"Times are tight. We can't afford it."

It's probably the No. 1 roadblock people run into when trying to get their congregation or diocese involved in giving 0.7% of their budget for the Millennium Development Goals. It can be frustrating, but really, it's an important opportunity -- if you grasp it.

Challenge the premise!
"We can't afford it!" assumes our wealth is a scarce resource -- that there is only enough to do some of what God calls us. It's this kind of thinking -- that there isn't enough -- that allows poverty to flourish in the first place.

So don't have the conversation about the MDGs on a zero-sum budgeting level. Instead of having the position be that every dollar toward the MDGs must be balanced by a dollar cut somewhere else, here are some other ways to approach it:

-Affirm God's call to you to embrace this mission and celebrate what you are already doing. Are you already involved in political activism or the EPPN? Are you involved in working with the MDGs through your companion diocese relationship? Gather information about all the things you're already doing. Celebrate that. Celebrate the tangible difference it's making. Have people tell stories of the spiritual transformation that is happening in their lives and in their congregations through getting involved in this.That's your foundation to build on. By doing this you've changed the atmosphere from a demoralizing "too bad we can't do this" to "praise God, look at what we're doing."

Bono said the best piece of advice he ever got was from Warren Buffett, who told him that he would never get anywhere appealing to Americans' guilt or sense of duty but he would get everywhere appealing to our sense of greatness. That's what we need to do -- appeal to the sense of greatness of what God can accomplish through us. This is a tangible way where our lived faith can change the world. Look at how it's already doing that. Think of how much greater that can be!

-Look at 0.7% as your first goal. Have the conversation about how we are going to reach that together. Not just as a check being written -- but how are we also going to work together to reap the benefits of the deepening engagement that will happen with giving these funds. Turn the creativity of the community loose on this? How can we deepen our engagement? How can we follow God's call? There are tons of starter ideas on the EGR website!

Refuse to play the zero-sum game -- that's not worthy of us as Christians. This can be an altar-call moment. It's been a difficult budget cycle. We've done a lot of cutting. We're tired of cutting. Christ calls us to be good stewards but not to think small and cut, cut, cut. So we're not going to cut any more. We are a tremendously wealthy country and a tremendously wealthy church. But we are acting like a poor church. So what does that look like here?

This is a conversation with a really steep learning curve. Maybe all you'll get to at this point is step one and a small group of people who are committed to challenging the community to take the next step. But already you've challenged the prevailing sense of "we can only do this much" and opened poeple up to the theology of abundance of Christ.

All of this is deeply rooted in our theology. The Gospel pericope about the rich young ruler isn't about the poor needing the money. It's about how we are prisoners of our own wealth. How it holds us back from experiencing the richness of the Kingdom. And what makes us prisoners of our wealth is the tight grip we keep on it when we fear there isn't enough.

This is the spiritual challenge of America in the 21st century -- liberating us from our wealth and opening ourselves up to the Kingdom. The church should always have a guiding principle that lack of money will never be a reason for not doing something we honestly believe God is calling us to do. Stepping out in faith is what keeps the church exciting and alive

We can't do everything, and we can't do anything all at once -- but we can at the end of the day and year and at the end of our lives look in the mirror and at our Maker and say that we never shrunk back.

That's a Church we can be excited about being a part of!