Charlies Collier, Senior Philanthropic Adviser at Harvard University, offered some thoughtful remarks about dealing with money on today’s teleconference.

He suggested that when you are facing a financial crisis, “If you can’t beat it, flaunt it.” In other words, “it’s better to get it out there. If you can’t talk about a difficult money decision in a church, you’ll have more of a mess. It’s very hard, for sure.” He adds, “The most important thing is to try to be a calm presence — it sounds so simple and is so difficult.”

Collier subscribes to the ideas of Jay Hughes, who says families have four kinds of capital: human, intellectual, social and financial. Collier gave a theological spin on these by saying that human capital involves love of self, intellectual the love of family, and how the family governs itself, social capital includes love of neighbor, and financial capital involves love of creation. He said that financial capital creates capacity in the family if well placed, and creates capacity in the church if well given.

In the families he works with to help make decisions about what to do with their money, he asks them this: “what’s the one thing you could do? What could you tell your children at this stage? What’s the one step you could do now?” He said, “A lot of people aren’t going to make big changes, but they might make one new step.”

Collier’s book, Wealth in Families, is available on Amazon. I found it a useful guide to thinking through principles about money and how to make decisions about it.

The recording of the teleconference is available. E-mail me at Margaret@margaretmarcuson.com, and I’ll send you the link.

Join me next Thursday, July 30, at 9 Pacific/10 Mountain/11 Central/noon Eastern Time for a one hour conference call conversation with Charles Collier on the topic, “Do You Understand Money?”

Charles W. Collier is the senior philanthropic adviser at Harvard University, He has worked with hundreds of alumni and parents to shape their philanthropy and advised them on family relationships surrounding financial wealth. A nationally recognized expert in family philanthropy and family wealth advising, Collier has been a speaker and consultant for many institution, including universities, private banks, community foundations and families. He is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, and holds a BA in Religion from Dartmouth College and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School.

E-mail me at Margaret@margaretmarcuson.com with your interest, and I’ll send you call-in information. If you can’t make the call, a recording will be available.

This is one in a series of conversations with leaders on the subject of my new book, Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry, from Seabury (now available on Amazon).

As the economy wobbles toward recovery (we hope), every day there’s a new headline on the topic. We may despair of understanding the complicated economic realities that face us today. Yet it’s more important, and perhaps a bit easier, to understand the role of money in organizational life – and human relationships in general.

Problems that seem to be about money on the surface are usually symptomatic of something else. In marriage, when couples have big problems with money, it’s not really “about” the money. The challenge is in the relationship, not in the finances. Money is a natural focus for anxiety because it’s about survival – in today’s world, we need money to live. And so as anxiety rises, people naturally become more worried about money — or more inclined to be careless with it.

I’ve noticed varying responses in churches to the current economic distress. One church experienced the highest number of pledges ever for 2009, as people responded to support the ministry in spite of their own woes. Another is cutting salaries for all staff as giving goes steadily downward. It is important to recognize real financial realities. At the same time, it’s not just “about” the money, but about the resourcefulness that people bring to the situation.

Here are some questions to consider as you lead in this important area:

What is the history? The past is always present. What has been the institution’s approach to money over the years? Has it lurched from crisis to crisis, or has there been careful planning? Have leaders shared information about finances or not? How do resources figure into the founding story? You’ll be better able to assess the strength of your institution when you know more about its past.

What is your history? Our own story, especially our family’s, often determines how we lead around financial matters. What was your experience growing up? What do you know about past generations and their attitudes about money? Can you find out more? If you know your own strengths and vulnerabilities around money, you will be able to manage yourself better. For most of us, this is an area for lifetime learning and growth.

Finally, what are you responsible for, and what do you need to let go of? Many leaders are overfunctioners. The challenging task is to be a responsible leader without taking everything on. Clergy, for example, sometimes volunteer to forgo a raise or even take a pay cut to balance the budget. I’m not saying a leader should never do this, but don’t do it without thinking through the question of who’s really responsible.

Leading around money is often difficult, especially for those who are motivated to make a difference. But when we can look beyond the dollars to the larger questions — the relationship we have with our followers, their history and our own — we’ll be better able to be thoughtful and call forth the resourcefulness of others.

Leading Ideas, from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Seminary in Washington, DC, has an excerpt from my book, Leaders Who Last, in the issue that came out yesterday. Here’s the article.

Last night I attended the first of a summer home study group at my church, First Baptist Church of Portland. It’s a pleasure to attend a group I don’t have to lead! We are studying the book of Ecclesiastes. I haven’t read that book straight through since a Wisdom literature class in seminary a terrifyingly long time ago.

We started with chapter one, and rereading it today, it strikes me that it could have been written by a burned-out pastor. “The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises.” (Sunday morning keeps coming, and all too quickly.) “All things are wearisome, more than one can express…” (I’m tired of trying so hard and getting nowhere) “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Despite the rapid change in the church environment and our society, the same old relationship challenges of ministry remain.) “All is vanity and the chasing after wind.”

The teachers pointed out last night that Ecclesiastes almost didn’t make it into the canon.
It’s a wonderful gift that the Scripture itself offers these honest words. It’s not the whole story, of course, but most of us who’ve been in ministry for more than a year have had these moments, just like the Teacher of Ecclesiastes.

I’ve read two outstanding systems-related books recently. What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? is a new collection of the writings of Rabbi Edwin Friedman. This is the third in a series of Friedman’s writings to be published by Seabury. It includes mostly items that have not been published before, including graduation talks, wedding sermons, diary excerpts and his reflections on the challenges of his own mother’s aging. For those of you familiar with Friedman’s work already, you’ll see the germ of the mature thinker in the earlier writings. This is by far the most personal of the Friedman books. In addition to matters of theoretical interest, I found his writings here to be helpful as I think about relating to both my young adult children and my elderly parents. Don’t miss it.

Second, Ron Richardson (author of Creating a Healthier Church and Becoming a Healthier Pastor) now has another book, aimed at a broader audience. Becoming Your Best: A Self-Help Guide for Thinking People is a clear and readable guide to becoming a more mature human being. Richardson, a pastoral counselor, begins by talking about the importance of character and its importance to emotional maturity. His work is clearly grounded in Bowen Family Systems theory. He writes with tremendous clarity and very little jargon. Richardson uses the novels of Jane Austen to illustrate the importance of character and taking responsibility for self. (I’m a big Austen fan so this is a definite plus for me.) Also highly recommended.

I’m preaching again tomorrow, this time at First Baptist Church, McMinnville. They’re doing a summer series called “Faces of Faith,” and I’m going to talk about Mary Magdalene. I’ve discovered an amazing legend that I’d never heard of, that Mary Magdalene went to Marseilles and preached, converting many. It developed in France in the Middle Ages. Here’s a 16th century Dutch painting of her preaching (click on the picture to see a bigger version):

I get crabby about the tradition of Mary Magdalene-as-prostitute, which has no basis in Scripture (it comes from conflating her story with the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears). The French preaching tradition can at least be traced to her being sent by Jesus to tell the disciples what she had seen in John 20. And I find it inspiring.

Jack Bloom is a rabbi and psychotherapist. He wrote these Ten Commandments for Rabbis which are equally applicable to Christian clergy. Take a look.

I’m preaching tomorrow at First Baptist Church of Portland, the church I belong to. I’ll be talking about the Baptist heritage of advocating for religious freedom.

Last weekend at the American Baptist Churches biennial convention, David Coffey of the Baptist World Alliance talked about early Baptist Thomas Helwys. He quoted Helwys’ work A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612). Helwys said, “If the Kings people be obedient and true subjects, obeying all human laws made by the King, our Lord the King can require no more: for men’s religion to God is betwixt God and themselves; the King shall not answer for it, neither may the King be judge between God and man.” He sent a copy of this work to King James, and was thrown in prison where he died.

Another Baptist I admire is John Leland, a Baptist preacher in Massachusetts and Virginia. He influenced James Madison to introduce a draft amendment which became the First Amendment. The final amendment included the words “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

On July 5, 1802, Leland gave a speech where he said, “Never promote men who seek after a state-established religion; it is spiritual tyranny — the worst of despotism….it converts religion into a principle of state policy, and the gospel into merchandise. Heaven forbids the bans of marriage between church and state; their embraces therefore, must be unlawful.”

This year is the 400th anniversary of of the Baptist movement. I’m grateful for these Baptist leaders who understood the importance of freedom.