The Cru MPD Podcast

Ep. 27 : Faith and Finance With Dawn Little

March 08, 2022 Katie Johnson & Michele Davis Season 3 Episode 27
The Cru MPD Podcast
Ep. 27 : Faith and Finance With Dawn Little
Show Notes Transcript

Join Michele and Katie as they talk with Dawn Little about the all new Faith and Finance course. Dawn shares the vision of Faith and Finance course, a little look into what it is, and all things stewardship. 

Katie Johnson:

Welcome to the Cru MPD podcast with Katie Johnson and Michele Davis. We love that the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. We are driven to equip and inspire Christian workers to be Christ centered, fully funded and financially faithful, so that missionary staff can come alongside all people to help them to know Jesus. This process is more widely known as ministry partner development, or MPD for short.

Michele Davis:

Hey, guys, we are Katie and I here... so excited to talk to our friend Dawn Little. Hi, Dawn.

Dawn Little:

Hey, good to be with you guys.

Michele Davis:

Thanks. I'm so glad you're here. Dawn is here today to fill us in. She represents. She's part of our stewardship team. That is like included in our MPD family part of the stewardship section of that, and has done a lot of work on a new curriculum called the online faith and finance course. And Dawn, thank you for joining us to give us all the scoop on that. (Definitely.) Yeah. I would love though, to first hear just more about you and about your staff journey, like introduce yourself to us.

Dawn Little:

Sure. So I'm married to Indy. And we have two lovely daughters. Heidi is 10. And Tessa is eight. And we have seven chickens. We live in Florida, we serve at the headquarters and we got here from well, my husband was on staff in Minnesota. And while I was on staff ICS or international campus staff with in Venezuela and then Mexico, and then we met at IBS. In Colorado. So yes, after we got married, we were in Minnesota together. And then, so yeah, we were we were always with the campus ministry until we came to Lake Hart, we did like her. And I got to continue with campus ministry through summer mission. So it was one of the national coordinators for a number of years. And then my husband is now with the Jesus Film with HR there. Yeah, we're both really content to be on staff with Cru.

Michele Davis:

I love that. I'm, I'm picturing how much of an actual weather shock it must have been to go from living in Mexico and South America and moving to sweet Minnesota with all the snow.

Dawn Little:

Oh, yes. A shock in many ways. Not (Oh, oh, yeah, I'm sure.) Right. I'm from Connecticut. So even just being in the Midwest was a different, different cultural experience.

Michele Davis:

Oh, yeah. I would imagine so. East coast. And, and that's what like Minnesota is like so quintessential, like, the heart of the Midwest kind of different. Yeah, that's different for sure. So, so you have been working with stewardship. I think just for... time is like a little bit elusive in my brain, but it's been a few years. I feel like I remember when you kind of like, popped over here to our corner of the org and started, like being excited about stewardship. Can you fill me in on some of the details? And then also what led you to want to be working with stewardship?

Dawn Little:

Yeah, sure. Yep. So it's been about three years that I've been on the stewardship team. Like I said, I really enjoyed working with summer missions. The vision was so, I mean, it is it's one of the most beautiful things we do in our ministry. But after my second child was born, I just was having a hard time juggling the responsibilities there and had such capable teammates that it was just time for me to move on. And I had met Mark Grissom, who's the National Stewardship Director at the campus office. And he had just mentioned in passing, you know, years before like, hey, you know, I think yeah, after Heidi was born, you know, being a stewardship coach is a great fit for moms, like just consider it and so it kind of popped up during that time and I it was just like, a lot of things coalesced. At the same time. I did not join the stewardship team because oh, I had read all these books, and I was so awesome with money was far from the truth. No, my husband and I wanted to honor Jesus and honor our ministry partners, with the finances that have been entrusted to us and God has been so such a great provider over the years. But just with the focus of ministry, and then my husband's chronic, his challenge with chronic illness with Lyme disease, oh, you know, just Yeah, like that, maintaining our finances. We just did our best. But, you know, we had met with Mark Grissom, and when we were telling him we had 27 staff accounts, like or not staff accounts, savings accounts, like, you know, like, one of them was just for haircuts. He's like, Well, that's interesting. Um, and so we had just made things really complex. And that you can imagine it would lead to arguments. You know, for most people that are married. Like, we know, finances can just be can be a struggle. And so even though Yeah, we had gone through Crown, and Financial Peace University. We just were stuck. So anyway, I thought, Okay, well, I'm gonna stewardship team, we could learn for us, it seems like a good fit as a mom, I want to grow and coaching skills. And then as I just reflected on my story, like, I joined staff before there ever was a Faith and Finance, or before there was this option, stewardship. And so I, I just really wanted to, especially give just a safe space for women, single women who joined with Cru, who were in my shoes, where I was years ago. And then the team is just wonderful, too. I love the coaches. Most Well, there's only a few of us that this is our full time job, all the rest, they have a different role of Cru, and they're just doing side because they really want to just love on staff. It's a very loving team.

Katie Johnson:

I love hearing about your experiences. Um, it sounds like as a single woman and finances, and now the family and finances and different expenses that you may or may not have planned on spending throughout your married life and family life. I think a lot of staff can probably relate to that as as your life changes, right? Your finances change. And so I think, yeah, I think a lot of staff are gonna relate to your story. And just I think it's so cool that you guys do you do create a safe space to talk about something that a lot of people don't love to talk about? So, but it's so important.

Michele Davis:

Yeah. You said a few things that I was curious to hear more about. And one of them was the this is a good job for moms, which I think is true. And I had heard that about MPD coaching, which is why I became an MPD Coach. And also Katie, too, I wonder if maybe the like, it'd be interesting just to like pause here for like the three of us to share some of the like, very practically when people are saying, stewardship coaching or MPD coaching is like a good job for moms. What does that mean? And like, how have we experienced that, but Dawn you start because, because I want to know what I want to know, for you like what that was like.

Dawn Little:

So originally, we were having the Faith and Finances conferences, in person, it was with MPD. And so they were happening a few times a year. And so that meant optional travel, but stewardship coaches, we can choose and just say this works for me, this does not work for me. But at that time, it's just for a few days at a time now that it's on a virtual platform easier. We meet on Zoom, and I can always opt to co facilitate with someone else. And so all the pressures not on me. And so that's been really great. Also one of main, you know, one main gift with a stewardship team is that we can meet with these one on one appointments with people. And so I just, I can homeschool during the day and say I'm available at noon or I'm available when we are finished with math. And yeah

Michele Davis:

yeah, I mean, that was a lot of my experience too with MPD coaching hours that I set working from home even you know, I loved campus ministry for a lot of years. I still love that it happens. And I get stood up a lot less by staff...you guys. I mean, like, it's just, you know, if I'm going to go to the work of finding, like carving out space for my family life to work, it just seemed like I was able to, like hit the ground and see a ton of progress and fruit from coaching staff and helping our staff. And then they would go and do all that complicated work that I know and believe in and love on, you know, go go forth. But the the flexibility, the home life, the stuff like that.

Dawn Little:

Yeah, definitely that fruitfulness, too is such a big part of it. I love having the appointments, that just the coaching aspect is just such a beautiful ministry. Heart change, you know, I do love admin. I do love ops. I like that, too. So it gives that flexibility, right, and the coaching role. There's different roles, different hats we can wear, but to be involved with ministry, that's why we joined staff in the first place. Yeah.

Katie Johnson:

Yeah, I think I think similar to you guys. Like, I literally went into MPD coaching, as I was becoming a mom, because of the flexibility. And I think there's this tension as a mom, at least for me, there was of, I want to keep working. But I also want to spend time with my child at the same time, if that's even possible, and so, this job does create that flexibility, especially since it's virtual, and we were virtual before everything else was virtual. So, um, but especially since it's virtual, I can go in, make a sandwich for my kid, and then come right back and start working again, right. Um, and so there's that flexibility, that it's just so nice to be able to do something significant in ministry, but also invest in your family. At the same time. If you're a mom out there, or anyone who wants to find a new role, (please call us). Or if you don't have a role, if you don't have a role, and you're looking for one, we'd love to talk,

Michele Davis:

Please call us again. Yeah, I think to something I think about as like we say like, these coaching roles are good for moms. But I also think moms are good for those coaching roles because of how we've had to learn how to, in I think you could say all parents too, but you know, learn how to like break things down for people how to like, like, my kids have taught me a lot about how to be a patient listener. And that's made me a better coach. You know, my kids have taught me a lot about oh, man, being a parent, being a parent is like very, what's the word? It...a lot of spiritual growth happens is defining. Yeah, that's the word too. So I when I think about, you know, I mean, I am, I don't want to, like make all these like weird statements or something. But I do think that I've experienced, like, the season of parenthood has made me I think, really equipped for some of the things and the coaching, and the compassion and the patience, and there's different things that yeah, I'm just, I'm thankful for it. I'm thankful for the whole package, the whole journey. So okay, so Dawn we want to hear you talk more about what you just alluded to, to the Online Faith and Finance course like that. Now there is a course that people don't have to travel to go to. And it's like this kind of like more ongoing coaching experience. Just tell us more about that. Tell us in general more about it.

Dawn Little:

Yeah, so just to backtrack, I think it was around maybe 2005, or six is when Faith and Finances was combined. So a stewardship aspect was combined with the MPD Follow Up. And so for about 15 years, a lot of new staff got to have that experience of, you know, stewardship content along side with refining their MPD skills that they needed. And so in 2020, actually not related to COVID but just in a positive restructuring way, so that there can be more focus on MPD during the follow up, time for it. So now and Refresh Retreat, and separate stewardship, which actually is so beautiful, because now instead of being so much in one weekend, yeah, spread out over six weeks. (Mm hmm.) It really allows I think, was to soak in more and more They just have more time to process. So there were, I don't remember maybe about a dozen stewardship coaches. We worked with Abbie Keel on the MPD leadership team, and she's such got such great gifts and education and how to form a curriculum. So we really wrestled through, do we just use another curriculum, there's so many wonderful biblical stewardship curriculums out there. But the more we kept talking, we really came to the conclusion of not replicating something that we've, you know, we didn't want to reinvent the wheel, biblical stewardship principles are biblical stewardship ship principles, no matter where you are in the globe, no matter who you are, but just we wanted to give more of a Cruu specific voice, the nuance that we have no to talk about those Cru specific things. MHA, Ron Blue and Trust Company, Reimbursements, etc. And then like I said, Yeah, to hear the stories, the family stories that we have. So beta test did it last summer 2021. And then this fall was our first virtual full class. So there were about 110, new staff involved with that. And then right now, we're right in the middle, actually halfway through our second virtual. Go around. And there's about about the same amount about 110 new staff going through that right now. Wow.

Michele Davis:

This is, it's so exciting. I think that this is happening. And when you talk about some of the Cru specific themes, I I do just like think that, yeah, there's just like, part of our financial life and budget is different because of raising support, and because of, you know, all those things. And so it is really helpful. It's just really helpful to like have, like trainers and people who like know that world, it can help kind of answer those questions. So thank you guys, for doing that.

Katie Johnson:

I was gonna say, I've always loved the Faith and Finance. When I joined staff, I think it was one of the first years that the finance piece was a part of the follow up conference, it's had a lot of names, so forgive me, during all the different names. Um, and so and, and I remember thinking through all these different financial questions that, you know, what is investing? What does it even mean? What is this? I don't understand this mha? Like, how do taxes work? I don't, you know, retirement, what should I be thinking about? And I think that financial piece of that conference really impacted me and my husband, and even how we still spend money to this day, have, we there are certain ways that we buy things and how we look at debt, and all these different things that was directly influenced by that conference. And so I really appreciate what you guys do. And I'm excited that it's digital now, actually, because I think it'll be much more accessible to people,

Dawn Little:

For sure. And Staff Services does such a great job of training at NSOs. But there's so much people are taking in at the beginning and trying to get their head wrapped around and it just can feel so overwhelming. And so it's beautiful to have faith in finance, you know, a couple months later, slower pace. Okay, now, I've you know, I've seen some growth with MPD. And I'm looking now, what do I do? Okay, now I'm starting to ask the questions. How do I do this medical reimbursement? Or when can I jump into mha? And what does that really mean? I know they said it, but I don't really get it. So creating a place and a time for those further questions. And, and hearing from other people to write helps normal. A lot of our doubts or questions.

Michele Davis:

Yeah. So would you say that? You so you're in second round of this, like, has it been like what you were hoping for, like in terms of like, your main vision for it? And also, like, what are you guys learning along the way as me you really in a piloting phase, you know, which I kind of I kind of love that kind of messiness. I don't know that maybe not everyone does, but yeah, I'm just I guess I'm just curious to hear more about about those things.

Dawn Little:

Yeah, definitely. I mean, you guys can see my smile here. So We're excited for faith and finance right now. Yeah, definitely a lot of experimenting a lot of, you know, building the plane while we're flying in the air and share with each group. It's like, Please, we welcome your feedback, you know, we want to serve you best. And so let us know what's working, what's not. Why, because really, the heart of it is the heart. This is a ministry, even finance is a gift, a very, very powerful gift that we can have as staff, new staff, and I was going to read this quote. So so I'm learning right along with everybody to I'm still new at this, I just, I really jumped into stewardship role like, yeah, when I was 42. And so, as I've been going through, I was really struck by this quote, by Howard Dayton, he said, "If we handle our money properly, according to the principles of Scripture, our fellowship with Christ will grow closer. If we prove unfaithful, however, our fellowship with Him will suffer." And that just captured me because I never really thought oh, stewardship is so about the gospel and Jesus and, and, you know, that's, that's the main part of it is we want to grow closer to Jesus, we want to grow in the Gospel. And so if we can grow in greater contentment, in generosity in order, we can face the shame, the anxieties, the guilt, if we can trust Jesus, in in bold ways that you know, Bill Bright, always said the adventure of giving, right? So I, well, you know, with MPD, it's okay. Holy, Okay, help me out here. Oh, no, no, don't don't help me out, I got to remember this. So MPD is fully funded, and be faithful. And stewardship, that is our rally cry is financial faithfulness, at every age and every stage to be full of faith that God is my provider. Money is not my security. Jesus is so we really want to get at the heart. So we can be faithful. Because God is generous. We're generous things like that. Also, yeah, so we want to be talking about principles about the Bible. So this is a Bible study. That's going pretty well, it's not it's not an in depth Bible study. You know, it's, it's, we're looking at a variety of passages. But just to acknowledge that, you know, here's another quote, more Romans less Rockefeller more Galatians less Gates more philanthropy...

Michele Davis:

I don't know, that's kind of, I really like that.

Dawn Little:

And it comes from this book, joy giving and right before that. He says, you know, global givers are not looking for best practices from the Western world, but for proven principles from the Word of God, Jesus, to talk to us about money, as we study His guidance in Scripture and discern what he wants it to mean for us. Those on the generosity path, find unspeakable joy, freedom and deeper relationships with him. relationship with him. Isn't that beautiful? Yeah, this is not just about money. We do want to talk about the practical things. We want people to feel equipped, not feel but be equipped, quickly and to leave with a solid plan, but the heart of the gospel and scriptural principles. That's what we're really hoping for. And I think it's happening, I really do it is I've seen it each week in our group right now.

Michele Davis:

Cool. So I want to make sure I'm understanding just some of the nuts and bolts that I'd like for you to talk about. So this is over the course of six weeks. And there's small groups that staffer in and they're with a stewardship coach, and they're discussing the Bible and some other tools and resources. And then what else? Is there like homework that people are doing? Like, at the end of it do people have a budget done? Like, what are what are some of those other things like? It's possible a new staff person is listening to this, and we're giving them the lowdown of what they're going to go do in this course. So yeah, tell us a little bit more some of the most specifics.

Dawn Little:

Yep. So like I said, it's six weeks and there is a workbook so we can engage ourselves by writing things down and just kind of pausing reflecting, there's a lot of space to write thoughts and takeaways and just be prayerful, as we're studying through this. But I love how it's not just a workbook, there is a we use. The curriculum is on core, new staff use. And so they're already familiar with it a bit from the pre NSO assignments. And there are videos on there of staff sharing their stories, which Oh, that is what just one of my favorite parts, I love that there's staff so feels very familiar, you know, just like that family feel. And there's quizzes, it's very interactive, there's different scenarios to work through calculators to work through. It's just dynamic. I'm, I love the combination of the workbook, and then the online. And then the discussion group, we meet on Zoom. And so that's a place where there's, you know, between six to nine, other new staff, or sometimes senior staff or sometimes, yep, senior stuff. And it's just a time to bring questions, share those takeaways, this for us to reinforce what we're learning, share the wealth. It's probably stewardship on there. And just connect together. Yeah. And then like you said, at the end, we do hope that people leave the budget, you know, a lot of this is on, it's, you know, it's you get out of it, also what you put into it. Yeah. So we have a one on one stewardship appointment at the end, where people can have a more personalized experience with one or two coaches, about their specific scenarios. Yeah, and we're not we're not CFPs. We're not certified financial professionals. We're not advisors, we are fellow staff who have taken time to invest just our study of the Word. And I just want to come alongside create that safe space.

Michele Davis:

So yeah, can eventually, if someone's...if they're senior staff, and they hear about this course, and like, they want to take the course? Are we going to have tracks for that? Or is that going to be an opportunity at some point?

Dawn Little:

Yes. You know, right now, it's primarily for new staff, because it's, it's part of the onboarding experience for new staff. And so like, if you joined in winter or spring, you are going to come to the October November 8, and finance if you join in summer or fall, you'll come to the February and March 8 and finance so that it's after the introduction courses done, so it doesn't compete with that. Then we do have, we're experimenting with like an alternative. Faith and financial coming up very soon, in April, and May, we'll have one for just kind of a variety of different people. Okay, but you have had some senior staff join. And it's been more word of mouth. So it's not super visible right now. In fact, I'm really excited, in part for this podcast to tell senior staff, you know, I started at 42. So it is open for anyone at any stage. For right now. It's just you'd have to email stewardship at cru dot org to say, put me on the list. And I'd be happy to put you on the list for October or November or whatever's you know, that's the nice thing is now that it will be a regular of the dates all set for the next few years. Anybody can come on whenever join, please. That's the beautiful thing is even, you know, it's not an age thing. With new staff. We have staff joining at all different ages, too. So your staff wouldn't have to think, Oh, well, how can I do that? When I'm 41 year olds know, we have lots and lots of but the group I'm in right now for faith and finances, all different ages, and singles and all different ministries. It's a beautiful variety. It's a cross section of our ministry.

Michele Davis:

That's cool. And I know like you guys have put a lot to this. I want to have you explained it here too. But how have you guys like thought through and work through contextualizing what you offer for different cultures for different generations, different situations, you know, because there isn't like what you just alluded to, you're getting staff from a whole wide variety of backgrounds and stories. And so what are some of the things that you guys have done to create space for that?

Dawn Little:

So as we were putting the curriculum together, we wanted to have staff represented in the stories and the videos in the quotes, staff of all backgrounds. So I love in week one, we have a staff from destino, who talks about shame, and just shares part of his story, you know, because with finances there, there just can be shame in so many different levels. And so anyway, I just love him sharing his story there. And in some of our activities, actually, yeah, thinking about one of the activities, there's a scenario of saving. And just, for example, like in the, in some people for some Latin cultures, just they really want to be giving to their family saving money and giving to their family. And so we have a scenario in there with that. Again, like I said, we would love bipoc staff to continue to give us feedback. Each time, we have offered a discussion group, just for bipoc staff, if that is what they would want. And so it has generally filled up fast, we have about five coaches that can facilitate a bipoc group, we'd love more. So we hope that bipoc staff can have a positive experience, but also be a part of continuing to develop this on a different, you know, slant to we there's such a variety of staff and roles as well. So we also have had both times a group just for women, if they want to have that experience, just you know, whether they're single or soso. Women, we've also are working on how can we serve the staff that are international? Because some different financial aspects there?

Michele Davis:

That's really good.

Dawn Little:

Yeah, so you know, at first, I should kind of run through Week by week. So there's six weeks, the first week is my story. I love that. And that's the discussion group is just sharing, you know, where we're coming from our backgrounds, and it is a variety, all all over the place. I love it. I love God bringing somebody you know of us to serve him from different contexts. So we start there, where am I coming from? Where am I today? What is God doing in my life? Starting off here, the second week is giving. And that's my favorite. I just I love that we just finished yesterday that week, I just have to share I love one staff, his takeaway. He said, I loved the part where reading the article. And it said, where I put my money is where my heart goes. So basically, if I just say, I want my heart to go blank, but I need to get my money there. So we were talking about like, yeah, we want, we have a heart for missions. For our staff we want we want mission. So let us be so generous, and giving. You know, not just for a staff account, but totally ours. But through our through our, you know what God has provided to us, let us be super generous there and our hearts will follow. The third week is saving. Future needs short and long term. Week four is dealing with debt. We want our staff to experience a lot of freedom there. Week five is spending so growing in our wisdom and focusing especially on the spending plan there. And then the last week is called next steps and legacy. And I also love that week because you know we want to leave, we want to have an eternal impact. For those of us that have children, we want to really impact them. We want to leave a legacy with those we disciple we really hope that a lot from this course as well. It can be transferable into soar into lots of different ministry contexts. That yeah, staff can take this and keep sharing it. Keep passing it on.

Michele Davis:

So good. Man, that does sound exciting. I bet there will be a lot of people emailing us stewardship@cru.org To ask if they can get in on the next one because it sounds like really great content. really thoughtful, and a cool opportunity to like, meet some other staff and hear their stories. I think we've all been kind of starving for that the past couple years. Yeah, so that just sounds like, like really cool and really fun.

Dawn Little:

Definitely enter to talk about finances again, for we all come from different places, but in general financial stuff is a lot of people weren't private and not to talk about shame again and again. But like it just, you know, we can we can have that. And I am have that just as confusion in the doubts, and I don't know who to talk to this about. A lot of people have those people in their life. So that's great. But I think it's beautiful to normalize, even talking about finances together as a means of sanctification. And as a way to honor God together.

Michele Davis:

Quite well. Do you have any, any final thoughts or anything that you want to leave our listeners thinking about Don, as, as we wrap up our conversation today, you get to have the last word basically.

Dawn Little:

Sweet. You know, I thought I'd share just one practical story, and then a quote that I love. So this has just been such a change in our family, as the, the heart and the principles have trickled down into practical, and one of the one of the ways that we have just been thriving, as a family is what we call joy giving. So we made a decision that some of our giving, we will just have this, we have a set amount each month. And we just say, God, please, each month surface where to share this, this resource that you've provided for us. Every month, we pray together as a family. And we've been doing this for about a year and a half. And it's been amazing how each month, God shows us, you know, give here give there. So it's just growing our children in their generosity muscle. And one time we had suggested, well, there was just this horrible, you know, hurricane in Louisiana, and their staff there, there's, you know, there's people that they know, that are just really hurting, what if we send an extra gift to them? And my daughter said, But mom, you know, any American can do that. Lots of people are going to do that. But But what about the slaves like, we need to be getting to International Justice Mission, again, and I was like, Oh, my goodness, this 10 year old, you know, I, I was I became a Christian at 14. So just to hear her saying this, I was just blown away. And so it's been really sweet. There's, I could give lots of examples of how our family has had such joy, because of more of these, just trusting Jesus with our finances and the peace that he's brought the order and the contentment. And CS Lewis said one time, he who has God, and everything else, has no more than he who has God only. I just love that content that we have in God. A lot of us can struggle with a scarcity mentality. Striving, gods like, I got you. I'm an abundant God. I will continue to provide for you. You can continue trust me. You have me. And that, you know, it's it's complex. Right. It's complex. I don't mean to like, make it not complex, but but the bottom line is God's got us and he knows he cares. He's with us. And he's going to continue to shape us through our finances and point us back to Himself. And yes, stewardship@cru.org and, indeed, you there.

Michele Davis:

Thanks for listening to the Cru MPD Podcast. Please help others find our show by liking, sharing and readiness on Apple iTunes and wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find us on social media by searching for The Cru MPD podcast. Check out the show notes for more information including the various resources we mentioned in this episode. Till next time, we encourage you to be faithful and full of faith in all things, especially in MPD