How Much is Enough?
Financial finish lines and our relationship with wealth.
“We basically broke the connection between our income and our consumption. We’re going to set a lifestyle permanently.” (Alan Barnhart)
At what point does money begin to control us?
I recently started reading Practicing the King’s Economy, a fascinating book that explores we can live as Christians in an economic system built around profoundly unChristian principles (greed, consumption, etc).
In the second chapter, the authors shared the story of Alan and Katherine Barnhart, a couple that asked hard questions about money early in their marriage…
While they were engaged, Alan and Katherine went to a missions conference and were captivated by the idea spreading the Gospel in places where people had never heard of Jesus Christ. They prepared to do so by leveraging Alan’s role as a civil engineer: it’s how they could enter a country that was “closed” to Christian preaching.
As they developed these plans, Alan’s parents told him they were going to step back from the family business. They would either give it to Alan if he was willing to take it over, or sell it if Alan and Katherine went overseas to do mission work.
After much deliberation, Kathrine reluctantly agreed to support Alan in taking over the family business. But in her heart, she felt the loss of not being able to dedicate her life to ministry.
To prepare himself for this new direction, Alan spent two years studying the Scripture to see what God had to say about wealth. He reached two important conclusions:
the Lord owns everything, and
wealth is a serious temptation that can easily lead people away from Christ.
These insights led Alan and Katherine to agree that:
God, not them, owns the business, and
they would set a “financial finish line” in case the company proved successful.
(By “financial finish line,” they meant a point at which their personal income would reach an upper limit. No matter how well the company did, their standard of living would only rise to a certain point.)
“We basically broke the connection between our income and our consumption. We’re going to set a lifestyle permanently,” Alan explained.
Those decisions proved wise, because the company grew from ten employees to over a thousand. Their business grew by 25% for twenty-three years in a row.
And, instead of lining their pockets with that money, Alan and Katherine had the resources to support ministries they cared about. In the first year of running their business, for example, they were able to give away $50,000. In the second year, that number swelled to $150,000.
The upwards trajectory continued, eventually reaching a point where they were giving away one million dollars a year. Soon after, they were giving away one million dollars every month.
Can you imagine?!?!
At this point, Alan and Katherine reflected on the first principle from their Scripture study: “You know, God owns this thing. Let’s just see if we can give it away,” they reasoned.
So, in 2007, they actually gave their business to the charitable foundation that distributed this wealth.
It’s a powerful story of two Christians choosing to live intentionally and master their money—rather than allow their money to master them.
(You can watch them share their story here.)
During Great Lent, we commit ourselves to the three basic ascetic practices: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
We’ve already explored questions of wealthy and poverty on this Substack (click here if you missed it). But the story of the Barnharts raises an important question:
How much wealth is enough?
For some of us, caught under the burden of a deeply unChristian economic system, the concept of a financial finish line might seem overly abstract. I’m already struggling to pay my bills and surviving, you might say.
But for others, who find ourselves in a more flexible economic position, it may be time to ask what our financial finish line is.1
How big of a house do we really need?
How fancy of a car do we really need?
How luxurious of a vacation do we really need?
If we stand on the precipice of financial security, is God giving us more so we can consume more? Is He giving us more so we can build bigger barns, like the Rich Fool?
Or is he giving us more so we can help build up the ministries of the Church?
So What Can You Do?
Great Lent is the perfect time to ask oneself these questions. And, if you’re looking for exemplary ministries to support, I’d suggest these two:
I serve as the Executive Director of FOCUS North America, a ministry that brings Orthodox Christians together to see and serve Christ in our neighbor.2 We currently operate eleven FOCUS Center across the country that provide everything from shelter to meals to support for mothers and families. We also run a national youth & young adult ministry (YES) that
If you’d like to support FOCUS during this Lenten season, please click here.
And I serve on the Board of Directors of Orthodox Christian Fellowship, a ministry that transforms the lives of college students by guiding them along the path to Jesus Christ through His Church. OCF supports the work of hundreds of chapters across the country, organizes great events like Real Break and College Conference, and is planting more Campus Missionaries to do deeper work with students on more campuses.
If you’d like to support OCF during this Lenten season, please click here.
(I’ve supported both FOCUS and OCF for many years; I strongly encourage you to do the same!)
If you have any questions about either ministry, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email; I’m always happy to chat about these ministries that both help so many and mean so much to me.
In the meantime, good strength and we continue our journey to Pascha.
And may God bless you as you ask yourself and your family deep questions about your relationship to wealth.
Economists have dug into this from a purely psychological perspective. You may recall the study which showed that annual income stops adding to emotional wellbeing at $75,000—or about $110,000 in 2025 dollars.
Plus, there’s a lot of reason to believe that excessive wealth leads to a variety of adverse psychological consequences that some have compared to traumatic brain injury: impaired empathy, entitlement and risky behavior, detachment from reality, etc.
That certainly gives extra color to the Lord’s warning that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).
This video shares more about all the ways FOCUS brings us together to serve: