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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

FINANCIAL PEACE UNIVERSITY: The Gospel According To Kaye!

"We all have debt that we thought, why on earth did I do this? I wish I hadn't." 

Kaye Mentley
Financial Peace University


And no, she wasn't talking about you-know-who! 






Kaye Mentley and her husband, Marc, talk about Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University" in a video uploaded to Vimeo roughly two years ago by Bay Pointe Community Church. Ramsey's message is quite simple: avoid debt at all costs. His entire message revolves around escaping debt in all forms, including credit card debt, auto loans, home loans...and charter school board loans. 

Well, Dave Ramsey doesn't include that in his list of prohibitions, but he says if you can't afford to buy it, you shouldn't be buying it. Ramsey claims to present "a biblically-based curriculum that teaches people how to hand money God's ways".

The problem is that when it comes to investing, God would seem to be something of a financial illiterate.

But, hell, that didn't stop optometrist Steven Ingersoll from fancying himself as an education mogul, with the IVL and the Icon Curriculum Mapping. People bought into that stuff, too!

Watch the video here (hurry, before someone from Bay Pointe takes it down!) and, if you're just too lazy to click, you can read the video's transcript:

Kaye Mentley: One of the things that stops people from coming to a class is the embarrassment of the financial situation they’re in. We all have debt that we thought, why on earth did I do this? I wish I hadn’t. Or we’ve all not opened out bills because we’re afraid to look at them.

Marc Mentley: We can see the – we visually can measure the change in their lives during the course of the program: how people manage their lives, how they kind of got a grip of reality, how they improve the relationship they had with their spouse, with their family.

KM: What’s troubling you with your money right now, and what would you really like? What would just feel great to you in relation to your finances?

And people write on the board things like no longer fighting about money, knowing I have enough to pay my bills when they come in, being able to tithe regularly rather than just intermittently, knowing I can help finance my child’s education, feeling like I am building something for retirement...so I won’t have to work until I’m 85 years old.

They all write these on the board, and then during the class we’ll do little check-ups and say how are you doing on accomplishing those things? 

And it’s amazing. I would say almost 100 percent of the people say feel that they’re really made progress getting closer to that picture of what they want with their finances. 

They’re not fighting anymore, they can have these discussions about what their spending and they’re calm discussions and they’re productive, instead of ones where they both kind of stomp into another room and sulk for a while.

MM: The elimination of debt is such a small part of FPU. It’s ultimately about how to build wealth, how to enjoy wealth, and learn the joy that comes from giving to other people and other causes. And you can’t do that until you are out of debt.

KM: And that is such a blessing to be able to give to others. Sometimes when we’re under the gun of not able to pay our debts, you can’t even fathom what it would be like to be able to give to someone. 

And it can be the smallest thing, like paying for coffee for someone behind you and not telling them, or it can be larger gifts. And there’s no greater blessing than to be able to identify a need, and then have the resources through good stewardship to help meet that need if you believe that’s what God is leading you to do.

There’s some power in coming together with people who’ve all said we’ve made some mistakes, but this is where we are right now. We’re sick of fighting about it, we don’t like the impact – negatively – that it’s having on our lives, and we want to do something different.

2 comments:

  1. Some people are wondering where God is leading Kaye Mentley as far as divulging all the behind-the-scenes financial aerobics at the Grand Traverse Academy? Maybe she can 'identify a need', like helping Ingersoll with his current financial situation? Maybe a prayer for him going something like: "Forgive him his debts ($3.5 MILLION to the GTA, not to mention millions of other dollars for scams) as he continues to pillage the taxpayers and laugh all the way to the bank. And lead him not into the prison cell (or least don't let him stay there too long). Amen.

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  2. did you hear her say to be able to pay for your child's education? do they have kids? GTA not good enough? And how about her husband sitting next to her what kind of man is he?she will have to live with this the rest of her life if she does not come forward what aawful sentencing.

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