Welcome to the fourth of five blogs on the theology of mission and innovation. Today, we’re tackling the thorny topic of innovation’s relationship with money. Whether expressed or not, money can often be an underlying reason for ministries to pursue innovation.
There is a real felt need for investment in technology, tools, and skill building to help navigate change. But innovation is also a trendy investment topic. Innovative projects can be an easy way to get funding. Over time, a perception can develop that to innovate, we need more than what we currently have.
Perhaps this is leftover baggage from the capitalistic environment where much of the world’s thinking around innovation emerges. Author Andrew Root presents several interesting points about money in his book The Church after Innovation that I want us to examine. His overall argument is that money shares some attributes with God, but it can easily disrupt our priorities. Innovation, in particular, he argues, makes us susceptible to this risk and desire for money. This, of course, traces straight back to Scripture:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24).
1. Money is transcendent.
The first characteristic of money Root identifies is that its value is transcendent — we put our faith in it. Money provides security. But we should always place our faith and trust in God. Money is a created thing, which God is sovereign over. No matter what our circumstances look like, we can faithfully seek God and trust our present and future reality into His hands. We can be generous with what we have and tithe from everything we receive to bless others. Jesus instructed His disciples on how they should operate in their ministry:
“Take nothing for the journey — no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town” (Luke 9:2-5).
By today’s standards, that might seem like a questionable ministry strategy. Shouldn’t the disciples have done some fundraising, started a sustainable enterprise or two, or at least packed an extra snack? And yet this was the model Jesus established to remind them to trust in God for everything.
2. Money has universal value.
The next point Root shares is that money has a universal value because it is a means of payment and a measure of prices. Everything is directly measured against itself — similar to how God is the ultimate standard of measure. Money is useful and necessary, but only for the purpose of caring for our families and serving others. We should demonstrate God’s love and reflect His nature in how we treat our finances. We shouldn’t pursue or hold wealth for its own sake. Instead, we should generate wealth and use it to meet an immediate need and to reveal God. “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy” (Luke 12:33).
Instead, we should generate wealth and use it to meet an immediate need and to reveal God.
3. Money anticipates the coming future.
Root’s third point is that money demands anticipation of a coming future that never arrives because its value is always changing and moving. Just look at the stock market as an example or any of the housing bubbles or economic recessions. How quickly a person’s future and fortunes change with the rise and fall of money. But we know that our treasure is in heaven, where its value is constant and secure. We don’t have to ride an emotional rollercoaster with the ebb and flow of inflation. An eternal perspective stabilizes us:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).
4. Money achieves power.
Root’s fourth point is that money is a means of directly achieving power. It causes us to quantify everything — our time, relationships, etc. — to an equation: what am I getting out of this? Just think about the phrase “time is money.” This is another way that money mimics God, by promising power and control.
But true power and authority come only from God — not from your bank balance. Everyone’s net worth will be wiped away on judgment day, and only one thing will matter. Did we know Christ truly and did we serve generously and selflessly as He did? People cannot be quantified or counted as a return because each life is a priceless treasure that God is willing to sacrifice everything for. We have each been made in God’s image, deemed worthy of love, and cherished by God. Our power to love others comes from God, not money. He has sent us, and He will provide for us.
“The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow” (Deuteronomy 28:12).
5. Money can enslave.
The last point from Root is that money’s ability to impose debt is a kind of slavery and ownership via money. But God’s people are to be a people of grace and freedom. Following the model of Christ and the year of Jubilee, we should not hold one another as slaves to money because ultimately, God is our master and redeemer.
“At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed” (Deuteronomy 15:1-2).
If we hold to the godly principles of money, then innovation should be completely divorced from dependence on money. We can pursue innovation from where we are, with what we have, and pursue God’s glory. Scripture reminds us that if we seek the Kingdom first, God will take care of everything else. It’s important not to confuse the primacy of God for the utility of money. If God is going to do something innovative through you, then nothing will stand in your way.
“But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
Try This
- Pray about your relationship with money. Is it healthy, or have you been trying to serve two masters?
- How can you avoid your missional innovation having an unhealthy relationship with money?