First I want to say that we do appreciate the fact that others are curious about how we deal with finances, and we actually enjoy being able to answer questions about how we conduct our affairs... providing the questions are being asked with a genuine interest in understanding what it is that we actually stand for. Unfortunately, some people are aggressive in their approach, determined only to establish that our claims about trusting God for our provisions are false and unrealistic. Such people are often unwilling to listen to detailed explanations, because they want only to prove that money (and not God) meets our needs. "So where did you get those shoes that you are wearing? And who paid for that computer you are using?" they ask. And they often demand that we give one or two word answers to their questions, thus enabling them to use our answers to further "prove" their case against us, while never really listening to the facts.
Our tendency, when forced to give short answers, is to stubbornly say that GOD is the one who supplies all our needs (which, of course, angers them even more). Yeah, sure, somewhere along the line someone used money, but the money in itself did not create anything, and it only exists because of the human race's overall distrust for one another. What our lifestyle aims to do is to point people back to the Creator as the source of all true wealth, and to love as the answer to the world's problems. Along with that, we teach that the love of money is the root of all evil. These are important parts of our message, and we have about as little patience for people who refuse to take these points into consideration as what they have for us.
The practical way in which God has met our needs most often has been that we have asked people for help and they have given it. But even here there are some radical differences between our ideas about asking and those of the average person.
For example, although we usually ask people to donate "a few cents" to help with the cost of printing the tens of thousands of dollars worth of literature that we produce each year, our teaching and belief is that we should give the literature away for free if that will result in more people reading it. It was only when we discovered that people tend to throw away anything that is given to them for free that we started asking them to donate something (even if it is the smallest coin in the country where we are operating) as a token of their genuine interest in reading what we have to say. We have occasionally found situations where people would read something even if it is provided for free (e.g. on trains in Australia and India) and we have given out hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature for free on those occasions. (We no longer do this, however, because there were complaints by railway authorities that this was leading to increased litter problems, and we were forced to stop.)
So, while the short answer in some people's minds might be that we "sell" literature, and live off the profits, it really does misrepresent what actually happens, both out there on the streets, and within our own thinking and personal experience.
In keeping with this, we have often commented on the fact that our newsletter religiously refrains from asking people for financial support. Unlike most charities, which are always telling people that if they don't send support soon, something disastrous is going to happen, we generally boast of having "too much" money to be able to spend it responsibly. In our long history, we could count on one hand the number of times that we have appealed to people outside our community to help with projects that we have undertaken.
Perhaps I should take the time to explain some things about the choice of projects that we undertake, and especially about how they relate to our more "evangelical" emphasis.
Our "gospel" differs from that usually associated with missionary work. We are not offering a simplistic formula for salvation, nor are we presenting membership in an organisation as the solution to one's problems. On the other hand, we do see the answers to the world's problems in the teachings of Jesus, as found in the Bible.
Jesus taught about a world where everyone seeks first to love God and to love others, and where people do not worry about material needs. He called it the kingdom of heaven. The Bible says that he went around telling people that the kingdom of heaven was "at hand". It further says that he SHOWED the world this kingdom through the lifestyle that he shared with his followers. (Luke 8:1)
We believe that there is life after death, that Christ died for our sins, and that God wants people to serve him; but we also believe that "living by faith" as presented in the life and teachings of Jesus is crucial to our understanding of all of this.
So when we come to a very different country or situation, we try to stay open to ideas about how we can most effectively communicate what it is that we stand for. There is a saying: "It all depends on where you live, and what you have to build with." Each situation presents new challenges (the differing languages and culture if nothing else), and these challenges will be met differently, according to what resources and skills we personally possess in each situation.
There are immediate and life-threatening needs in many places, like those of the many orphans created by the AIDS epidemic in Africa. There are broader needs for everything from education to adequate clean water and better farming techniques for the general population of poorer areas of the world. And then there is the greater spiritual need of a life that is wholly yielded to the leadings of God's Spirit.
We ourselves represent a handful of people who have committed ourselves to doing what we can to make a better world. If we could motivate others to do something similar, then together we would be able to help many more people. So some sort of recruitment campaign continues to be one part of our overall vision (although we realise that conversions to our lifestyle will always be quite rare). So we see a need to keep promoting the theory along with our own efforts to live the theory out through practical assistance to others.
