In the news today was the research showing that there are only two places in all of Australia that have higher numbers of current home loan defaulters than St Marys (our parish).
6.7% of people with mortgages in St Marys are unable to keep up with their repayments. Although that research was before the latest official interest rate rise, and the other rises the banks have chosen to do, so it may be even higher now.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=571318

Pray for wisdom in how we respond as a church.
-how we care for and support our church members who are not financially coping.
-how we show love to our local community and use the current stress to point people to the security they can have in Jesus
-how we deal with the way this stress has been and will continue to impact on our church finances.

Absolutely David.
Any thoughts about stuff churches would do if this gets worse… say, Great Depression stuff starting in about 3 or 4 years? Communal living setups? Families combining resources? Tents in the backyard… ;-)

People could always sell their houses. I often thought that when looking at the stressed people in the neighbourhood of one of the places I used to live. House sold, mortgage stress reduces to zero. Go and live in Bathurst with money to spare, which money you give to the poor, the needy, and the church.

You can even grow your own veges.

With all due respect, Gordon, your reply doesn’t really cut it.  I thought it was glib, and “flicked off” email reply without really thinking through what David was really asking.  What would they do for work? in Bathurst - sorry Gordon, but your reply said to me that you cannot really understand what it is to be living in a “St Marys type” area.  (i.e. lowish income, high mortgage, long commute to work.) And did not really answer David’s question of showing love to the community, and care for people for whom he ministers. 

Gill

Go and live in Bathurst with money to spare, which money you give to the poor, the needy, and the church.

You can even grow your own veges.

And if they have extended family in the area, unsaved siblings, parents, grandparents… we’re just to go set up our own permaculture nirvana?

Gill, I think Gordo was replying tongue in cheek to my comment more than David C. He knows I was facing this choice a few years back, where I saw this oil thing coming and once strongly considered ‘going bush’ to get off grid, grow most of my own food, and wait for Sydney to plunge into a grinding Greater Depression as the oil shock just went from bad to worse. But we decided to do exactly the ‘wrong’ financial thing to get closer to extended family as all this played out.

Who knows? Maybe we will end up losing the house and moving into shared accomodation. We’ve got a higher income than the St Mary’s scenario, and I fixed our mortgage 18 months ago before all this started ‘cause my mate Neil saw the credit thing and I saw the peak oil thing pretty much now. Would a comment or 2 from the pulpit to consider fixing mortgages have been inappropriate back then? To mention peak oil and warn our congregations to think practically how to reduce debt, live simpler, and maybe think of family and ministry and career choices in the light of these issues?

Hey Gordo, was I right about interest rates or was I right? The first few points of my 2004 poster have pretty much nailed it. Let’s hope we can prevent the last few!

Text below…

Oil giants like Chevron and scientists like Canada’s David Suzuki and Australia’s “Dr Karl” are all warning that by 2008 world oil production could “peak” and then enter a permanent state of decline.

“Peak Oil” will be like the 1970’s oil crisis, but this time it is HERE TO STAY!
The Hirsch Report to the American Department of Energy states quite clearly, “The world has never confronted a problem like this.”

Just imagine the following…
• Oil prices skyrocket.
• Inflation = high interest rates = mortgage foreclosures.
• Commercial airlines — bankrupt!
• International tourism — bankrupt!
• Stock market collapses!
• The Greater Depression begins.
• Crop yields halve without oil-based fertilizers and pesticides.
• USA ‘Carter Doctrine’ risks HUGE oil wars!
Are you prepared for the end of cheap oil?

Pleeeeeasee, get back to the point of the original post, please pretty please.

I can’t see tongues in cheeks via email, nor can I keep in my head earlier lengthy discussions about peak oil and the future of the world (or lack of it). 
Gill.

I am on topic… high oil prices, financial stress, mortgages etc… it’s all on topic.

I think as oil prices rise even further, Andrew Cameron’s piece becomes even more relevant to St Mary’s.

Once we realise that the solution is social, some aspects of the supposed peak-oil ‘crisis’ can be seen more clearly. For there is a sense in which the absence of oil only has one real effect. It will give back to us a proper sense of our creaturely limitation, as little embodied animals who can only walk a few kilometres a day. Our spatial limitations have always been what give us a sense of a ‘place’, or neighbourhood, in which we live. Oil has temporarily tricked us, making these constraints hidden in plain sight, deluding us into thinking that we can soar unencumbered like the angels just because someone can fly us to Phuket or because we can drive interstate. The absence of oil will only throw us back onto what was always the case, and what still remains the case for the majority of the world’s population: we are a people who dwell in neighbourhoods, villages and towns, making the best of interdependency with others in the same place. We cannot abstract away our createdness forever.

Seeing this truth about ourselves might start to generate new policy ideas. These can really only be worked out in practice, for there are limits to what imagination and the words you are reading can achieve. But neighbours might develop small economies that rely upon renewable energy and food sources, and local councils might assist neighbours to rip up streets and start growing things together. In places where there is a risk of food insecurity, governments might assist people to relocate along existing rail lines, with some workers able to use the internet for their business and others finding work sustaining these new communities. Electricity, whatever its post-greenhouse form, will take up some of the energy slack, and energy efficiency will be augmented by human-powered options. (Think of all the energy wasted in gyms every day.)
Society can do this. Indeed it can start now. When men and women start writing polite letters to politicians asking what policies exist for the change to a post-oil-dependent society, the process of orderly change has begun. Some are already thinking about this ‘powerdown alternative’, where we do not just consume less but strategically re-position society to prepare for ‘energy descent’.

My comment wasn’t directed at David, wasn’t meant to be glib, and wasn’t tongue-in-cheek. I don’t understand why some Christians feel compelled to own houses. Selling them would relieve mortgage stress. Bathurst was one example of a place where you might reasonably live (and many do, happily), but there are other places too.

Sorry if I misunderstood your position Gordon. I guess Sydney rents are so high and unaffordable that people wish they could go that bit further and be paying off a house. It’s the great Aussie dream. We’ve all been told & sold that happiness is living the McMansion McSuburb McLife mold. New Urbanism can make smaller, more attractive, more energy efficient, more cost effective, more community orientated and resource sharing accommodation viable for more people on less land — and these things can eventually be retrofitted around existing structures as industries and times change. (As I guess was the point of the paragraphs I quoted from Andrew’s piece).

Church communities might consider being ready to jump into projects like this as times change. We’ll see.

We have many families at St Aidans who have left Sydney for Wagga because of the cost of living in Sydney.

How to love families in financial distress?
*Recycling is very helpful. Books, clothes, baby hardware (cots etc), toys, sturdy furniture are never thrown out. Instead they are passed on to other families at church. Maybe someone can act as a point of contact within the church for those in need of such stuff. I take my family’s unwanted belongings to either bible study or church on Sunday. I see my daughter’s clothes handed down from one family to the next. And she wears hand me downs too.
*Teach wise financial management and smart shopping for the basics, eg, get rid of the credit card and get a debit card. Cook food at home rather than buying take-away. Don’t buy fruit and veg at a supermarket, far too expensive. Instead find a green grocer who has reasonable prices.
*Op shops like the Salvos are great for nearly everything except food and a pet.
*Learn to be content and live with less.
* Pray with them and for them. And be prepared that you may be part of the answer to those prayers.

Excellent points Angela
A baby health clinic nurse who works in western sydney says many people do not even know how to cook basic foods hence relying on takeaways and expensive packaged dishes so maybe some basic coooking classes
Also some people have very large pets - maybe they should downsize their pets
We also need to teach our children not to expect everything new, instantly or that money will solve all problems ,Better to live more simply now so that if times get harder it is not so much of a shock and practice genosity. It is good to learn to be content whether we have lots or a little and focus on looking toward God who gives us every spiritual blessing rather than comparing ourselves to others

I think the most challenging people I’ve ever met on financial stuff are the permaculture greenies I’ve met who are happy with 2nd hand everything, live in a tiny shack on their own bit of country land, grow most of their own food, spend less, consume less, waste less, and are just plain happy with less… and as a result can work less…

Honestly, some of these people challenge me much more with their actual lifestyle than a whole KEC on materialism.

I’m not sure is Bathurst one of the good places to live whether or not. But not everyone can find a job in there. Some people might even have to quit their industry to another.

Hmmm
Mortgage stress is a biggie.
Dunno that Gordo’s suggestion is appropriate to all, but then I dunno that he meant it that way. Sell and move isn’t a bad idea, but be told, living in the bush has hassles. Up here fruit and vegies cost a “mint” (except mint costs a heap too!). So does meat. I grit my teeth down in Sinney when I see, for example, Lady Finger bananas going for $2.99. They are closer to $8 up here and the other sort, Cavendish, are hybrid plastic organic matter things that have all taste removed just in case anyone would enjoy themselves.
Meat also costs an arm and a leg… or at least a haunch!
What you lose in mortgage payments you get to more than make up for in groceries and petrol. (Public transport isn’t a patch on Sinney here)
Choose well folks!
Mind you, I do expect that local produce is likely to remain local a lot more as a result of the cost of fuel. At the mo, just about everything travels to Sinney or Bris-vegas to be then sent back.

For those who don’t know BTW, the Dept of Housing has a loan system available to some folks suffering Mortgage stress. I have the details at work and so will post em when I get back there.

Owen,

Move to Wagga! The meat is so cheap here. And believe it or not, so is the fish. We buy our seafood from a bloke who travels from Ulladullah to Wagga. The seafood I eat here is fresher and far cheaper than the seafood in Sydney. Our fruit and veg is bought from an Italian green grocer family who have a farm out at Leeton. I never pay more than $2 a kilo for apples (currently $1) and that includes Pink Ladies and Galas.

Grocery items are more expensive here due to freight. But housing is cheaper. And even though petrol costs more, nothing is very far. So there’s more time in the day to enjoy family and other relationships.

We have had a few families return to Sydney for career advancement/study. The time spent travelling in the car has been a shock as has the cost of living.

You and anyone else would be welcomed with open (Presbyterian...hehehe) arms.

Agreed Angela!

Joy and I are back from our recent trip to Melbourne. On the way down we stayed at Hillview farm on the Hume. After unpacking we still had the afternoon and evening to fill, so we rushed into Wagga Wagga and had fish and chips. We BOTH commented on how yummy the fish and chips were and how cheap! I was amazed at that meal. Then we took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda.

Wagga is a cute town with nice Federation (and older) places with all that gorgeous wood trim and decoration that we just don’t do in Sydney’s McMansions any more. I really enjoyed our quick visit there — especially given that the last time I was there was all negative.

(Desperate day release escapes from Kapooka. This kind of colours one’s perception of Wagga — “That place you run to for supplies before going back to get screamed at again”.)

Hmmm
I’m in the wrong place… except it’s cold down there!
We have no green grocer, soon will have two supermarkets, already have two butchers. Come to that, we have even lost two pubs in the past four or five years. (not such a bad thing… not like they had Coopers on tap or anything).
The message is; check out the town if you’re gonna move. Recently a couple moved up here to do something rather like what Gordo said. It lasted but three months. They responded to concerns about their not having sufficient supplies with “We’ll just go to Big W!”
er....
No worries, you just have to be willing to travel over 100 km.

And back again? In one of Al Gore’s EV’s? Just for groceries? I don’t think so… not unless there’s a revolution in battery design.

In the second last place I lived in before moving to Wagga, any grocery shopping was a 110 kilometre round trip. Most supplies were available in Young and then Big W moved in to Young and that made things easier and cheaper in some regards. More expensive in other regards, too.

I could have bought a 3 or 4 bedroom home for no more than $50 000. But I wouldn’t want to be paying the current price for the fuel now just to do my grocery shopping!

Cheers,
Andrew

FYI, I am interested in the mortgage stress issue.  My education includes formal studies in economics and theology.

I believe the way to address the mortgage stress issue is with “the gospel” announcement of Jesus’ Kingship.  Jesus is King, and so it follows (and not wishing to downplay the extent of Jesus Kingship by employing a lesser title), that Jesus is the CEO and Shareholder of Australia’s major banking institutions.

What does it mean to have faith (including belief, allegiance, trust and loyalty) in Lord Jesus, the CEO and Shareholder of Australia’s major banking institutions?

I am due to host a live theatre event in St Mary’s Community Centre on October 19 where Lord Jesus is the CEO and Shareholder of Australia’s major banking institutions.

I have invited wise Christian leaders from St Mary’s and beyond (including protestant and Catholic) to provide suggestions for a play where Jesus really is the CEO and Shareholder of Australia’s major banking institutions.  I have a script writer ready and available to translate these suggestions into a working script (he is completing his masters in creative writing).  Before the script will be performed, the script will be held accountable to our strict moral epistemology called, “Grace above knowledge.” In the case of mortgage stress, the moral epistemology may help to ensure that wise Christian leaders’ response to mortgage stress is of “loving tears”, in contrast to a moral judgement from the tree of knowledge.

One of the questions for wise Christian leaders to prayerfully discern is: Will Jesus forgive home loan debts?  What will this look like?

I am yet to receive any organised suggestions from wise Christian leaders as to what the play should look like.  With an absence of formal suggestions, I have recently invited a person with a prophetic gift to help provide words to shape the play.  I continue to welcome formal suggestions (please contact me to learn about this process).

I have also invited local actors (through an invitation to local pastors) to rehearse and perform the script where Jesus is the CEO and Shareholder of Australia’s major banking institutions.  In doing so, actors will be able to participate in a world (more real than the world of the audience), bodily on stage (and on earth) as in heaven for the audience, where their debts are forgiven (if the forgiveness of debts is featured in the play?).

My hope is still to host a play and presentation in three weeks time.  The play does not need to be sophisticated.  It is more important to repeat the play with greater maturity in the future.  The good news is, to the extent that the play is a glimpse of the guaranteed future where Lord Jesus is all in all, we can be confident that the play will indeed be performed, for real, in the future.

I hope to be able to say to the community of St Mary’s following the play, that the play is a glimpse (through a fog) of a guaranteed future.  Attendees will be encouraged to faith and hope in Lord Jesus (Jesus’ banking business cards will be distributed), to baptism, and to invest their will and resources in their local churches as the way forward on mortgage stress (and much more).

David.

What happened to “Giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s?”

Jesus is Lord over all the earth, but I would still end up in jail if I walk out of a shop without paying for a widescreen TV I liked. Using the “Jesus is CEO of this store and has forgiven my debt” argument ain’t gonna cut it I’m afraid.