I never really knew my maternal grandmother Clara. She was deep in the fog of early onset Alzheimer’s by the time I came along, although I was given Claire as a middle name in honor of her. My mother, who would have been 95 this month, told certain stories about her mom, and one lit my imagination as a child and has remained with me. My mother’s family lived in a very small town in eastern   [Read More …]

Bob Francis, a sociology professor at Whitworth University, and Yvette Schock, a Lutheran pastor and chaplain at Riverview Retirement Community, have a wide-ranging experience of shared simple living. They each lived in intentional communities as single people, and they have been thoughtful about how they think about consumerism and share experiences with other people in their lives. In 2019, the   [Read More …]

The Portland-based Jubilee Fund raised $100,000 to eliminate credit card debt for eight neighbors. The individuals who had their debts paid off then became donors, making payments to reparations efforts for five years with 0% interest. What would it look like to build equity and trust by freeing our neighbors from debt? How could we organize a community so that everyone could live with a   [Read More …]

Trying to align our money choices with our deepest values was confusing, humbling, and complicated. But we weren’t (and aren’t) alone. A few years ago my husband Zach and I began having conversations about “faith and money.”  We entered the conversations with some trepidation, as if we were entering uncharted territory.  Simplicity and responsibility The conversations   [Read More …]

I have never matched most people’s image of someone enslaved to money. I have never thrown ethics to the wind to get or keep a high-paying position; I have never been interested in a high-paying position at all. I have never run up huge credit card bills which I could not pay off. Yet my heart has been in bondage to the idol of money. I grew up an only child in a home with an income that was   [Read More …]

As we celebrate our 40th anniversary at Faith and Money Network, we’re taking a look back at our legacy, revisiting the programs and events we’ve introduced over the decades, and outlining the possibilities that lie ahead for our small but mighty organization. Don McClanen founded the organization as the Ministry of Money after holding his first unofficial workshop in 1976. Don found himself   [Read More …]