Webwatch:
Manage your money
John Allan highlights tools to help you budget, eliminate debt and give.
Over the last couple of months we’ve been analyzing how the Web can help Christians with their stewardship of all God has given. We’ve spoken about stewardship of your time and your thoughts, but we haven’t yet addressed the area most people instinctively think of when they hear the word “stewardship”...
Your money.
So let’s talk about it now. How do we use our finances effectively in God’s service? How do we even get them under control? Can the Internet really help?
Well, yes it can, in a mind-boggling variety of ways. Take a look at the links listed by the Dioceses of Liverpool (www.givingingrace.org/links.html) and Chichester (www.natstew.diochi.org.uk/content/weblinks.htm): advice for personal money management, websites that help you set up online giving, teaching about biblical stewardship, help with everything from fundraising to legacies. Or survey E-Home Fellowship’s page (www.web-church.com/christian_finances-stewardship.htm) on budgeting tips, mortgage basics and debt elimination. There’s plenty of advice and help around; and on all three of these sites, it’s categorized clearly and helpfully to take you straight to just what you need.
Speaking of debt, there are two great Christian resources in the UK: Credit Action (www.creditaction.org.uk) (which came out of the work of the Jubilee Centre, and provides self-help guides, budget sheets, and targeted ideas for specific groups such as singles or students) and Christians Against Poverty (www.capuk.org/capdirect), offering online anonymous debt advice.
If you want to stand back from all the practical stuff, and absorb vital biblical principles of financial management, Campus Crusade (www.tenbasicsteps.org/english/giving/step8l1.htm) offer an eight-part interactive online Bible study where you fill in your answers, hit ‘send’, then find out instantly how well you’ve scored.
According to Credit Action, we are living in a country where personal debt currently stands at £1412 billion. Don’t be part of it. Get your money under control – then use it to glorify God.
