Shaun who is in charge of maintenance just told me if he wins the lottery he’ll bring in donuts for the staff the next day…believe you me I’ll hold him to it. Winning the lottery would be overwhelming, God knows the money would give me plenty of margin, but after paying off all debt and putting away enough to save (whatever that is), you would basically have to give away the rest. And even so who would you give all that money to, and how would they handle it?
For me I would want to give the money to my church because of the vision we have, but even so winning the Mega Millions or Power Ball would mean an insane amount of money.
But the real question for me isn’t who do I give to but how much would I hold on to? It would make sense to pay off the mortgage, loans, etc. and you would want to put away some savings for emergency funds, and to pay for kids college tuition, but then what?
When it comes to winning the lottery I think of Luke 16:10-11 Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?
The question of what we would do if we win the lottery is insane to answer, especially if we don’t have our finances sorted out. I think this passage is essential for student ministry because teens don’t make a lot of money but if they aren’t wise with what they have now, they won’t when they are older. It’s also part of our responsibility as youth workers to make sure that they are aware of that. For some reason money is just one of those topics a lot of student ministries won’t touch.