Wow. Just anticipating the money fast has changed my spending habits in a dozen little ways. I am carrying water with me to the gym instead of buying it there. I am not eating out nearly as much. I am making tea in my teapot rather than buying it at Starbucks. I am not buying more gym clothes when I am getting no where with preparing a sermon. All these little changes are adding up to more money than I would have imagined.
I am now two weeks away from the fast which I will do April 3-23. I am going to try to follow most of the rules for a financial fast set out by Michelle Singletary in her book "The Power to Prosper." However, everybody should decide for themselves what their fast will be like.
On Sunday I said in one of the services that I would be trying to fast from prepared foods and TV dinners. Someone send me a message saying, "What? No TV dinners? You keep changing the rules!"
Please feel free to make your own rules. For me, buying food in its more elementary forms (rather than ready to eat) seems to be a reasonable part of the fast so that's what I am going to try to do. I mean, I am not going to bake my own bread or go catch my own tuna fish, but neither am I going to buy food ready to pop into the microwave and eat.
I also want to begin doing more thinking about money is larger systemic ways. Some of our Lenten groups are studying a set of papers called "Faith and Finance: Christians and the Economic Crisis" put out by Sojourners magazine. See http://store.sojo.net/product_p/dg_cri.htm. The resource includes papers by people like Walter Brueggeman, Ron Sider and Adam Hamilton.
In his essay Adam Hamilton quotes Jesus: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat and what you will drink ... But strive first for the Kingdom of God."
Maybe that ought to be rule number 1 for the money fast. Maybe it is the only rule we need.
Dean, it sounds like your financial fast is already having an impact on the environment as well! You have cut out plastic water bottles, disposable coffee cups and the significant packaging of prepared foods. This exercise in good financial stewardship is turning out to be good practice in stewardship of God's creation as well!
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