experiment I posed the question, What is the minimum amount that a person needs to live? I recalled a comment the apostle Paul made, “If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (1 Timothy 6:8). Anticipating a move back to snowy Minneapolis, I decided that in addition to food and clothes, shelter might also be a necessity. I estimated that I would need $300 a month to pay for essentials like housing and groceries. Assuming that I might only make minimum wage, which was $3.80 at the time, I calculated that I would only have to work three or four hours a day. With two people working part-time minimum wage jobs, we could just double the amount needed to $600. Obviously, my calculations didn’t account for things like transportation costs or health insurance, but I designated these as nonessential luxuries we could have if we wanted to work more. My calculations convinced me that if we adopted a minimal standard of living, much of our time could be free to pursue other meaningful activities besides paid work.

After we got engaged, I spent the summer traveling across Minnesota, leading weekly kids’ clubs in low-income neighborhoods. Since I was staying with people and food was provided, I could do this without pay. In autumn we both got full-time jobs working at a community center in inner-city Minneapolis that served at-risk families and people living on the street. We set our budget based on the minimum amount we needed to live ($600 a month), and since we were both working full time, we saved $8,000 over the next four months. Then another organization invited us to develop a project working with children and families in northern Minnesota, where the iron ore mines had just shut down, resulting in high rates of unemployment, domestic violence and child abuse. We would get to work together and create new programs. The pay was low ($833 a month), which was fine with us because we already knew we could live on less. Over the next four years we had the time of our lives engaging at-risk kids and families, building community and developing our skills. We also took evening courses and completed our college degrees.

Adopting a posture of radical contentment had many benefits. We came to appreciate the small things. Not owning a TV or having money to go to the movies pushed us to seek fun more creativity. We made music, went for walks, read books aloud to one another or invited friends over to cook meals together. Being content almost effortlessly moved us toward a more ecologically and globally sustainable lifestyle—less driving, few nonessential purchases, lowering our thermostat in winter and so on. It’s safe to say that spending less gets you at least halfway toward a smaller ecological footprint. By adopting radical contentment we often had money left over each month and at the end of the year—sometimes up to half our modest income. Instead of spending the extra money on ourselves, it made more sense to give the extra we had to someone who needed it more than we did. We were free to give away up to 20 percent of our income and save for upcoming expenses and long-term dreams.

Living Simply as a Family

It was easy to imagine this freedom as a single person and even as a couple, but what about with children? Three years after we were married, our daughter was born, and we decided it might be more economical to own a home instead of renting. We found a small house that we were able to pay for with $11,000 in cash, money we’d saved that even included $2,000 Lisa had earned babysitting when she was a teenager. More like a trailer than a house, it wasn’t our dream home, but it was ours—matching the criteria we’d set up when we met with the realtor: two bedrooms and a garage, within seven miles of our work and not a fixer-upper. Even though our income was low, we only spent half of what we made each month, saving the rest for upcoming expenses such as car insurance and the labor and delivery costs for our children (birthing and delivery weren’t covered by our policy). We began paying ourselves rent to save up for a down payment, since our long-term vision was to live in a larger cosmopolitan city.

The kids and families we worked with in northern Minnesota thought we were rich because we had a well-kept home, served them good food and went on yearly vacations. In reality we lived on much less than most of their families did. What this showed us was that we had privilege that went beyond material assets. We had advantages because of our education and ethnicity, but even more, we were privileged because our families gave us the skills and insight to use money wisely, teaching us how to budget, save for upcoming expenses, avoid unnecessary debt and shop resourcefully. None of our parents had college degrees when we were growing up. Ours were old-school, do-it-yourself families who faithfully gave away 10 percent or more of their incomes and modeled generosity, love and hospitality in countless ways.

On Privilege

Living in an affluent society, many of us have advantages that can easily be taken for granted—citizenship, public safety, family stability or language and cultural fluency. Although we might have a tendency to see our success in terms of individual effort, a more accurate picture is that we benefit from systems and structures that provide us with access to education, jobs and other opportunities. Imagine how you might see the invitation to simplicity differently if you had been raised in a different family or in another part of the world.

Over the next three years we had two more children, and I became the family pastor at a local church and went to seminary (also paid for in cash). When our kids were one, two and three, we moved to San Francisco to start a neighborhood-based faith community. This was a huge leap for us financially. We anticipated spending more on monthly rent than we’d ever made in monthly salary. To make matters worse, we happened to move during the late 1990s technology boom when there was a less than 1 percent vacancy rate on housing in the city. After looking despairingly through the local real estate listings, I told Lisa that if we wanted to raise our kids in San Francisco, we should expect to spend the next twenty years living in a tiny two-bedroom apartment. Lisa, who had always been better at trusting God than I was, said, “Well, if we are supposed to be here, I’m going to pray that God gives us a home to own that we can afford.” I said, “Go ahead and pray, but

be prepared to live in a tiny apartment.” Lisa’s prayer was answered. Through a series of serendipitous circumstances and with the $30,000 down payment we’d saved, we were able to buy a two-unit Victorian building. By renting out the second flat for a modest amount to friends, we were able to pay off the mortgage in just fourteen years.

With the skills and habits we’ve learned together, along with a bit of luck and a lot of grace, we’ve largely been free to choose meaningful work and to be generous with our time, talents, money and other resources. We’ve served together in nonprofit enterprises, educated our three children at home and developed community in an at-risk neighborhood. We’ve also been able to take on more risky and creative activities that don’t necessarily pay well but are deeply satisfying—like mentoring younger people, caring for neighbors and traveling, teaching and writing about integrative spiritual practices. Over the years we’ve been able to live comfortably on one modest income, often below the poverty line, and have never made more than an average teacher’s salary.

The freedom to invest in relationships and pursue the things that matter most to us is more valuable to us than having a larger home, more discretionary income or the promise of an extravagant lifestyle in old age. Life has felt rich and full of feasting, celebration and interesting friends. What makes our journey impressive to some is that we didn’t start with an inheritance or other economic advantages, and we’ve pursued our dreams in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in America.

I fully embrace the life we’ve chosen, but it has not been without challenges. Getting on the same page regarding our budget required hard work. Prior to getting married I spent money on things like gifts, books and long distance phone calls to loved ones. Our shared budget didn’t have as much room for these things, and the values of being generous and keeping in touch with my family came into tension with our need to stay within our spending plan. It took time, understanding and persistent communication to create a spending plan that reflected and encompassed all of our values.

The simple way we had chosen sometimes made socializing awkward. Our friends would invite us out to dinner or the movies, which seldom fit in our budget. This left us with three uncomfortable options: explain our finances and decline the invitation, spend money on something we had decided not to spend it on, or let our friends treat us to the meal, which left us feeling like we were “takers” in the relationship if this happened too often. Because we valued our friends, we would often suggest eating at our place or recommend a restaurant that better fit our spending plan.

I love to be able to give generously to others. However, there have been times that I’ve needed to limit how much I give to stay within a budget. I’ve learned new ways to give, and that a small gift is often appreciated as much as a lavish one. I tend to give gifts that cost more time than money now, which also end up feeling more meaningful. On this journey I’ve realized that all choices, though, have a cost. It is a matter of choosing which benefits and costs best fit our values.

A Whisper of Invitation