By Stephanie McCratic
Tuesday, April 19, 2011

When my husband and I started dating I was 30 and he was 31. We’d both had a fantastic time accumulating debt in our 20’s. We both also had unjustifiably expensive taste.

Each of us could see the error of the others’ ways. We could not, however, see our own errors.

Shortly after we got married a co-worker mentioned a financial class that was starting at her church. When Steve mentioned it to me I thought, “Oh this is perfect. He will see how ridiculous his spending is. Finally!”

After the first of six weekly classes we got in the car and sat stunned. This was huge. We needed help. We need to turn this barge around fast. Have you ever seen a barge turn around fast?

The class was taught by Chris Haas, who is one of the most caring, loving and financially inspiring people I have met. One of the first things he instructed us to do was add up our current debt.  Based on our best guesses we estimated we had *gasp* $14,000 in debt.

We are seeing the birth of a new ministry whose roots go back 20 years to a group of servant-hearted people who have blessed the church and our community with their service over the years. 

In October 2007, I came to work for Clement Financial Services as a Financial Advisor under the leadership of Roger Clement, Rod Bastian, and Kevin Barnes.  My work began with a mission to help re-launch the ministry outreach of our organization to local churches and our community to help make a difference in the lives of people in the area of their finances. 

Roger and the staff at Clement Financial have helped thousands of people for over 20 years teaching financial seminars in churches and doing one-to-one financial counseling, and they continue to help people to this day!