Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Financial Peace University Debt Load

Our church just finished week five of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and we are getting ready to start week six.  This course has been super cool, for me, to see how many people have jumped in to get involved.  We have almost 40% of our church involved in this course which tells me two things:

1) The Las Vegas Economy has hit harder than I thought
2) People want to find financial freedom

One of the steps in the class is for the people involved to anonymously write down their debt load.  To be honest I had no what to expect to see with this number when it came in.  Now we have three different sessions of the class that we are offering to our church and from those different sessions we came up with one debt load number.  I am not going to share that exact number but I want to let you know that it is over four million dollars.

I have been hesitant to put up that number because I think it can bring up emotions in peoples lives and to be honest I have a part of that number.  In yesterdays blog I shared my personal learnings and personal debt load that Charity and I are carrying.  The reason I chose to end up sharing that number is because I am excited to share with you in December the new number.  See FPU is designed to help people get back on their feet financially and take control of their finances.

If you are in our church and you are reading this I want you to know that I am praying for everyone in our church to find financial freedom.  I am praying for people to be able to take control of their finances and not let their finances take control of them.  I am praying for people to find new connections with people in our church that they may have never met because of this course.  I love my church and I am so proud of everyone taking the course and making the steps to get financial freedom!

5 comments:

Pastor Bret Johnson said...

Neal, I am hearing good things about FPU from all over the place. We live in a society that says "BUY, BUY, BUY!" No wonder people are buried. I hope and pray that your work gives people a lot of margin in their financial lives.

Larissa said...

The title of your blog post caught my eye in the side bar of my cousin's (Kristal Sawyer) blog. The small group I am a part of is just starting this course, seeing if it is something we want to involve the whole church in. It is encouraging to hear that it is changing the way you think, and that it IS actually making a difference!

Neal Benson said...

It is crazy how the culture we live in WANTS us to be in debt; that way we have less freedom.

Larissa,
I think you will LOVE the course. We took the time to push it hard. The best thing is that it came from the top. Our lead Pastor is extremely excited about this course and he has his entire life group taking it with him. I love seeing our leaders at our church model this. All our Elders and staff are taking the course also to show the value.

Jennifer said...

I think it's so great that SHCC is doing FPU! :) Blaine and I are trying to tame our finances. It's tough, but so worth the work!

Neal Benson said...

Hi Jennifer,
I don't ever think taking back control of your finances will be easy but it has been so worth it for my family!