FPU Brings Peace to 17 Households
Seventeen households just paid off a combined 45 thousand dollars of debt and saved another 28 thousand in only 13 weeks through the Financial Peace University (FPU) class offered at Bethel. The class participants ranged from engaged couples in their 20s to people in their late 50s. Some were in a good place financially. Others were out of work. All benefitted deeply from the FPU class, said class instructor Greg Haugen. Haugen has been teaching FPU for two years and has seen the impact of the biblical principles taught in FPU in his own life and marriage. He has seen how he and his wife have gone from a position of some uncertainty about finances to a place of “total peace,” Haugen says.
Although the class brings peace, the lessons keep the whole class alert. Each class features a 60-minute DVD presentation by Dave Ramsey. They are a far cry from a theoretical college finance class. Each lesson reinforces the “baby steps” in Ramsey’s plan covering topics like how to establish a monthly cash-flow plan, invest for retirement, eliminate debt and find the right job based on how God has designed you, and Ramsey is a firecracker.
“He is really high-energy and interesting,” Haugen says. “Never boring.”
Everyone who took the class was changed in some way. Haugen says that he heard a lot of individuals in the discussions talking about how the class changed their thinking about money. Many of the principles are difficult, Haugen says, because most of us have been handling our money the same way for our whole lives. But to change our results, we have to change our method, he says.
One couple who is engaged to be married was able to accomplish the baby step of setting up an emergency fund. This will help them to start their marriage securely. As Christians, FPU is freeing because many of us have accepted debt as a part of life. Sometimes this debt hinders us from doing what God could do through us if we didn’t have debt.
“It is a fairly big shock to your system when you seriously consider what you could do for your family and God’s kingdom if you had no debt,” Haugen says.
Haugen encourages everyone to take the FPU class to get a solid, biblically-based roadmap for managing finances. The peace, freedom and opportunities to bless others by paying off debt has definitely been worth the work for the 17 households that just completed the class.