How Debt and Distraction Undermine Faithful Ministry

In May 2025, I was ordained an elder in the Global Methodist Church. Each clergyperson ordained in a Methodist denomination has to answer 19 historical questions asked by bishops going back to the time of John Wesley (the founder of the Methodist movement). I thought I might share my responses to these questions in hopes of sharing a bit more about myself and about Methodism. This is the eighteenth and nineteenth of the 19 questions. I hope it blesses you!

To read my other responses to the questions, check them out here:

Have you faith in Christ?
Are you going on to perfection?
Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?
Are you earnestly striving after perfection in love?
Are you resolved to devote yourself wholly to God and to God’s work?
Do you know the General Rules of our Church?
Will you keep the General Rules of our Church?
Have you studied the doctrines of the Global Methodist Church?
After full consideration do you believe that our doctrines are in harmony with the Holy Scriptures?
Have you studied our form of church discipline and polity?
Do you approve our church government and polity?
Will you support and maintain them?
Will you exercise the ministry of compassion?
Will you diligently instruct the children in every place?
Will you visit from house to house?
Will you recommend fasting or abstinence, both by precept and example?
Are you determined to employ all your time in the work of God?
Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work?
Will you observe the following directions?
(a) Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away time; neither spend any more time at any one place than is strictly necessary.
(b) Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. And do not mend our rules, but keep them; not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.

18. Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work?

With his father being in and out of debtors’ prison throughout his life, John Wesley would have known the literal chains that debt can put someone in. Thankfully, in the United States, we don’t have debtors’ prisons, but the chains of debt still bind way too many people to ways of life that God doesn’t call them to. By the grace of God through my parents’ and in-laws’ wisdom in teaching Haley and I about money, and through the kindness of donors to scholarships I have received, I am not in debt so as to embarrass me in my work. The only debt we carry is our manageable mortgage, which is under the recommendation of many financial experts to keep mortgage payments under 28% of your gross income.

Both Haley and I have been incredibly blessed by scholarships given by the Stegall Seminary Scholarship Foundation, the Asbury Seminary Foundation, the University of Alabama, and Asbury Theological Seminary, all of which helped us to not take on any student loans. We have always lived beneath our means and have not taken on car loans or credit card debt. One of the bedrocks of our approach to financial stewardship is tithing. In recent years, we’ve been seeking to grow beyond the 10% tithe to the church and begin giving above to charitable organizations who are doing the work of God in the world.

I believe that true freedom is one of the gifts God wants to give each and every person on earth. Because of that, I have sought to have conversations about money with people in the church who could benefit from it, including discussing finances in premarital counseling sessions and teaching a high school financial class at church. If it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1), I want to model and teach that to those I get to serve with.

How Debt and Distraction Undermine Faithful Ministry

19. Will you observe the following directions?

(a) Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away time; neither spend any more time at any one place than is strictly necessary.

(b) Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. And do not mend our rules, but keep them; not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.

I will observe the directions to be diligent and to be punctual because I trust God and I believe in the Global Methodist Church.

The bedrock of my commitment to never be unemployed or triflingly employed, to never trifle away time, and to spend only the amount of time necessary in one place is the belief that God has called me to an important task; too important to choose to waste my time. I trust that God has called and equipped me for the calling of pastoral ministry and the calling to serve the people I serve. Because of that trust, I will spend my time in diligence for the Kingdom of God.

I will observe punctuality, do everything exactly at the time, and leave rules un-mended because I believe that the Global Methodist Church is a vehicle God is using to bring awakening to our world in this specific time and place. Growing up in the United Methodist Church for 27 years, it was hard to watch so much time, energy, and money be spent on an internal division all because of a constituency that did not want to keep the rules they had agreed to. It was hard to watch General Conferences get postponed and delayed, an example of a lack of punctuality that deepened division within the denomination. Now, as an ordained deacon in hopes of being an ordained elder in the Global Methodist Church, I believe that being diligent and punctual will be basic steps towards fulfilling God’s calling on my life.

Thanks for reading! I write about faith, family, and where I see God’s reviving Spirit at work in the world, all with a Wesleyan accent. If you’re interested in getting my blog posts sent to your email each time I post a new blog, enter your email below!

To learn more about me, click here. Or, to get in touch, click here.

Also, to read my book review of GMC Bishop Carolyn Moore’s book The 19: Questions to Kindle a Wesleyan Spirit, check it out here.

To check out some of my latest blog posts, check them out below!