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A friend asked me today what my “theological position” was on owning property.  Here are some random thoughts:

I have a couple of related views that I would say are more "interpreted values" than hard-line beliefs.

I think it is wise to establish your business solidly before purchasing / building a house (Proverbs 24:27)

Practically speaking, a house (that you live in) is a very large outlay of funds that does not provide a return (except on capital growth), and so you would be far better off investing that money into income producing assets first, and then purchase a house on the return of that investment (leaving you with both a house and remaining investment capital).

I think this is the "wisdom" behind Proverbs 24:27 - too many people chase their own tail or end up in a career they can’t escape in order to service their mortgages.

I could go on with other thoughts about lost capital, and rent vs mortgage but they aren’t necessarily theological.

I would prefer to avoid a mortgage.

This is seen as almost an impossibility today, but possibly only because we all want houses that we can’t really afford (to keep up with the Joneses) and because our housing market (land values mainly) are inflated because the access to housing finance that we do have makes the land we do buy seem more affordable than it is.

The bible has some things to say about usury (interest) and debt (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:36, Proverbs 22:7) that leads me to think that it is best avoided (but not necessarily wrong).

Too many of us find our worth in our house

This is a tough one - our society judges our "success" on a) our house and b) our car, though it is funny to think I can go out and get a house loan and a car loan tomorrow, and be more "successful" but have no change in net worth (if not worse off).

And to make it tougher - the above principals only prove themselves after half a lifetime.  In the mean time, society says you are wrong and after that society doesn’t care because it looks too much like hard work (you won’t sell any books).

How we put this into practice?  Well, Louisa and I have come to a resolve that we are happy renting until the time is right to buy or build.  We pay far more rent than I’d like, but that is only because of the area we live in (and believe we have been sent to) and it is still very low compared to the mortgage if we owned the place.  In the mean time, I throw money into my business, because our business (God willing) will be what provides for our family and the work that we have to do into the future.

One day I’d like to buy a bush block somewhere (Tasmania?), and over time build a house on it.  It would likely be a smaller house, and my goal would be to build it without using debt.  We would use it more as a retreat / holiday home until we retired, when it would become our home.

Also, it must be said that whatever we do we should do it for God’s honour, considering the work of the Kingdom, and reflecting Jesus’ character.

This is interesting:

“Ivan Illich calculated that, in America in the 70’s, if you add the time spent to work to earn the money to buy a car, the time spent in the car (including traffic jam), the time spent in the health care industry because of a car crash, the time spent in the oil industry to fuel cars …etc, and you divide that by the number of kilometres traveled per year, you obtain the following calculation : 1600 hours per year per American divided by 10000 km per year per person equals 6 km per hour. So the real speed of a car would be about 3.7 miles per hour.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich

So, based on these figures, is driving really any more efficient than walking?

Mind you, I did read in “Super Freakonomics” that drunk walking is more dangerous - per kilometre - than drunk driving (at least for yourself).

Get Your Cyborg Name

Source unknown

(bah, humbug!)

Join myself and my mate Rob down at the local.

The Matt and Rob Pubcast

Pentecostalism ≠ evangelicalism ≠ fundamentalism.  Did you know that?

In fact, Pentecostalism has it’s roots in the Methodist holiness movement, the same movement that the Salvation Army was born out of, which in turn is where I started my journey of faith.

In it’s early days, Pentecostalism had strong ties with emancipation, woman’s suffrage, social justice, liberality and pacifism.  It was characterised by the coming together of all races and “classes” - without discrimination - to worship God and see the broken set free supernaturally.

This is liberating to me, because over this past weekend I was led through a life changing series of experiences that swept me back into my core Pentecostal beliefs that I had almost left behind.

I had almost left them behind, because they seemed to me to be so tied up with other experiences in my past - legalism, prosperity theology, institutionalism, empiricism, selfish ambition and subcultures - that seems to me to be incompatible with the Gospel.

But Pentecostalism is not about all that.

I was gracefully shown this through this week’s Podcast of ‘Speaking of Faith’ with Krista Tippit.  I started to listen to this podcast when she once featured Shane Claibourne.

So I can still believe that God moves supernaturally, and in profound, powerful ways in a person’s life, and yet still practice Love, reject capitalism and meet organically, because this also seems to be the beliefs of the early Pentecostals.

That is good to know.

It seems that Tasmania is the third most popular region in the world for us Tews

Top Regions (Frequency per Million)

ALABAMA , UNITED STATES
208.37

NORTH CAROLINA , UNITED STATES
181.87

TASMANIA , AUSTRALIA
143.63

UTAH , UNITED STATES
117.81

EAST MIDLANDS , UNITED KINGDOM
107.06

No inbreeding jokes, please.  And definitely no comparisons with Alabama.

Check out your surname at http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames

“He is like a Mounty, he always get’s his man, and he will zap you any way he can…

…ZAP!”

Thanks Dan Kimball

My mate Rob Chaney and I will soon be starting a podcast that we record while sitting and chatting down at the local.

The aim is just to capture simple conversation between two blokes sitting in a pub. We want it to be raw conversation about doing faith when it really meets the road.

We hope to the other to get in guests from week to week including regular guys as well as celebrity names that we will force to talk about everyday issues that might not come across when in the spotlight.

So keep an eye out for it. If you want to join in for a chat one day let us know, and if you have any ideas please post on the comments.