If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the news and stocks as we witness history in the making.  Yesterday, after the House defeated the bailout plan from the Senate, the DOW Jones Industrial Average fell 777 points, the largest one day fall in its history.  Economically speaking, we are in the middle of a major turning point in our country, and our world.  The days of unfettered spending and reckless, limitless greed are numbered.

The national debt hangs at about 9.3 TRILLION dollars.  I’m no economic expert, but even I understand that’s a big, hairy problem.  I can’t even type that number out on a normal calculator!  US families aren’t much better; and now that teens can hold credit cards in their name, they are graduating HIGH SCHOOL with an average of $6,000 dollars in debt.  What a way to start a life!

Trina and I left college in debt.  School loans were sold to us like a bottle of snake oil.  Trina talks about how signing her name on that first “financial aid” package was a major negative turning point in her relationship with God.  What sounded like “aid” before our college days now sounds more like “bondage” and “debt.”

Around the time I graduated in May, we had some friends point us to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  We listened to all the sessions during our long move from Texas to Chicago, although we had begun to learn some of the principles while in Abilene.

Ramsey describes his plan as, “Giving you the same financial advice your grandmother would, (only we keep our teeth in).”  His main goal - help people live within their means, and climb out of debt.  Through sort of a baby step process, he gives couples, churches, and businesses steps out of the insanity of credit, mortgages, car leases, and much of the monstrosity that comes from living on the thin wire of excessive debt.  He was against the $700 billion dollar bail-out, and after hearing from both sides of the issue, I side with Ramsey.  The market will course correct - we are not headed for the Great Depression Part 2.  The Government in the ’30’s developed the FDIC to secure banking deposits - there is more regulation over private banks (and doubtless there will be more in the near future because of this mess).

What is more likely to happen is that banks will not be able to sell 30 year no-money-down mortgages for families looking to buy a mansion they can’t afford.  Along with that, it will be tougher for people to be approved for credit cards or car leases that they have no business applying for in the first place.  Businesses and banks will have to reel in their liquidity rates that resemble some sense of sanity, while other banks and institutions will undoubtedly continue to fail, the wise will survive.

We are not moving into the Great Depression, we are entering “The Great Moderation.“  This is the time when Cash is King - pull out some envelopes and follow a budget.  Save money, don’t spend it.  Live simply, give generously.  This is a time when the whole nation may begin to heal from its drunken hubris.  Followers of Christ can learn much from their earliest brothers and sisters - “who shared their possessions, and had everything in common, and not a needy person could be found among them.” (Acts 2)

This is not the end of Capitalism, but in this age we must think about a Creative Capitalism that doesn’t only reward a few and neglect millions more.  Do what V-8 Juice is doing, giving away fresh produce to the working poor with some of the profits they make on their nutrition drinks.  Or do what Ethos Water does, putting many of their proceeds on bottled water toward water-well development in Africa.  Or do what the first century Christians did, in sharing a common purse.  Health insurance would be a lot simpler if you were paying into a pot shared by others who actually care about you and worship Christ with you on Sundays.

We as a nation are learning from our mistakes - many of them were lessons already learned during the ’30’s - we can not live beyond what God has given us.

…Give us TODAY our DAILY bread.

Tonight Katrina and I watched Jumper and What Would Jesus Buy?

Jumper is hardly worth mentioning.  Nice effects.  It had Anakin from the newer Star Wars movies.  I say again, it is hardly worth mentioning.

What Would Jesus Buy? Presented by Morgan Sperlock, (of Supersize Me fame), was a provocative and prophetic documentary that was released last Christmas.  It featured Reverend Billy and the Holy Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir.  At first I thought this whole thing was a big hoax for the documentary, but as I watched it, I realized that these people were just protesters who had left their picket signs in Washington and had hit the road to get the message out.  They drove two bio-diesel buses and dressed up in full Pentecostal flare.  They “preached” in churches, diners, even the Mall of America.  I don’t know how they had the guts to do everything they did, going into retail stores with megaphones warning consumers of a “Shopocaplypse,” and singing hymns denouncing capitalism as god,  but they did it.  Police were regulars on the tour, and “church members” regularly found themselves behind bars.

I found myself laughing in disbelief.  I had heard of Not Buying It, a great book about a lady who went a year without shopping, and Buy Nothing Day, a grassroots movement encouraging people to take a day off shopping and find meaning with family and friends rather than in consumption.  When I heard that the retail space in the United States could hold every North American, South American and European inside its doors all at once, and when I heard that every American (regardless of age/race/gender) holds an average of $13,000 in credit card debt, and 4.2 billion credit cards are mailed out to Americans EVERY YEAR - I realized the kind of power we’re up against.  My laughing wasn’t so much in disbelief as much as relief.

It is good to see someone finally take seriously the phrase “Jesus is the reason for the season,” and to do it with a little humor and performance.  Most street preachers with a megaphone rain down condemnation on passers by (I know, I’ve been pelted by some of it myself), but these guys went caroling with parodies of Christmas tunes!  I will listen to anyone who has a good joke and doesn’t take themselves too seriously.

While watching What Would Jesus Buy? I leaned over and said to Katrina, “Our kids are gonna be so weird.”  When I look at the state of the world today, and the direction its heading in - maybe ‘normal’ is what’s weird, and we’re just searching for sanity.  I’m not some crazy anarchist - I just think we’ve gone way overboard.  It’s high time someone called it for what it is.  God likes to use humor sometimes to do just that.

BTW - Amidst drunken credit card tomfoolery across the nation, Katrina and I have been receiving lots of financial peace from this guy.

An inspiring “money drop” on Wall Street from some inspiring brothers and sisters in Christ.

What if another world is possible???

Part of being a disciple of Christ is learning to live in God’s governance; his new economy. In America, we tend to see capitalism as the foundation for our society - production and consumption are the backbone to its market economy. Capitalism tends to put competition at the top of a short list of values for its citizens. We see the vicious, unjust effects of this all the time - the rich are taxed much less than the poor, unemployment, concentration of political and economic exploitation, and environmental rape.

Maybe its time in God’s Kingdom to function more organically in a new economy.

I just found out about time banks! They are really sweet way to use the currency of time to provide services to a local community.

The concept is simple. For every hour you give in service to another Time Bank member, you earn one Time Dollar. You can now use this Time Dollar to spend on a service someone else offers in the time bank community.

Time Dollars are a community currency that members earn by using their time, energy, skills, and talents to help others. Time Banking is about local individuals, organizations or business’s helping each other in one-to-one exchanges or in group projects. Members help rebuild neighborhood networks and strengthen communities. There are lots of time bank communities that set up shop on the internet as a way to search available services and meet their neighbors.

What an amazing way to (1) save money (2) participate in a local, neighbor centered economy and (3) experience the redistribution of wealth and resources. Imagine seeing a white collared businessman doing taxes for a Mexican immigrant family who earned their Time Dollar repainting their black neighbor’s house, who got his Time Dollars by going grocery shopping for the elderly woman across the street. Imagine the crime rate going down as neighbors get to know each other and watch out for each other. Imagine an investment into your own local economy!

“Give and you shall receive” - God’s economy doesn’t include dolla billz, he was talking about relationships!

Maine Time Banks - a time bank up in Portland, Maine

Start Your Own! - no matter how big or how small, why not begin one in your neighborhood?

Living In Story- Reciprocal Missionality in the Image of God - Ron Pate’s participatory seminar that clued me in to time banks. He is a part of SCUPE (Seminary Consortium of Urban Pastoral Education) in Chicago. SCUPE helps communities in Chicago start timebanks (they call it Abundance in the Beloved Community, or ABC’s).

Just a little more inspiration from this post:

Commercials 2007

Commercials 2006

Other cool ones