Emily Graves spoke with the Association of Christian Financial Advisers

Aidan Vaughan

With the promise of more belt-tightening ahead from Chancellor George Osborne, the Association of Christian Financial Advisers Aidan Vaughan is urging Christians to combine both faith and common sense in 2013; to overcome austerity by staying generous at heart. Emily Graves spoke with him to find out more.

Emily: Tell us about the work of ACFA.

Aiden: We're the Association of Christian Financial Advisers. We are all involved in giving advice to private people in the country about their money and we try to take God's view and God's wisdom about what the Bible says about money and then apply it to you and me in the ups and downs of our lives.

Emily: You are suggesting that we should fight the financial gloom with being generous with our money. With the promise of more belt-tightening ahead from George Osborne, you are encouraging people to combine their faith and common sense this year. What does it mean to combine your faith and your common sense?

Aiden: I think if we go back to the great Quakers who founded the huge businesses such as Cadburys and Unilever etc, they found it quite natural to have their faith and work in a business and obviously they were very successful in both. It is quite natural to combine God's wisdom and still be successful. The first thing that we would really like to say to people is to stay generous; because if you give then it blesses you. God wants to bless you, but he also blesses those people that the gift goes to and if you do it right it can actually multiple out so your gift could maybe affect 20 or 30 different people.

Emily: Can you explain what that would look like?

Aiden: You might provide a loan or a grant to a friend who is going to go to university or something like that because they don't have the money. That person might think that that is really wonderful that that person was generous to me and maybe I should be generous to someone else. Then they would effectively start to pass it on.

Emily: What does the Bible say when it comes to giving and why it is important?

Aiden: God owns everything; he created the earth as we see it; he owns it all and we are just stewards of it. It's good to give God the first part of your life; the first part of your time; but also of money as well. God has said many times in his word that he will bless a cheerful giver.

Emily: I believe you have some faith based financial resolutions for this year. Please could you explain some of those?

Aiden: Many people have found last year difficult job wise, so lets be flexible in the jobs market; it's going to be tough out there. We would suggest that you maximise your training opportunities and take advantage of the upswing as and when it comes. You need to be ready and to be there, to plan, budget, seek advice and then to use your talents and resources in the best possible way.

It's like losing weight. We all over eat at Christmas and we want to lose weight and we say yes lets lose weight. It's good to have goals and objectives; it's good to plan. It's important to have goals and important in your mind to be generous and to want to help people. I think for the church as a whole, which is being marginalised, we've got to get out there and help people on the margins.

Emily: How can people find out more about this and also about ACFA?

Aiden: They can go to our website. We have a network of advisers up and down the UK. If you are not sure then we'd love to speak to people or even just point them in the right direction; maybe folk need a bit of debt counselling or something like that, we'll tell you where to go.