God Isn’t for Sale (But Campfire Conversations Are Free)
Cara Meredith on Ministry Beyond Transactional Faith—and Why the Church Needs New Currency
Greetings and welcome to another Kaleidoscope Tea Time—where we spill the tea (and by tea, we mean the gospel). Tea is best served with friends, and tonight, I’d like to introduce you to one of mine.
Meet Cara Meredith: writer, preacher, and Kaleidoscope facilitator who once thought ministry was “too nerdy” (same, girl). Now, she’s charting a new way forward—one where faith isn’t a transaction, but a campfire circle of Holy Currencies. (Spoiler: Money’s not the only thing that fuels the Church.)
Cara loves backyard campfires and has a dog named Rufus. So, come join us for a fire circle. The stars are out, the tea is hot, and now it’s Cara’s turn to welcome us to the fire.
Ready? Let’s listen like we’re under the stars—pass me the thermos.
You can check out her website and learn about her latest book here.
Written by Cara Meredith for the Kaleidoscope Institute, June 2025
When I was around twelve or thirteen years old, my youth pastor asked me if I’d ever thought about being a pastor when I grew up. A pastor, I remember thinking to myself. But that’s so …nerdy!
I wanted something much more glamorous, perhaps a slot on the nightly news as a television broadcaster or on a New York City stage as a professional singer and musician. More than anything, I begged for an existence that didn’t involve constant rhetoric about God and the Bible and stuff like praying all the time.
As luck would have it, I spent a whopping four years in my early twenties defying the prophesy of Pastor Mylinda, highlighting as a high school English teacher instead. But by the time I reached 26, I found myself called to full-time ministry, a place I’ve continued to hunker down in for the better part of two decades.
Ministry looks different now than it did twenty years ago, when I could sleep on hardwood floors without proper back support and juggle seminary classes alongside a litany of other responsibilities. I now serve the Church in a part-time capacity, as a minister and a guest preacher, a writer and a rising facilitator for the Kaleidoscope Institute.
Whatever my capacity, I remain privy to a KI model that extends far beyond the realms of “time, talent, and treasure,” in an effort to instead create missional and sustainable ministries. I think about what it looks like to honor the Holy Currencies of Time & Place, Gracious Leadership, Relationship, Truth, and Wellness.
Because if ministry has taught me anything, it’s showed me that money isn’t the only thing – just as money hasn’t been the only thing I’ve had as someone who’s dedicated her life, in one way, shape, or form to vocational ministry, I’ve learned that money (or, to be certain, time, talent, and treasure), isn’t the only currency in the Church.
But this has often been learned the hard way.
As I write in my most recent book, Church Camp, too often Christianity can wedge itself into black-and-white ways of thinking—ways of thinking that are also often tinged with transactional and consumeristic modes of operation.
For me, this resulted in a “give-and-take way of believing—a buy-this, get-this-in-return type of interacting with the one I called God” (153). In all of the giving on my part, I came to believe that if I could just “give to God half of what God had first given me, then I would make God proud. Then God would be pleased with me. Then God would love me in return” (154). In more ways than one, “This transactional way of thinking mattered as long as I believed God was in the business of doing business with me. So I gave my life to this singular path of belief until I couldn’t anymore,” until I could no longer hold the tension because God, as it turns out, wasn’t something I could buy (154).
The book, of course, isn’t just about my experience – it’s also about the experiences of the dozens of people I interviewed for the book, all of whom had some sort of story to tell about that place called camp. And for some of those folks, the connection between a commodification of faith and consumer culture was quite obvious:
When religion becomes something that can be bought and sold, church camp naturally follows suit. We see this in theology, in belief systems, and in appraisals of quantifiable, measurable numbers of salvation—but we also see this in the rising costs of overnight summer camping programs, to the general detriment of underpaid, volunteer, or even paying staff (155).
While there are a number of rabbit trails we could start to meander down at this point in the conversation, I want to circle back to Holy Currencies. Instead of making the conversation one of mere commodity, the holistic model offers new ways for the church to look at and engage with the legal tender necessary for a place of worship to operate in the world today.
But it works precisely because it’s a model that’s instead built on and sustained by relationships.
When we err on this side of currency, the five Holy Currencies “flow and recirculate to form a Cycle of Blessings which empower congregations to strengthen their internal relationships as well as reach out and connect with the diverse populations in their neighborhoods.”
As I involve myself even more with KI (and with ministry in other capacities), I’m excited to explore this with those who also want to chart new ways forward around that old thing called money.
It may not be glamorous, but maybe, just maybe, it’s what we were supposed to be doing and who we were supposed to be being all along.
Like this post? Check out Cara Meredith’s substack.
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Oh, this is wonderful, and YOU are wonderful at introductions!