Should We Save Money?

It seems to be a day of reflection, which is good, because I'm struggling with my job right now (more on that later, most likely). I'm listening to a sermon by Dr. Benji Kelley, pastor of New Hope Church in Durham, NC. In discussing money, he advocates a "10-10-80 Plan": give 10% of your income to the church as a tithe, save 10% for yourself for the future, and use 80% to live on now. There's nothing inherently wrong with this formula, and his main point, of course, is that you should tithe in response to Biblical command, but I want to needle at this a bit anyway.

As a disclaimer, I struggle with my relationship with money. Although people I love and respect have argued convincingly that wealth and sin are not necessarily correlated, I still have a really hard time even just being around people who have extreme wealth. I even feel guilty about the kind of car I drive, even if I only own it because of bizarre circumstances involving a car wreck (heh). Anyway, I just wanted to say upfront that I come down hard on the side of money being bad, and that obviously colors this discussion for me.

Over winter break, I went on a mission trip with my campus ministry group from Duke University. We worked for several days on hurricane relief in Galveston, then returned to Houston for a few days to celebrate the new year and to visit Casa Juan Diego. CJD is a Catholic Worker House that publishes the Houston Catholic Worker and provides housing to hundreds of illegal (yes, only illegal) immigrants and their families.

There are hundreds of reasons I'm basically in love with this place, but for now let's focus on their treatment of money. They provide food, housing, medical care, clothing, and countless other services to hundreds and hundreds of people every day. That costs money. When I asked the founders, Mark and Louise Zwick, how they raise funds, they simply responded, "We pray a lot." They get donations, mostly from individuals, and God provides. Their entire operation is based on enormous trust in God's ability to move in the hearts (and wallets) of other people.

The more interesting aspect of CJD's treatment of money as it pertains to this particular discussion is how they use funds once they receive them. CJD does not save money. Not a cent. When they get a donation, they immediately assess how it can best be used, and they use it. Nothing gets holed away for later; it is used to meet needs as they come and as funds are available. Mark and Louise don't have a retirement plan. They don't even necessarily know if they'll have money to run CJD each new day.

I personally operate a bit like this in the sense that I generally use whatever money I earn as it comes, but that's probably more out of my own inability to budget or even think about numbers than a desire to use my resources in a manner that mirror's CJD's approach. But the question of saving for retirement or what have you still remains. Kelley argues that even though he does believe Jesus is coming back and could do so even today, it's simply not good stewardship not to plan ahead. And of course, it's all well and good for me not to give a lick about how much money I'll have next month after I pay my rent now that I'm a single 20-something looking at a few more years of school (which will be paid for, by the way), but when I get married and have kids, how "responsible" do I need to become in setting aside money for my family? My parents have a retirement plan and fantastic life insurance (no, I'm not planning to murder my dad). How will I approach that as a "real" adult? I don't pretend to know. I love the idea of existing from day to day, trusting God will provide and not feeling like I can't do something or help someone because I need to save that money for when I'm 65. But I hear having kids changes everything. I guess we'll see.

That post was way less articulate and intellectual than I had hoped, but oh well.