Shelby, USA - When Justin Moore and his wife, Bonnie, cut up their credit cards in a show of financial freedom earlier this year, they did it in front of a group of supporters--at church.
Moore, 25, works as an information technology coordinator for a staffing agency in Shelby, N.C., but on Sunday nights he heads back to church to serve as a group coordinator for a local course of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. Ramsey, an author and radio show host, created the popular 13-week program, which covers getting out of debt, living on a budget, and establishing better money management skills. It's basically the nuts and bolts of personal finance with a notable twist: The course is biblically based.
As more and more churches around the country address their members' financial situation, Christian believers like Moore are finding financial advice where they worship. The offerings vary. Some churches have well-established financial ministries that meet a variety of needs, while others simply play host to courses taught with outside materials. Moore's church is offering the class for the first time. "We're really starting to see a change in people's lifestyles," he says. "They have this financial stress relieved. They're able to come closer to God. It just improves every other aspect of your life."
The expanding universe of church-based financial help comes as churches recognize the connection between people's relationship with money and their relationship with God, says Dave Briggs, director of the pioneering Good Sense ministry at Willow Creek Community Church, a megachurch in suburban Chicago.
Good Sense was established at the church in the early 1980s and has since spread through its network of affiliated churches. Now Willow Creek is getting ready to roll out a personal finance presentation that's just for 20-somethings. Briggs says they need the same message in a different package--something other than the standard line about budgets, mortgage payments, and retirement plans.
"Debt doesn't scare 20-somethings anymore, which is really a shame," Briggs says. "So you're really dealing with a different mind-set." He points to the experience his own 28-year-old son, J. R. Briggs, had when buying a condo. The younger Briggs, a pastor in Souderton, Pa., carefully calculated exactly how much condo he could afford, and then the bank approved him for twice as much. (He went with his own math).
"Society no longer has the fences around 20-somethings to help them avoid making bad financial decisions," the elder Briggs says.
On Sundays at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Mich., worshipers head for services in a former mall that bears no sign. The church, which was founded in 1999 and is already 10,000 strong, views money management as a theological issue.
"Our belief is that there are a lot of different oppressions in our society," says Todd Monroe, Mars Hill's director of pastoral care. "But none is greater than debt and financial oppression when it comes to the lower middle class. Maybe even the middle class. Debt is one of our modern-day oppressions."
To combat the problem, Mars Hill offers Dave Ramsey's course, along with a financial mentoring program, and help specifically for people in financial crisis. The church is also launching a financial consultation program with financial professionals answering questions about some of the more complicated ways to get out of debt, such as declaring bankruptcy or taking out debt consolidation loans.
This sort of broad-based offering of financial help seems rooted in the missionary mentality, and it suits the Christian church, Monroe says: "I think, looking back in history, this would not be very abnormal at all."
To be clear, this money-management movement is different from the "prosperity gospel," a label used for the popular message taught by several well-known Christian ministers that God rewards the faithful with financial prosperity.
Some have argued that the prosperity message has spread at such an astounding rate because it was born in a vacuum--churches have for so long been silent on the topic of personal finance, except for the occasional sermon on tithing.
Personal finances matter, because the way people handle their finances serves as a kind of barometer for how they relate to God, says Grace McGibbon. She has been leading a group of women from National Community Church in the Washington, D.C., area, through a biblically based course from Crown Financial Ministries.
Most people seem surprised by how often the Bible addresses the topic of money, McGibbon says. Crown Financial says there are more than 2,350 verses that discuss it.
Even college students, particularly those nearing graduation, are heeding biblical teaching on financial decisions. Matt Bell, a personal finance speaker and writer, has addressed all kinds of groups and finds college students to be an especially enthusiastic crowd. "They just seem very interested in learning how to get it right with money," Bell says.
Bell went through what he describes as a "financial train wreck" when he was just a couple of years out of college. He had inherited $60,000 and used it to start a business. In about two years, he'd run through his inheritance, racked up an additional $20,000 in debt, and was forced to move in with his parents.
"That was a very humbling time that made me think about some of the bigger questions of life," he says. As he describes it, the experience helped draw him to faith. Today's churches may be hoping the same is true for others.