Are churches "a tool for marketers" of financial advice?

Christian money expert Ramsey builds empire selling mix of faith and finance through churches

Excerpt:

The Lampo Group has grown to about 300 employees, most working on commissions. Ramsey is the owner, CEO and product.

He is building a huge home on a $1 million lot in a gated community overlooking Tennessee's richest county. Tax records reviewed by The Associated Press show Ramsey and his company own property worth more than $7 million, and Ramsey says that's low by a few million because of recent renovations to his four-story headquarters.

Ramsey doesn't give out sales figures for his privately owned company, but he says Lampo is far larger than a leading nonprofit group that offers Bible-based financial courses, Crown Financial Ministries. Based in Gainesville, Ga., Crown reported revenues of $20.2 million in 2007; its course costs $55 for a couple, or about half what Ramsey charges.

Alexander Hill, author of "Just Business: Christian Ethics for the Marketplace," said churches can inadvertently become a tool for marketers as they try to help members through a tough economy.

"I think it's fine for churches to provide services for the congregants, and that can be profit or nonprofit," said Hill, president of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a campus ministry based in Madison, Wis. "It's the potential confusion that is a concern."

Jon and Dorothy Bridges aren't worried about Ramsey's purpose. They were $90,000 in debt when they took his class in 2003. Heeding his guidance, they put themselves on a strict budget, cashed out a whole-life insurance policy and used the pay hike from a new job to erase all the red ink in two years.

Today, Jon Bridges is the executive director at Asbury United Methodist Church in Madison, Ala. Nearly half of the church's 2,400 regular attenders have taken Financial Peace University, with the church sometimes offering discounts or "scholarships" for those who can't afford it.

"It's a business, it's a ministry, it's both," he said. "It's a success. It's changing lives and helping people. I don't care how much money he makes."

Comment: I have found many (many many) Christians to be oblivious about personal finances. My own take is that a church could easily construct their own teaching program!