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A missionary was once asked, “What is the greatest barrier to the spread of the gospel in your part of Africa?” He immediately responded, “Materialism!”
Then, he went on to say, “If a man has a mud hut, he wants a stone hut; if he has a thatched roof, he wants a metal roof; if he has one cow, he wants two cows; if he has one acre, he wants two acres.”
We should recognize that materialism is a disease of the heart and has nothing to do with money.
Our Money Problem
Our money relationship is our everyday attitudes and actions toward money—how we think and feel about money, and how we use or misuse it. Like any relationship, it can be good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, on the upswing or on life support.
Unfortunately, almost everywhere we turn, we observe unhealthy dynamics around money. We notice it not just in grown-ups struggling to keep up in a culture of discontent. We also observe it in young people trying hard to make their way in the world. And to be honest, we see the battle raging within ourselves. Consumerism is the air we all breathe. It fills our lungs and pumps through every part of our being.
Our culture makes it nearly impossible for any of us to be content. When everyone else is sprinting full-out in a race to have more, it’s tough to stand on the sidelines.
Many of us carry a burden of money unease, tension, or panic. Many feel a distinct need to keep up appearances. Many feel an urgent desire for more and bigger and better. And the research we will examine shows we feel the press of consumerism no matter how much or how little we have. Consumerism is our desire to acquire more for ourselves when we already have enough. It’s our obsession with money and all it can buy. While consumerism is driven by external culture pressures—such as the barrage of advertisements we see each day or the comparisons we make against our peers—it takes root and grows inside human hearts. At its worst, consumerism feeds an unrestrained selfishness throughout life.
There are three reasons it is incredibly important to take a journey to a new relationship with money:
1. Jesus makes money a crucial topic.
2. This journey will change you. However you would describe your feelings about money—unease, tension, bondage, discouragement, dissatisfaction, even boredom—you need to break free from the debilitating effects of consumerism.
3. The transformation you experience will change the world. If people—especially Christians—can have a healthier relationship with money, it would change the world. We envision a world of human flourishing where both a financial sense of well-being and a joyful generosity prevail.
People who have grown a healthy relationship with money have a contentment and quietness that is attractive but not flashy.
Countless books and other resources will give you the nuts and bolts of making smarter financial decisions. However, before you can remake your habits, you need to remake your heart. Altering how you think and feel is the only realistic way to bring about a lasting difference in how you act.
A New Money Mindset
Consumerism drives a tragically large percentage of people to money problems. The consequences of this unhealthy relationship with money are not only practical and financial but also spiritual, emotional, and relational. Money struggles can create animosity toward God and raise questions about His care.
There is a distinctly different set of individuals far more at peace with money. They have formed healthy money relationships. They have a new money mindset. And they have discovered a secret we want to let you in on: the more readily we share our time, energy, and money, the more joy we discover in life.
We honestly believe good money strategies—by themselves—cannot end the cycle of money problems once and for all. If we want the power to make and live out wise money choices, we start with the heart. Without changing our inner attitudes toward money, it’s unlikely we will succeed in remaking our outward behaviors. If we want to truly break free from the consumerism that drives us, we must develop a new money mindset.
Using research conducted by Thrivent Financial, we have identified five distinct attitudes people hold toward money—five ways of relating to all that they have and own. These “money mindsets” describe how people think and feel about their financial well-being—or lack of it. Since each category begins with the letter S, we call the “5 Ss.”
THE 5S ATTITUDES TOWARD MONEY
(From an unhealthy to a healthy relationship)
1. Surviving: Feeling drained, trapped, with little sense of hope (6 percent of Christians in the United States)
2. Struggling: Feeling strapped in the present and anxious about the future (11 percent of US Christians). Until recently it was the fastest-growing segment.
3. Stable: Feeling okay, experiencing relative calm but hoping for more (32 percent of US Christians).
4. Secure: Feeling mostly confident (38 percent of US Christians).
5. Surplus: Feeling grateful and ready to share (Only 13 percent of US Christians feel they live in surplus). Remember: a surplus mindset isn’t about how much we have. It’s a conscious choice to think and act differently about everything we own or might wish we did. A surplus mindset means deciding we have enough for ourselves and enough to share. The surplus mindset is where we all want to live. It’s the “new money mindset” we aim to grow into.
We break our persistent desire for more when we choose to live generously. This is not about an occasional act of benevolence. The solution to yearning for a bigger and better place isn’t to ski to the bottom of the hill and write a one-time check to a worthy cause. The long-term fix is cultivating a day-by-day pattern of openhearted giving. It’s pursuing a way of life that puts a happy generosity first.
Rather than letting the amount of money we have determine our ability to be generous, we want to start with generosity. When we choose to give first, we begin to grow a healthier relationship with money.
By the way, generosity isn’t just about money. It’s also about sharing your whole self—time, energy, wisdom, talents, attention, compassion, empathy, and more. It’s doing simple acts that make a difference for a neighbor nearby or on the other side of the world.
Jesus assured His listeners that they could live freely because God knew their needs and would meet those needs. The Message paraphrase says well what Jesus aimed to accomplish: “What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving” (Matthew 6:31).
Ready
Most of us need prompting to think through our relationship with money—our everyday attitudes and actions toward it and all that it can buy. We don’t naturally pause and evaluate our money mindset. We might assume that a healthy money relationship requires having our financial house in perfect order.
Consumer debt eats at us like cancer, with high interest rates translating into wasted money and added worry. But some solutions to destructive forms of debt can fuel the underlying problem. There’s a mentality that often drives debt reduction. It says, “Get out of debt and your life will be better.” “Just do these easy steps and you’ll be financially home free.” “Go without now so you can accumulate more in the long run.”
Any approach that subtracts something from our life without adding a better substitute just creates a craving for more. Don’t let your balance sheet determine your self-worth.
To help us get an accurate view we worked with Thrivent’s research and analysis team to develop the New Money Mindset Assessment, a forty-eight-item tool to give you insights into your own thinking—one of the most thorough and accurate assessments of a Christian’s relationship with money available.
Growing into a new money mindset requires trusting God for our financial and personal well-being. He beckons us to a place of freedom, community, contentment, and calling.
Longing for Security
It’s wise to pool resources to guard against circumstances that would devastate any one person. Generally this is done through insurance policies.
Think of this as a modern method of sharing to meet one another’s needs, as in Acts 4:34-35, where the early followers of Jesus pooled their resources for distribution “to anyone who had need.”
Another form of wise money planning is to save personally for risks that can’t be insured against or where it would be hard to pool with others, such as a job loss or other significant unexpected expense. Most financial professionals suggest saving enough money for six to twelve months of regular expenses in an easily accessible, low-risk/low-volatility account.
Another wise step is to save for expenses so that you don’t have to borrow. While borrowing lets us move ahead with a purchase before we have cash on hand, it also limits our future freedom. All borrowing puts us under the burden of repayment, which left unchecked can grow to crushing proportions.
One often overlooked money tool is learning how to give both generously and wisely.
We long for security in part because we have a basic instinct to survive. Physical and psychological security are crucial to all aspects of human health and flourishing.
Beware of the scarcity mentality, which makes us feel compelled to gain more and keep more for ourselves. We think there aren’t enough money and goods to go around. But a surplus mindset says, I have enough for myself and enough to share.
But what about those of us who say, “I worry a lot about not having enough”?
Consider the Boston College study on “The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth,” which included “super-rich” households that averaged $78 million in assets, with a couple of families reporting net worth in excess of $1 billion. The study discovered that their survey respondents tended to be discontented. These super-rich people believed they needed an additional 25 percent in assets to feel secure.
Or what about the sentiment that “I just don’t have time to help others; I have enough trouble taking care of myself”? One study referenced in an article titled “Twelve Ways to Keep You and Your Family Healthy” concludes that people who volunteer are on average 22% less likely to die during a span of four to seven years than others who didn’t volunteer.
Or, what about those who think:
• “Having money helps me take control of my future.”
• “With enough money, I could make sure that life goes the way I want it to.”
• “I like to be in control.”
These three closely related sentiments are summed up in the final statement—the unhealthy desire for control.
Living in Freedom
When it comes to financial habits, fear is rarely a helpful place for us to manage from. Fear only amplifies our sense of insecurity and makes us feel less free.
Consider these simple but profound assurances of Jesus: I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.
In Luke 12, Jesus understood that faith and resources go hand in hand, noticing how worries about our security tempt us to keep things for ourselves. In that chapter, Jesus provides two practical ways to invest in a rich relationship with God.
1. Store up treasures in heaven by giving to those in need—the spiritual discipline of generosity (see verses 33-34).
2. Be wise stewards of the resources God entrusts to us (verses 42-44). In that parable, Jesus notes that servants who use the resources entrusted to them for the benefit of others, as the Master has asked of them, are the ones God praises. As wise stewards of God’s gifts, we make a concrete investment in our relationship with him when we serve others with everything he has given us. Investing in a rich relationship with God is the basic spiritual truth that grounds everything in this book.
God is a provider. He has the power and the desire to give us what we most need. That doesn’t mean that he promises to make us rich or to give us piles of possessions if we just ask him in faith. This is the falsehood of the prosperity gospel.
Jesus encourages us to pray for anything we think we need. God is not just loving and powerful; He also seeks a relationship with us. Prayer lets us speak our requests to God and take time to meditate on his direction. Praying through our money decisions often creates a space for wisdom and insight to enter a process in which emotion and desire might otherwise take the lead.
The theme of God’s faithfulness runs all through Scripture, but it is especially thick in the psalms. Here is a typical verse: “Great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches the skies” (Psalm 57:10). The Bible is, if nothing else, a record of how God repeatedly met the needs of his people.
Small acts of generosity help us discover that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), and as you become accustomed to these small acts, you can consider doing something more deeply sacrificial.
Longing for Independence
Earn it and keep it, and you will find yourself wanting (whether “it” be time or money or talent). Manage it wisely and then share from your resources, and you will know firsthand the blessing of life together. While our resources can give us a certain kind of independence, they can and should do so much more: they can also create a healthy interdependence.
“Generous hands are blessed hands because they give bread to the poor” (Proverbs 22:9).
Here’s a deep thought: by consistently caring for the things you possess, you will be more free to honor the things you can never possess, such as relationships, the present and future, and life’s unexpected events, both good and bad.
We yearn for more money so we can be appropriately independent—so that others don’t have to support us with their own hard-earned income. But we often end up allowing money to make us imagine that we don’t need other people, at least as much as we did when we didn’t have as high an income. For some, the more money they make, the more they become disconnected from others emotionally and psychologically.
While we long for independence, we can’t escape the fact that interdependence provides security (spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial) in a way we never can enjoy alone.
Our culture tells us that if we stack up enough money and possessions, we don’t need to depend on others. And the lie goes on by suggesting that this is a good thing, which we reinforce with sayings like “I don’t want to be a burden to my family”; “I can take care of myself”; “I don’t need the government’s assistance”; and “God helps those who help themselves.”
Living in Community
There is a biblical call for us to live together in ways that make burdens lighter and lives richer. As the psalmist wrote, “Generous gets it all in the end” (Psalm 37:22). For the Christian, there is an additional community—the church. It becomes an extended family, an intimate assortment of friends who share faith in Jesus.
Deep companionship with other believers is absolutely essential to our spiritual growth. There is a reason Jesus joined “loving God” with “loving neighbor” when he talked about the two greatest commandments (see Matthew 22:37-40).
If church has given you a bad taste or worse, don’t give up on church as a whole; that would be like swearing off eating because you once got food poisoning.
Connecting with both God and others opens us up and frees us to be more generous with what we have.
“The best way to do ourselves good is to be doing good to others,” wrote Thomas Brooks. Brooks was just twelve years old in England when the Pilgrims set sail for Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.
Long before Europeans arrived in the Americas, indigenous people practiced a breathtaking tradition called the “Give Away.” The Give Away ceremony required people to carefully and thoughtfully go through their prized possessions and select which they would give to those they loved. These items weren’t throwaway articles, because the nomads wouldn’t possess any throwaway articles. They would instead be items that brought joy and pleasure through their utility.
When we act with generosity, our world expands; when we succumb to stinginess, our lives shrivel. Alternatively, whenever we tighten our grasp, we invariably lose our grip. The belief that we genuinely “own” our possessions is simply an illusion and a lie. That’s why the idea of the Give Away is so compelling.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
Both authors recognize they have possessions in good working order that they never use. And slowly but surely, they’re trying to wisely move them along to someone who needs them more.
How about you? What about your time? Where could you give your time most impactfully?
A generosity mindset says that it isn’t the size of the gift but rather the spirit of the gift that matters.
Longing for More
Jesus Himself says, “I have come that [you] may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). The quest for abundance—for ourselves and others—is a healthy human instinct.
Work is not only one of the means God uses to give us the good things we need, but labor itself is a gift from Him. Every new day is a chance to be good stewards of our time and the talents he has built into us, and our labor gives purpose and meaning to our lives.
Most people believe if they had just a little bit more, they would be happy. Research suggests otherwise. Economist Angus Deaton and psychologist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University discovered an amazing fact about the relationship between money and happiness. After analyzing responses from 450,000 Americans polled by Gallup and Healthways in 2008 and 2009, they concluded that day-to-day happiness in America doesn’t rise once people have a household income of more than $75,000 per year. At the time of the study, $75,000 was 1.5 times the median household income in America.
Apparently being in the richer half of the population—even only by a little—has great value to most everyone, yet being way above the median (and carrying the weight that comes with it) has diminishing return.
The writer of Proverbs sums up the balance nicely when he says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:8-9).
What about the notions that “Money can buy the important things in life.” Or “Deep down, I wish I had some of the nice things that other people have.” These two statements go hand in hand: we usually want the nice things that others have because we have somehow come to believe those things matter.
Until debt becomes unmanageable, many couples don’t learn the sad truth that no matter the size of the house, SUV, income, or influence, it’s human nature to feel like we should have more.
We have to look hard at the reality that our human nature is tempted to turn these good gifts into mere idols. Instead of supplementing and enhancing our love of God, they replace it.
Materialism and consumerism endanger us because they promise pleasure to the eye but can never satisfy the heart. Generosity is the best diagnostic tool for greed, and it’s also the best prescription.
Living in Contentment
British author and trend forecaster James Wallman tells about a formal study by UCLA anthropologists to dig into the stuff that fills American homes. The smallest home in the study measured just under a thousand square feet, yet in the home’s two bedrooms and the living room alone, researchers found 2,260 items. The UCLA anthropologists call this a “clutter crisis.” Wallman calls it “stuffocation,” which he defines as “suffocating under too much stuff.”
Scripture celebrates that God lovingly provides what we need and tells us that things will never satisfy us in any sort of ultimate way. The Bible resounds with encouragement for us to work hard to acquire what we need and to avoid the trap of believing that money or things will make us happy or content. It tells us to use and enjoy things without letting them cause us discontent.
Paul reported, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:11-13). Peace doesn’t come from outward circumstances but from an inward surrender to Christ.
The 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey of 30,000 American households found that those who donated to charity were 43 percent more likely than nongivers to say they were “very happy.”
While the New Testament transcends the Old Testament law that commanded people to give a tithe back to God, the principle remains a common guideline for giving. Tithing means taking 10 percent of what you earn and giving it for God’s work in the world. This is another “generosity discipline” we want to encourage you to consider. It’s a practice for learning contentment regarding what we earn and own.
Budgeting also helps us trust God. This is one of the paradoxes that financial professionals discover time and again. Careful planning can make a difference in the well-being of people who are insecure about their future. As they plan, they likely will discover a paradox. The more they plan, the less anxious they feel, the more they can live for today, and the more generous they may become with all they have and are.
Sometimes contentment and peace come by managing our expectations.
Longing for Success
The dog from the greyhound race track says, “One of these days you’ll realize what I realized. I realized that the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t real.” Success matters—up to a point. But pursuing it above all else is like a greyhound chasing a fake rabbit.
The usual definitions of success revolve around money and power. Dictionary.com, for example, defines success as “the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.”
Paul explains the perils that await, “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9).
He says, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:10).
The Bible distinguishes between having money and buying things on one hand and having an excessive love for them on the other. It is the love of money that is a root of all kinds of evil.
In this culture we have convinced ourselves that money is the easiest route to happiness.
When we let a longing for success drive our lives, we lose sight of the abundant life Jesus offers and become engrossed in the never-attainable images of perfection.
Economist Chris Farrell, editor of “Marketplace Money,” a column about successful investing, says success comes down to what is important to you: “Personal finance is really about deciding how to live your life, figuring out what you value and putting your money behind your goals and beliefs. Personal finance is part of the lifelong endeavor to create a good life. Our relationship with money is an ongoing, evolving enterprise as our goals change and our ambitions shift.”
The Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero dedicated his book On Duties to his son, saying, “And what do I mean by a well-lived life, my son? I mean that you live a life that gives back to your country, gives back to your family, gives back to your fellow citizens.”
Spending disposable income on experiences leads to increased happiness, while spending it on stuff does not.
Living in Our Calling
Living your unique calling starts with understanding what God wants you to do. An excellent place to start is by discerning your spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4-11).
Our checkbooks help us align our priorities with our spending. Make sure your giving, spending, and savings match your beliefs by taking a six-month time period and analyzing your spending line-by-line.
Our calendars help us manage our time, talents, and relationships. A calendar doesn’t just alert us to appointments and special occasions. It can also help us manage our talents and relationships.
How ready are you to discover and live out your own calling? Where do you sense God giving even deeper purpose to your days?
Change the World
The ripples of a healthy relationship with money spread outward as you embrace the idea that you have enough for yourself and enough to share. But at this moment, what happens next is up to you.
Here are five areas of transformation that can grow from a heart set free (using Jesus Christ’s healing of the paralytic in the waters of Bethsaeda from John 5):
1. We act now. By leading with openheartedness of time, energy, and money, we can transform the nature of our relationships, moving from a survival or struggling mindset to a surplus mindset.
2. We can get up. The new money mindset lets us leave bondage behind and releases us to live our callings.
3. We find new waters. Just like the man healed by Jesus, when we receive God’s generosity, our world immediately gets bigger.
4. We tell others. We love only because God first loved us. John 5:9-15 shows the healed man telling the religious leaders not once but twice about the man who transformed him.
5. We finish the race whole. The paralytic had spent decades as an invalid. Jesus gave this man time to create a legacy of spreading the news wherever he went about his transforming encounter with God.
The personal transformation of a new money mindset happens as we move from a:
• longing for security to living in freedom;
• longing for independence to living in community;
• longing for more to living in contentment;
• longing for success to living in our calling.
In 2013, individuals gave $240 billion to charities in the United States. The next fact is staggering: “If every household in American [sic] gave up $5 a day of ‘frivolous consumption’ to philanthropy . . . it would double household giving overnight and probably top $500 billion in charitable giving.” That additional giving equates to another $260 billion—or more than eight times the entire United States nonmilitary foreign aid budget. It’s enough money in just one year to nearly fill the extreme poverty gap.
How did a handful of Christians transform one of the leading cities of pagan Roman worship into one of the largest and most important concentrations of Christian disciples? The practical generosity of Christians toward the community—frequently risking their lives to help those in need—changed the city.
In 2005, United States Christians (counting only members of churches) earned well over two trillion dollars, more than the total gross domestic product (GDP) of all but the six wealthiest nations. In 2012, about 5 percent of Americans gave at a level of 10 percent (the traditional tithe). According to one study, 16 percent of Christians give nothing to church or charity. The average gift from regular church attendees is about 2 percent of income. Giving generously is not necessarily correlated to income.
Did you know that the past century has witnessed more than a quadrupling of real (inflation-adjusted) per capita personal income? Yet this vast growth in income hasn’t translated into more generous giving.
Consumerism produces a contagious selfishness. Yet wanting more and more—and actually keeping much or all of it for ourselves—hasn’t made people more happy or generous.
As we close out the focus on Your New Money Mindset, ask yourself these three questions not just once but from time to time:
1. Why are you running?
2. Where are you going?
3. Who will run with you?
May the self-reflection serve you well in creating a new money mindset, as you shoot for the stars!