In 1990, Gordon Cosby, Founder and Pastor of the Church of the Saviour, preached a sermon titled,”How Much Is Enough?”* I remembered it as I was doing some research for this article, but in my mind, the title had morphed to “How Much Do I Need?” So I went back to that sermon to see if my mind was playing tricks on me, and found he listed three areas of connectedness that he felt changes our perception of needs. He listed them as: 
Connectedness to God – How do we feel about God meeting our needs? Cosby said, “If we know the manna will be there as we need it, we won’t have to rent a storage bin to hold the extra stuff. “
Connectedness with People – What have other people got to do with our needs? Apparently, Cosby felt the answer was “a lot” because he said, “As our connections with one another deepen, our personal needs decrease. We become much freer with our time and our money.”
Connectedness to the Planet – Cosby felt a strong need to reestablish our connection with the earth. He said, “Whatever the personal cost, I want to live in natural harmony with it. I want to give to it, and I want to draw from its wisdom, its beauty, and its grandeur.”
The connections he listed are comprised of what I think of as Survival Needs, Social Needs and Soul Needs. I could elaborate on each of those categories but I’m not going to as I believe there is real value in making a list of your own Survival, Social and Soul Needs and in contemplating how aspects of each need are related to the Connectedness Categories that Cosby defined. That should help you answer for yourself the questions “How Much is Enough?” and “How Much Do I Need?”
Blessings on Pondering those Questions,
Judy Osgood
- From By Grace Transformed: Christianity for a New Millennium, a collection of N. Gordon Cosby’s sermons.