Here’s the thing about perseverance:  It takes a while.

I want the non-existent concept of instant obedience.  I say to God, “OK, I’ve checked the box marked ‘experience emotional strain and pain from a precariously low bank account and trust God to provide’ and now I’d like to move on to the box marked ‘experience the joy of giving out of an abundance.’”

But that’s not how persevering in difficult times works.  This whole deal isn’t written like the script of a sit-com.

God is concerned about the end of this process, and people joining our team of financial partners. But right now he’s most concerned that we continue to run to the gospel even in the midst of this stuff.

What am I running toward?  Why do I want to raise over $2000 in monthly support?  The Bible says that “for lack of vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18 King James Version) and I can definitely relate to that.

Unless there is a compelling picture in my mind of why the heck I am doing this—all the phone calls and appointments and initiating with strangers about their wallet and it’s contents—I’d surely stop.

Here’s the thing, though: God is concerned with the process of raising support just as much as he is concerned with the outcome of getting the support in and going on campus to impact students.  After all, he’s God, he could raise the support in 15 minutes.  So the fact that He isn’t tells me that there is something bigger out there than the dollars.  God isn’t just monetizing this thing with the support raising process.  He’s got some things he needs to tell us and work in us that require this angst-ridden (at worst) or uncomfortable (at best) context of “ministry partner development.”

God is a King, not a president.  His system is kingdom, not capitalism.  The end goal is no longer the dollars.  The compelling vision that keeps me on the phone (when I have enough contacts to call *cough*Prayer Request*cough*) is that He is sovereign, and has clearly, repeatedly, called me to this ministry.  I am more passionate than I have ever been about what God is doing on the college campus, and in and through students there.

As always, at the end of posts like this, I feel compelled to give you the opportunity to respond with your wallet.

I have a confession.

I love raising support.  I know, it’s strange.  How totally and completely un-American.  To ask people to contribute money to our ministry, so that we get paid, is so counter-cultural.

But as we have been doing it full time these past few weeks, I have noticed that being forced to ask people for money also forces me to depend on others, and sheds light on my fierce anti-Christian self-dependence.

So, while I don’t always enjoy the phone calls, or constantly initiating with folks, I do cherish the reminder that I am not in control.  Apart from Christ, I am a wreck looking for a place to happen.  But in Him I have all I’ve ever needed.

What a treat to have a job that forces on a regular basis to deal with my junk.

Can I be honest?

The past week has been a struggle.  We are facing an elephant-sized amount of financial support to raise, and despite having been off campus working full-time on developing additional support, we have a net gain of around (negative) 100 bucks per month this month.  It has felt insurmountable at times, and we have struggled with trusting God.

But as I was driving back from Fall Getaway (the only on-campus activity of the semester), I was confronted—no, accosted—by a strong sense of hope.  See, I’m more sure than ever that I am called to be on staff with this organization.  I am so excited about what God is doing on campus, and how He is continually, relentlessly, mercifully taking me to the gospel.  I have a clear vision for where we are going, just not how we are getting there.

These economic times (a phrase I wish were retired, or at least made past tense) have meant a sense of panic in America.  To compound that, the predominantly fiscally conservative culture in which I have most of my doings has reached fever pitch over the national transfer of power to the left-minded.  People are terrified, if that’s a strong enough word.  And the news media is loving it.  The more they stir up the blood pressure, the more their advertisers pay to put their logo just to the left of the “Meltdown” graphic.  (This segment of panicked rhetoric and over-dramatization is brought to you by Sears.  “Come experience the softer side of Sears.”)

Listening to conservative talk radio is baffling to the point of humorous, as you’ll hear minor-key melodramatic advertisements urging investors to buy gold, or seed packets, or underground bunkers.

What drives the panic?  Lack of perspective.

When I panic over how we are going to stay on staff in light of our current financial support, it means I’ve lost perspective on who is in charge.

When you panic because you fear the ramifications of a liberal policy (or a conservative policy), or because your 401(k) is looking more like a 200.5(k), it means the same thing: you’ve lost perspective on who is in charge.

Despite what some politicians (or marketers) might have you believe, the office of the presidency was never designed to save you.  Free market capitalism governed by personal moral restraint, though I think it’s biblical, is not designed to save you.

A full bank account, and a surplus of money coming in each month is not designed to save me.  As soon as we give saving power to anyone or anything in our lives, we’ve missed the gospel.

Let me be clear and say I am not suggesting a carefree, naive approach to what are certainly weighty issues.  I am not suggesting that I should stop aggressively pursuing raising support, or that you should ignore the politicians and what’s going on in the country.  Issues like public healthcare are worth discussing and debating.  They are just not worth panicking over.  Panic indicates that you are trusting in that subject to be your salvation.

As Christians, we should only panic if God is in danger of no longer being sovereign.  Hope, for the believer, is not some wishful thinking where we cross our fingers and think positive thoughts.  Hope (that force that accosted me on the road back from Lake Wylie) is based on who God is, and what he has done.  Jesus didn’t say “it is almost finished, except for that part that will be finished once _____________ happens” (fill in the blank with things like a full bank account, your particular brand of legislation making it through congress, your kid turning out to be a preacher, or doctor, or fisherman…)  He said “It is finished.”  As believers, we can be assured that, no matter what happens in the meantime, it is all going to be all right in the end.  This life is as close to hell as we will ever get.

When we have weeks that are a struggle to latch onto God, we can rest assured that it wasn’t his grip that loosened.  He’s never let go.  And praise the Lord his saving me isn’t based on my ability to keep my grasp on it.

While we’ve been off campus developing a team of ministry partners (because “support raising” erroneously implies I’m more about the dollars than the relationships), I have noticed a recurring theme popping up in my life.

I am living in anticipation of the next stage of life, which indicates a lack of understanding of the gospel.

Let me explain.  I frequently think things like “once I’ve raised the support, things will be better,” or “if my son grows up to be a godly man who leads people to Christ (or at least a godly man who plays point guard for the Tar Heels), then I’ll be complete.”  I’d never really verbalize those thoughts in exactly that way, but I am prone to making plans under the faulty assumption that I don’t currently have all that I need (or could ever want!) in Christ.

I think “if I got a book deal and a speaking tour, then I’d be worth something…” or “if I led worship at a church full-time, then I’d be living the dream.”  All the while, I forget the gospel.  Like an alcoholic going back to the fridge for another beer, I’m convinced that this next _________ will change things.  It’ll make it all better.

But I have all I need in Christ.

Exodus 14:14
Psalm 40:17
Psalm 116:6
Isaiah 58:11
Luke 12:29-31
2 Corinthians 9:8
Ephesians 1:3 (check the verb tense)
Philippians 4:19
Hebrews 7:26
2 Peter 1:3

What’s filling Christ’s blank in your life?

I don’t say thanks enough.  I don’t say it enough in my marriage when my wife does things like pack my suitcase for me (without me asking) when I’m going on a trip, and I don’t say it enough when somebody picks up my tab at a restaurant.  I don’t say it enough to the people who partner with us to reach college students.  I also don’t say thanks enough when somebody donates a car to me.

A what?

You read that right.  Somebody has donated a car to us!  It’s an Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight, and I’m pretty sure it’s a 1998 model.  All the paperwork hasn’t cleared, so we don’t have it in our driveway yet, but I’m expecting it within the next two weeks.  Rest assured there will be pictures.

When we got home from the summer, we had planed on buying a car to replace the one that didn’t quite fit underneath the F350.  But our finances were not in a place where we could responsibly justify a large purchase.  So I sent an email to a few friends asking if they knew of anyone selling a car for next-to-nothing.  It was a prayer-bathed stab in the dark, and I honestly didn’t think I was going to hear anything back from it.

A couple of weeks later, I got a call from the missions committee at our church, saying that someone had given the church their car, and they wanted to give it to us!  I was blown away.

God is too good to us.  You, reader, are too good to us.  And I need to learn to say that more often.

I love reaching college students.  The past two weeks have reminded me that there’s nothing like the first weeks of a freshman’s college carreer.  It’s so much fun to be on campus, to be a part of God changing student’s lives.

It’s not always easy, but man, is it ever worth it.

This semester we have to pull back, and spend some time mending our financial support net.  As you may know, we depend entirely on the donations of concerned individuals, churches, and businesses to fund our ministry, our salary, and our healthcare benefits.  We challenge folks to join us on a monthly basis financially so that we are freed up to focus fully on the task at hand, communicating the gospel in the language of today’s college student.

So, as much as I enjoy the work on campus, this semester we will be working off campus to ensure many more years of fruitful labor.  That probably will mean more posts about funds than before (don’t be afraid of that little “funds” link to your right.  It won’t bite…)

Pray with us that God would raise up all the dollars we need.  We are asking Him to do so by Thanksgiving.

You might have recieved this letter (click the link above) a week or so ago.  But many of the readers of this blog aren’t on our mailing list.

Mike and Sharon Mehaffie have been on staff for 33 years with Campus Crusade for Christ.  They directed our summer project this summer in Santa Cruz.  I greatly enjoyed learning much from them about what it means to lead and what godly parents and directors look like.

Mike offered to write a letter to our ministry partners after I shared with him how things have been going financially.  We wanted to send the letter for two reasons.  First, as the title of the above link indicates, it is great from time to time for someone else to wave our flag.  You get letters twice a year from us asking for money.  Mike has an interesting perspective on raising support, having done so for so many years (he raised his salary in the midst of the last major US economic crisis!). We thought it would be good for you to hear from someone else about the impact that your giving has had, and for someone else to encourage you to continue taking financial steps of faith with us.

The second reason we wanted Mike to write a letter is that we wanted to show folks that there are people who do this as a career.  Many of the folks we challenge to join us financially may be of the impression that we are going to be in ministry for a few years and then go get “a real job.”  Our heart, however, is to be in this for the long haul.  I’m now on the verge of 30 years old, and I feel like I have learned a lot about myself and about ministry in the past 7 years.  I am just now hitting my stride.  I’d love to be in this ministry until I’m 60 years old.

The letter was not in any way meant to be just another appeal for funds.  We want to sucessfully navigate the tension between being bold in asking folks to join God in what he is doing in this ministry and being sensitive to the fact that many people are in serious financial difficulty now, and we’ve already asked for money once this summer.  Our heart is to be honest in our need (which is significant) but also fully acknowledging that God has been so faithful to grant our every need, and even many of our wants!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about this or any other issue, please don’t hesitate to call or email me at ben.meredith@gmail.com

If you feel like God is calling you to respond to Mike’s letter, you can do that here.

A couple of days ago I posted a link to a letter we are sending out asking people for money for our upcoming trip across the country to minister in Santa Cruz, California.  One of my fears is that the process of raising support will be misunderstood to be solely a plea for money, or that we will be seen as insensitive.

I’m an American.  By virtue of that, I have deeply ingrained thought processes and assumptions about the nature of reality and humanity that, frankly, aren’t true.  One of the biggest of these assumptions is that independence is a virtue.  Of all of the movements in American pop culture over the past century, name one that has been a movement toward interdependence or selflessness.  Having trouble?  Perhaps only the civil rights movement and some of the hippie communes of the late 60s and early 70s were movements toward interdependence.  And even that dependence was self-serving.  Like Frank Sinatra famously sang, the key to being American is saying “I did it my way.”

So, take that assumption, and add it to the equation of raising financial support for a living.  I am, for all intents and purposes, a professional depender.  I depend on regular financial giving from people who share my passion for seeing the Christ-ian message of grace and forgiveness spread to the corners of the globe from the college campus.  Let me restate that.  I am the hands, feet, and tongue of Christ on the campus.  People that give the money are the heartbeat and life-blood of Christ on campus.  Without the heartbeat, I am shipwrecked, and without the hands and feet, my supporters are impotent.  We need each other.

I forget that fact far too often in my ministry on campus.  I try to disconnect the ministry going on from the people who are really making it happen.  What that looks like is sending out letters asking for support and then forgetting to let people in on what God is doing through them on campus.  Sometimes when I do personally engage supporters it is self-serving.  I often don’t have a mindset of service and worship as I raise support, but instead I frequently have one eye fixed on what’s in it for me.  I start to feel entitled to other people’s money.  That’s embarrassing to put into words, but it’s true.

So as I send out the letters sitting on the other side of laptop waiting to be stuffed into envelopes, I send them out with the recognition that God is doing something in me just as much as he is doing something through me.  Your financial gifts are precious to me, especally during these times of economic uncertainty.  Your giving reassures me that you place more trust in the God of the universe than the future of the American economy.  What a testimony and encouragement.  It is truly an honor to be Christ’s ambassador on campus.  God is using your gift not only to reach lost college students, but to reach me.  He is changing my mindset toward the whole process of raising support, and helping me to really begin to believe that it is developing partners far more than it is raising dollars.  My prayer is that God would use your giving to reach YOU as well.

How YOU (yeah, you) can be a part of building into students from around the country this summer.  Click the photo for a link to the letter we are mailing out to folks this week. It’s a .pdf file, so you need a pdf reader to view it.  Click here to learn how to give ONLINE!

The financial news is crazy these days.  From what seems like an incessant train of bailouts and legislation to rising unemployment to insurance companies turning folks away, the news is rarely good.

People are in a state of panic.

What better time, as Christians, to show the watching world what we really trust in!?

I confess, this is a pep talk for myself that you are welcomed to listen in on, but I am discouraged as I step back from my situation and evaluate how I am handling things.  Our financial support has suffered recently, and if I am honest, I tend toward panic more than trusting Christ.  Which is exactly the opposite of how the gospel ought to affect me.

The reason so many people in the financial sector are breaking apart at the seams is because their god is dying.  They have trusted in money, or the economy, or their 401-K, or the American dream.  And now that thing in which they have placed their trust is dying.  Their god is dying.

Our God rose from death.  And he promises in his word that he takes care of his own.  Jesus is LORD.  Not just a king or a president.  The King of kings.  The Lord of lords.  He alone is in control.

So instead of freaking out when finances are tight, I am going to rejoice that my God is alive, and still in control.  I am going to trust.  But let’s take it another step.  How about instead of clamming up and “taking care of our own” with no regard for others, we model the generousity and others-focus that Jesus would have for us during this time.  Our generousity in the face of uncertainty will serve as God’s hands and feet drawing people who are otherwise totally disinterested and turned off by Christians.

Give sacrificially (no, this is not just a plug for you to support us.  Give to people who need to know that money won’t save them.)  Pray as to who God would have you minister to with your wallet.  Is there a single mom or a widow that needs a meal or a tank of gas?  Give to your church, so that they don’t have to lay off people. Give to the local food bank.  Just… GIVE.

I’ll start.  I haven’t taken it before the Lord with my wife yet, so I am not sure how we are going to give, but I assure you that this month, even in spite of a significant loss in our support, we will give more than we did last month.

Because my God is not dead, or dying.

Today we got an email that indicated someone was coming off of our financial support team.  They supported us at $200 per month.  I am still trying to get to the bottom of this, because it appears they didn’t intend to stop giving, and it is very possibly a computer glitch in Orlando at our headquarters.

Either way… those emails are always a good idolatry indicator for me.  I’ll be honest and say I even went so far as to yell at my wife as a result of that email.  I trust in money way too often.  More accurately, I trust in control.  If I can control the situation, I am good to go.  And money in a bank account is a good way to have a sense of control.

Any time I feel in control of a situation, though, it’s an illusion.  All it takes is a crisis to show that.  When a gunman enters a classroom, all the folks who were in control no longer are.  When a hurricane hits, you realize that no matter how big you are, you’re still pretty small…

All of that to say that “control” is a fickle and shifty idol to chase after.  But I do it all the time.

It got me thinking, as I confessed my sin, that I sometimes think things are biblical just because they are American.  I was listening to the Dave Ramsey Show podcast in the car earlier and started to fantasize about leaving staff and getting a job where I could support my family without having to rely on others to support us.  After all, it’s in the Bible that we should take care of our families, and that we should work, and that handouts are bad.

Wait, maybe not all of that is in the Bible.  Support raising is all over the Bible.  It’s how God has funded his work since the very beginning.  It’s thoroughly biblical, and thoroughly un-American.  And so while I am right in line with the word of God when I pick up the phone and call folks for support, I am paddling upstream in the culture.  We are a culture that values independence (have been since the ’70s…  the SEVENTEEN 70’s) and the thought that my business is my business, not yours.  ESPECIALLY when it comes to my wallet.

If I were to leave staff, I’d just be feeding the idol of control.  I’d work 90 hours a week and be a millionaire by the time I retire, sure.  But I’d be running from where I am confident God has called me.  He’s called me to reach students with the gospel.  To tell them that even though they incessantly run from him and trust in things other than him, He died to set them free.

Just as surely as I am confident God has called me to breathe life into a dying college culture,  I’m confident He’s called others (like you.  Yeah, you…) to “hold the rope” financially and prayerfully for me.  There’s not an email I could receive that would change that.

Yesterday I played a round of golf.  Heading into hole 15, I needed two strokes to catch the leader.  Either I had to step it up, or he had to make a mistake.  As I swung, my heart was racing.  Adrenaline in my sytem took control, and I had what was probably the longest, best drive of my life.  Easily 250 yards, dead straight, middle cut of the fairway.  I was ecstatic.  I glanced again at the score card, made my way to my second shot, and amazingly repeated the same accuracy, reaching the green in only two shots.

Those of you who have ever played golf with me know how atypical (and borderline unbelievable) this whole scenario is.  Those of you with an internet connection and a decent memory might also know that even if I had made time in my schedule for a round of golf yesterday, the weather in western NC was terrible, and I would not have played.

I was playing a video game.  Tiger Woods Golf on my Playstation 2.  (I know, PS2 is sooo early-2002.  Give me a break.  It works just fine.)  But the odd thing is that if you had put those fancy heart monitor leads on me while playing, it would have been tough to argue that I wasn’t actually experiencing a round of golf.  I was nervous, excited, angry, and my heart really was racing as I played.

The thing about my experience yesterday that is so telling is what I put off doing so that I could play video games.  We are in the process of writing and sending our annual end-of-year financial support appeal letter.  I should have been finishing it to send to the printer so that we could effectively raise support.  Instead, I opted for the thrill of the back nine at the TPC at Sawgrass.  Why?

If you are ever looking for a way to understand your heart, asking the question “Why?” always gets you there the fastest.  For me, today’s answer to yesterday’s question is complex.  I desperately long to be powerful, in control, and respected.  These are just a few of the idols I bow down to (and repent of bowing down to) on a daily and hourly basis.  The video game told me yesterday I was worth something.  I have a “career earnings” on the game of well over $10,000,000.00.  In the interest of full disclosure, I grossed $16,200.53 in my first full year of staff with Campus Crusade.  I’m better at making virtual money.  The video game told me I was talented and competent.  I holed a 45 foot eagle putt, and beat Tiger Woods in head-to-head match play.

I got lied to by a 6-year-old piece of electronic equipment.  The lie wasn’t necessarily that I am competent, talented, worth something, or wealthy; but that the basis for those things could ever be found in a video game.  Jesus must have rolled his eyes when I got nervous over a putt on a video game that really did not (nor could not possibly) matter in the grand scheme.

My aversion to raising financial support is that it almost never feeds my idols of self-reliance and control.  I am laid bare (thankfully only metaphorically) before the people that I challenge to join us financially.  In a culture that relentlessly feeds isolation and independence, I am forced to depend on others, and engage in community.  Raising support forces me to do that, and to experience the rush of trusting God for his provision.  That’s a sensation that is far more real than any video game can deliver.

Now if only I could remember that the next time my favorite idols come calling.

And while I am at it, you can join our team of financial ministry partners here.

I used to pride myself on being a guy who didn’t worry.  I frequently said things like “stress is a waste of emotion,” which is true, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.  Now I wish I could go back and allow my 28-year-old self to introduce my 18-year-old self to a concept known as the “wedgie.”  Telling someone (intellect) not to feel something (emotion) is addressing the wrong part.

God in his infinite sense of humor has grown me to the point that now, with a wife, a child, and a host of other responsibilities, I have become more of a worrier.  And now my annoying 18-year-old self is telling me (intellectually, of course) that “stress is a waste of emotion” or “stress is the opposite of faith,” among other harsh truths.  Thanks for that, kid.  It was easy not to worry when the biggest decision of the week was “do I eat all of this bag of skittles or save some for later?”

With the aforementioned media hype regarding the economy (based in part in the realm of fact, for sure), we have had more than a bag of skittles to worry about, (but thankfully we have also had far more than a bag of skittles to eat).  We received a few short paychecks a few months back, but have been able to pay all of our bills.  God has continued to provide.  It looks like we are even going to be able to go ahead and pay off the bill from Little Ben’s birth (in just a shade under half a year), and turn our attention to the bills for his recent medical issues.

The problem looming at the back of my mind now is the fact that we don’t have enough monthly support coming in.  We have been floating along on some larger one-time donations recently and have not gone negative in our staff account (or our bank account), but again I see the funds dwindling, and I am prone to start worrying.

Jacqueline and I have been on the Dave Ramsey plan with our finances since we got married (and I was on it before, having paid off my $16,000 debt to the College Foundation of NC in under 4 years—on a salary of $16,200 per year—before we were married) and have been making it work.  I have found myself in the past few months avoiding the process of budgeting, though, because I worry less.  That’s not at all fair to Jacqueline, making her handle the budget all by herself.  Would you pray for me to engage in this process, and to avoid running from the issues, but instead to take those worries to Jesus?

Also continue to pray for our finances.  Praise the Lord with us for his provision thus far, and ask that He would increase our monthly gifts significantly in the next three months.  We currently need around $1500 in additional monthly support to reach a healthy spot.

As always, if you are interested in being a part of the answer to those prayers, check out this page for more info on how to give.

It turns out my 18-year-old self, though he is annoying, is correct.  But the way I am now admonishing myself and others not to stress is by giving myself a reason not to worry.  And that reason is Jesus.  He came and lived a perfect life that I couldn’t and can’t, died the death that I deserved and deserve, and made a way for me to be perfect in the father’s eyes.  That actually affects my wallet.  I still sit on my wallet, but it’s not my foundation.  My 403-b is still there, but ultimately I run to God to provide.  He provides again and again for his children.  What a joy to have a job that forces me to realize that.  I’m telling students on campus to trust Jesus, and at home I have no other choice but to heed my own advice.