Kingdom Economics XXI 

Even if I'm a bit early, Happy Easter, Everyone!

Maybe I should better say, Happy Resurrection Day!

Sound better?  Yup.  I like that better, anyway.

I don't know if you have realized it or not, but we're soon coming up on three years since these Coffee Breaks began to be published.  Warren "Bones" Bonesteel had been publishing a series of online columns titled, "Morning Coffee," and he called me up one day, asking me if I'd give him a break for awhile.  I told him that I would be glad to give him a break of a month or so, but I didn't want to encroach on his "Morning Coffee" column; so we agreed on the title, "Another Coffee Break" for my columns.

Warren actually wound up taking several months before resuming his publication, but he later told me that he had simply run out of steam.  He only published his Morning Coffee column for another couple of months and then pulled the website.  In the meantime, owners of a fair number of other websites had stumbled onto the Coffee Breaks that I was publishing, or had been steered to them by various readers and asked if I would publish on their sites.  On one of those sites alone, in less than a month I had picked up more than 32,000 readers.

Another Coffee Break is currently being published on more than 80 different websites around the world and is translated into several different languages, not counting three separate individual subscriber lists on MSN, AOL and YAHOO.  We have loyal readership in Pakistan, India, China, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Belarus, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, The Netherlands and a fistful of other countries too numerous to identify here.  Our readership has surpassed the half-million mark.  We are also supplying printed copies of the Coffee Breaks to seven different prison systems in the United States.

That said, let me take this opportunity to say "Thanks" to all of you who are loyal readers -- and even those who never miss an opportunity to take a swipe at something I've said.  The negative comments and hate-mail notwithstanding, it tells me that folks are reading these columns, and they are making a difference in the lives of many people.

D. L. Moody used to say "If my preaching doesn't make you mad or glad, then I've failed."  I like that!  Guess that pretty much describes my sentiments, too.  I get plenty of "mad" responses, but the "glad" responses far outweigh the "mad."  Yippee!  Yahoo!

OK.  Time to pour that cup of good dark-roasted coffee and get on with our day.

We're continuing on with our discussion concerning seed-sowing, and I'd like to share with you a picture -- OK, several pictures -- of this principle of Kingdom Economics.

The story I'm about to share with you is one I heard firsthand (or at least a good portion of it) as a teenager in the 1950's when traveling with my parents.  We stopped into the Kemmerer, Wyoming J. C. Penney store in 1953 and again in 1954.  I sat with my Dad in the main office as we listened to the story of J. C. Penney's life as related by the then-store manager.  Some of the events I share here come compliments of Victor Parachin, who related them in the periodical, LifeWay.

Just about everyone has shopped in the J. C. Penney stores.  Some of you may be aware of this, but I suspect that most folks are not aware of the fact that James Cash Penney grew his operation from a single dry-goods store located in Kemmerer, Wyoming (beginning in 1902) into a world-wide clothing and department conglomerate by tithing and seed-sowing.

That first store was originally named -- appropriately enough -- "The Golden Rule."  Penney moved his headquarters from Kemmerer, Wyoming to Salt Lake City in l909 in order to have ready access to banks and railroads.  When J. C. Penney stepped down in 1917 from the presidency of the corporation, it had been renamed the J.C. Penney Company.  By that time, the company had grown to serve 22 states and had 175 stores.

In the years since, the company has grown to number 1,067 stores in 49 of the 50 states in the U.S. (Hawaii is the lone exception), and is the largest general merchandise retailer in the country.  Those are some of the statistics on the company.  Now, let's talk about J. C. Penney himself, and the sequence of events that brought Penney to know the Lord Jesus Christ personally and caused him to begin tithing and sowing seed.

Born in Hamilton, Missouri in 1875, J. C. Penney grew up in a Christian home and was raised amidst Christian ethics and values.  His dad was a Primitive Baptist preacher who did his best to instill an honor of the Lord.  He did not, however, come to know Jesus Christ personally until later in life, but one of the things that was drilled into him as a youngster was the fact that God was the source of all we have, and that if we honor him with at least the tenth of our income, we can expect His blessing over our labors and efforts.

When James was still a teenager, his father became a victim of church politics and was forced out of his pulpit.  The resulting financial hardship necessitated his going to work as a dry goods clerk.  This modest "small beginning" (see Zechariah 4:10) would prove to be the preparation of the Lord in his life for an illustrious and influential career as a retailer.

At the age of 23, Penney began working for Guy Johnson and Thomas Callahan, two entrepreneurs who operated a small chain of stores based in Longmont, Colorado known as "Golden Rule" stores.  The concept of the "Golden Rule," of course, is taken from Luke 6:31, where Jesus said, "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."  That statement has been paraphrased into "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and christened "The Golden Rule."

James Penney's upbringing was reinforced by working for Johnson and Callahan, and his work ethic and honor of God so evident that the two entrepreneurs invited Penney to become a one-third partner with them after only four years of employment.  He invested $2,000 and moved to Kemmerer, Wyoming in 1902 where he opened what would eventually become the first official J. C. Penney store.  After five years of partnering with Johnson and Callahan, they decided to dissolve the partnership and offered Penney the opportunity to buy them out.  He quickly took the option and promptly began opening more stores.

In 1913, he incorporated the J. C. Penney Company and began phasing out the "Golden Rule" name.  Four years later, he relinquished daily operating management to his trusted friend, Earl Corder Sams, but retained his chairmanship of the corporate board.  By 1924, James Penney had a personal annual income exceeding $1.5 Million.  (In today's dollars, that would likely equal $150 Million or more.)  His practice of tithing had grown well beyond the tenth of his income, and he began to sow financially into churches and missions, and church-related charities.  It was something that would stand him in good stead before too many years had gone by.

When the stock market crashed in 1929 and the Great Depression followed with world economic markets hitting the bottom in late 1933, James Penney's personal fortune had all but vanished.  In order to keep his corporation afloat, he borrowed heavily against the cash value of his various life-insurance policies.  He never missed a payroll, and despite the precarious nature of the nation's economy still managed to keep every store operating.  He also continued to tithe off what meager profits the company saw during this severe economic period.  The point was that the J. C. Penney Company did continue to survive and periodically make a profit, even when other, far more established companies and corporations were going under financially.

In 1936, three years after the Depression bottomed out, a young man came to work for James Cash Penney in Penney's Des Moines, Iowa store.  What this young man saw and witnessed in Penney's life, work ethic and financial practices through good times and bad impacted him for the rest of his life.  He, too, became a tither and seed-sower.  The man's name?  Sam Walton, who founded the chain of Wal Mart Stores and Sam's Club discount warehouses.

The stresses of the Depression took a toll on James Penney's health, and in or about late 1932 or early 1933 he checked himself into the Kellogg Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan for treatment.  The Kellogg Sanitarium was the equivalent of the Mayo Clinic in its day.  J. C. Penney's medical doctor, Dr. Elmer Eggleston, concluded that Penney was dying and medicated him in order to reduce the pain during what he considered would be the last hours or days (at most) of his life.

The sedative, however, wore off quickly and with the severity of the ensuing pain, Penney arose from bed, sat down at a desk in his hospital room to write his good-bye letters to his wife and son saying, "I do not expect to live to see the dawn."

In his later memoirs Penney would write, "I got weaker day by day. I was broken nervously and physically, filled with despair, unable to see even a ray of hope.  I had nothing to live for.  I felt I hadn't a friend left in the world, that even my family had turned against me."

The following morning, he awoke astonished to find that he was still alive.  Praise and singing were wafting down the hallway of his hospital ward, coming from the sanitarium chapel.  He headed down the hallway and sat down near the back of the chapel.  A young girl was singing the following words:

Be not dismayed whate'er betide,
God will take care of you;
Beneath His wings of love abide,
God will take care of you.

God will take care of you,
Through ev'ry day, o'er all the way;
He will take care of you,
God will take care of you.

Written by Civilla Durfee Martin in 1904, and based on I Peter 5:7 ("Casting all your care upon Him, because He careth for you.") the words struck a responsive chord.

Penney would later recall, "Suddenly something happened.  I can't explain it.  I can only call it a miracle.  I felt as if I had been instantly lifted out of the darkness of a dungeon into a warm, brilliant sunlight.  I felt as if I had been transported from hell to paradise.  I felt the power of God as I had never felt it before."

For the first time in his life, James Cash Penney realized that he had never personally made a commitment to Jesus Christ.  He realized that for all of his growing up in a Christian home, his church-going, his tithing, his seed-sowing and his charitable works, he'd never had a personal and intimate love-relationship with the Lord.  It all changed that morning as he was born again by the power of God!

"From that day to this, my life has been free from worry," he wrote. "The most dramatic and glorious 20 minutes of my life were those I spent in that chapel that morning."

His health quickly returned and he resumed his duties as Chairman of the Board of J. C. Penney Company.  Whatever financial difficulties he'd been experiencing began to rapidly evaporate.  Even before the Great Depression had officially bottomed out, his income had picked back up to the point where he decided to specifically plan for financial abundance in such a way as to have targeted giving.

He teamed up with Thomas J. Watson (founder of IBM), Norman Vincent Peale (minister and famed author of The Power of Positive Thinking), Henry Simler (the typewriter executive who ran Remington Rand), and radio personality, Arthur Godfrey, to form an organization which they named 40Plus.  It was designed to provide both advice and counsel, and avenues of opportunity for business leaders and professional people who'd been impacted by the Depression.  40Plus provided possible career changes (for those who needed to) and/or opportunities to get back into the corporate realm after losing their positions because of the collapse of businesses and corporations.

In 1954, realizing that his personal wealth was continuing to grow at a rate he couldn't even begin to utilize, he founded the James C. Penney Foundation as a means to funnel that wealth into ministries and charitable organizations so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ would grow and spread throughout the world.  That foundation is still distributing his wealth today.

For 45 consecutive years, the J. C. Penney Foundation focused its giving on the establishing of Christian churches, missions and ministries.  In 1999, 28 years after Penney's death, the board of directors changed the mission statement of the foundation, and while there is still giving to some Christian organizations, its focus has become "progressive social change."

The foundation's name was changed to the Penney Family Fund, and its giving restructured "to promote and support a society that honors the dignity of the individual."  Sadly, that scarcely reflects Penney's original plan and purpose.

Just shy of his 96th birthday, J. C. Penney changed addresses and went to be with the Lord in 1971.  The 91st Psalm had become Penney's theme, and before he passed on he could well testify to that which David wrote:

"Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.  He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.  With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation."

James Cash Penney well knew the deliverance of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He had seen God prosper him in good times and bad.  He had called upon the Lord in the pit of personal despair and seen God answer.  His life became a constant testimony to the honor of the Lord, and in his 96th year he could readily testify that he had experienced long life and the salvation of God.

Penney was far more than a tither.  He was a sower.  He was a giver, and his giving was more than cheerful: it was liberal, it was abundant, and it was constant!  In our next Coffee Break, (and I sort of got the cart before the horse today) we'll talk about Jesus' parable of the sower, and both the principle and the process by which sowing produces the kind of abundant harvest seen in the life of J. C. Penney.

Poverty is a form of Hell caused by man's blindness to God's unlimited good (and blessing) for him.  God's plan for man is the prosperity that comes by living in divine favor.  Living in divine favor is the product of direct and committed -- covenanted -- obedience to Him and His Word!

The Blessing of the Lord: it makes rich and He adds no painful toil and sorrow!  (Proverbs 10:22)  Be blessed!

Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
700 South 6th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 837-4657

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