We have plenty.

The minimum income of a beginning elder or deacon in the West Michigan Conference is greater than 96% of the world's population.* That's over 20 times the global median. When Jesus says "don't worry about food or clothing," his words apply to us, at least, in a straightforward and non-miraculous way. We have no need to worry, unless we really think that 96% of the world is in imminent danger of disaster.


I posted the simple 96% statistic when I first announced this blog, and was met by a flurry of comments. The majority of them were angry and/or frightened: "You're guilt-tripping people." "We have unfair taxes." "I'll still be in debt when I retire." And so on.
Conference leadership also struggles with a feeling of scarcity. For years, the budget has been a dominant feature of discussion, first among the Council on Ministries and CF&A, and now between the Conference Leadership Team and CF&A. Often, there's not been enough income to cover all that's desired, and a decision must be made on what to cut and by how much. The fear is readily visible in these conversations, and sometimes the anger is too.
But the statistic still holds - we have some of the highest incomes in the world. Why do so many of us feel that we don't have enough?

The Problem of Debt
One serious problem faced by many is debt. Debt can arise from poor money management, but it can also come from circumstances that are hard to avoid, notably medical expenses and the cost of college. Both of these expenses are skyrocketing in our current economy. The average debt of a seminary graduate is around $50,000, requiring a monthly payment of over $600 at 8.5% interest. Debts as high as $100,000 are not out of the question.
How would this person survive? At a ten-year repayment schedule with a 8.5% loan and typical loan fees, their final take home pay after taxes and loan payments would be around $12,000. That places them... in the top 14% of the world's population.
I'm not advocating that we should place clergy in this situation; indeed, I think we should assist new clergy in paying off their student loans quickly, and that we should assist all clergy with health care. None the less, it is still true: we have enough.

Why do we feel poor?
These statistics seem impossible to many people. Is it really possible to live on so little? Indeed, it is. Our problem is not that we are poor, but that we feel poor, and that's not an accident - it's part of the system we live in. The system has developed over millennia, with some of the most recent features intentionally designed to cause us to spend money that does us no good. We'll be exploring this system thoroughly in this blog; for now let me simply introduce some main causes:

1. "Oog" - our reactive brain - instinctively encourages us to gather as much stuff as we can.
2. Novelty brings Oog pleasure, and buying new things is one of the simplest ways to experience novelty.
3. The feeling of poverty is relative: we feel poor when we see others who have more than we do, and we are frequently exposed via the media to those who are richer than we are.
4. Since the early 1900s, advertising has primarily focused on encouraging us to buy things, without regard to their actual utility. Advertising is aimed at Oog, not at Neo. Most of us, using our reflective brain, realize that the claims of ads are ridiculous - but our reflective brains are typically not in control of our spending. Oog watches ads, Oog likes ads, and Oog gets what Oog wants.

I encourage you to visit www.givingwhatwecan.org. Enter your household income (after taxes) and your household size, and see how much you make - not compared to your next door neighbors, but compared to your neighbors around the world. You may well be astounded, but I encourage you to accept the truth: we have enough.

What do you think?
"But - food here is more expensive!" "But - we need two cars!" "But - what about college for our kids?"
The list of objections goes on and on. Living expenses are taken into account in the income calculation, using PPP dollars. It is certainly true that we find ways to spend our massive incomes. But does our money buy happiness? Are you twenty times happier than the typical human being? What reasons can you find for believing that you really need an income 10, 20, 30, or more times that of half the people on Earth?

*Take home pay for a single elder on minimum salary is $27,784, after paying self-employment and income tax. According to www.givingwhatwecan.org, this is in the highest 4.4% of the world's income, which is greater than 95.6% of the population. (The 96% is from an earlier computation which left out Michigan income tax. But if you assume that housing costs, provided by the church, are at least $1500, we're back in the 96% range.)