From Pastor Steve
November 2008

  Thrift – it’s kind of an old fashioned word. A bet that most of our young people don’t even know what it means.  Do you?  Thrift does not seem to be valued as it once was.  Consumption, spending, acquiring, possessing more and more stuff, seems to be a high value in our culture.  We have learned to go into debt without a second thought.  Click the “buy it now” or “add to shopping cart” button and it’s on its way to our house. Hand the credit card to the cashier and take it home today!  What fun!  But then there is that debt that plagues us.  Debt is an epidemic in our world.  What’s the matter with us?  Why do we put ourselves in this bondage?  Why don’t we live simply and within our means?  What are we doing to reduce, reuse and recycle?
  It seems to me that this culture of acquisitiveness has idolatry at its heart.  We try to fill a spiritual yearning with something other than the peace that comes from trusting God.  Trusting God can be hard. The little thrill that comes from buying new toys is easy but it is not really satisfying – at least not for long.

   David Blankenhorn, in his book Thrift: A Cyclopedia.  Writes “For so many of the problems now ailing us – from shameful wastefulness, to growing economic inequality, to independence-killing indebtedness, to runaway mindless consumption -… the philosophy of thrift is the closest thing we have to a miracle cure.”

Here are a few of the collected quotes from the book:
“Gain all you can….  Save all you can…. Then give all you can”.  -John Wesley
"Fugality is good, if it be Liberality be join’d with it.  The first is leaving off superfluous expenses; the last; the last bestowing them to the benefit of others that need” 
  - William Penn
"This may be said of all our estates:  what God give us, is not given us for ourselves, but for the Lord.” - Cotton Mather.
“Who cannot live on twentie pound a yeare, cannot on fortie; he’s a man of pleasure.”  - George Herbert.
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