Monday, April 28, 2008
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Parable of the Talents
[edit] update to this posted here: http://weblog.xanga.com/revelife/654455339/parable-of-the-talents-week-1.html
I posted this on revelife, but i wanted to keep a copy here too:
I was really inspired by a story i read a few months back about a church in wisconsin where the main pastor rolled into church with forty thousand dollars in cash. his goal was simple, he walked into the congregation with the stack of cash and read from the book of Matthew:
"And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his ability."
After giving a message on the parable of talents, he then proceeded and gave each congregant money. he challenged them each to double their money in 7 weeks.
this sunday, i'm going to try the same thing with my youth group kids. our youth group is looking for ways to raise $8,000 in order to attend a conference set in July. and at this point, things are not looking too good with the fund raising but at the same time, i truly believe we can pull this off altogether.
my hope is that these kids will look at money differently. i think the notion of money and how it's used is so easily perverted in this society - we see it as a symbol of solving our problems, a source of pride, and an escape. we watch cartoons of people swimming in money...and never see cartoons about people struggling to make money. we have people hooked on fast cash and resort to gambling, stealing, and deceit. money seems to mostly feed on selfishness and live in a society where we praise aberrant donations because it's so outside the norm.
i admit, in my age it's so easy to worship money and all it could provide for myself. to not worry about rent, paying off bills, mortgages and get whatever i want, whenever i want, however i want...i mean, who wouldn't want that? but in the end when you pause, you realize everything you feel money can solve are all the things that consume you....as tyler durden would put it, things that own you.
which brings me to this....i always believed God taught us best by challenging us to do...and in that, in those footsteps, i gladly hand this material object to them with the challenge. double your money...and don't do it for yourself...but do it for the person next to you.
although some have told me, this is a great lesson to teach them...i have a feeling in the end, they will teach all of us.
more updates after sunday - i'll let you know how it goes....
p.s. also if you have other fundraising ideas, please do share!
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Comments (31)
WOW that sounds incredibly brave! I can't wait to hear how it turns out. I don't know where I would even begin...
I would brobably use the money to buy glass... make something and auction it off... I don't know... always a gamble...
That sounds really cool! Go to local nursery's and ask for plants to be donated and ask if you can use wagons and have the kids sell plants. I did this for my daycare and we made $$$
door to door selling flowers? you can buy in bulk, then arrange them in bouquets with cheap vases (also bought in bulk), could really brighten up somebody's day...
I'm looking forward to learning how the experiment turns out.
dog grooming, car wash, carnival...
wow. cool pastor! hope you raise enough :)
what if they use the money to do good to others instead of multiplying it? that's still a good thing, right?
sell "lemonade."
give away the first glass for free.
refills are $5.
second glass contains the antidote.
saw that on quotationspage.com but can't find the author at the moment, site's down
It's important to remember that everything we have, money included, is a gift from God and we should be wise with it. How much money are you giving them exactly?
wow that sounds AWESOME!! I might use this idea for my youth group too...we're doing fundraising for a project as well.
An idea that worked REALLY well a couple years ago was "penny wars" -- each grade got one of those huge water bottle jugs and had a battle to see who could raise the most money. The idea was that each penny was worth a POSITIVE point, but any other amount of money (nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars, etc) were worth a negative amount. Every grade started throwing dollars into the OTHER grade's water bottles to make their grade the most positive. It was really fun to watch all the youth bring in bags of change and occasionally see the generous 20 dollar bill fall into the bottle with the most pennies. We raised A LOT of money this way because our youth group is really large and extremely competitive. Praise God!
that is an amazing idea, i don't know if i'd trust people enough to go through with it if i were a leader though... as in, trust in their capability to bring back double the money... maybe it's because i'm in college >_>
We did a 'rent a student' where people from the church would sponser a kid and the kid would come do yard work, paint, babysit, etc. it worked pretty well
@yello_lego - funny :)
@ErinE04 - great idea :)
wow.... i would have never have thought of this... what a great idea... i really want to see how this turns out...
I'm really looking forward to hearing how it goes! I think that's a good idea! you will get burned at least a little because there is always the unwise servant who just burries the money.
When I was in a youth group, we promoted a concert bringing in a well known professional group. The bigger the name, the more you will make. I am doing a concert like this for SSTOP (Students stopping trafficking of persons) at our College, and I'm going to keep a type of journal on it here on xanga, so if you want to know about how to do it, stay tuned!
Cowboy
Thank you for posting this, Chris. This was a message I really needed to hear, especially since I have been struggling with money so much lately. Somedays I just need to be reminded that God is in control and will take care of me.
The bills will be paid, I have a place to live, I have food to eat. Really there isn't much outside of that I need to survive on earth.
my college fellowship did this thing called a "servant auction", where everyone - not just the people who were going on missions - would donate services that the entire fellowship would bid on, such as dinners, errands, artwork, singing lessons, essay editing services, etc. we usually raised $1000 in one night. then the people going on missions added to that by doing their own letter-writing campaigns to people outside of the fellowship. if your church is interested in getting itself involved, i'm sure just one fundraiser could get you really close to what you need!
thats cool Chris, we just did a bible study about this passage last night! Maybe God is telling me something...hmmm...great post.
My favorite fundraise in youth was our sponsored car wash! Get neighbors, congregation members, teachers, paren'ts coworkers, whoever to sponsor the youth per car (10 cents per car, or whatever they want). Find someplace that has a lot of people coming and going (Walmart parking lot, fast food parking lot) and have a signs that say FREE CAR WASH. No gimmicks for the people getting the car wash, they get a free wash and have fun the whole time! Keep a count of how many cars they cash and the youth will then report back to their sponsors. If they get 10 people to sponsor them 10 cents a car and you end up washing 100 cars, easily that's $100. Of course they more they get sponsored (20 cents, 10 sponsors 100 cars= $200). Most likely people will give a donation. THe people who donate the car wash you can split that amongst the youth or use it to do another fund raiser (spaghettie plate dinners before and after church and have the youth serve it). I could be here all day with fund raise ideas. There are so many of them!
Your post gave me a good reminder today to just simply check myself in all that I do, and in my worldly ways I so often fall into. I admire that you are teaching a youth group at church, it's a hard thing to do!! Good luck!
weird, i was having these thoughts lately in terms of my own life. been trying not to put so much emphasis on making money, getting "that" job to somehow have a "better" life. it's always nice to hear others who i'm sure are under the same pressures say that money's not the most important thing.
ryc: "there's so much in the world to see and we need everyone around us to help us see it." <-- agreed! i would never have been able in real life to meet the diverse kinds of ppl on xanga - it can be very eye-opening .. and i'm very happy to share =)
a really good fundrasier is a spaghetti dinner. have members of the church donate specific things (spaghetti, sauce, cheese, bread etc) and then have the teens sell tickets to the congregation and even outside the congregation a few weeks prior to the event. sunday after church is the best time to do it, because people are HUNGRY. you can also have tip jars on the tables and have all the teens serve. you have to make the spaghetti the night before, but all things considered it's an easy and money making fundraiser.
Awesome plan.
What are the age ranges of these kids?
1. Bakery sales.
2. Lemonade sales.
3. Car washes.
4. Talent performances (ie. plays).
5. Help with household chores for relatives or close neighbors (ie. gardening).
6. List potential donors and ask for support. (The undergraduate association I was a part of had a deal with California Pizza Kitchen where whatever money they earned that one event day selling pizza, we would get 10% of the profit. So, we made flyers about the event giving them to family, friends, co-workers to come to the restaurant and eat pizza, etc.)
If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.
Our group was raising money to build a well in Africa and we hosted an art sale at a local coffee shop and made some art ourselves and gathered other pieces from local artists. Not only did it bring the community together for justice, but we raised $1412!
www.artforachange.org