Walking the talk

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 8th, 2009 - 5 comments
Categories: Deep stuff, leadership - Tags:

A shout out on a Sunday to a family who are walking the talk:

Pastor Murray Smith preaches a message of generosity in his sermons and says people need few material things in order to live happy and fulfilling lives. So Pastor Smith, his wife, Michelle, and their three young children are giving up their $1 million home near Cambridge to help raise funds for their church and build a new community centre for their town.

A minister at the Bridges Church for the past five years, Pastor Smith admits the decision to raffle off their five-bedroom home with two self-contained units and views over Lake Karapiro is slightly “radical”.

But the extreme act of kindness came from the family’s desire to live a simple life … Once they move out of their home next month to the comforts of a rental property somewhere in Cambridge, the Smiths will have few possessions other than their furniture and car – “an old Nissan”. The family have no other homes or investment properties or a financial nest egg to help them out. …

Mrs Smith said their travels overseas had opened their eyes. “When you live in an orphanage in Mozambique or places where you get a bowl of rice a day you start to realise what is important in life,” she said. “We just realised we had all this stuff that we could help other people out with and we decided to do something about it.”

Call to others, note to self, there’s no shortage of issues facing the world, and plenty of scope for walking the talk as this family have…

5 comments on “Walking the talk ”

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  1. Wally Nash 1
    8 November 2009 at 2:22 pm

    nice difference between that pastor and the scumbag shyster “bishop” tamaki

  2. Noko 2
    8 November 2009 at 2:37 pm

    Sorry, which Standardista owns an iPhone again? For $200 there are perfectly good phones available, whereas the iPhone works out to over $800. That’s $600 right there for charities. But yah know, whatever makes you comfortable.

  3. RedLogix 3
    8 November 2009 at 3:06 pm

    Thanks for posting this r0b, the Smith’s are certainly putting their words into action. Almost the only attention that the churches and faiths get in the media these day’s is either hostile, condescending or holds them up to ridicule. Yet the vast majority of their good achievments never receives any attention at all. (Nor would it be sought in fact.) The fact is that most clergy have always quietly lived out their lives faithfully upholding the principles of their religion as best they might.

    It is of course easy to quibble about what we think these principles might be, and almost always we measure our sucess by our own intentions while judging others against impossible ideals.

    Only God knows the sincererity and purity of motives… and in that truth is both humility and hope.

    (It’s Sunday, and I allow myself a wee spot of sermonising just this day of the week.)

  4. the sprout 4
    8 November 2009 at 3:27 pm

    I was very impressed when I saw this article. Glad to see some acknowledgement of the possiblility that the road to fulfillment and contentment isn’t actually through more and more material acquisition.

    What a stark, stark contrast to the psuedo-christianity of Brian’s Density Church.

  5. Brett Dale 5
    8 November 2009 at 3:52 pm

    Well done to Pastor Smith.

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