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.

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Separation of Church and Money--Part I

I was talking to a young man yesterday (18yrs old). I asked him if he had anyone train in him in money management, money leadership, investing, etc. He said no. I asked him how long he had been going to a church. He said all of his life. I said you have had no training on money from the church he said No. I said, "I'm sorry that the older people have failed you in this critical issue."

Why don't we as older people in the faith teach and train our young people to master the concept of money? Why don't we teach on it in our family? In our Sunday School? At least somewhere when believers come together. Why do we wait in some churches to only teach on it with the older people?

If you are reading this, you can make the change for every teenager you have some influence on. If you are a YP, begin a series on this starting in January. If you are a concerned parent, talk to your YP and ask him when he is going to start a discussion on money. If you are a pastor, begin to mandate that all of our teenagers are going to be going through a training on money.

I think the main reason we don't train on money is because of ignorance and even more importantly, because we don't think it will stir up our fire for God or draw us closer to Him. We think teaching on money should be reserved for economists while our teens are piling up credit card debt. We think teaching should be done only in the schools as our teens walk blindly into college taking out massive college loans. We think teaching on money should be done in the home, while our church kids live for the now while not thinking how they are going to pay in the future.

It is time we stop separating church and money and hit it hard with our teens. In Part II, I will cover how you begin to create a culture in your youth ministry or home that begins to honor God with our money and trains our students in practical ways.

Financial Training for Teens

"The rich plan for 3 or 4 generations. The poor plan for Saturday night."

What can we do to get our teens thinking longer term in regards to finances?

Financial Training for Teens

One of my passions in life in living a frugal life and teaching others to make the most of the money and resources they have in this life.

So, how do we help teenagers have this passion for being a steward of money and their resources?

I will be sharing on this topic almost every Thursday as we discuss how to love God and honor Him with their money. I am looking forward to next week and beginning this topic.