Transcript Public Communication and Money

CLAL104 | Executive Leadership and Money | Session 5
Public Communication and Money
Public Communication and Money
Presentation
The book Speaking About Money: Reducing the Tension
grew from material Rev. Peter Wiebe and myself taught across
the country. The central insight of the book is how economic
perspectives can be mapped across a constituency, and how
to develop communication that effectively bridges different
perspectives. This material that follows is
especially useful in communicating with
constituents who have differently formed
religious perspectives on how one earns
and lives with money. Click here to
download this file to use in the exercise
that follows:
Public Communication and Money
Two key themes
Two themes on which most people agree (even if they
are secular):
• Stewardship is an act of trust/worship—a
response rooted in awe and gratitude for
what one has received.
• God is an example of generosity.
Most people who describe themselves as secular conceive of
God (if there is one) as loving and merciful. They also think
generosity is a good thing, and what one does if they are
thankful.
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
Mapping a person’s perspective begins with where they
place themselves on a beliefs continuum of abundance
to austerity
Abundance = “If I give in faith God
will bless me.”
Where would you
place yourself top
to bottom?
Austerity = “I give everything
Because Jesus gave everything.”
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
Mark your location on the line located on the left side of the
box based on what you consider the more prominent driver
of your beliefs, and the intensity with which you believe it:
abundance
my beliefs
austerity
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
Next, we consider a continuum of experience that runs from
poverty to wealth. Which of these two dominates the
narrative of your life with money, and how intensely?
Poverty = dependent
on extended family
and community in
order to meet life’s
basic needs.
Wealth = independent
of extended family and
community in order to
meet life’s basic needs,
often with much left over.
Where would you
place yourself left
to right?
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
Mark your location on line located across the top of the
box based on what you consider the more prominent
driver of your experience, and the intensity with which you
experience it.
my experience
poverty
wealth
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
Now that you have plotted both lines, please connect
them and place yourself in the grid, thus:
my experience
poverty
abundance
my beliefs
austerity
wealth
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
To date, in every group of ten or more people where this
exercise has been led, at least one person was located in
each quadrant. The next slides provide information about
each quadrant, including how
each both invites and excludes
my experience
others if the language of that
poverty
wealth
perspective dominates.
abundance
my beliefs
austerity
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
The Impoverished Hopeful looks to heaven as the place of God’s
abundance. Language that shares this hope is welcome (see
Revelation 21 for a Scriptural example). People who have lost
their hope may have lost their connection to God. (see Job 8:1-8
for a Scriptural example).
my experience
poverty
abundance
my beliefs
austerity
Impoverished
hopefuls
wealth
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
The Blessed Poor love language that speaks of justice of which
they have been deprived. They believe wealthy people—especially
those who gain wealth at others’ expense will be judged by God.
See Luke 6:20 for a Scriptural example of God’s love for the poor.
See James 5:1-6 for a Scriptural
example of this judgment.
my experience
poverty
abundance
my beliefs
austerity
Blessed
Poor
wealth
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
Wealthy Heirs believe any material blessing they have is a sign of
God’s favor, and that if anyone is deprived of this favor it is because
that person has not yet fully trusted God. A scriptural example of this
favor and judgment is in God’s covenant promises. (i.e. Deut. 28)
my experience
poverty
abundance
my beliefs
austerity
wealth
Wealthy
Heirs
Public Communication and Money
Mapping a Person’s Perspective
Freely Givers believe everything should be given to God as a
sacrificial act of worship. All wealth is for sharing rather than
enjoying. If anyone experiences God’s judgment, it is because
they chose not to be generous. The juxtaposition of Barnabas and
Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 4,5 is a
foundational text for this perspective. my experience
poverty
wealth
abundance
my beliefs
austerity
Freely
Givers
Public Communication and Money
Finding Wholeness
All four of these perspectives have truth and distortion
present. Wholeness is found in embracing the entirety of
these perspectives. They are the most true when expressed
simultaneously rather than as choices one makes from a menu.
Inviting edges from all quadrants
• We have a hope in God’s abundance.
• God blesses the poor.
• We are part of God’s family and enjoy the benefits.
• We can know the joy of freedom from money’s concerns.
Excluding edges from all quadrants.
• Sin produces punishing results, often economic.
• Trusting in riches is a curse.
• Not investing in God’s concerns brings separation from God.
• Slavery to money is death.
Public Communication and Money
Finding Wholeness
Pick some public communication from your organization where
money is concerned. Ask yourself:
• Does our organization express the wholeness or mostly a
specific quadrant?
• What quadrant is most likely the dominant perspective
that leaks from our organization? What might we do to
grow more fully to the whole—calling others to grow
towards this wholeness themselves?