Separation of Church and Money--Part II

In my last post on money, I talked about why we separate love for God and passion for Him and do not include the way we handle money ideals.

I want to address how do you create a culture of financial training in your youth ministry or in your youth culture. As we can begin this discussion, we first must look at the glasses we currently look through in regards to money. These questions listed below will you see what perspective you personally have on money that will determine a lot on what you focus on with the teenagers in your care.

1. What is your personal philsophy when it comes to money? Do you invest it? Study it?
2. Do you personally give a portion of your money to your local church, charities, para-church, etc?
3. Do you believe in tithing?
4. Do you regularly ready finance journals that continually educate you? Money, Kipliger's, the Economist, Investor Business Daily, etc are a few ones that could get you started?
5. Do you have a budget? Do you adhere to the guidelines you established in that budget?
6. Do you have a long term plan when it comes to money management and money education?
7. Do you have a financial mentor that you can talk to and bounce ideas off of? One that can raise the intellectual bar of money edcuation in your life
8. When you see someone in need, does your compassion usually dictate that you provide for them financially.
9. What is your favorite "money" book?


The answers to those questions will determine what kind of culture you are going to create in your home of youth ministry. Please go back and read those questions and spend some time filling them out. Discuss these with your spouse or your family.

Next week, we will walk through some of the answers to these questions and what are the next steps to creating this money culture in our youth ministry that is not cut off from our love for God.