Full Faith and Credit

Call it stewardship, prudence or just plain common sense—religion publishers are offering faith-based advice for coping with the current economic crisis. Much of that advice, in fact, varies little from what Christian financial authors have been preaching for decades: if you follow the money management principles found in the Bible, you will be protected during times of economic downturn.

The financial gurus have preached 'budget, invest, plan' for years, and most people know they should, but they haven't,” says Harvest House editor Paul Gossard. “Now the downturn is motivating some to get their house in order.” Publishers and authors alike say their books are needed now more than ever, because their target audience is finally ready to listen and take action.

“People want to know where the economy is going,” Matt Bell, author of Matt Bell's Money Strategies for Tough Times (NavPress, Apr.), tells PW. “But no one can predict the future. The best we can do is to practice the foundational biblical principles of money. Be generous. Save a portion of all you receive. Avoid becoming enslaved to lenders. Use a plan to guide your spending—yes, a budget. And practice gratitude and contentment.”

That “back to the basics” perspective characterizes other financial titles releasing this spring. Most of these faith-based books zero in on the immediate problem: helping people get out of the mess they're in and avoid a similar mess in the future. One exception is Pat Robertson's Right on the Money: Financial Advice for Tough Times (FaithWords, May), in which the CBN founder gets into the nitty-gritty of credit, mutual funds, wealth and risk, precious metals, mortgages and retirement strategies.

Keeping It Simple—and Spiritual

Several familiar names appear on the covers of recent releases: Jonni McCoy, author of Miserly Moms: Living Well on Less in a Tough Economy (4th edition, Bethany House, Apr.), and Ron Blue, who teamed up with Jeremy White to write Surviving Financial Meltdown: Confident Decisions in an Uncertain World (Tyndale, Jan.). Both books pare down financial advice to a few simple guidelines.

McCoy's “Eleven Miserly Guidelines” are designed to help stay-at-home moms live on one income in a two-income, consumer-oriented society. Each guideline (“buy in bulk,” “make your own,” “waste nothing”) gets its own chapter along with an abundance of practical steps readers can take immediately. Blue has whittled his financial plan down to four guiding principles: think long-term; spend less than you earn; maintain an emergency fund; and keep debt to a minimum.

“These basic tenets will take people through good times and bad times,” says Tyndale acquisition editor Linda Howard. “They're very commonsense principles. If people would follow these day-to-day, our finances and economy would be in much better shape.”

Tyndale's belief in the message in Surviving Financial Meltdown resulted in a special promotion called “Campaign Financial Aid,” through which CBA retailers had the option of not only selling the $12.99 paperback at a reduced price of $7.97 but also offering deeper discounts and the occasional free copy to financially strapped customers. The campaign was scheduled to end on April 15, but it's been so successful that the book will be offered at the reduced price through the end of the summer, according to Jennifer Muntz, marketing manager for Tyndale's copublishing arrangement with Focus on the Family.

In researching his book, Bell discovered an unexpected component of a sound financial strategy: community. When he asked the head of benevolence at a large church why people came to his ministry for help, Bell anticipated he'd hear reasons like unemployment or medical expenses. “But he surprised me by saying 'lack of community'—a lot of the people have been doing life all alone. They lacked people in their life who could provide emotional and spiritual support, help them network for job opportunities and stop them from making mistakes.”

And of course, there's the element of prayer, which Barbara Bartocci handles in Grace on the Go: Powerful Prayers to Ease Money Worries (Morehouse, Apr.). The 4"×6" format adds to the portability of this compilation of brief stories and simple, on-the-go prayers.

And while readers are focusing on simplifying their finances, several authors would like to expand that focus to simplifying their lives. Two financial titles from Abingdon do just that. Adam Hamilton's Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity (Feb.) addresses the fears about the economy that Hamilton, a Kansas pastor, sensed among his own congregation, while Mike Slaughter's Upside Living in a Downside Economy (June) chronicles the sacrificial giving on the part of Slaughter's congregation in an economically depressed area of Ohio.

Learning from Experience

In Learning to Live Financially Free (Kregel, Feb.), Curt and Marybeth Whalen expose their financial mistakes for everyone to see. The parents of six children, the Whalens changed their lifestyle dramatically and paid off $95,000 in debt over a four-year period—on one income.

Many women at a recent Whalen publicity event fought back tears as they described their circumstances. “They weren't just looking for practical help,” Curt Whalen tells PW. “They felt overwhelmed, hopeless and scared. People are beginning to realize that we have to live on what we make. Cleaning up our mess will be painful, but the result will be a country that's stronger because of it.”

The Whalens advise people to live on a budget, get out of debt and give to others. “That might sound like strange advice to give to people who are in debt up to their eyeballs, but learning to give helped me understand the true purpose of money,” Curt says. “The joy of giving a single mom a gift card to Wal-Mart to help her feed her kids lasts a lifetime. Those kinds of experiences helped transform our minds, changed our behaviors and motivated us to get out of debt as quickly as possible.”

For Marybeth Whalen, being transparent about their mistakes has helped unlock the shame many people keep inside. “We wanted to not tell people from a lofty position what they should do but instead tell them the dumb things we did and what we learned,” she says. Their book offers hope and encouragement, she said, as well as providing information that those struggling with debt and money management could use.

But Do These Books Have Legs?

The big question for publishers is whether all these books on the economic crisis will continue to sell once the initial shock of the downturn has worn off.

“As long as the economy is bad enough to produce real financial suffering, the titles will be relevant and desirable,” says Barb Sherrill, Harvest House v-p of marketing. “But I also think we are going to see a long-term shift in attitudes and practices concerning money, personal finances and life priorities, and that will help drive the market for these kinds of books for some time to come.”

Harvest House expects two of its titles to remain relevant during that long-term shift: Making the Most of Your Money in Tough Times by Kerby Anderson (July) and Financial Survival in Uncertain Times by Deborah Smith Pegues (Jan.). Anderson's book, which provides a basic overview of household money issues, was in the planning stages before the severe downturn began last year. “It doesn't pretend to be a 'solve the crisis' book,” says editor Gossard. “We believe it's a strength that it doesn't focus specifically on the current problems, though of course it takes account of them.”

Pegues's book, by contrast, was written specifically in response to the crisis. “The information needed to get into people's hands quickly, in light of all that was going on,” Sherrill says. The result is a book that offers “sound, practical advice in a simple, straightforward format.”

And that, says Tyndale's Muntz, is the hallmark of books that will outlast the crisis—books like Blue's Surviving Financial Meltdown that look past the current downturn and offer a biblical perspective on finance, whether in “calm or crisis.”