Stewarding Money – Maria’s story

In the last year, our church community has started a venture called The Money Clinic.  It isn’t a debt counselling service, but rather a place for budget coaching and money education.  An analogy that helped me when we setting this up was the difference between surgery or A&E (ER to my US friends) in a hospital or a GP practice.  You have surgery or get rushed to A&E if you are in desperate need of immediate help, but people go to a GP when they are ill, need some help, but not in a life threatening situation.

So with money, people who are on the verge of bankruptcy, who are so heavily in debt need drastic action, and a debt advisor is the place to go.  However, there are huge numbers of people, who aren’t in that desperate situation, but are in debt, who do need help in controlling their finances.  That is where "The Money Clinic" comes in, through either meeting with the person individually, or providing some group training: we help people get in control of their finances.

Neil Duguid, who set up the Money Clinic, sent me this brilliant short video about Maria’s story, of how she got control of her finances using an envelope cash system, that will become clear as you watch the video … 

It is 10 minutes long; I found it very moving, and really worth watching.  This is how I would love to be helping people, with good money management principles, regardless of their connection with church or otherwise.  I think it is the kind of thing that Jesus would be doing – freeing people from the tyranny of serving money.