FPU – 4U?

Did you ever want to be one of those blue chip recruits being courted by JoePA to be the next great linebacker for the Nittany Lions? Well, we can’t offer that. But consider yourself a blue chip recruit to Financial Peace University.

What is Financial Peace University? FPU is a fun and practical 13-session class that teaches you how to handle your money. Our Summer 2008 course begins Wednesday, June 18th and runs through Wednesday, September 10th. Each meeting runs from 7:00-9:00 PM. If you'd like more information prior to registering please come out to a brief 30-minute Orientation Meeting directly after our Sunday worship services on June 1st at 10:30 AM or 1:00 PM. The Orientation Meeting will be held in our Edwards Room. At the meeting we will show a quick preview video of the class and answer any questions you might have. Also, the pastors are offering everyone who signs up for this summer’s class a $25 discount off of the $100 registration/materials cost.

If that’s not enough, here’s a recruiting pitch from a former All American for the FPU ‘Fightin Calculators’, Stephen Bowers.

I'd been working as a contractor at a company in downtown Wilmington for two years. Then last August my supervisor told me that they wanted to hire me. The upside of this would be that I would start getting medical and retirement benefits. The downside was that all the people I knew who had been converted from a contractor to employee had taken a pretty big pay cut.

All of a sudden I realized that my wife, Fran, and I would probably have to significantly reduce our standard of living to meet this lower income. I didn’t know exactly where to turn for help. Feeling desperate, I prayed that God would guide us. And that’s exactly what He did!

Within a couple of weeks, it was announced that Financial Peace University would be offered here at the church. It was so providential, especially since my daughter, Jennifer, had already been telling us about the teacher of the class, Dave Ramsey. In fact, she and my son-in-law married debt-free as a direct result of his ministry. We knew all we needed to know and signed ourselves up.

As we went through the class I was stuck by the simplicity of it. There's actually nothing unique or new about most of what you’ll learn. Most of us already know what to do. It's like when you listen to the radio and hear a song you "know.” You can sing along and the words come, but without the radio you can't remember word one. As the course progressed I said to myself: “I know how to do that… why I haven’t been doing it?!” It didn’t matter. We set about to apply all the things we were learning.

Honestly, it took us a few hours to work out our first budget. But it was energy well spent. Since we’ve begun living on a budget we’ve really gotten a control over where our money goes. For example, we were able to pay for all our Christmas presents last year with cash. And in April we paid off our car 2 years early. All our credit card accounts have been paid off, and in just four more months we will be totally debt-free, except for our house mortgage!

I thank God that he answered that desperate prayer for help last August by allowing us to take FPU. This class has helped us become much better stewards of the money God has entrusted to us. I’d encourage everyone to go through this class at least once. You won’t regret it. Oh, and by the way I took the job at the end of December. Amazingly I didn’t get a pay cut, but actually a pay increase! Praise God for His abundant generosity and grace!

To learn more FPU, click here.

GO CALCS!