Financial Responsibility

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Mothers Matter

May 6, 2010 in Children, Financial Responsibility, Transformation | No comments

Mothers making and selling necklaces.

Mothers making and selling necklaces.

They raise children, tend to household chores, heal wounds, provide stability for families, educate the next generation, listen to dreams, pray for the sick, work to provide daily sustenance, laugh with the joyful, love tirelessly… I am grateful for my mother. She gave and sacrificed much for the sake of our family.

The mothers that I meet in Africa matter, too. Their lives are difficult. Yet they give and sacrifice just like our mothers do. 

From my most recent trip to Cote d’Ivoire to train people for community transformation, I met Bertine. She is a dynamic mother caring for her children and grandchildren in one of the poverty infested neighborhoods of Abidjan. Two years ago she caught a vision for transformation to come to her community.  She prayed about what she could do to make life better for all. After some searching, she learned how to start a neighborhood savings and credit association. Her conviction was that if the people pulled together to save of their meager income, they could create an investment fund.  With the pooled resources, they would be able to work to make their community better. Today, 2,000 people participate in a community credit association run by Bertine and her team of 10 others. Jobs are being created. Children are being immunized. The schools now are filled with students. Unity and trust is being fostered among the citizens. Churches are becoming self-supporting. Crime is declining. Bertine matters.

This month thank mothers for the enormous role they play to make life better. And if you are able, contribute to an organization that strengthens mothers to impact impoverished communities in ways that will never be reported in our newspapers. Mothers matter!

 Gary Edmonds

Ivory Coast Trip

November 25, 2009 in Building Leaders, Financial Responsibility, Ivory Coast, Transformation | No comments

EdmondsNapiers2Please pray for us as we depart Friday, November 27 to the Ivory Coast.  In the 10 days that we are there, we will train people in Christian Economic Development and the dignity of womanhood.

Our objective is to move some 15,000 men, women and children out of vulnerable and destitute poverty to stability and self-sufficiency.  We will impart knowledge, skills, attitudes and relational connections to help them achieve this goal.  With God, this will happen in the year to come as the darkness is pushed back in the communities of these lovely people. 

 Thanks for standing with us as we build leaders to rebuild communities. 

Yours truly,

 Gary & Tricia Edmonds
Kevin and Renee Napiér

Leaders Who Change the Course of History

June 11, 2009 in Building Leaders, Financial Responsibility, Transformation | No comments

The Prosperity Thinking That Changes Impoverished Nations

rwanda-nov-2008-081Traveling in Africa, I see the strong hold that a culture of fatalism has on the people. “We are poor. This is our lot in life. We can do nothing to change our fate. Therefore, we hold our hand out and ask you to redistribute your resources so that we may live.” Of course this thinking keeps the people stuck in abject poverty and dependency.

 

Often I speak and teach about prosperity from a biblical perspective. God wants us to be prosperous and contribute to the prosperity of the nation. Even in times of recession and in the context of extreme poverty Jeremiah 29:4-9 says, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city…”  But what is prosperity? Let me share with you the new mindset that is beginning to transform the poverty culture of African communities.

 

To be brief:

  • Prosperity is working to earn enough to take care of your families’ daily needs of food, clothing and shelter.
  • Prosperity is each one working to provide goods and services for the well-being of the society.
  • Prosperity is working and paying taxes so that the government functions to bring stability and order to the nation.
  • Prosperity is working so that you may give generously to assist others in need and provide for the leadership of the church.

 

Are you prosperous? Let’s work to help all humankind to be prosperous.

 

Gary Edmonds

What’s Mine is Not Mine

May 28, 2009 in Financial Responsibility | No comments

In 18 months, I’ll be 60.  I’m old enough to know better, but I still use a four-letter word so frequently I don’t even know I’m saying it.  Forgive me.  When I pause to think about it, my misleading speech must make God wince, but it’s so ingrained in my thinking, my speech, my daily talk that I feel it nigh on impossible to stop.

holdinghandsIn my weaker moments, I want to blame it on my family and friends.  They all say it.  My 89 year old mother still says it, as do missionaries, Sunday School teachers, evangelists and good Christians around the world. So what hope is there for me?

 

Frankly, when I do catch myself, I tend to move on, failing to apologize or repent.  Gratefully, grace is at work and the Spirit still convicts. 

 

The word is “mine.” I talk about the house in which I live, the lap top on which I write, the car I drive, the clothes I wear – as mine.  Mine?  Hardly. 

 

Truth be told, I own nothing, but I’m constantly tempted to act as though I do.  At best, I’m an undeserving manager, given charge – for a while – over little or much. 


Guest Blogger: Randall E. Davey, President, accruWealth (www.accruWealth.com)

Rethinking Stewardship

March 12, 2009 in Building Leaders, Financial Responsibility | No comments

key-to-stewardshipRecessions force us to do what we should have done in boom times. We scrutinize budgets, cut excess spending and eliminate redundant staff.  All of this invites questions about stewardship. 

 

Though stewardship is a word generally relegated to the vocabulary of the church, its’ roots are far more pedestrian. A few centuries ago, a land baron would hire a steward to manage his staff, his money and his resources. Today we might think of a steward as the CEO or COO of a privately held company and come close to the genesis of the term. 

 

So, how does the board steward the pastor? How does the church steward the staff? Collectively, the staff and board are called to steward the leadership of the church as well as the rank and file members of the congregation. Is it possible that lack of funding is symptomatic of more significant issues?  

 

Perhaps the time is ripe for Rethinking Stewardship: Good News for Pastor and People.  Our message is one of celebrating abundance and not scarcity. To get from where we are to where we need to be, someone needs to be the voice crying in the wilderness:

1)      Steward your pastor and staff. Protect them to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.

2)      Steward church boards and leadership types. Call them to balance and focus. Give them permission to step down from committees and projects that render them ineffective.

3)      Steward the congregation. Call all believers to find their ministries and equip them to serve. All gifts are vital for a healthy Christian community.

4)      Steward financial resources. This is a matter of thinking differently about money. Gift donors with knowledge on ways to navigate through difficult financial times.  If you do, saints know what to do with the excess.

Are there enough resources for the church to thrive in recessionary cycles?  Absolutely!  Will the church moving forward look like it did in times of financial abundance?  Hopefully not.  Without question, the church has every resource necessary to do that to which we have been called. Where there appears to be scarcity, look more closely. There is a stewardship problem of our own making.

 

For the full article, click here.

 

Guest Blogger: Randall E. Davey, President, accruWealth (www.accruWealth.com)

 

 

Financial Responsibility

March 4, 2009 in Building Leaders, Financial Responsibility | No comments


Let’s talk about financial responsibility, that scourge of our day, with the stock market in freefall, the housing crisis and rumors of bank failures. Wait! Don’t click the delete button yet. I wanted to share an email that I received from a friend in Rwanda.

 
Theo Mushinzimana of Rwanda Partners wrote that when we taught last May in Bugesera, Rwanda, he was helped by three phrases:

Theo Mushinzimana

Theo Mushinzimana

1.       Gain all you can.

2.       Save all you can.

3.       Give all you can.


We challenged the people of Rwanda, through these thoughts from John Wesley, to take full and personal responsibility for their own development and not to look to others to bring the change. With that challenge, we asked those who daily live in extreme poverty to rise and be the agents of hope in their own communities.

 

Today, Theo reports that as a result of these words of challenge, he and his partners are weekly visiting and helping those in the hospital, assisting an orphan to cultivate his inherited land, and receiving training to manage their own financial affairs more wisely. When truth is brought with love, lives are changed.

 

It makes me wonder how the world would be changed if we all followed John Wesley’s advice.

 

Gary Edmonds