Latest / Solving the World's Greatest Problems / Episode 10 - The CEO Who Capped His Lifestyle Before He Got Rich | Casey Crawford

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Episode 10 - The CEO Who Capped His Lifestyle Before He Got Rich | Casey Crawford · Solving the World's Greatest Problems

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Oldest was in high school, youngest was in junior high, and we were watching a sermon, and the leader was telling us this horrific story about the devastations of sex trafficking.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: I called job the job.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: What what do I do?
0:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, what should I do?
0:13
SPEAKER_01: I know that you know the guys, like I know that your heart's been broken by the same thing.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: What do I do in the other case I have?
0:19
SPEAKER_01: I I I do know that it's horrific.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: And what you just saw is horrific.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: I know some of the leaders actually of the organization that you were watching.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: And I can get you on the phone with them actually.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: If you want to go down and kick indoors, like we'll get you on the front lines because people are needed to do that.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: When that work is done, unfortunately, the next night, more sinfulness is going to emerge.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: We have to make this sin not just illegal.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: We can't just lock up the one sinner.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: We have to transform culture to make this sin unimaginable.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: And the only the only thing that does that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: The scale of brokenness is too big for us to do this in style of it.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Under its power for its glory together.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Solving the World's Greatest Problems Podcast.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: From NFL Locker Room to the co-founder and CEO of Movement Mortgage.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: This Superboat champion has led companies that have given more than$400 million to the Movement Foundation to uplift people and communities across the globe.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Through the solving the world's greatest problems community, he's helping investors, entrepreneurs move from asking, How much can I keep to how much can I deploy for the kingdom?
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Let's have a talk with Casey Crawford.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: So Casey, here we are, just outside of your hometown of Charlotte.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: Billy Graham Library.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: I love it when walls talk.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: There's so much history around it.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're surrounded by things that set the time, some magazines here that help us understand like what was it in the 40s, early 50s when Reverend Graham steps into this kind of moment.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: What what are some of the things that strike you about his legacy?
2:38
SPEAKER_02: Just about just the the way that God used him in that time.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: This morning it was it was pretty quiet.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: I was sitting on my front porch and I was uh just thinking Brian about Billy Grant and what what what an honor it is to come in and even film in this in this library.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: And then yet reflecting like this this wasn't a person who led a political movement.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: This is not a um an entrepreneur.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: He had no product.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: There was nothing he built, there was there was no no no great mass of humans he employed.
3:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Um and yet and yet he left such an impact on the world simply introducing people to the person of Jesus Christ.
3:21
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: And we have a library and we have hundreds of millions, and probably at this point billions of people whose lives have been affected.
3:31
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Just through the generational legacy of Billy Grant being so intentional, so faithful to be used of the Lord to make an introduction to the person of Jesus.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: And that's gotta seem like the craziest uh fact set to the world.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Like if you don't know Jesus, you go, what in the world?
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Why would so many people, why would there be this library?
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Why a lot of people would we have a a highway named after the man in our city?
3:59
SPEAKER_01: Like, why are people so excited about this man and they're excited about this man because of the man he introduced so many to and the way that man Jesus changed so many lives?
4:09
SPEAKER_02: And um You know, there's so many things I'm struck by here.
4:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, as you're saying, 215 million people, I think is what they estimate through different places.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: I heard and share the story of Jesus.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: I think 3.2 million people through these different events and things step forward and said, Man, God is doing something, and I want him to do something in my life.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but and I think what's so fun is like that's what we've seen, but we talk about just like the compounding impact that you're saying is like, yeah, well, man, that leads to this, to this, to this.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: And today, who knows how many tens or hundreds of millions of people are a part of that that legacy and that compounding impact of that?
4:51
SPEAKER_02: It's really mind-blowing.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: It it now it really is.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it it you think all the way back to like Jesus himself, right?
4:57
SPEAKER_01: Like the the the largest sermon he ever preached.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: I you know I I don't we don't know exactly how I don't know, 10 or 15,000 maybe heard this thing.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: And then Billy Graham, we hear preached to one million people, like one million people.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: Whoa, like that's Korea.
5:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: But but you and I talk a lot about the point in time we are right now in history and how incredible it is and how how powerful it is.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: And you think about like 15,000 to 1 million, there's a there's a I haven't done the math on that, but there's some multiplication there that's astounding.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And yet, and yet, like today, when John Maxwell tweets, a million people see it.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Like the exponential power of technology and and infrastructure today makes it such that like we can reach more people with that good news and relationship with Jesus Christ than ever before, more easily than ever before, because of the example of Jesus himself and then folks like Billy that were so intentional to do that.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the thing that gets us so excited to go, man, if with the limited technology that was available even just just 50 years ago, just 50 years ago, to what we have today, I mean, what could be possible today?
5:57
SPEAKER_01: How could the world look differently today because of the channels and the and the incredible distribution that's available to us?
6:04
SPEAKER_02: I think that's and we're certainly going to dive into that later.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: I think it's also the fun to look at history of this story.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: And I think there's, you know, in in entrepreneurship, there's, you know, founder legend, founder myth, kind of this idea of that.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: And even in this story, I think we sometimes miss the history around it.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: And in the first revivals, the ones that maybe where people in the country started to wake up and to understand what Billy Graham was doing, yeah.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: There's even stories behind that of intentionality of maybe gospel patrons and people giving generously and and advertising and media and news, and and they really talk about the story that like it suddenly captured some national attention when the media of the day, the Twitter of its day, kind of said, Hey, what's going on here?
6:50
SPEAKER_02: And all the newspapers shared the story.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: And before you know it, a revival that was supposed to happen for days or a couple of weeks turned into a couple of months.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: And I think we missed that.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: I think we missed that.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: You know, we talk about solving the world's greatest problems today, and we say, Man, there needs to be athletes and influencers and entrepreneurs, investors, everybody at the table.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: But the truth is, God's been running that play for decades.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: He's been running the play for decades.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Humans have been sinful and in need of a savior for forever.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: Like this is in some ways, it's like we we have new tools and new new technology, but but humans have not changed, right?
7:26
SPEAKER_01: And we need the same thing.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: We need relationship, we need introduction to the person of Jesus, like through whatever means there is.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: And I think the mistake is sometimes we look back on these works like like the Billy Graham Crusades, and we certainly like we see the miraculous outcomes, right?
7:43
SPEAKER_01: We see from history's, you know, kind of rearward-looking view.
7:46
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: And yet, having gotten to talk to some of the folks are involved in it.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a lot of just kind of mundane work, the same as there is today.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: And I think people could look at so many of the great ministries that we get to see and interact with and go, whoa, whoa, look at what's happening with groundware.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, John Maxwell.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've I've been with John when been in Guatemala and seen two million people, you know, do his transformational leadership roundtable.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: And it's miraculous to look at it kind of in hindsight, yet in the day-to-day, it still can feel risky, scary, not unsure.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: Is this gonna work?
8:16
SPEAKER_01: Is it not gonna work?
8:17
SPEAKER_01: Like the Lord's calling you towards something that that that that has risk.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: And I I know some people that are involved in that ministry felt the same way.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: It could be mundane.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: At times, even living in the middle of the miraculous day-to-day can sometimes feel kind of mundane, feel kind of hard.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: You question, I mean, there there's hits to the ministry, there's attacks, there's things that discourage you.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, all those commonalities still kind of exist today.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that that's what encourages me and it kind of inspires me, I think, about looking back at some of these guys who've been so faithful through those journeys and knowing, man, it was difficult, it was hard, and it still is today.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: And the man yet, the Lord can just do exceedingly much more.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: We were talking with Will, Billy's grandson earlier as we're we're walking in here and kind of hearing some of the history.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: And uh, Will had a really just powerful line where it just talks about this idea.
9:02
SPEAKER_02: It's it's fun to see history, it's fun to appreciate history, but let's not get caught up so much in thinking, oh, that's that's just got how God worked it then.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: Let's use history to see how he's working now.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's just an important thing because sometimes, man, we can get infatuated with the facts and the things and put this thing on Mount Rushmore and feel like, oh, that that'll never happen again.
9:25
SPEAKER_02: But it is.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: And before we get there, you know, take us in a little bit to your journey because part of this conversation is we're trying to say, like, man, this is a place where entrepreneurs are stepping into a conversation.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: They're stepping into a conversation with other entrepreneurs to give collaboratives, to solve problems collaboratively.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: Some have probably seen the story of movement that we've produced with you guys before, but give everybody a quick flyover.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Your story, business, entrepreneurship, and what leads you to here.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, my my story, man, incredibly fortunate to grow up in a house that um, man, I always kind of honored Jesus, followed the Lord from an early age.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: My mom and dad uh both model the hope and faith in Christ for me.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember a time in my life um where I didn't have some appreciation for who Jesus was and the fact that I was a sinner and he died for those sins.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: And you know, of course, that it grows and matures as we grow and mature, but uh that was just a real gift to to to to to always just kind of have a worldview that was shaped with Jesus in the middle of it.
10:25
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: And um, my dad ran a little uh you know, three, four-person uh true value hardware store in Washington, DC in the 80s and 90s.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: And so I grew up with an entrepreneur for a father, and my mom was an entrepreneur also.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: She ran a consulting business.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: So I watched both my parents um, you know, kind of walk in that entrepreneurial journey.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: And you know, we we um we we were probably lower middle class kind of kind of kind of growing up.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and you know, as as businesses did a little better, we we were able to to expand that a little bit.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: But um I watched the trials and travails of entrepreneurship, you know, the hardships of economies kind of rising and falling, and and you know, what in Susan.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: I also um I got to watch what it looked like to follow Jesus in the workplace.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: And so, so while my parents never used that language, they didn't have the the faith-driven entrepreneur kind of uh language and and lexicon, uh, they they walked out just following Jesus.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: And it seemed really natural to be praying with your coworkers and to man love the neighborhood that we were a part of.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: And I I I have some of the greatest kind of faith heroes in my life were my mom and dad and some of the men that work with my father.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Again, that I didn't know they were discipling me as a little boy, but I was watching these guys um sacrificially love one another and their neighbors in ways that today uh just arrest me with the generosity.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: I watched a man that was sleeping on his aunt's couch because he didn't have more money than that.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: He was a full-time employee of my father.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: He had graduated eighth grade, been locked up for a few things, and come to faith in prison.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: And um man, he followed Jesus so passionately, so courageously.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: And one night he heard that a guy in his Bible study needed a job.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: And inexplicably, he came and resigned.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah in the informal process that that was the hardware store resigned.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: And an hour later, a man showed up, said, Hey, I heard there was a job here.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, and Earl had had given up a job.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: This is a man with almost nothing sleeping on his aunt's couch, given up a job for a man in his Bible study.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Because he's like, No, no, no, my brother, my brother is in need.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, I love my brothers myself.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I'd lay down my life for my brother.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: I forced I'd give him my job.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: And I just go, man, like that kind of generosity, that kind of modeling and faith is one that that that it just transforms you, it shapes you as a kid.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: I was so in growing up, I didn't I didn't think it was anything really radical or or wild to think about kind of living out um faith in the in the sports teams that I played on, and then you know, later on in the workplace.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: So you see that modeled, and I think there's a moment that we go through like growing up where you you see something, it feels natural.
12:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you you catch something versus being taught something in a classroom.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: But when did generosity for you, like maybe in that proverbial question, man, when did the faith come from your parents to you?
13:07
SPEAKER_02: For generosity, what was that journey for when it went from like this is what I saw, the culture I grew up in, yeah, to this is a culture I want my family and my kids to grow up in?
13:17
SPEAKER_02: When did that switch for you?
13:19
SPEAKER_01: So you know I'm uncomfortable with the word generosity, and I would never describe myself as generous.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: Um I I I've I was given the gift as a mom and dad that they taught tithing at a really young age.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: And I remember every one of my allowances, we we worked for our allowance kind of first of all.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: And then every one of our allowance, if we got a dollar, 10 cents was taken out, and we we, you know, take a dime and put it in the offering plate.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: And so at like such a young age, without even having to kind of like make a conscious decision around that, my parents just kind of modeled for me, man, you know, honor the Lord with what he's provided for you, right?
13:52
SPEAKER_01: And we give him a tenth, we give him a tithe, we give him a first offering.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: And and that wasn't so much about the percent, right?
13:57
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't uh, I don't think what shaped me was the percent that I was giving at that point.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: It was, I think, just showing into a little kid, man, this idea that that God is the provider of these things, and that man, he he calls us, man, to to give generously and freely with that.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't need anything from us, but he wants so much for us.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: And I think even at a young age, man, the Lord knew how he wired me.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: And and money was a trap for me.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Money was a temptation for me.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: Probably for a couple of listeners too.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Bible warns more about than anything, and I think those take us into that discipline.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: Wait, wait, what was the trap?
14:32
SPEAKER_02: Was the trap when you look at that, was it control?
14:36
SPEAKER_02: What was it?
14:37
SPEAKER_01: I think it's I think it's it's it's so multifaceted, and it's probably different things at different moments.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's it's the the the optionality of pleasure.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I'd like to go do this fun thing, and money allows me to go do that.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's security.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, if I have enough, like if I have enough, I can I can pay for a medical bill or I can pay for, you know, I can survive a crisis.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I can because I have this storehouse, right?
14:56
SPEAKER_01: It's just the Bible says the wealthy man trusts in the high walls of his wealth.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: And it's so easy for us to to to look to money for pleasure, look to money for safety, look to money for security, look to money for purpose, look to money for affirmation, look to money for so many things in life that the Lord wants to give us from a relationship with him.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and yet we trade it for money.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I can see money, I can touch money, I can feel money, I know what money can can do and what can it do for me in the immediacy.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: And I think I often trade a hope and faith in what God promises about the joy, the peace, yeah, uh the relationship with him, the eternal impact we can have when we trust in him, not money.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: When we when we're free with money to to to use it as he calls us and leads us, when we really seek him honestly and earnestly with our heart to go like, Lord, what do you want me to do with this that you've entrusted to me?
15:49
SPEAKER_01: What do you want me to do with it?
15:50
SPEAKER_01: That's a scary question.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to ask that question.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: I want to say what I want to do with the money that I have temporal control over, and yet um I think the Lord calls us to such a different relationship with us than the world tempts us with.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: The world tempts us with kind of the immediacy of money and all that it can do in that immediacy in the Lord, I think, offers us such a bigger, better view, but it's one that takes faith.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: It's one that takes faith because I can't touch the eternal impact.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: I can't, I can't I can't see the peace that I'm gonna have by not being consumed with money.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: I think like there's a series of traps in this, and I think you alluded to this idea, there's so many different layers that we can get caught up in.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: I think if first we're able to free ourselves from this idea of this, like some of the temptations, the comfort, the pleasure, and that side of things, and if we repurpose it and start harnessing this for good intentions, another trap emerges that emerged that oh, God needs me.
16:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: Or needs my money.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: He needs my money, he needs my money here.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: He needs me to partner with it.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Lord's just sitting on his throne, just just wear hope.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: I hope that Justin, I hope just I hope I sure hope Casey sends me some money, sends some money while I so I can accomplish my purposes.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's it's it's ridiculous as you and I say it.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: We we can hear, I mean, I can hear.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: We're just even saying out loud, you're like, that's the dump that's crazy.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: This is the one who spoke and created the world, and yet, and yes, I think sermons I've heard in church, conversations I've had with friends, uh just a little live Satan Satan's sewn into me.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, is that God wants something from me?
17:25
SPEAKER_01: Oh, he don't don't don't give me what he wants, he wants why should he have your money?
17:28
SPEAKER_01: You aren't you worked really hard.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe he did something, but don't you remember how hard you worked and what you did for this thing?
17:34
SPEAKER_01: And I I just the Lord, the Lord's been so gracious flipping that from like me and I want nothing from you.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: I want so much for you.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: Like I want I want you to have my joy.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I want you to have my peace.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to be trapped by this.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: I want you to have the joy of like seeing transformation in others' lives.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: I want you to have the joy of partnering with me in the eternal work that I'm doing through time and history.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and and and I I miss that on a daily basis.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: I gotta realign my heart pretty much daily.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Yes, because I'm I think we're all we're human, we're temporal, and we're, you know, I can see, touch, and feel things.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: And I don't walk by faith as often and as consistently as I'd like to.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: And if I did, I'd be much more free.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: With even the money that I have.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: I'd be much more free.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: But I I think that's the the trap of it is that that man, it it it scratches every temporal itch we could have.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we're we're human beings, they kind of walk by sight, not by faith in most cases.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:30
SPEAKER_02: I think the dangerous thing also is is like for one, I think it's important what you point out is this is a daily thing.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: If we have those moments of clarity, we have that moment of confusion next week.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: This is a reminder thing.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: Nobody ever gets to this like steady state where we've arrived.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's that journey.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: But I think when you experience that joy, so oftentimes and you see a a brother or sister that's maybe you can see God's work in there's this wrestling, you just you want to just like grab them by the you know, shoulders or whatever it is, and pull them and say, Come on.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: And in whatever way, and I think that there's I mean, let's face it, the church, we need to talk more openly about this.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: We talk about sexual sin, we talk about brokenness, we talk about all these things, but rarely do we talk about the finances.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: And yet, even if we do, we have to recognize, like, man, we can't just like grab somebody and force them.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: There's a process of those blinders really coming off that it's a journey that everybody's on.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: Like it feels like we're in that tension of like wanting to get people there, but then God needs to do his work kinda in his timing.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: How do we how do we walk through that like being faithful to push on those conversations, but also recognizing God's doing a work in each of us?
19:50
SPEAKER_01: I listen, I I can speak for myself.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: For me, first of all, it's um I mean, we have such a gift in confession, such a gift is given us in the opportunity to confess.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: Like Jesus died on the cross because we are sinners, right?
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And the opportunity to just confess to him and to one another, and then to know that we have total forgiveness of these sins, but like confess your sins one to another.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: The Bible warns more about greed and the temptations of wealth than it does any other sin.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: Every men's study I've ever been in, everyone I've ever been in, every single one I've ever been in, one of the first sections is hey, do you have a covenant with your eyes?
20:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how are you dealing with lust?
20:26
SPEAKER_01: Men's struggle with lust, kind of like these um, you know, topics that there's every men's study.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: And and we confess that.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: We need to confess that.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: That's good, that's right.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: How is it though?
20:37
SPEAKER_01: How is it that we are so much more comfortable talking about that sin than greed?
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: I have never once in a men's study had someone ask me how much I made last year and how much I gave, and how my heart was doing around money and wealth and generosity.
20:51
SPEAKER_04: Not one time.
20:52
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: I in fact, I brought it up one time in a men's study, and a guy who had shared earlier about some really tough um struggles with lust and just all the details there, immediately goes, that's really personal.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: That's my money's really personal.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: I went, wow, like what has Satan done?
21:06
SPEAKER_01: What has he flipped here?
21:07
SPEAKER_01: That that what actually is personal between a husband and a wife, between a man and a woman, has become something we're very comfortable talking in a group about.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: But money, something that we should, I think is far less personal in so many ways, is something, man, that that we're not allowed to ask one another about, not allowed to encourage one another on.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's a really, really tough topic, I think, in the church.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: And it's a tough one for pastors too, because you know, churches are funded through tithes, through giving, through offering.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And I think pastors either feel like they're self-serving when they talk to the congregation about giving as though they're saying, Oh, just it's yeah, he he doesn't really care about me.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: He cares about me giving him my money.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: Right?
21:42
SPEAKER_01: Again, we're back to this thing of like those thoughts, yeah.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're all and I get it, man.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: It's super hard for the pastors.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: And it it it it ends up it ends up being a really under discipled, under discussed element in our life that that I think is is is interesting again, because scripture, man, scripture is just.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Filled with warnings about this topic.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: Filled with them.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: And it's the one thing we know that like competes for our hearts.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: You can't serve two masters.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: You're going to love one, you're going to hate the other.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say that about any other sin.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: Like we're going to love one and hate the other.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, can you imagine hating God because we love money and we don't even talk about it?
22:17
SPEAKER_01: We don't warn about it.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: We don't hold each other accountable around it.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: It's we don't have a lot of transparency with one another around our money.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: It's a real danger.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: I think it's I think it's a uh particularly in the West, a real stronghold that Satan has in the church in the West.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the point that you're making here is like scripture is not kind to the rich or to wealth or to things.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: Like, and that and that can be misinterpreted, but like can you for just a clear warns the danger?
22:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: He warns the danger of it.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: I think to the point that we even, as we're talking about uh sexual brokenness, maybe there's a moment here where we pause to recognize, like, man, 10, 20 years ago, that wasn't talked about.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: 20 years ago, there wasn't that.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: It was like you didn't hear about anything until you heard about everything.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: Like, and you turned about the brokenness and you heard about the fall.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: Like I every every youth group I was ever a part of did a talk on don't have premarital sex.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Everyone up.
23:10
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: I do not remember a single talk in my youth groups about um wealth.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wealth and the and the trappings of wealth and generosity.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: I I heard a lot about don't drink, um, don't don't don't, you know, yeah, um engage in lustful activities.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: I did not hear almost anything about generosity and don't crave money.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: Don't in fact, I I remember a lot of like the most successful people kind of being lifted up and kind of thinking, man, like I guess earning a ton of money or pursuing money like really passionately is good.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: And I think it is.
23:38
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: But but but but there were no guardrails given around that, or no, there was no framework really taught and I think in a robust way around that.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: I think part of that story, like when I look at like uh Alan and Catherine Barnhart, for me, uh first meeting Alan 20 years ago, we're hosting this conference, it broke all the paradigms.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, like I I love they for sure broke the mold.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and here we are, we're we're hosting this event, this conference for right now media, and uh you've got pastors, and there's this honorarium and this hotel, and you've got this and this and that and whatever.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: And then Alan stewarding this massive company, yeah, this growth that's there, and I'll never forget at the end of the day, Alan's like, hey, um, I'm you know, got this cheap hotel down the street.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: Oh, we got a hotel.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: He didn't bring his tent.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, because it's worth the gnomes in there too.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, you know, do you mind giving me a ride?
24:31
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't want to I don't want to spend money in on a cab at the time.
24:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: And it struck me as, you know, in this old Honda that we're driving at the time, that I'm taking Alan to this hotel, and there was just something about it that over the last 20 years, there's been faithful men and women that have stepped up and said, hey, listen, there's time and places to tell all the story and certain people to go into the depths of the story with, but we got to step into this moment to like give people the answers of some answers at least to this how question.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: I think that over the last 20 years, there's just been this stirring of like, man, God's called us.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: We understand why, but we're asking how.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: And I know that you've kind of been on some of that journey of just like entering into conversations or community is an overused word, but relationship where you're gonna be able to do accountability, transparency.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just talk about like what you've learned and what you would encourage people to say.
25:28
SPEAKER_02: Seek this out.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: I'm not being prescriptive on one to ten, yeah, but what are the things that we need to be surrounding ourselves with?
25:36
SPEAKER_01: So Alan has been a huge encouragement to me as well.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, he he he man, he just affirmed so much of what I read in scripture and believed to be true already.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: And what an interesting thing though that he stands out so starkly.
25:51
SPEAKER_05: Right?
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, like yeah, you you'd think in a world of so many folks that love Jesus that that there would be others that that they kind of made some decisions similar to Alan's and and and maybe many.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: Um others, and surely there are some, but but we don't know them.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, Alan stands out.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, Alan stands out kind of a reason because he because he chose some interesting uh different paths there in life around wealth and around money and how to think about it, how to how to steward it.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: Um some huge blessings in my life.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh one, I again I trained up at a really early age.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: So so I mean I did nothing for that, right?
26:18
SPEAKER_01: My mom and dad just kind of started to pour in these ideas.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: I had grandparents who were um I again working a couple jobs, but like we'd go to yard sales on the weekend and buy extra clothes, and we'd take them to the church.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: And again, I didn't I didn't see these things as like out of the normal, right?
26:33
SPEAKER_01: So, so so many the gift, I think of modeling for our kiddos and and including our kiddos at a really young age on this idea that we're called to love our neighbor with all the gifts, with all the Lord's entrusted to us, we're called to love our neighbor as ourselves, right?
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's that's a huge gift.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: Tried to try to expose my children to it, kind of bring them into that journey.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: And I it was a real gift in my life.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Then deciding, man, deciding ahead of meaningful wealth, like what you want your life to look like, like how you'd like to follow Jesus, how you'd like to, if you were to, if you were to to give you this gift, if you were to entrust you with this thing, what would you like that to look like?
27:12
SPEAKER_01: Like what do you think it looks like to honor him with those gifts?
27:17
SPEAKER_01: And man, to sign that early and then telling some folks about that was a huge help in my life.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: And and I had a guy named John Casey, disciple me in the locker room here, the the the Charlotte, Carolina Panthers, is a young rookie.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: Um and John, I think he'd been in the league, I don't know, a dozen years, 12 years, and he he was all pro.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: And I was kind of fifth, my life looks anything like John Casey's in a decade.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: I'll be so happy.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Wonderful family, marriage, kids, uh led the Bible study, all those kind of things.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: And one of the, I mean, gosh, what a gift.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: What a gift to meet a guy like John.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: One of the first discipleship lessons he went through with me was around wealth.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: Because John knew.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: John knew.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: John, John, John had grown up without a whole lot, and he he had achieved a whole lot in the NFL, and he knew how powerful a temptation it could be to kind of orient your life around.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: And he just encouraged me, said, Hey man, just just you, Michelle, decide and pray.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: How much is enough?
28:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you really need?
28:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: And just write down how content you are right now, where you are.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: And and you know, I'm not, you don't even need to, you know, uh carry a tent like Alan and sleep in the tent.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: Like you, you, you like just you decide for you and your your family what you know level of contentment, what level of lifestyle you think the Lord's calling you to, but then like write it down and share it with some folks.
28:29
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: And let like the difference of of maybe that income and the lifestyle you have be a place of generosity, like where you can, you can take those gifts and um use the sow into God's kingdom, you know, not just to continue to grow your own.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: And I was like 22 years old.
28:42
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: And I remember, man, I never heard anyone really, I knew you were supposed to tithe, and I knew you're supposed to give a little bit more, maybe even over the tithe.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: I kind of said, okay, that's tithe's minimum, and then you give a little bit more than that.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of what like an A plus Christian does, I think.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Like that's to get a five-star rating, you know, that's that's kind of what you do.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: That's the formula, yeah.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd never heard this idea about like coming up with a financial finish line, yeah.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, and storing up treasure in heaven.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: So it's Randy Alcorn um perspective on storing up treasure in heaven, and that hadn't really been sewn into me.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: So at a really young age, putting some lifestyle caps in place and putting some perspective on what I wanted to look like if the Lord were to bless me and trust me with with more, yeah.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's such a gift, I think, I think for others to do before before you receive it and then start going, hey, it's once I get it, then I'll then I'll decide how much I'm gonna give, or then I'll decide, yeah.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's a really tough proposition.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: I've watched a lot of folks struggle.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and most folks, I think, kind of approach, you know, wealth with that perspective.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: That like once I have it, man, it'll be really fun to figure out what we're gonna do with it.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: You know, I love um there's part of me that I love the finish line language.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: There's part of the conversations over the last decade with entrepreneurs where I've heard the pushback and I've been like, ah, that's such a limiting scarcity.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: And an entrepreneur doesn't like a box, we break boxes, we build our own kind of thing.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: And I like I like the way that John's named it recently of just like, what's your number?
30:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: And it's a provoking question, non-prescriptive, but just saying, like, everybody has a number.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: Everybody should have a number.
30:17
SPEAKER_02: And I love the point of like this idea of being forced with that question early.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Now I want to connect this to kind of this conversation of like I think when we think about giving, generosity, whatever the word might be, we think about man, maybe why we should give.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we think about how we should give.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: But together with so many friends, we're stepping into this conversation of like the where give.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: For you personally, for you and Michelle, yeah, because you guys have wrestled, but what were you seeing and what have you seen that's like broken and the where give portion?
30:53
SPEAKER_01: Um so just touch on your first your first David Rike finish line and how that can feel.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: And and and there's there's um, I I think actually what you're articulating is is the danger of sin in this stuff, like the temptation of like, I don't know, don't tell me, don't tell me, don't tell me how much I can eat.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm all you can eat buffet kind of guy, man.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: I don't have this gluttony thing.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Never heard this from entrepreneurs.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we all have these insatiable like desires, and like the fact that we feel like God would limit it, it offends us.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it bothers us.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: And and and yet I don't think he does.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he does.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: Man, we know, man, Christ, Christ covered all.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: There is no sin that we can commit that Jesus has not paid for on the cross.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna enjoy relationship with Jesus and be justified because of his good works, not ours.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: So God isn't up there needing us to perform in some way, and yet, and yet, I do think he calls us to go and I think he offers us rich life on the other side of these things.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: One the the the impression I got from the Lord if from Michelle and I personally was, how much do you need?
31:52
SPEAKER_01: It's how much you need.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't a it wasn't a condemning question.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it wasn't a question that made me feel like I needed to suffer, you know, and and be beaten down.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: It was just it was just how much do you need?
32:06
SPEAKER_01: Just your dad, like your dad asked you go out on a Friday night.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: Hey, just how much do you need?
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, how much do you need?
32:10
SPEAKER_01: And and the difference between how much I need and how much I make, yeah, is how much kingdom investment we're gonna be able to pour into.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: And there's this and there's investments in our kids, there's investments in family.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm not, man, you know, there are not ditches on this stuff.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's a different way to think about it.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think in every other area of my life, like I um I'm working pretty hard to limit how much I eat right now because I would like to not weigh as much as I did in the NFL.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: But like it, like in no other part of my life do I like begrudge or think it's an odd thought to limit my inclinations and desires.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Like I I can have a temper sometimes.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be, I don't run across the street and hit somebody and go, I wish I could just express that to its fullest, and you know, in every way, shape, and form, right?
32:50
SPEAKER_01: But with money, we get really offended.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: We get really offended if somebody says, Hey, hey, you need to rein that in a little.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: You need to put some guardrails around that.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we need to have like it isn't an all-you-can-eat buffet.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: It's not a just do whatever you feel, and as much as you feel, and as often as you feel, and to whatever extent you feel.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: Again, that doesn't strike us as odd in almost any other part of our life, but money, oh man, we get offended.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: I get offended.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: I get off.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, when you just call it out like that, it's you see the play, the brokenness and darkness is running right like all these other areas of life, as you said.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: But this one area, oh, we're just gonna keep this like.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an entrepreneur.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: I said this, I make the same argument to God.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: I thought what he we do, I thought the Lord had limited me to say this is about this company that you're starting, it's about my kingdom, not yours.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: I argued with the Lord, I'm an entrepreneur.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you mean?
33:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm an entrepreneur.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm putting money at risk.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: Nah, man, you're my you're my kid.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're my kid.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: You're my kid way before you're an entrepreneur.
33:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're my kid.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: And what I love about that story, and for those that haven't heard it, that you can go back and watch this story that we filmed, the movement and that journey.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: I love the way that you pulled on that because you you came to that realization sometimes by looking at somebody else and saying, Oh yeah, oh well, oh yeah, they're judging my neighbor, yeah.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: Judging your neighbor.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: I already confessed it on camera before with you, Justice.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was judging my neighbor, man.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: I I was.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: I was judging my neighbor for his greed uh his greed, you know.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: And then the Lord, I mean, yeah, just convicted me so deeply that, man, my my greed was a hundred X his.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: And and then, but but then just I mean, the way God graciously does, man, he's not condemning, right?
34:20
SPEAKER_01: He's not gonna just say in case how much do you need?
34:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how much do you need, man?
34:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then have peace about that and have joy in the giving over and above that.
34:28
SPEAKER_02: I think that's it.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: To me, I think that again, sometimes we look at it as like, oh, this is the things that are gonna be taken off the table.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: But so many times in our lives, God's saying, actually, I want to give you something better.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: So much more.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: So much better.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: And I want to give you joy.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's what God's taking maybe a community, a conversation, prayerfully, hopefully a movement to say, like, how do we experience the joy of giving?
34:52
SPEAKER_02: What has that been for you to say, like on this journey, how have you experienced the joy?
34:58
SPEAKER_02: How have you gone from something like, hey, this is a path, this is a routine, this is process, this is good limits, to the joy part of it.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Um I think on the the the the the looking forward side, uh it can feel like sacrifice, right?
35:16
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh man.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: I I I would love to buy XYZ.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to experience XYZ, I'd love to take my money and do whatever I want with it.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: And and the fact that I'm saying no to maybe some of those things, it feels like sacrifice.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it feels like sacrifice.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: I I think as I've gotten older looking back over the decades, the gift, the joy, the peace that the Lord has given me over just taking a lot of that off the table.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the amount of life I've gotten ahead because I'm not worrying and considering what to spend next, what to buy next, what to invest in next.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and get to really process and pray, man, how do we use these dollars for your glory, Lord?
35:58
SPEAKER_01: And and and the pressure that gets taken off, too.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, if I spend a whole bunch of money and don't really like the experience, I mean, what pray?
36:05
SPEAKER_01: Ask the Lord, hey, where is it?
36:06
SPEAKER_01: You'd have me invest your dollars for your glory.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: There's so much peace in that.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: There, there's there's there's there's hope in that.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: There's a lack of pressure in that.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: There's just like looking at your dad going, man, you perfect my imperfections.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: And um there's a lot of great friendships, I think, that are developed in that also.
36:27
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, rather than being consumed like I absolutely would be with what I can get and do for myself with the money that I've accomplished and I've earned all this stuff.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: Man, the Lord putting putting helping, you know, me place some limits on that, leading me placing limits on that has has allowed for so many more rich relationships.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I'm partnering with others to do something that's not about me or them.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it it's something we're doing together for our heavenly dad.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I just think, man, there's so much fun locking arms with your brothers and sisters in Christ, yeah, to advance your dad's kingdom, reduce people to our best friend, Jesus, yeah, our savior, Jesus.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Like and I think that you're talking about like there's a joy to it, but there's also a discipline and obedience.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: And we've talked about this before, is that there is a another trap.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: And I think that the numbers are are showing this and bearing it out is that sometimes as the business grows and the scales, like yeah, people may be giving something, yeah, but maybe that percentage even decreases, and somebody's like, Oh yeah, so and so gave you know twenty million dollars last year.
37:33
SPEAKER_02: But you're not trying to play like some legalistic formula, but but start looking at that and you're like, well, that was two, three percent.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like it's important that we have both both the joy, but also some sort of framework, some process, some plan, some covenant or something with the community because I think what we're seeing is gravity will make us feel really good about that that that two percent, that three percent.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: We need both.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: Yes, that is really in our lives.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: And I do think it it listen, um it is more difficult.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: It is very easy at one income level to give to your local church.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: And to I say I say easy.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's easy to absorb the probably the breadth of the giving that you're going to do within your local church and friends and family that you meet and seek.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: Some entrepreneurs do reach a point where you have to start praying and thinking much more broadly.
38:27
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: I I think about Barn Hart Crane and the great job that they do.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: I've learned a lot from them.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: They have an incredibly complex, thoughtful giving matrix that includes hundreds of really bright minds, lots of data, lots of thought, prayer, debate on what for my family growing up was a really easy decision.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: We we tithed to the church.
38:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: We gave to some missionaries, we supported some kids in tough places, and we give probably like locally and around my dad's store to people that had need.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: That was the breadth of the complexity that we undertook.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: And I think my mom and dad, I think we're really faithful with the Lord, the money, the mighty Lord entrusted to them.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: As wealth increases, complexity compounds.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Businesses get big and complex, right?
39:08
SPEAKER_01: Like my business is far more complex with 4,000 employees than my dad's was with four.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: It was giving also gets more complex.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: And I do think, and I've seen a lot of times, folks have worked really hard to aggregate capital through entrepreneurship don't want to be wasteful in the way they give it.
39:25
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: They're like, man, this was I I know this was blood, sweat, and tears.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: This was this was earned in such a hard, difficult, precious way.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be just haphazard and have it wasted, have it wasted, and and there became can become a paralyzing effect there.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: Where you don't want to waste what you have, but you're not quite sure.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: You're not quite sure how to do this with excellence.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: You you understand how to run a business with excellence.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: Giving the proceeds with excellence, you don't know.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: You haven't studied that for 20 years.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: You haven't like grind, you haven't been been endeavoring and grinding and sweating and um working in that in that arena.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And um that it does think I think I think it causes folks to pause.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: So as we push into that conversation, so we're pausing, and I think part of the pausing that we're experiencing is like what you just expressed.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: There's like a but gosh, I want to be intentional, I want to be strategic.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: There's a host of issues, and we talk about solving some big problems, and we talk about everything that we see in the news from trafficking and brokenness and different sides of things, and and I think we both encountered that.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: And you you had even told part of your story of saying, like, man, I I saw the horrific nature of darkness and sin.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: But but that led you to maybe a different place of saying, what does it look like to go upstream?
40:40
SPEAKER_02: And you you tell the story of uh conversation with you and John Maxwell, yeah.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: That kind of led to that.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: Take us into a little bit of that journey and how the evangelism fund for you became the place where you and Michelle said, Hey, we want to dive in on this.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: Um I remember really distinctly I was sitting on my couch with about three girls.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: I've I've two daughters and a and a wife, Michelle, and I've been married 26 years, got two two amazing kiddos.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: My my oldest was in high school, youngest was in junior high, and we were watching a sermon, and the leader was telling this horrific story about the devastations of sex trafficking and about the real and pervasive underbelly of just that incredibly dark world.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: I remember I just had tears coming down my eyes as I was like processing the in another environment, my little girls would be the ones about whom she was telling this story.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: And just as a dad, as a man, as it's just everything in me, I want to protect my girl.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: I want to protect somebody else's little like I said, this is not okay.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: Like this sin is not okay.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: No sin's okay, but this one particularly, this is the most vulnerable, the the just the the darkest things you can imagine.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, John Maxwell's uh been a mentor of mine for a long time.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: He's a he's a guy I reach out to in tough moments.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: And I know John has looked at these issues and looked at sin and talked to world leaders and has just spent decades thinking and working towards kind of a more redemptive world.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: So I called John and said, John, what what do I do?
42:18
SPEAKER_01: Like what should I do?
42:19
SPEAKER_01: I know that you know the guys, like I know that your heart's been broken by the same thing.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
42:23
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Casey, I have.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: I do know that it's horrific.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: And what you just saw is horrific.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: I know some of the leaders actually of the organization that that you were watching, and I can get you on the phone with them actually.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to go down and kick indoors, like you will bitch get you on the front lines because people are needed to do that.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we need people to go do that, and then praise God for them, we'll pray for them, we'll support them.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: If you want to join them, you should.
42:47
SPEAKER_01: So listen, I thought it was okay, and um because when that work is done, unfortunately, the next night more sinfulness is gonna emerge.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: That sin is gonna keep cropping up.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: And in case the reason, like the reason at his age that he still works the way he works, travels the world the way he does, pours in and pours himself out to introduce people to the good news of Jesus Christ, he's like, we have to make this sin not just illegal.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: We can't just lock up the one sinner.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: We have to transform culture to make this sin unimaginable.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: And the only, the only thing that does that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: Coming to a hope and faith in Jesus Christ and biblical values is the only thing that's going to transform culture so that we don't just punish or eradicate that one sinful act, but we transform a culture of sin to be one of worship of God and Jesus.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Trafficking, structural hunger, a billion people without the Bible in their language.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: These aren't unsolvable.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: They're just uncoordinated.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: At solving the world's greatest problems, we're a community of givers taking on the root causes of the world's deepest suffering.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: And we're taking them on together.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: We've identified more than 30 of the world's greatest problems.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And the list keeps growing.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: We work alongside the entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders already in the fight, and we find the breakthroughs happening right now.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: Here's where it starts.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: Choose your profit and start your journey with one of our foundation courses.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: You won't just hear about the work, it'll be the breakthroughs.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: Give directly towards them.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Come on your own, bring a few friends, or host a room and set the table.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: Come join the fight and fight your people.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Learn more at stallbeat.org.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: Under its power for its glory.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: Together.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: And man, he said that and it just it resonated on every level.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: It resonated on every level with me.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: And it didn't lessen my appreciation for the brave men and women that are doing the rescue work.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
44:58
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: Praise God for the rescuers.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: Praise God for the rescuers.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: And there are those of us that need to back up and think upstream about what we can do to transform hearts.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so that these crises are prevented and avoided.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: So so so that so that the people that are perpetrating these horrific crimes, I mean, they had their hearts transformed earlier in life and are worshipers of Jesus, not man, caught in in just the depths of sin and destruction from Satan.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: And so it it really resonated with me, and we got a lot more serious in partnering with John to see nations transformed to come to know Christ, to come to hope in Christ, trust in Christ, have their lives transformed by Jesus.
45:44
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: And knowing, man, that when that occurs, man, outcomes improve on every front.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: Not just trafficking, homelessness, integrity, yeah, trust.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: That's one of the upstream.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: And I love the way that you're saying it.
45:58
SPEAKER_02: Is it just like again, we need people to kick indoors?
46:00
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: We need people to go upstream on that issue.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: But as Christ followers, we bring a unique perspective to this idea of solving the world's greatest problems and seeing the greatest upstream thing is the gospel and the truth of that.
46:11
SPEAKER_02: When you push into that conversation and you start talking about evangelism, we want to first kind of recognize like there's so many beautiful, wonderful shapes and sizes.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: That God has his story and the gospel going out.
46:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: It can be overwhelming.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's important for us to recognize that like where a community of givers comes together and starts is certainly not the extent of it.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: There's gonna be lots of chapters and lots of different things and lots of different places.
46:41
SPEAKER_02: But as this fund has taken off, where has it started?
46:44
SPEAKER_02: What's that process been like for you?
46:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:47
SPEAKER_01: So so folks ask a lot about like, hey, where should I give?
46:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, what if if they're kind of getting into like more scaled giving or something, where should I give?
46:54
SPEAKER_01: My answer is always the same.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, man, start with prayer and fasting.
46:57
SPEAKER_01: Don't ask me, ask Jesus.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: Let me just ask before you're asking Casey Garden, have you asked Jesus Christ?
47:05
SPEAKER_01: Because I promised you his answer is gonna be like infinitely better than mine.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, and interestingly, and I was probably in this case, you know, if a lot of guys would go, no, I haven't I haven't really done that.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: I haven't really stopped and prayed and fasted and just sought the Lord about where he would lead me to give.
47:20
SPEAKER_01: Because as you said, I mean, there are rescuers and there are upstream culture transformers, like like both are needed.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: The Lord, the Lord will call us to different places, and that's good.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
47:28
SPEAKER_01: We all want to be called different parts of the kingdom.
47:30
SPEAKER_01: Praise God.
47:31
SPEAKER_01: So so so stop praying fast.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: And for me, I was I was stopping praying and fasting and just seeking the Lord as a dude.
47:39
SPEAKER_01: And and it my heart, I just I just I just looked at this evangelism problem and Lord has um wired my heart for like scale and joy, enjoying scale and enjoying numbers and enjoying um things at like done in breadth in in scaled ways.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of entrepreneurs can kind of resonate with that.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, like we like to grow things, we like to see things that could grow infinitely.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: We look up to guys like you know, Elon Musk or something that have just done these wild transformational businesses that really change the world in the best ways and in good ways.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: And um I started to think about evangelism, and I went, you know, if I if I if I wanted to like invest in the most scaled evangelism ministry in the world, like what is it?
48:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: And I realized I had no idea.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: I know a lot I spent a lot of time in the giving world, you spent a lot of time in the giving world, a lot of active with a lot of great Christian giving organizations.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: And I had no idea actually if I wanted to see the most people come to know Jesus Christ, how I would invest a dollar to see that occur.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: And I went, I I bet, I bet other followers of Jesus have the same question.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: Like if I if I'm really excited, if I'm really passionate about having people come to know my best friend Jesus, how would I invest dollars to see that happen?
48:49
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, you and I started talking, Henry and I kind of started talking and brainstorming and go, like, what if, what if we we hired someone and and we actually treated our eternal impact investment dollars with as much care and concern as we treat our temporal investment accounts.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: We hire really smart people and pay them a lot of money to do a really good job stewarding our temporal investment dollars.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: That we know are just here to kind of feed us and clothe us and you know, give something there at the end of the end of time.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: And yet then we go to our giving dollars and we kind of give them away sometimes kind of flippantly without really investigating, without really having a game plan, without really having a framework for maximum eternal impact.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: And these are supposed to be eternal dollars over here, and these are just temporal.
49:32
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: And so we said, what if we hired folks with the same kind of intellect, the same kind of rigor to look at how to deploy eternal impact dollars with maximum effect?
49:41
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: And um that really led to the start of the evangelism fund.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: And as you said, there are a lot of great ways to think about evangelism.
49:47
SPEAKER_01: There's people that need to be reached in the hardest, furthest away places in the world.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: Praise God.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: Folks need to be serious about mobilizing to go and there's different funds.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: Like with what Barnhart McClellan and Edward DeGrove is doing.
49:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yep, there's there's funds that do that.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: Ours, we want to say, if if if my daughter said, Hey daddy, um, made my first thousand bucks.
50:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna give a hundred, I'm gonna give two hundred, and I want to see the maximum number of people come to know Jesus.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: How would I invest that?
50:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how would I invest that?
50:15
SPEAKER_01: That's the fun.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: That was the question we wanted to answer, and a problem we wanted to solve with this fund.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: We know we'll never solve, to be clear.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: To be clear.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: Like everyone in the world having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ won't solve, but we will solve for a giver.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the question of if I want to invest dollars for maximum kingdom impact for the most number of folks coming to know Jesus, how would I do that?
50:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and across all of these problems, we're not saying uh sin is going to be eradicated, but you can still find a solution in there inside of it that will work.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's important here just kind of give a quick flyover in the sense of these collaborative giving funds, like the evangelism fund specifically, yeah.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, there's an investment committee.
50:55
SPEAKER_02: There's guys like Brian Schepler and Luke and yourself that are saying, okay, we're gonna push the rigor and the intentionality collectively.
51:03
SPEAKER_02: This isn't any one person, this is a group coming together on a united common emission.
51:08
SPEAKER_02: And then there's a layer of board of advisors and experts and thought leaders and people deeply passionate about the space that are really storting lifetimes of journey and knowledge all coming together.
51:19
SPEAKER_02: And then there's a fund manager.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: Fund manager, yeah.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: That's saying, I'm doing the blocking and the tackling.
51:24
SPEAKER_02: And I love the way that Landon describes the story.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: He's like, man, I'm I'm a uh investment private equity finance guy that grew up in a Jesus-loving PK or pastor's kid church home.
51:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:36
SPEAKER_02: And when you think of that combination, you think of those different layers, you see the beauty of this big table working together.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: And and through this process, I think it's now closing in on about a hundred organizations that have been diligenced, that have been a process, that we're working through the numbers, where we're having those conversations.
51:55
SPEAKER_02: There's I think the second round of allocations that are starting to go out.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: So if you looked at this from the outside, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of investors would say, Hey, that that sounds familiar.
52:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: That that sounds how I would steward the rigor of my investment dollars.
52:12
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
52:12
SPEAKER_02: In a big process in a statue like that.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: And you know, private equity investments, venture capital investments, um, everything's about deal flow.
52:20
SPEAKER_01: All right.
52:20
SPEAKER_01: To to make the best investments, you need to see a lot of businesses and deals and opportunities.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: The same thing is to make the wisest allocation of dollars, right?
52:28
SPEAKER_01: And for for maximum eternal impact, see the most number of folks come to know Jesus.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: You need to see a lot of organizations that are trying to do this.
52:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: And understand what they do well, what they don't, how they're thinking about this problem.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: And you start to see patterns and you start to see rhythms and you start to see like things that are working and not of those 100 evangelism organizations.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: Only four, only four were chosen for funding.
52:50
SPEAKER_01: Only four.
52:50
SPEAKER_01: In the first round.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: In the first round.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: And I don't have the time.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't personally have the time to invest to diligence 100 organizations.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: 100.
53:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:01
SPEAKER_01: And man, I'm praise God for Landon for this incredible team that can do so much work on that front to make sure all I have to do is get involved, man, get that dollar and have it deployed really, really well.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: And like I said, it's it's a joy to be a part of.
53:13
SPEAKER_01: We got a great team, there's great governance, there's great boards.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: But man, there is just an awesome amount of time and rigor put into this process that I couldn't do on my own.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: And and and most givers don't have the time and team to do on their own.
53:28
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of asked, why would you want to?
53:30
SPEAKER_01: I would love to give with some of the other brightest folks that sit around that table that have a similar heart and help people come in.
53:35
SPEAKER_02: And you're hitting a pain point.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: It's it's whether you're working at a large corporation and in executive leadership or management or you're an entrepreneur building.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: I think that's the thing is most of us we've we've heard the sermons, we've heard the message.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: God's taking off some of the blinders and saying, like, I need to do more.
53:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, God's calling me to this, but we're stuck at the how.
53:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:53
SPEAKER_02: And I think that this really solves a pain point and a problem that people have.
53:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:57
SPEAKER_02: I want to flip into like the allocation for a minute and give people a glimpse.
54:01
SPEAKER_02: Here we are, again, in this incredible museum, hearing the story of a revival, an evangelist, and so many other things of what started in the 40s that used some of the mediums of its time.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: Technology and radio and TV and events and rallies and stadiums.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: And as we're saying, starting off uh this conversation, we're recognizing we're standing in a moment where people can hear things 10 times as fast, a hundred times as fast, things are spreading.
54:32
SPEAKER_02: Talk about ground wire, talk about some of these groups that are leaning into technology in a way that's really trying to say, how do we be faithful to the times that we're in?
54:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:44
SPEAKER_01: Well well, I think it uh again points back to the fact that people haven't changed a whole lot in in in millennia.
54:49
SPEAKER_01: Like people haven't changed a whole lot.
54:51
SPEAKER_01: I think I think we we we have the same wiring that we did thousands of years ago when Jesus walked the earth.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: The tools to reach those people have changed profoundly, are changing daily.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: Like AI in the last 24 months has even transformed.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: The the technology that we thought was really great.
55:08
SPEAKER_01: We thought was powerful.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: Now I think we're we're still trying to grasp the power of the technology that exists to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.
55:16
SPEAKER_01: And man, the enthusiasm, the excitement in the body of Christ for that should be at an all-time high.
55:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:25
SPEAKER_01: And there are incredible entrepreneurs that have pressed in to a lot of those tools to scale the age-old, timeless good news of man, a God who loved us, saw us in us our sin, and send his son Jesus to reconcile us to himself.
55:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: And again, that message will never change.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: That that the humans themselves aren't changing, but the way in which we can engage humans with that good news I think is profoundly transformed.
55:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:54
SPEAKER_02: And I love the language about Sean talks about.
55:56
SPEAKER_02: And for those that aren't familiar with groundware, you know, a lot of the story and kind of the how, as you're saying, they do it is there's I like his language of we disrupt people.
56:05
SPEAKER_02: And I think there's so often times I think about my spiritual journey, my life, my walking through the day.
56:10
SPEAKER_02: I need those disruption moments.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: I need those moments where you come into the ordinary feed, the process in your ordinary day, and you're disrupting it.
56:17
SPEAKER_02: And it just shakes you up.
56:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: And it's too oftentimes it's something dark and tragic.
56:22
SPEAKER_02: And what Sean and the team has really gotten great at is saying, okay, how do we use the metrics to match an audience in a person, an audience and opportunity, an audience in a conversation when somebody's saying, Hey, I'm lonely, Jesus cares.
56:35
SPEAKER_02: Hey, I'm broken, Jesus cares.
56:37
SPEAKER_02: And there's a beautiful nature of like how we're harnessing technology, skills, and things that entrepreneurs are good at, running campaigns and conversations to meet people for the kingdom.
56:48
SPEAKER_02: And and I love that disruptive element to that.
56:51
SPEAKER_02: And so you got this whole thing happening there.
56:54
SPEAKER_02: And then if I flip over to one of the other allocations of Equip, just watching a story that our team produced on that last night is like the beauty of what John does there and saying, okay, how do I show that leadership is not just about principles, it's not just about techniques, it's about values.
57:14
SPEAKER_02: And it's not just about values, it's about where do those values come from.
57:18
SPEAKER_02: And like God's doing something where people are using men and women who know the times, the channels of digital, the channels of leadership development, and saying, How does the gospel fit into that?
57:31
SPEAKER_02: It's awesome to see, but what's also awesome to see is how good that they're getting at trying to like measure some level of output.
57:39
SPEAKER_02: We know God makes the waves.
57:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
57:42
SPEAKER_02: But I love the rigor that they're bringing to that.
57:45
SPEAKER_02: I was looking at some of these statistics here this morning that they were saying that there's a 41% increase in Bible sales compared to 2022.
57:54
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
57:54
SPEAKER_02: A 79% increase in downloads of digital Bible apps, a 50% increase in streaming of Christian music.
58:04
SPEAKER_02: But as dark as the world is right now, hope seems to also be getting brighter.
58:10
SPEAKER_02: But people are turning to it.
58:13
SPEAKER_02: When you think about this time that we're in, and if you were making kind of the call and invitation here just for entrepreneurs to join in this community that's emerging, how does that speak to you?
58:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: I I've said this a lot in in life, and I've talked with our company about it, and just friends, I talked to my kids about it, right?
58:33
SPEAKER_01: I talked to my kids like as far as I know and can tell, uh, you get one life to live.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: I get to do this one time.
58:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:41
SPEAKER_01: So so whatever is going on in the world, no, there were people who lived in all kinds of different times and epochs in history with tough times, with hard times, with exciting times.
58:49
SPEAKER_01: Whatever time it is that you are living in the world, you have one time to do this life.
58:53
SPEAKER_01: Man, invest it with impact.
58:56
SPEAKER_01: Invest it with impact.
58:57
SPEAKER_01: God created you uniquely, he wired you uniquely, he wired us individually.
59:01
SPEAKER_01: And I think the opportunity he calls us into is so great.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: It's so great.
59:05
SPEAKER_01: And Satan would love nothing more right than to distract us with the worries of this world, the pleasures of this world.
59:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:11
SPEAKER_01: You can't tempt us, so he'll fear it.
59:13
SPEAKER_01: It gets fearful, you know.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: And I think Lord Jesus says, Man, there's so much more.
59:17
SPEAKER_01: I got so much more for you.
59:18
SPEAKER_01: Come join me in the work that I'm doing, the redemptive work I'm doing around the world throughout time and space.
59:24
SPEAKER_01: And to me, there's nothing, there's nothing more transformational in that work than having someone come to know the hope and faith in Christ, that the good news of a best friend in Jesus.
59:35
SPEAKER_01: And man, I'd invite any and everybody into this part of the journey.
59:41
SPEAKER_01: The joy of locking arms with brothers and sisters, yeah, introducing people to the hope of the world.
59:48
SPEAKER_01: I there's nothing more exciting.
59:50
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing I think that we're gonna celebrate more in heaven than that reality of what we've gotten to experience, you know, here on earth in that work.
59:58
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: And um, so so you know, I I lay my head down on the pillow at night just in awe that the Lord would even allow us to be part of something so transformational.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, so transform I go He takes sinful people somehow, yeah, takes our imperfect offering, our imperfect broken selves and and weaves and works it together to accomplish his purposes and allows us to enjoy, man, the fruits of that and the joy of being a part of that.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_01: And it is that it is a joy, it is an absolute joy.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_02: It's great to process this with you.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_02: Great to see what God's doing in this moment.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, friends, you know that at the end of every episode, we don't want to leave you with just a bunch of hype and just leave you not with a clear next step.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_02: You might be wrestling with this conversation of where do we give?
1:00:42
SPEAKER_02: First, if God's speaking to you and there's this moment of intent where he's stirring your heart, he's taking some of the blinders off, he's getting you excited about this journey, there's some of these collaborative giving funds in the evangelism fund that we talked about today.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_02: You can see some of the QR codes, the links here on the website.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_02: You might be in a place where you want to learn more about the fund.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_02: You want to say, what is happening specifically in this evangelism fund?
1:01:04
SPEAKER_02: We've got a great foundation course that takes you through this with peers, with other givers that are wrestling through the same questions.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: You can understand some of the ideas, the theories of change, and you can see the real life stories of saying, let's go dive deep to what's happening in Groundwire, what John Maxwell and the team are doing in Equip.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_02: But the challenge is this let us not just be consumers.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: Let us not be known by what we've read, the conferences we've gone to, or the podcasts that we've listened to.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_02: May we be known as a community of action that experiences the joy of getting in the game together.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_02: So please take a step.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_02: It's great to be with you, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_00: So, what are your next steps?
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: Give together.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: Meet friends and discover how you can go further.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: Join us on a call, and we'll give you a 30-minute overview of giving funds and how they work.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: Visit solving.org to join the call today.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_00: Pick a fund and step into the story.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: Breakthroughs are happening right now.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: God is already at work, and you're invited to join him.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_00: To learn more, visit solving.org.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: That's solving.org.
1:02:16
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1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and we hope that you join us in solving the world's greatest problems.