What is Jubilee?

Over the past several months, we've had a number of people ask about the Jubilee Financial Ministry concept.  What is it?  How does it work?  

Jubilee is a small-group program designed to help families gain control of their finances, and eliminate their consumer debt.  Debt including credit cards, car payments, student loans, medical bills...just about anything except your mortgage payment and investments.  

The concept parallels Acts Chapter 2, where the disciples in the early church shared everything, to the benefit of each other.  In Jubilee, the families all take responsibility for all of the debt of the group.  Each family agrees to put away their credit cards, and not incur any more debt.  Then, the group begins the process of paying off all of the existing debt, beginning with the smallest bill in the group.  By continuing to pay off the smallest remaining bills first, the group creates a snowball effect for debt reduction, and eliminates the entire debt in a much shorter time than could otherwise be done.

The name, Jubilee, also comes from the bible, and is a reference to the Year of Jubilee, when all debts were forgiven.  

The ministry has several parts.  There's the training of families, to make wise decisions about money, and to live within their income.  There's the Tracking of expenses, which each family commits to do, in order to get a handle on their money flow.  There's the Trimming, an ongoing process in which "extra" expenses are eliminated and families focus on minimizing living costs.

There's also the Goal setting process, during which families decide together what's most important, and compose written financial goals to be accomplished within specific time frames.

Although this may sound like it's all about the money, its not.  The journey together through this process builds faith in God, creates bonds between families, and sets everyone about the business of helping each other...and celebrating each other's successes!  

Once all of the families are debt free, they have the experience and knowledge to stay out of debt for life, to live within their means.  And they're in a position to help others- even start another Jubilee small-group, and lead others out of debt.

Here's a link to the first of four short videos, featuring John Baxter, the man who originated the Jubilee idea.  John has lead seven Jubilee groups, over the past years.  Here, John's sharing the concept with several families.  (Videos 2 through 4 are also on YouTube.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3TH_Broutw