money

‘There’s enough for all’

Bryan Moyer Suderman’s song “There’s Enough For All” is included in Voices Together.

“Jesus had a lot to say about money, but the songs we sing in worship rarely do.” These words from the album description of Bryan Moyer Suderman’s 2007 album, My Money Talks, provide a snapshot into the goal of the album: to intentionally provide songs for churches that help them talk about money.

Substance over glitz

Jon Lebold seals a Mennonite Central Committee relief kit with the help of his son, Jed Lebold. 'Mennonite agencies like MCC and others have found ways to serve people in critical need for a century,' Tobi Thiessen writes. 'They do it with little glitz but a lot of substance.' (Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/MCCpeace)

While public conversation swirled in July over the details of WE Charity’s speaker fees and all-expenses-paid trips for donors, my church was having a sermon series on Mennonite Central Committee’s 100 years of service in the name Christ.

Selling generosity

(Mennopix Digital Art by Ross W. Muir)

‘Jesus, can you spare a dime?’ (Mennopix Digital Art by Ross W. Muir)

When I am asked what I do for a living, I often say, “I show people how much fun it is to give their money away.” That elicits a better conversation than if I tell them I manage a registered, charitable, donor-advised foundation.

Steady giving sustains churches through COVID-19

What do church finances look like when congregations close their doors and stop passing offering baskets through the aisles on Sunday mornings? It turns out that in many Mennonite congregations across Manitoba, they look just fine. (ruxipen.com photo @ unsplash.com)

Among the multitude of concerns COVID-19 has caused, the novel coronavirus’s effect on congregational giving has been one of them. What do church finances look like when congregations close their doors and stop passing offering baskets through the aisles on Sunday mornings? It turns out that in many Mennonite congregations across Manitoba, they look just fine.

Fundraising and systemic injustice

(Photo by Michael Longmire/Unsplash)

Imagine a healthcare charity. Picture the CEO. I saw one on TV recently—it was a white man. Now picture the person who cleans the floors. Did you picture a racialized woman? What’s the difference in their wages?

Now imagine fundraising for such a charity. Fundraisers want to make the world a better place, I’m convinced of that. Does that mean pursuing justice? Does it mean raising as much money as possible, regardless of how?

In her book 40-Day Journey with Kathleen Norris, Norris writes:

Once Round the Barn: Cheap Edition

Another trip around the barn: In the video below, pigpen pundit Will Braun explores the difference between frugality and tightfistedness. (Photo by Jennifer deGroot)

“Most of us harbour a degree of financial neurosis, tinged with religious uptightness,” Will Braun, Canadian Mennonite’s resident ranter, says at the start of his latest video. 

Follow our pigpen pundit once around the barn on his southern Manitoba farmyard as he explains what really gets his goat about Mennonites and money.

Giving in the digital age

Sandy Shantz holds out offering bowl for Callum Jarvis as he comes to the front of St. Jacobs (Ont.) Mennonite Church to give his gift to God. (Photo by Marcia Shantz)

(Photo © istock.com/halock)

We are now living in a full-blown digital world. With just one click or voice command we can ask Google for a chicken recipe, order office supplies or give to our favourite charity online. 

Mixing friendship with fundraising

Nancy Mann, right, who helped to establish Women Empowering Women (WeW) in Waterloo Region, speaks to the group at one of its quarterly meetings. (MEDA photo)

The Waterloo Region chapter of Women Empowering Women (WEW) meets quarterly to nurture connections and friendships, to be inspired and to raise funds that support women in developing economies. As an auxiliary group of Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), it supports MEDA’s international work of “helping women move into more valued and equitable roles in their economies.”

Full stomach, faulty memory

‘Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark’ (detail), by Benjamin West

‘Moses shown the Promised Land,’ by Benjamin West.

We are daily awash in choices and opportunities, and many of us are affluent enough to be able to choose among many options. Many of us make many choices even before we get out the door in the morning. Our stomachs are full, we live in fine houses, our income and assets have grown, our retirement funds are increasing, and our possessions keep multiplying.

#Brag-worthy

Jesus said, “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you” (Matt. 6:2-4).

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