Money, Athletics and Jobs
Ok as many of you know, I'm a huge fan of Arkansas State University football. What you also might not know is that I'm also a Saint Louis Cardinals fan. Recently both programs had some personell decisions to make.
Saint Louis was working on a contract with Albert Pujols, who is arguably the best player in all of baseball. Pujols has been with the Cardinals for the entirety of his professional baseball career. In 2000 he was in the Cardinals farm system and in 2001 he began starting for the major league team. In negotiations, Albert was looking for a 10-year contract in the range of $19 to $20 million per year. Through the mess of it all, the Cardinals made a final offer of around $200 million over 10 years only to be surpassed by an offer from the Los Angeles Angels for around $250 million over 10 years. Albert ends up signing an agreement with the Angels and leaves the team he has been with for 10 years.
Arkansas State was looking for a new head coach after the previous coach left for a job at the University of Mississippi. There was an intense search, but one night the athletic director, Dean Lee, received a call from Gus Malzahn. Malzahn was the offensive coordinator for Auburn University. The previous year, Auburn had won the National Championship in college football and their quarterback, Cam Newton, had won the Heisman Trophey. Gus was one of the most desired applicants for any open coaching position. It was reported that he turned down a head coaching job offer at Vanderbilt for $3 million per year in late 2010. He could have had most any job with just a phone call, and that phone call was to Dean Lee. It was reported that Malzahn was making approximately $1.1 million at Auburn and was the highest paid coordinator in all of college football. He would sign a contract to become the head coach of Arkansas State University for a base salary of $156,000 plus a series of perks that would be estimated to an annual salary of $750,000 to $800,000 per year.
Now I'm not sure of all the details surrounding the separate deals, but in my mind I see two examples of responses to money that are opposed. One in which money was given priority and one wasn't. Now there's a lot to be said about that, but I would just encourage everyone not to let money be your ultimate reason for making a decision. I've worked for three different companies since I've graduated and I can tell you that money and joy do not correlate.
Buffett
So I was watching Warren Buffett on an internet video. In case you didn't know, he's loaded. And accordingly folks want to envy him and give him all the social acclaim that comes with money. And I admit that my ears perk up anytime I hear news of WB. But what's interesting to me of late is that he's been on this whole philanthropy kick. Recently he, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates got together to challenge some billionaires to give a way half to all of their fortunes.
What's interesting to me about all this is that it causes me to challenge the way I view money, it's role and relationship with society, people and Christianity. I'm not saying that Buffett is or isn't a super Christian, but it's causing me to think about how I view money and what does it mean.
I believe in giving of your money, time, talents, etc to God and others. That can come in many forms, but I'm a simple person raised from childhood in the church. So I can easily translate that into, "Give the church 10% of my income." Which that philosophy has good scriptural backing, but I do believe it's an overly simple way of looking at this issue of giving.
Now if you think I'm going to go on about giving your time and talents you're right. And if you think I'm going to down play the significance of giving money, you're wrong. Give time, talents, love and all that stuff. But I want to harp for a second on money.
From what I hear, the younger generation is pretty crappy about giving money. So we need to get on the ball here. I'm not saying 10% to your local church, but I am saying a predetermined amount to "Jesus-work". (Do you like how I just made up a word there?) It's really hard for me to go to Southeast Asia every month to love people, but I can contribute every month to Jesus-work in Southeast Asia. And maybe 5 years down the road I can go there. I can't spend 50-60 hours a week being a discipleship minister in downtown Little Rock, but I can give a portion of my income to help Betsy do that. So let me challenge you to set a predetermined amount, percentage, figure to give and find one, two, three organizations to give to and do it.
Now we all need to give of our time and talents. So just be sure you're doing that. Maybe that can take the form of scheduling a time to give blood. Maybe you use your professional skills in a non-profit way like tutoring or volunteering at a non-profit. Or maybe we just take time to visit with someone who needs some social recognition and attention.
So in conclusion... Give in all aspects.
The End
JEE