My bookshelf is now happily recharged with three copies of Alan Gotthardt’s The Eternity Portfolio.

If you haven’t read it yet, good heavens–please do. I can’t recommend it highly enough. And you can typically buy used copies through amazon.com for under a buck. So I buy 2 or 3 at a time and then recharge my bookshelf after I give them away, which occurs most of the time I run across someone in person who hasn’t yet read the book.

Truthfully, I’m not sure the inner sleeve of the book, the amazon.com reviews, or even the Eternity Portfolio website really do justice to what I think is truly revolutionary about the book’s content.

What the inner sleeve/amazon/website verbiage communicates is a series of overused phrases like “maximize your giving”…”ultimate results”…”biblical reasons to give”–all the things you’d expect from a book by a Christian financial planner. Hardly the reason to pack this one on your next trip to a deserted island. Even the “eternity calculator” (available to those with the key ring decoder on the Generous Giving website) which actually computes the eternal financial return on Kingdom investments according to the interest rates Jesus quotes is novel, but not the reason I recommend giving the book out to each (yes, each–it’s less than a buck a copy in most cases, y’know) of your E- and O-level champions.

The real power of Gotthardt’s work is Chapter 6, God’s Asset Allocation.

There, Gotthardt fleshes out the reality that biblical stewardship calls us to do more than to give to areas of our passion, or even areas of genuine need. Just as a healthy financial portfolio contains a mixture of stocks, bonds,  and cash, a healthy giving portfolio must likewise contain a mixture of giving to different causes to match the range of areas in which God calls us to invest.

Gotthardt proposes a variety of overlays on our giving:

1. The Jerusalem, Judea, and The World overlay, in which we selfconsciously build a giving portfolio consisting of local, regional, and global giving in correspondence to the calling God lays out for all Christians in scripture. It’s not enough, in other words, to say, “I really feel called to give to North Korea projects.” Great!…but that doesn’t absolve you of building a giving portfolio that comprehends local and regional projects as well.

2. The Evangelism, Discipleship, and Mercy overlay, in which we selfconsciously build a giving portfolio consisting of investments made in each of those three areas, in fidelity to what the Bible calls us to do. Gotthardt suggests subdivisions for each area (such as church planting, bible translation/distribution, group/event focus under evangelism), but he does so modestly, allowing that other subdivisions are possible. The important thing, he stresses, is that we’re consciously giving in each of the three areas.

3. The Local Church overlay, which Gotthardt divides into Personal Mission, Spontaneous Opportunities, and The Poor. I especially like the way Gotthardt develops this section, since too often in books of this type church giving is simply undifferentiated, viewed as Obligatory Instititutional Support. He also speaks passionately about giving related to the poor; sadly, this area gets far too little direct attention in evangelical circles, where the burden of proof is far too often on the poor to demonstrate their worthiness.

As regards Transformational Giving (TG), there is a limitaton to Gotthardt’s book, namely, that it’s directed purely at financial giving rather than comprehensive involvement in the cause. That’s no fault of the book, however: Gotthardt didn’t set out to write a text on comprehensive discipleship. Further, the Chapter 6 framework that Gotthardt lays out lends itself quite nicely to a P/E/O chart, particularly one done with a pastor or in conjunction with one’s local church wherein one is thinking through discipleship comprehensively, not only in relation to one specific cause.

In any case, the book is a revelation to me each time I read it. Plunk down 54 cents today with amazon.com and land yourself an extra copy or three to apply to your own life and to share with your champions.