Dear Grace,

I wanted to include our testimony of our process in determining God’s will for our involvement in Grace Transforms –

Allyson and I are both blessed to be on the GT prayer team. This level of daily involvement has given us a great understanding of Grace Transforms and the many people working together to reveal God’s plan. 

As we discussed the process we would use to determine what we could afford to give, we decided prayer and fasting would greatly enhance our eternal perspective. We chose a Saturday because we wanted to this to be a unifying experience and thought we could support each other easier on a day we typically spent together. We agreed that we should each spend two hours away from home – away from the busyness of life, away from distractions.  Allyson spent her time in the morning on the Grace campus reading, studying God’s word, and seeking His will for our lives. I waited until later afternoon and choose a hillside deep in the Bull Creek reserve. It was a truly enjoyable time with the Lord for each of us. It was not until after our three young, active boys were settled into bed Saturday night that we had a chance to discuss our thoughts. Neither of us had a number that stuck out, but we both agreed that we wanted to give sacrificially and in a way that grew our faith.

You have to appreciate our last four years and the 10 before that to fully understand our journey of faith. I spent 10 years in Houston with Compaq with a secure job and generous salary. We came to Austin four years ago and my secure job and dreams of extreme financial prosperity were gone in just four months with the dot com bust. Our life since has been anything but secure, from the world’s perspective, and the salary has been up and down with three years of consulting and a year with another startup.

As startups go, we’ve cut salaries to 60 percent, seven of the last nine months. Our personal budget has been squeezed again and again to turn up extra cash. We’ve cut out most everything we can possibly conceive aside from downsizing our house. One of our biggest disappointments is that we don’t get to exercise my wife’s gift of hospitality as often as we’d like. We have our Impact group over weekly, but making dinners for friends has just not been in the budget.

Our first decision about stewardship was that we decided we would take [a certain amount] from our savings and put it into a hospitality fund. We now have the freedom to invest God’s money in people.

Our second decision was that we decided we could sacrifice at least $[X] per year. This might come from reducing our monthly savings (assuming we raise our salaries and get to start saving again). It might come directly from saving we’ve put away in the past. 

Our third decision was the most fun for me. Our biggest dilemma was how to determine a faith number that God would need to provide. You see, our faith has grown tremendously in the past four years. We know He will provide.  An extra $[X] or even $[2X] seems to easy for Him. I want my jaw to drop in disbelief when I see how he delivers.  Many years ago, I think in our premarital counseling, we were given a challenge that I wasn’t ready for then. The challenge was this – set an income limit and give any additional income back to God. And that’s what we’ve done. 

We put are putting $[2X] as our total yearly pledge, but hope He allows us to participate at a much greater level.  Thank you for inviting us to be involved in God’s work at Grace Covenant Church.

Mike, Allyson, Luke, Max, and Jack Marshall