Twenty people -$50 bills- and an experiment

By Kelly Bean

[photopress:kelly_bean2.jpg,thumb,alignleft]This spring, Off the Map founder Jim Henderson’s book of practical inspiration for evangelism “AKA Lost” was released for sale. Within weeks of this happy event our family sold our spacious home in the country and prepared to move to town, to scale down and simplify.

Selling a large house and buying a small house meant we had money in the bank. Since we do not currently attend an “organized” church, tithing takes on new forms. We gather regularly in our home as a small community of 20 adults and 10 children. I serve as cultivator/leader for this group named “Third Saturday.”

For years, I have thought of trying a simple group experiment with money. Along with my flexible husband Ken, I determined this was just the time to give the experiment a try and to let ‘Third Saturday’ in on the fun as well.

Here’s the idea: We took a portion of our “tithe” and converted it to crisp $50 bills. Each person in ‘Third Saturday’ was given $50 with simple instructions and one month to use it. This is where “AKA Lost” comes in. I read “Lost” only days before our house sale and saw that Chapter One would be a perfect instructor for the money experiment. The chapter concludes with the following suggestions for ordinary attempts at evangelism:

Ask someone this question. “How are you?” Now here’s the tricky part. When the person begins to answer, actually listen. Don’t interrupt with your own story. Spend a few minutes being unusually interested in the person and leave it at that. Don’t witness, preach, or say anything religious.

Practice noticing the people God has put around you. Here’s how: take a small notebook or tape recorder with you this week and begin to write down observations (or record oral notes) about the people you notice whom you’ve never “seen” before, kind of like relational peripheral vision. Ask God to give you new ideas about how you could serve these people.

The only guideline was to practice Paying Attention and notice a need. Since God is already at work in individuals and in the world, whatever we really learned when we watched and listened was fair game. The money could go to a neighbor, a stranger, to an organization or, even to meet a need of one’s own. We were investing in taking time and making space to Pay Attention to what God was up to and then take action.

‘Third Saturday’ is made up of a handful of twenty-somethings, young couples and families, empty nesters, single divorcees and families with teens. We hail from homes as far flung as South Africa, The Horn of Africa, Albania, New York, and California as well as the Pacific NW. We are a collection of artists and musicians, computer programmers, stay at home moms, and students, along with an engineer, a social worker, a midwife, a nurse/entrepreneur, a realtor, a missionary on furlough, and a masseuse in the mix.

When we gathered a month later to share our stories, the diversity of our group was reflected in the assortment of stories told.

The point of the experiment wasn’t as much about giving away $50, as it was a call to Pay Attention and realize we can make a difference when we really “see” people. Although the money wasn’t the main thing, it was interesting to hear how people felt about being given responsibility for “someone else’s money” (it’s all God’s money right?) to do with as they would.

For some of us the experiment was freeing; for some it was a tenuous stretch of faith; for others it was a serious matter that required thorough research and verifiable outcomes; and for some of us the desire to “do it right” was rather paralyzing. There were also a variety of feelings about practicing the ordinary attempt of “Paying Attention”. Many found it natural, for others it was weighty; others experienced it as exciting but uncomfortable.

Money went to encourage a young artist, cover a month’s expenses for an indigenous pastor in Africa, send flowers to a new divorcee struggling with depression, take a co-worker to lunch, help with the mission budget at a tiny country church, buy a goat to be roasted at the end of Ramadan for a group of Somali refugees in Portland, buy a fine bottle of wine for a wedding, help an uninsured elderly couple who lost everything in a fire, to send a young single mom and her kids on a movie date, provide a special anniversary dinner for a low income couple, establish a fund for feeding the elderly in Albania and help a two year old with autism access treatment. One community member was inspired to invest in micro-finance to help with development in the Third World. She used the $50 as seed money and added $950 more of her own funds to get started. Another couple combined their money, matched the funds and sent it to a Doctors Without Borders work in drought affected West Africa because they noticed that this terrible situation was going largely without response in the world. Several people are still holding their funds, waiting and learning.

There is a story worth telling behind each one of these experiences, a story of opening up to God and people, a story of serving and caring and a story of learning and growing, a story of many lives touched. Fifty dollars doesn’t go too far, but, in this case, it may go further than we will ever know.

More than anything, the $50 served as a tool to remind us that we all have something of value to give- our time and attention. I wonder how these experiences might begin to shift all our views about our “own” time and our “own” money. What if we were to play with this experiment each month or even each day?

What if?