Thursday, December 3, 2015

Roosevelt Community Church Interview with Marc Giannone, Financial Planner at Eaton Cambridge Inc. October 2015

As promised, this is the transcript discussed in Tuesday's post. The video with follow shortly . . .

-------------

My name is Marc Giannone and I’m a financial planner.


What do you do? Describe your work.

So I get to work with people on making good decisions with their money. So sometimes that means preparing to get ready for retirement and making sure that not only they can retire, but they can stay retired over the next 30 years. Sometimes that means I come into the office and I’m talking with a couple who just got married and need to make sure that if something happens to one of them that the other is not destitute for the rest of their life. And then sometimes it means somebody got an inheritance and needs to make a decision on how best to manage that money they have received. So day to day it looks a whole lot different but I think the theme running through all it means I get to help people make good decisions with what they have been entrusted with.

How did you choose your profession?

I chose my profession just based on what I enjoy and what I feel like I’ve been entrusted with from God. And I think one of those things is just a calming spirit, being able to help people feel comfortable, but then also just an interest in money and budgeting and savings. I remember just even growing up, my brothers had baseball card collections; I had dollar bill collections. I had these little baseball card sheets and I just filled them with dollar bills. I don’t know why, but since I was a little kid, I’ve always just had a general interest in money.

How does your work help you see aspects of brokenness in the world?

As a financial planner, you tend to be your client’s pastor, banker, confidante all wrapped up into one. And so you hear things that you probably didn’t want to hear, didn’t think you would hear, would rather not hear. And so you get to see brokenness in all different ways. So a recent example of that would be, I was sitting having a conversation with a friend at my desk and got a phone call. I picked up the call and it was a client who just found out he was going through a divorce. So we spent 20 minutes talking about what that meant for him and how unfortunate it was. But all of a sudden it’s not a financial discussion that we are having. It’s a discussion about something very, very emotional and through emotions you see a lot of different brokenness. It’s just part of every day of what we do.

How does your work give you opportunities to love and serve others?

In what we do with our clients, we are able to really just help them think through the next 30, 40, 50 years and making sure they are not going to be dependent upon someone else. Now there are times when you want to be dependent on someone else and that’s a good thing and that’s biblical but at the same time, you don’t want to have to put the burden on your kids if that’s not absolutely necessary. You want to remain independent at least to a certain extent. And then not only remain independent but leave a legacy.  So it’s a great way to leave a legacy if you are able to support a ministry when you pass, or leave your kids an inheritance that’s appropriate for them. So allowing a client to not only to live in dignity but then die with dignity is a way that we are really able to serve them well.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to become a financial planner?

For someone who is thinking about becoming a financial planner, I think going into it, know that you are a business owner. That you’re not just going to go in and help people make budgeting decisions and help them determine the best way to invest their money. That’s part of it, but that’s probably the smallest part of what you do. The biggest part of what you do is build a business. And then once you’ve built that business and you’re building that business, what you do with clients is way, way more about relationship and consulting and counseling than it is running spreadsheets. And that’s a reality that I think most people getting into financial planning don’t understand until a couple years down the road and they think “This isn’t what I signed up for.”

How can business owners impact communities and the world?

As a business owner, you get a lot of flexibility with your schedule. So if that means you want to volunteer at your church or you want to be involved in someone else‘s life you have that flexibility that you can decide to do that. That’s really nice. One of the other things that we get to do is provide people with jobs. So as an entrepreneur as a  business owner, you get to transform someone’s life by giving them a paycheck, which is an honor; it’s a big responsibility but it’s really neat to be able to do that. I think there’s a huge impact on someone’s life from that perspective.

The other great thing about being an entrepreneur is you can participate in the profits of the company. So oftentimes that means that you can give and you can support things that you’re passionate about. Sometimes it doesn’t mean that; sometimes it means that is no profit to give so you’ve got to be a good steward to what the Lord has entrusted you with.  But oftentimes, profits enable you to do giving. So that’s really neat.

Another thing we get to do as an owner of a business is that we get to call the shots about how we are going to have discussions with clients. And we don’t have to be afraid about bringing up our faith. So with a lot of our clients we open up the meeting in prayer. Or we get to tell them, “Hey, you’re going through this tough time; we’ll be praying for you.” And when you are in a setting when you’re not the boss, where you’re not business owner there are policies in place to make sure that you don’t do that. And so that’s a great bonus about being a business owner.



Tuesday, December 1, 2015

How Does Your Work Matter to God? By Ginger Korljan and VILC Representatives

During this past year, members of Roosevelt participated in a Vocational Infusion Learning Community (VILC), along with others from more than ten churches across the nation. During each meeting, we received training from pastors, authors, and scholars who shared with us Biblical truths about how our entire lives, particularly our work, are good things that have been given to us by God. Being a Christian is much more than developing a personal relationship with God and going to church on Sundays—God wants us to consider all of life to be all for Jesus. This is the message we want to share with you.

Prior to our meetings, we read from these books below (and more) to help us develop a richer theology of work, with the goal of bringing our lessons learned to all people at Roosevelt Community Church, to our community, and to the world around us.

Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work, Tom Nelson
Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good, Amy Sherman
Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, Tim Keller
Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, Steven Garber
The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission, Christopher J. H. Wright

One of our community groups recently went through a seven-week video series entitled, “Our Great Exchange: Your Life, His Gifts, Our Purpose.” If you’d like your group to get involved with this, contact Marc Giannone at marc@eatoncambridge.com.

If you’d like to learn more, we encourage you to read these books yourselves and view the video blogs on our website (you can view the first one on Thursday (the link will be posted here). with many more to come… (Might you be one of them we ask to interview?). We have copies of the books available for you to borrow or you can purchase copies of your own. Also, when you go to work, whether in a “secular” workplace, raising children, or volunteering, dedicate your work and your life to the Lord who made you and gave you work to do.

Read God’s initial mandate to the “first family,” Adam and Eve, when he created them and placed them in the Garden of Eden. Notice that work was created before the fall, not after, so work should be considered a blessing, not a curse.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” … And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Genesis 1: 27-28, 31

We pray that you will embrace your work with a new perspective; consider Monday a gift from God, and give your work to Him. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. Colossians 3:23

Your Roosevelt VILC representatives

Vermon Pierre
Ginger Korljan
Bob Korljan
Marc Giannone
Megan Rose
Cliff David

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Thanksgiving: History & Myth (from November 22, 2015, UTR #46): a reflection on Urban Theologian Radio by Jennifer Bell

We have so many rituals, expectations, and illusions surrounding the holidays, don’t we? If we’re not talking turkey, we’re talking the Mayflower. Thanksgiving is actually pretty awesome for this reason, this fascinating aspect of being human: we love that repetition, that tradition, the story. We are storytellers, and we incorporate props into our tales. The props may vary. The construction paper turkeys made from the handprints of our children, the stuffing prepared “just so,” the dining room table itself. (When we violate the dictates of the narrative, the people freak: I’m thinking how my mom still hasn’t gotten over the time I ordered my whole meal from a BBQ joint instead of cooking it myself like a good wife and mother. I’m thinking about how when I lived in Manhattan, I went out for Chinese on Broadway with a friend—and the friend seriously asked our poor waiter, “Are there seconds?”) Our stories, real or imagined, are important to us.

But, really, it’s the psychology of story, the need for story: it’s how we make sense of things. Stories speak to our need for meaning. This is my all-time favorite essay on the human need for story, which ultimately harks back to our Thanksgiving celebrations. Read it. I love it every time I look at it. (I seriously do. Required reading for all writers.)

Thanksgiving is a great time to gather, to give thanks, to load up on cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes; these are good things. But we are really there for the story. Note and note hard: story is intrinsically, significantly, forever bonded with, history. History is story. A true story. We need to revel in, guard it, think on it. When we gather around the table at Thanksgiving, aren’t we ultimately saying, “This is our story”? We are celebrating our story.

This episode of Urban Theologian radio centers on an important, more basic question: What is a Christian view of history? Dr. Robert Tracy McKenzie, author of The First Thanksgiving: The Real Story & What It Can Teach Us and History Department Chair at Wheaton College, was the guest. His blog, which focuses on Christianity and history, sounds great to me. Like something to regularly read . . .

I would encourage you to listen to the show and read more on the topic. In answer to the above question, Dr. McKenzie notes a few principles: God has created us to live as historical beings, we live in historical contexts, God is the Lord of history, history is a kind of revelation, we can draw lessons from the past, and we can see the present more clearly.

The episode moves on to discuss the first Thanksgiving, which is clearly history and story. Suddenly, it’s not all about turkey anymore—not when one is thinking about a Christian perspective. I found some of the details very interesting. How had I missed the part where the pilgrims spent twelve years in Holland before coming to North America?

How, then, should churches be more historically aware? We might understand that we are, by definition, historians! (I would add storytellers.) There’s an “intentional forgetting” of the past that seems to accompany the secularizations of cultures—and the church should actively resist this. Claim history! This is a great episode to get one thinking about our understanding of history, of ritual, of myth. I’d use it as a way launch further study on history, on story, on our need for meaning. While revisionist history is anathema to many of us, our failure to grasp history might be just as bad. This must be part of dominion, right?

Happy Thanksgiving!



Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Two Poems by Rikki Willis

James 4:13-17
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.


Oceanside
The oceans remind me
That I am not in control.
Its vast and limitless and strong.
No one but God can tame it.
It's lovely and scary.
The sound of it is calming.

I am not in control.
Its beauty can be unspeakable.
I am overcome
Watching the sun disappear into it...
Overwhelming.






Loneliness can happen in the middle of a full room! I have been an island of one. Fighting a silent battle. Angry!

But God…

God sends peace.
God sends hope.
God sends love.
Through His people.

In my silence and distance I have observed that more people are flawed. I can’t handle it. I want to confront everyone that I find to be out of sync with God’s will.

But I am out of sync. Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9) … I want to yell, fight, scream, say all the bad words with STRONG CONVICTION!

I am out of sync … and no one really cares! Loneliness.

My heart in the wrong place. I am broken. I am questioning myself and not trusting God. I am not being content, not thinking about God, and surely not loving His people.

But God …

God sends peace.
God sends hope.
God sends love.
Through His people.

I ignore them. I don’t like them. I am tired of their fake, pretending to care, “hi” on Sunday but not really concerned on Tuesday, I am so wrapped up in my own business. Impersonal. I am going to send you a text message instead of calling, I mean real calling, showing up to someone’s house to dig into their life, invade their space. Love them.

I have been out of sync … Yesterday morning God sent me great peace through His people via email (didn’t I just talk about invading people's space). I have been out of sync and in the wrong… I must apologize (repent) to a few for my action. (This reminds me of something I wrote a few years ago.)

But I have been out of sync… LIFE IS NOT ABOUT ME AND IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!
Life is about GOD! God is holy. God is righteous. God is the great I AM!
I am just a vapor and shall get back to the Lord’s business.