Building an Eternal Portfolio: Six Steps
1. Take inventory of your current eternal investments.
- Are you tithing monthly? (10% is an absolute minimum.)
- What are your reasons for tithing or giving where you do?
2. Expand the money available for eternal investments.
- Develop an overall plan for your financial life. This plan should include: a cap on yearly spending, a cap on lifetime savings, a goal for yearly saving, and a simple retirement plan that also includes a cap. Anything above these limits should be used for eternal investments. Decisions about all of the above should be arrived at through extensive prayer and through feedback from people already practicing these principles and with a track record of generosity.Make a monthly budget and keep track of expenses in order to learn how you might be able to free up more money for giving.
- Make your giving the first check(s) you write every month.
3. Take inventory of where God is drawing your heart
- God has placed in each of us unique desires, personal histories, and dreams. We should invest according to these leadings.
- God has placed us in relationship with people doing ministry, people we know, love and believe in.
- At the same time, we are also physically separated from the vast number of poor in the world and from overseas work, especially those of us who are North Americans, so it is often necessary to ask God to give us new leadings and desires that might not come to us naturally. While it is good to want to give "locally," the amount of money given to the work of God in the United States is vastly superior to that given for the much more active work happening overseas.
Check your motivations and pray for a generous heart. If you feel terribly guilty about your own affluence, let me say a few words. Guilt is not all bad. You may be feeling the guilt that leads to a genuine and lasting repentance. But while guilt can lead to a genuine and lasting repentance, it can never sustain that repentance over time. Jesus came to free us from guilt so we could be motivated for a life of obedience over time. And the only motivations that truly sustain investment in the Kingdom over time are joy, faith, hope, and love. Do you really have faith in Jesus' words, in his picture of reality versus the world's picture?
If so, it will not be a struggle to invest in the Kingdom with everything you have - because it is simply the economically sensible thing to do. Do you experience the deep joy of giving? (God loves a cheerful giver.) If so, the idea of investing wholeheartedly in Kingdom ventures will make you giddy with excitement. Do you love God and love people? If so, not having a mass of metal with the initials B, M, and W will seem trivial compared to the flesh and blood of Jesus and his church. If the life I am describing sounds like a weighty sacrifice, something is wrong. If you feel like giving only because you are wracked with guilt, don't stress about what amount to give - get stressed because you've got far more serious problems: because some core part of your heart does not believe in Jesus, because you do not know true, deep joy in your life, because the quality of love in your life is shriveled.
Again, if you are asking the question, "How much is enough to give?" something is wrong. Enough for what? To buy off the guilt? No amount of giving will do that. Only the blood of Christ can take away your guilt and it would be very foolish indeed to believe you could buy that. Does the investor who has found the investment of a lifetime ask that question? Does an investor who discovers she can get in on a stock that will make her rich forever wonder what is the minimum she can get away with putting into that stock? Of course not.
4. Research the candidates.
We spend more time researching our consumer purchases than we do our eternal investments. Be aware of what you are supporting. Questions you should be able to answer include:
a) What is the precise mission?
b) Do they have a particular strategy or approach?
c) Why did the missionary end up in this particular work?
d) What are the main challenges and potential rewards for the mission?
e) What does an average day in the life of the missionary or the overall mission look like?
f) What are the financial needs of the mission?
5. Make a substantial and sustainable commitment.
- Decide on the exact eternal investments you want to make and the amount you want to give to each. Consider limiting your "portfolio" to five investments or less, since you probably will not have the time to thoroughly follow any more than that.
- Consider not just writing a check. If you support a missionary, write her/him letters of encouragement, tell them you are there for them if they have any other needs.
- Remember the poor.
6. Follow your investment.
- How will you remain abreast of the work? Do you have some structure for praying regularly for the work or people you are supporting? Could you visit the work or missionary sometime?
- Look for creative ways to strengthen the partnership; for example, a short-term mission to the same location, a visit, or looking for other people who might also be interested in supporting the mission
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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