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God’s Wealth Plan: The Financial Blueprint Every Family Needs w/ Lee Jenkins · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One of the ways to stop loving money so much
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: is to make sure that you're giving some of it away.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: What are some biblical principles that can be directly related
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: to teaching about finance.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: The more they make, the more they spare, and that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: is the biggest mistake. People may compare yourself to others,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and that can kill your finances. Number two, you gotta
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: control and or eliminate that. Number three, you gotta save
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and invest. I believe that has kept greed from taking
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: over money. I work with a lot of wealthy people,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and I am here to say that many of their
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: lives were messed up.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Which one has been more challenging teaching people about finance
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: or teaching people in the church about the importance of
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: money and finance.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And the church people don't want to admit they wanna
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: make money, as if that's something to be ashamed of.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Just because you're broke, busted and disgusted doesn't mean you're
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: close to God. If you give, it'll come back to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: you and you'll be rich and God can make you
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a millionaire. Well, the recession took care of all all that.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: If somebody's not financially aligned, can that relationship.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: Be her work.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: When it comes to love, opposite is a track, but
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: opposites attack. When it comes to money, are you really
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: giving money to the poor, to the sick, to the need,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to the orphans? The mission of the church is to
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: save souls. Money will test us like nothing else with.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: All right, gosh, welcome back eyl Yeah, special episode, special guests.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: We're just talking to him off camera. Man, a wealth
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: of knowledge.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Might has been in the game for a very long
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: period of time, going back over what thirty years?
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: About thirty years? Man, well, actually forty Yeah, Man. I
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: started in the business in nineteen eighty seven, man, and as.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: A stockbroker, IM about to have that fortieth university.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that's crazy. I can't believe him. I'm that
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: old man. But it's experience and it's a it's a
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: life live that I've learned a lot from.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: This might be our first interview with the actual former
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: stock broker.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, they don't really you know. It's that the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: same way that they used to It's exactly right. That's
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: what they used to call us stock brokers, not investment
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: advisors or financial advisor, real stockbrokers.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Man with the paper, yeah, man, So Lee Allen Jenkins, pastor.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, former stockbroker, financial expert, former.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: NFL player, Yeah, one year with the NFL.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, so a lot of a lot to talk about
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: entertainment as well.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Before I became a stockbroker, I was the road manager
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and business manager for the Winings. For the Winings Man,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the number one gospel group in the world.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: I saw the bio man, Yeah, thank you, man, thank
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: you you read it man. Yeah.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And I've done some work with Kurt Franklin too, Man
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: over the years. Yl alone, that's my dude.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: So your church is four thousand members outside of Atlanta. Yeah,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: once you can you work to watch you for twenty
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: five years? Really, yes, right, twenty five years. You are
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: an athlete and now you're online and you have a
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: mix of ministry and finance.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, I would say, right, yes, I would call it.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, my priority is the church obviously I'm a pastor,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: but I definitely integrate financial teaching within my sermons, and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of stuff outside of the walls
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: of the church to empower people financially. And one of
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the reasons I do that is because I believe that's
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: a ministry just like teaching people the Bible. Teaching people
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: money is a ministry too, and Jesus did that a lot,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and folks just don't talk about it, which is one
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: of the reasons people handle their money so poorly, because
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: we aren't being educated about it in schools and our
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: families or in the church. So one of my callings, guys,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: is to bring back not just Bible teaching in the church,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: but financial teaching from a biblical person.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: All right, so we're going to definitely talk about that.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. But first and foremost, thank you for joining us.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it, man, I'm honored to be here. I've admired
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: you guys for years, man, and I've been at a
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: lot of your events, man, just sitting in the back
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: and learning from you guys, and learning from all the
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: great guests that you have. So, man, I'm just proud
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: of what y'all are doing. How you all have I
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: call it democratized financial principles.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: It used to be when I got into business, only stockbrokers,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: you know, and high level people talked about stocks regular
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: everyday folks. They didn't talk about it. It was almost
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: like it was unreachable. Some of these financial things, and man,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you guys have brought it to a level where no
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: matter how sophisticated or how simple a person is, you'll
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: help people to understand it. So I love that man.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: I appreciate that. Man.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: That means a lot from somebody who's done it for
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: forty plus years.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: Thank you man, Thank you.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And by the way, I was on Wall Street, but
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I ended up going back to my hometown Atlanta, Georgia,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: and that's where my career started in the investment business.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: But I started in New York at the World Trade Center,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: did all my training right here in New York man
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: cold calling people, and then once I've completed my training
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: program for after a couple of months, went back to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Atlanta and started my career.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: So how did it change as far as the financial
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: services industry from then? Actually, you know, trading stocks and
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: having stockbrokers, and you haven't you said cold calling people
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: to you know what it is now as far as
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: the age of everything is digitized and you know, you
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: have apps that anybody can trade on. You have apps
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: like Robinhood which like little kids can trade stocks on,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: and even complicated instruments like you know, futures and stock options.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: So what have you seen that has changed from when
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: you first came into the business to the landscape.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: Now, Oh my god, everything has changed.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Number One, people depended on us, meaning stockbrokers. If you
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: needed a quote. You didn't have phones, and so you
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: had to call your stockbroker. My phone was ringing off
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the hook all day. Hey what is home Depot doing?
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: What is IBM doing? The only time you could get
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: a quote that was real time is you had to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: call me or stockbroker and we were in front of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: our computer and we would give the client the quote,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: or you would wait till the end of the day,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and you know, through different means you could find out
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: what it closed at or the next day in the
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: newspaper when they would list it. So number one, the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: information is real time and anybody has access to it,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: not just financial professionals.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: So the biggest thing is technology.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, the information is widespread. And then I would say, secondly,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is anybody can learn now some of the intricacies of
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: how to invest. You know, you don't have to be
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: some kind of financial genius now. And then thirdly I
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: would say people like you all and me content.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: Producers.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: People are learning by the time they go to an
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: investment advisor, they probably already have a basic idea of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: what they need to be doing with their money. So
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: that's how it's changed, man, Mostly technology.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: Oh there's one more thing.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Black people in general weren't talking about building wealth through
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the stock market in the late eighties. Now, I did
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: have a lot of high level, affluent black clients. I'm
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: just saying from a communication standpoint, Okay, people weren't talking
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: about it a whole lot. Most of the information was
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: coming through through white people and through the majority culture.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: We weren't We weren't talking about it.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been an evolution and we were talking about it.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: I want you to break it down for people who
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: have taken this technology for granted, right, like we go
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: on our phones, Like I said, we can use e trade,
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: or we can use TD, or we can use robin Hood.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: We do it ourselves, right, take them through the process
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: of it after I call you. What actually had to
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: happen in order for that to be something that was
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: a transaction that was mean?
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, first of all, in order me to succeed
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: back in those days as a stockbroker, it was yet
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: we did a lot of cold calling okay, And that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: means they would you would buy a list, or you
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: would get a list and you just start hammering away
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: about a bond or stock. Once you got a person
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: to say okay, they would have to fill out some
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: paperwork and a lot of that was done through the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: mail man or you go see them, so it would
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: take a while minute. Stock could have gone up just
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: during that time, but overall, you would once they get
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the account open, they would wire the money or bring
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a check and then you would you know, you would
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: make the recommendation, and so you would have to put
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: in the order.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: We used to call it, write.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: The ticket okay, a piece of paper, a piece of paper,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and you write it it's your inkpen. You fill it
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: out one hundred shares IBM, and then you put whether
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it's a limit order, a market order, and then you
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: wrap it up and you walk over to a place
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: in the office and you put it in a little
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: tube and then you hit the button and it goes
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: through this tube man like you do at some of
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the bank's where you drive through, and then the person
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: gets it in the operations department and they put the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: order in and that would take about three minutes or
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: four minutes and then they send it back and let
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: you know what you're done. And you call the client
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and you say, mister client or miss client, you just
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: bought one hundred shares. Congratulations, And that's how it would go.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: And then I would get a commission.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: And then you track it right because there was no
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: way for them to track it.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Now, they couldn't track it. But I had on my desk,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I had what was called a quotron. It was a computer, okay,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: and it had all the stock we could put in
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the symbol and it would show you what it was.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So it would track all the stocks that we would
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: follow and what the market was doing.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: So you said, like, you know, there was not a
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: lot of people talking about black wealth in that time,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: but there was black wealth as far as especially, like
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: you know, that's my thing. That's when Atlanta really started
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: to kind of hit it strike.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: Yes, and.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: You have organizations or publications like Black Enterprise. So at
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: that time, So when you because you also came from
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: the NFL, so I'm assuming that you have some relationships
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: with like some athletes potentially when you started your career,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: who was your target market? Like you, who did you
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: go after? Was it people into entertainment, was it entrepreneurs,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: was it like politicians? Like where did that black wealth
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: that you were building your business book from come after?
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: Or were you able to work with people that were
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: not black? Yeah?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I worked with a lot of people who were not black.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: But when I first started in the business, I was
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: twenty five years old and I had to start somewhere.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: So my world was Atlanta, Georgia, which had a lot
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: of affluent African Americans, doctors, lawyers, politicians, entrepreneurs, and I
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: had some relationships there and I understood that world. Secondly,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I came from the sports world and a lot of
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the athletes. In fact, I remember presenting my business plan
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to my branch manager and I knew personally forty two
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: NFL players at that time, forty two that I could
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: pick up the phone. Now, how many did I get
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: as clients? Maybe six or seven Because some of them
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: they were young like me, They knew I was new
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: to the business, and some of them felt uncomfortable doing
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: business with the peer. Okay, but here's the real deal.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Their agents and their other advisors were white. Nothing is
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: wrong with that, but there were very few black advisors. Stockbrokers,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: financial advisors, insurance people, sports agents handling and advising black athletes.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: At that time, ninety something percent of advisors, whether it's
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: financial or legal, were white managing these black athletes. So
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: you get a guy like me coming up and I'm
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: talking to him trying to network. Believe it or not,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: there was a little resistance, but not because they didn't
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: respect me. Is I didn't look like what they had
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: grown accustomed to, and that was people of color were
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: not highly represented in the financial services industry at that time.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Matter of fact, only one percent of stockbrokers in nineteen
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: eighty seven were black.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: So the NFL journey is what year?
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: That was nineteen eighty three and eighty four, eighty four
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: New York Giants, Bill Parcells early earlier years, right, Yeah, Man,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Belichick is there.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: Belichick was my defensive coordinator.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Man, eighty four, they draft Lawrence Taylor. Actually it was
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: before I came in. That was like eighty one eighty one. Ay,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I came in, Lawrence Taylor was already there. Phil SAMs,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Harry Carson, Jill Morris, Joe Morris. Yeah, man, those dudes, man,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of giantsmen.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: But yeah, it's interesting because what you're speaking is.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, we can resonate with that because we grew
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: up in the time watching athletes and watching who was
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: representing them. I'm wondering, how did you switched career paths
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: into finance at that time when there is no representation.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Who did you look at as the role model or
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: the mentor to say I want to go down this path.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Well, when I was in college, I went to the
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: University of Tennessee and within my four years being at Tennessee,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: and I didn't come from money, Okay, so I knew
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: nothing about stocks and bonds growing up, but I did
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: minor in business administration, so I took some financial courses.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: But long story short, man, when you are considered an
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: NFL prospect, you start getting bombarded by agents and.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: People calling you. And so I happened to be a
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: pretty good prospect.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I saw at least forty guys playing the NFL over
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: that came from Tennessee over my four year period. You know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: it was like eight, nine, ten guys a year making NFL.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: So a lot of these guys ended up making some
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: big financial mistakes. Okay, some of them whose careers didn't
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: last long. They lost money or they made bad investments,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and I heard about it. So by the time I
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: got to the NFL, you know, I would just hear stuff,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and all of them weren't good stories, man about how
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: they And then this was back during the times.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: Where tax the federal tax rate.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: If you made over fifty thousand dollars, your federal tax
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: rate was fifty percent, and then the state taxes in
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: New Jersey was like eight percent. So the bottom line,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: everybody was looking for tax shelters back in the early eighties.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: That was a big deal, and most of them were scams.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: So I saw guys lose a lot of money. So
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: when I got out, I said, I want to help
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: guys who were like me, who didn't know much about money,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: didn't grow up around money. So I pursued. My target
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: market at that time was athletes. I couldn't find enough
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of them that appreciated what I did, so then I
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: just had to go to the general market and it
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: actually took off better than what I thought. So my
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: clientele was probably sixty five percent African American, thirty five
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: percent white, you know, Jewish and other.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: So what have you learned from wealth management?
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Like wealthy people, what are some of the key things
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: that they do that other people don't necessarily know or implement.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I used to think that to be wealthy you had
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to be very smart, and I found out that many
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: wealthy people, some of them are very smart, but they're
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: usually average intelligence, maybe a little bit above average, some
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: of them are below. But what they do, what they're
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: good in, they're good in. So they they're consistent, they
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: have discipline. So what I learned when I got into
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the investment businesses I started managing millions of dollars for people,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: is I said, Man, this guy's just like me, or
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I'm sharper than him. You know, he just knows how
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: to operate on somebody. He just knows how to run
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a car replayer repair place, but he or she knows
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that very well. So what I learned is you do
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: have to be good, but you don't have to know everything.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: But you got to be consistent in whatever your niche is.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: You do have to know that niche and you got
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: to be disciplined. And it takes time.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: When you're going to these clients.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: And we always have this debate of when you're investing,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: to investing the things that you know or the things
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: you're aware of, when I asked you off camera, I'm like, well,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: well you recommending you said, I looked at the city
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: where I was from. Talk about that and how that
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: helped you gain clientele and paved your way to say, hey,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: I'm making wealth for my clients.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I always make good grades. But I
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't some kind of financial genius. And when I was
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: going through my training program, everybody who in my training program,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: they wanted to be some kind of financial gurupay come
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: up with this unknown stock that just would go through
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the roof. And I said, I'm going to take a different,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: different angle. I'm going to just look at what people
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: buy every day. Okay, you know what people wear, what
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: kind of shoes they wear, what kind of clothes, what
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: kind of sodaes they drink. And then I'm gonna look
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: at companies that I understand and I know. So me
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: being from Atlanta, there was Coca Cola, all right. There
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: was Home Depot, there was Delta Airline. There's another company
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: called Georgia Pacific, which they made toilet paper, a whole
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: bunch of stuff. So I just got to know some
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of those companies very well. And that's what I would
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: recommend to my clients. But the biggest one was home
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: depot because nobody had really heard a home depot, and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the whole do it yourself market was just now getting
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: popular or getting popular back then, and so that's what
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I would do, man, I would pitch, I would call people,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and then the second thing I would do is would
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: be tax free municipal bonds.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: Atlanta was growing.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Like crazy, and what they would do is, you know,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: they were building things like they built this the Georgia Dome,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: which is now the Mercedes Benz Stadium, but prior to that,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: they had the Georgia Dome that was built by municipal bonds. Well,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: that's how the city raised money to pay for so
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: they had to go to investment firms to underwrite it. Well,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: stockbrokers had to call people to say invest in this bond.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: So I was a stock guy and a bond guy,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: but I also did mutual funds and all of that.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: But I was really big on what I knew, so
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I had to resist the temptation to try to be
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: some kind of guru about the companies I knew.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: I knew, you knew Atlanta. I knew Atlanta.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: So let's get into this conversation because this is something
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: that's interesting. You know, we have a lot of Christian
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: viewers and people that are very into their faith, into
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: the religion. So this whole aspect of finances in the
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: church or something that you know, is a very interesting topic.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So the first question, what do you think causes people
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: to struggle when it comes to aligning their faith and
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: managing their finances.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, a lot of people don't think their faith
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: in their finances belong in the same room. They don't
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: believe they should be married and meaning the faith and finance,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and that's the problem. We look at faith as being
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: spiritual stuff going to church, praying, worshiping however you worship,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and that is important. We look at business and money
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: as secular stuff that's none spiritual. And one of my missions,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: which I believe should be everybody's mission, is to integrate
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the two because money is not just about mathematics. Money
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: is spiritual. Because Jesus made a statement that was pretty profound.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: He said, where your treasure is there, wire your heart be.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Also that just means that where you put your money
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: or the things that your heart will gravitate towards, you
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: don't put your money in stuff that you don't care about.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: If you don't invest in the stock market and the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: stock market goes down, you don't care because you don't
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: have money there. But if you got money in the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: stock market and it goes down, your heart is there.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's a bad thing. That means you
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: care about it. So there is an intimate correlation between
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: our heart, arts and money. So the problem is people
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: don't put the two together. They don't look at money
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: as spiritual, and I'm saying it is spiritual. That makes sense.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: I got you. I mentioned to you you've worked in
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: both worlds.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: I don't want to use the word difficult, but which
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: one has been more challenging Teaching people about finance from
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: the standpoint of stocks, bonds, and market or teaching people
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: in the church about the importance of money and finance.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Different challenges, similar challenges. What's your take.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it's a lot harder teaching people about money
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: in the church.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: The thing that drove.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: My business career is most people wanted to make money,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and they weren't ashamed to make money.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: And they were.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Let's just say, yeah, yeah, they they they were very
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: clear about their goal in the church. People don't want
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to admit they want to make money, as if that's
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: something to be ashamed of, as if talking about money
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: is ungodly.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Well, because all right, you can argue that, like people
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: have been trained to things like that, because it's like
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the meek shall and hearth earth. Yeah, so the meek
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: to me, that means people that are not wealthy or
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: it's like in I forget the exact wording, but it's hard,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: like the idy.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Hard yet hard for a rich man to enter to
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the kingdom of having, easier for a camel to go
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: through the ivy and rich man to get the help.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then it's like the love of money is
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: the route of evil. So there's been a variety, there's
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: a variety of different things, right where if you hear
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: that enough, then it's like, I don't in order to
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: be righteous, you have to be humble. In order to
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: be humble, you have to have some level of I
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: don't want to say poverty, but you know it's it's
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: some level of grounding and not really you make money,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: but that's not your primary focus, that's right, So how
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: do you combat that?
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'll make a statement in business, the mission was
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to make money. The bottom line was profit. In ministry,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: it's to what we call make a disciple, meaning to
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: change people's lives. Okay, But in order to do ministry
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: you got to have money. We like to say salvation
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: is free, but ministry is expensive. In other words, yes,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the mission is to change people's lives, but in order
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: to do that effectively, you need money. But the way
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: money has been talked about has been very detrimental to
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: people from a wealth building standpoint, because we focus on
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: many of the things that you talked about. We say
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: money is the root of all evil. Well, it's the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: love of okay, And then we talk about the you know,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: it's hard for rich people to go to heaven.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: But right before that, Jesus was talking about this rich
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: guy they called the rich Young Ruler, and this guy
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: was money was his god. And Jesus said, look, man,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: give your money to the poor. Come and follow me.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And the guy wouldn't do it, and he went away.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Said and then Jesus says, hard for people.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Like that who were rich. Can't have two mesters.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right, you can't have two mess So the
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: issue is money is not the problem it's the priorities
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that's the problem. It's our values. If you have the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: right values, if you have the right how about this,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: If you have the right purpose for money, then it's
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong with making money and growing money if you
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: have the right motivation. So all throughout the Bible, there
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: are some of the most incredible people that we read about.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: We're wealthy, not all of them, but the people who
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: were struggling are the people we highlight. The people who
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: are wealthy, we don't highlight their wealth, like Abraham and Solomon,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: okay and David. So the bottom line is it has
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: not been talked about in a healthy, productive way. It
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: has leaned more toward humility. Means you're broke, you're struggling.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: What about prosperity preaching, that's the other extreme, that's an extreme.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: So yeah, no, doubt, don't subscribe to that. Okay, No,
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: I don't, cause it's two different things.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, there's that side, but then there's the prosperity. And
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: I feel like what you're doing is like that gauge
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: in the middle. That's right, right, because even when you
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: say struggle, like we were just listening to music yesterday,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: it was like struggling an other side that God loves you.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking to myself.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, But then the person who's sitting there in that
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: is like, well, look what they're doing over there, Look
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: at this is sinful, right, So like, how do you
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: That's why I'm like the challenge, what is the mindset
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: of the people that you're trying to convert to disciples?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Well, poverty is not a virtue, and neither is being wealthy.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Just because you're broke, busted and disgusted and struggling doesn't
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: mean you're close to God. You can be, but that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't make you close to God. Just because you are
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: very wealthy doesn't mean you're far from God. Okay, so,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: but there have been two extremes. One is struggle is
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: spiritual or prosperity, you know, name it and claim it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: You know, driving the best car and living in the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: biggest house. If you do that, then you really got
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of faith. That's what people have preached.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: I'm really blessed. Oh you're blessed. That's exactly right. That's
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: a lie too, But parts of both of those are true.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: But I say the poverty mentality is not healthy and
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: it's not good. The prosperity theology, okay, which means your
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: material things determine.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: Your value. That's not good.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I like to say, right in the middle of that
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: is what I call the stewardship theology. And stewardship theology
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: it's just you manage what you have the best you can,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and you're always managing it for growth. And that comes
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: from the parable of the talents. It's a parable in
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the Bible where three guys got some money. One of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: them hid it in the ground, and the other two
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: multiplied what they have. When the Master came back to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: check on him, he criticized the one who did not
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: grow the money. He said, you should have put my
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: money in the back. The other two who grew their money,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: he commended them. Okay, so there is nothing wrong with
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: growing your money. Stewardship is about taking what you have
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: and multiplying it getting better. Some people that means you're
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: supposed to be in the millionaire category. Some people you
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: have the ability to make ten million or a billion,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: but for some people it's one hundred thousand. It doesn't
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: make a difference. What makes a difference is doing the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: best with what you have and growing it. And that's
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the standard. So what prosperity preaching. Let's talk about that
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: for a minute. What is your viewpoint on what prosperity
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: preaching really is? Because I had different takes on it.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like if I were to ask you what is
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: prosperity preaching, what would you say that that is?
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I would say prosperity preaching is equating your health and
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: your wealth to your spiritual depth. In other words, you
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: are spiritual if you are wealthy, and if you are
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: healthy and you are not spiritual, or you don't have
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: enough faith, if you are suffering in those areas.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: So they're teaching that if you see a poor person,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: that's because they're not they're not spiritually right.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: That's right, Or they don't have enough faith. They don't
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: have enough faith. That's why in the situation there, that's
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: exactly right. That's being taught.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: Hmmm.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's being taught to that extent, But
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I can tell you what is the underlying tone of it. Yeah,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: that God doesn't bless you.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: How your blessings is a direct correlation of your righteousness.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your your financial if you're right with God, then
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: you will experience on parallel uninterrupted prosperity. And a sign
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: of that is what you drive, where you live, the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: clothes you have, God must be you must have the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: favor of God because you got all this stuff. Therefore
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: your healthy spiritually, No, you can be very unhealthy spiritually.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: In fact, I work with a lot of wealthy.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: People for twenty five years, and I am here to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: say that many of their lives were messed up. When
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I saw how much money they had, I was impressed,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and I was honored to be able to manage it.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: But when I saw their lives, I was not impressed.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Not all of them, but many of them. So I
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: don't think the prosperity theology is preached as much as
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: it used to be. And I can tell you when
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: it started to change for the better is during the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Great Recession two thousand and eight and nine twenty ten.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Prior to that, preachers, that's all they were talking about,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: not all of them, but many of them. You know,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: if you give, it'll come back to you and you'll
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: be rich and God can make you a millionaire. Well,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the recession took care of all that because church folks
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: got hit just as hard as everybody else. They lost
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: their houses, they got, you know, they got foreclosed on,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: they had to short sell it. So I don't think
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: it's as prevalent as it used to be, but it
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: is still a problem.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: When you talked about looking inside of the account and
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: seeing wealth, but being inside their homes and realizing that
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of times in the shambles, you think there
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: was a point of confusion.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: Who the master was? Right? Was money now the master
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: not the tool? Was their mixture there?
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: And how what are the signs that somebody should be
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: looking for when it's like, Okay, maybe I'm going down
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: the same path of who who is leading this?
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, money makes a great servant but a terrible master,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and money will test us like nothing else will. It's
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: easy to live a certain life of integrity when you
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of choices. When you're broke and struggling,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: you don't have the temptations that people have who have money,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Because when you have money, you have choices, you have options.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: So when you have options, you can live out what's
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: really in your heart. So I like to say money
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't change people. What money does is magnifies what's already
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: in our heart. It gives us a chance to live
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: it out, because when you broke, you can't live it out.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: So I say all that to say that when you
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: get money, you got to look at it as a
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: tool to do something good with instead of something to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: use to be selfish or to indulge in things that
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: you really shouldn't be doing.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: So it's a perspective.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: It will test your values and it will really determine
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: what your values are. So money is powerful. When I
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: was in the NFL, a lot of the guys their
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: rookie year, they had been dating their college sweetheart. Then
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: they get drafted, they get a big bonus check and
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: they have all this money, and all of a sudden
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: they're messing around whatever, you know, anything that has address on.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: So the question is did.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Money change them? Well, I tell you what money did.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: It gave them opportunities, okay, and they took advantage of
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: some of those opportunities. Is that money's fault or was
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: something already in their heart that they just didn't have
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to live out when they were broke. So
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: my point is money is a powerful tool. It can
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: be used for good, it could be used for bad,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: and you got to know that going in.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: It's just a follow up because you're saying it and
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: I'm like, that's a message that a lot of people
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: need to hear. Is there or what is the balance
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: between being spiritually grounded and financially disciplined?
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: Like, do they have to be equal? Do you?
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: I feel like both things are needed, But how do
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: we get to the point of balancing it?
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Well, they're really equal, But I think what you have
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: to do is to integrate your spiritual values with your
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: financial strategy or how you see money. You got to
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: start seeing money as again as a tool, a tool
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to be used for good. Okay, there is a verse
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: in the Bible said what shall profit a man if
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: he gained the whole world and lose a soul? Okay, now,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: losing your soul that could be various things, but I'm
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: going to say losing your soul could mean losing your values,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: losing what's important to you, losing you know, the things
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: that really matter in life. That's certainly one way to
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: interpret that. So the way you manage both of them
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: is you incorporated.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: Like the way I look at.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Money, and one of the things I teach and I
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: believe the Bible teaches this is that everything we have
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: belongs to God. That means we are a stewart. That's
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: why that word stewardship. It means management. You're managing somebody
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: else's assets. That's what I did as a stockbroker. It
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't my money, it was their money. And if I
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: didn't manage my client's money, well they would fire me.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I look at what I earn, what I have response
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: ability for the assets I have as God's money, and
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: if I don't manage it, well he'll take it from me.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: And that's a mindset we call it God owns it all, okay.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: And that way, you don't personalize what you have. You
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: take care of it because you realize it could be
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: taken away from you. So I think the first thing
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: is to look at your money not as being yours.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: It is yours physically, but it is it's God's money.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: It's God's blessings. God bless you with the house, with
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the car, with the job. And when you look at
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: it that way, it changes everything. Also, just because you
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: have money doesn't mean you're always supposed to buy stuff.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: One of the greatest uses of money is generosity, giving
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: a large portion of it away. So if you want
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: to kill selfishness. One of the ways to kill that
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: thing which we all have in us. But one of
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the ways to stop loving money so much is to
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: make sure that you're giving some of it away.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that the tize aspect, because that's that's
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: something that's a very hot conversation on social media. You know,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: people think that a lot of people get taken advantage
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: of by the church or different pastors when they like,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: you know, they don't say, okay, if you don't do this,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: then you know, these are the consequences you have to
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: do it, And it's like you're giving away money that
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: you might not necessarily have to the church. And my
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: whole thing has always been like charity, I feel like
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: should be a variety of different aspects, not just one thing.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Like so it's like, yes, you should give to you know,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: the building to help that because there are administrative course
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: stuff like that, But if that's the only form of
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: charity that you're given, or is that really charity, because
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: who is it really helping? Like are you really giving
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: money to the poor, to the sick, to the needy,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: to the orphans? Like I don't know if if the
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: ecosystem is really designed for that money to be distributed
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: to those type of people or is it just staying
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: inside of a building and helping. Like I said, there's
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: nothing wrong with you because every charldy, like the Right Cross,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: they have administrative costs that you have to pay. But
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: if one hundred percent of the money in the Right
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Cross is going to administrative then what is the purpose
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: of having the Right Cross?
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how I look at it. What's your thoughts
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: on that? Every church is different, every pastor is different.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I think there are two issues going on when you
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: talk about the church and money. I'll talk about the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: bad one first. The first one would be manipulation. Okay,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: there are different caricatures out there of pastors, especially black pastors,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: that I think are very unfair. But a lot of
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: it strikes a nerve because a lot of it is true.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: The way we talk about money, how we're able or
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: how we aren't able to really talk about it in
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: a way that is.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: Positive.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's almost like manipulating or scaring people
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: into giving. Uh, that's the bad part. Like the one
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: he said locked the doors, Yeah, night, closed the door.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: That's yeah, that's not a fair representation.
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well a lot of pastors got to realize, Man,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: now what you say and what you do, the whole
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: world can see.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's right.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: And some of that language is it's proprietary, it's internal,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: meaning that the people in that church, in that congregation
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: understand that vernac killer because maybe they have been in
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: a capital campaign or they're doing a particular project. And
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: so when the pastor talks, he's talking to his flock.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: They understand that. But you're not just talking to your
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: flock anymore. You're talking to the whole world now because
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the whole world can see it. So I'm very careful
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: about what I say. I don't use that kind of
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: language anyway. I'll tell you the kind of language I use.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: But so the number one thing is, yes, most pastors
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: aren't trained in business. They don't teach them about money
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: in seminary or through their denominations. Therefore they don't know
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: how to talk about it or how to manage a business,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: or how to manage your business.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: It's the idea of I'm just saying this because like
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: growing up in church, you know, you go in there.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: It's the building fund yess, the thermometer.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: That never moves every year, even though you're given every Sunday,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: and people are just like, well, what's happening here.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: That's where you get those ideas from. Yeah, most of
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: that we see the negative. And I'm going to digress
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: one second. There are negatives in every industry stockbrokers. When
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I was in the business for twenty five years, every
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: month somebody was getting arrested on Wall Street for misappropriation
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: of funds. Doctors get put in jail for malpractice, lawyers
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: get disbarred. We don't stop seeking legal advice because of
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: what bad lawyers do. We don't stop going to the
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: hospital because of what bad doctors do. We don't stop
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: investing because of what bad financial advisors do. But when
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a preacher or pastor does something bad, says something bad,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: we look at the whole landscape of religion and church
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: as being bad and I think that's wrong.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: Well, you brought up a good point.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Not to cut you off, but I know what they
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: thought about like that as far as management skills, and
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: because if you look at the Catholic Church and one
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: of the largest, if not the largest landholder in the world,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: they they are a very efficient businesses who the business
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: is helping. I don't know that could be debated, but
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: they are. They're building, they're buying real estate, they have
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: they have a lot of holdings. The Mormon Church they
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: have a venture capital fund over a billion dollars where
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: they're deploying money into different businesses and they Black Church
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: not so much. But the difference is that there's a
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: hierarchy in the Mormon, in the Catholic Church, the Black churches.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: You know, it's every every church is its own leadership, right,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: And if you're if you're running a church, but you're
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: not trained in business yourself, and you're not trained in
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: management yourself, you don't know really how to manage the money,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: deploy the capital. That's a whole arm within itself, right,
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: So would it be more beneficial to have kind of
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: a unified front. I don't think that's ever going to happen,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: but like theoretically, right, if everybody's under one umbrella, and
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: now the Black Church can deploy one hundred million dollars.
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: Because the Black Church is the biggest Black.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Business in America exactly, right, the biggest Black They own
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: the most real estate, they have the most funds coming in. Like,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: if you really think about it. They're the biggest black
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: owned business in America if you aggregate all the churches.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: So if there was a united front, that's an economic
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: engine to actually help in a variety of different things.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't even necessarily have to be just charity.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: It could be a functioning business model. But that's millions
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: of dollars that can be deployed into black community on
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: real estate and business level.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: But it has to be some level of organization obviously
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: to do yes. So how do you feel about that?
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: All right?
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Well, there are a couple of things you just brought up.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Number one, the mission of the church. The number one
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: mission is to save souls. I mean, it's people's spiritual life.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: And I think sometimes we look at the church as
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: we ought to be doing this, ought to be doing that,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: and some of that is true. You can't get away
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: from the number one mission, and that is transforming people's
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: lives spiritually. Okay, Now there are some other things we
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: can be doing. The economic empowerment piece, well, in order
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: to do that effectively, the pastor and or some of
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the leaders and or the board need to have some
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: financial acumen, and many of them don't. Some churches do
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: It depends on a lot, It depends on what city
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: you're in, it depends on who you're seeking advice from.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: But they don't teach it. I'm just saying, so to
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: put that on a pastor and a board that might
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: be too much. So what needs to happen is we
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: need to have people like me and others to teach
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: churches how to handle the business side of the church.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Because you're right, the Black church collectively is a huge
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: economic powerhouse. And we can train people, and we can
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: buy land, and we can do real estate, and we
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: can we can do a whole lot and we're not
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: doing that. But some of that is because we're so divided,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: you know, by denomination and by theology and all that.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: So I don't think it's ever gonna everybody's going to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: be together. But let me say this, there is a
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: lot of u There are a lot of things that
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: are manipulative, that aren't done right. But then there's a
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: lot of misunderstanding. And I'm going to say most of
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: how people, most of how people look at the church's misunderstanding.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: For instance, we look at a church as just.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: Being a church.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: We go there and we hear a nice song and
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: we hear a nice message and people don't even think
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: about the microphone that that person is preaching on. That's
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: just that little thing you're holding that I hold on
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Sundays cost two thousand dollars if it now a lot
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: of that depends on how many people you're speaking to.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: You can't speak to two thousand people with a cheap microphone.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: You can't have seven or eight singers okay, up on
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: a stage okay, or a choir okay, with cheap microphones
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: and a cheap infrastructure. You can't have quality musicians on
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: a guitar, a bass guitar, a drum and a keyboard okay,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: who don't know what they're doing and they're gonna charge
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: you for it because that's how they make their living.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: The thing what you're saying is important because I didn't
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: realize it going I guess the thing is like for
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: Claire understanding, like what is the business of church? Like
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: what are those costs? Obviously equipment obviously for the talent
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: that's going to be on stage. Some people may say
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: the building, the electric eilden break down, all those things.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: So people know, oh my god, it's so much. And
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: it's different for every church. But let's start with what
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you experience right away, and that is going to a
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: building or land that costs lot. The banks don't give
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: a church a special deal. You don't get a special
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: interest rate. When you purchase land and you get a loan,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: you got to do what everybody else does. You have
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: a mortgage until you pay it off. Okay, Well, the
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: money to pay for that has to come from the
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: charitable giving of people. We don't make a product per
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: se as a pastor, as a church, so people have
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: to give. Okay, all right, So number one, it's a
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: pretty risky venture when you think.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: About seating a church.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I tell people, if you are in traditional business, Okay,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: walk with me on this. You're in traditional business and
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: you mess around on your wife, you're the CEO, and
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: somebody catches you out with another woman. I'm not saying
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: that could not affect your business. It might and it
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: might not. But depending on how quality that the quality
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: of that product is, it probably won't. If you get
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: a divorce and you're CEO of a major business. If
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: you're a pastor and they catch you out with another
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: woman and that whatever you were doing leads to a divorce,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: half of the people leave your church, and when half
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: of them leave, half of that income goes down.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: So it's risky.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Because there are things that can affect a church that
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: won't affect a business, and when they get affected, it
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: affects the money. So back to your question. You got
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: real estate. You have staffing, the people who work behind
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: the scenes. They have to spend a lot of time.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: And by the way, the bigger that the church gets,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the more staffing you need, and they have to get
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: paid too. They have families, they could be out working
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: in the regular marketplace to get them to come and
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: work in the church. You know, most churches don't pay
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: a market rate, but you got to get close to it.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: So you got staffing, You got real estate. You have music,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: you have infrastructure, you have audio visual lighting. You got
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to take care of children, which you have to follow
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: all the rules that are basic nursery or commercial nursery.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: What have to have in terms of ratios of teachers.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Some of those people have to be paid. It's a
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff. Okay, It's just like running a regular
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: business from an expense standpoint, only it's riskier because you're
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: depending on the charitable giving of people congregation.
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the congregation. So I'm saying my point.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Is is it's a major financial undertaking, and the bigger
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you get. We started. I started the church fourteen years ago.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: We're twenty people. We're four thousand members now and a
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: lot more people are coming and a lot more money
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: comes in. But the expenses are It blows my mind
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: sometimes how much it takes.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: So what are some biblical principles when it comes to finance?
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: I know you by yourself, well, good man leads in adherans,
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: So that's like a state planning, life insurance. You can
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: kind of talk about, you know, a will of trust.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: What are some like biblical principles that can be directly
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: related to now teaching about finance.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'll start with spending. There's a scripture in Luke
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: it's anyone who goes to build a house, you must
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: first count the cost to see whether or not you
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: have enough money to do it. Okay, Then there's enough
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: scripture in Proverbs as a wise person doesn't spend everything
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: they have. Foolish people do that. So the first thing
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: is the Bible talks a lot about how you need
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: to make sure that you have some financial discipline. And
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: that you count the costs. You don't go build a tower.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: That's what it says, and the word they call it
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: a tower, but it's also you could call it a
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: house or whatever the project is. You don't build a
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: tower without first counting the costs to see whether or
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: not you have enough money.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: That's budgeting. Okay.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Then you move from budgeting to debt. Proverbs twenty two
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: seven says the rich rule over the poor, and a
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: borrower is a slave or servant to the lender. So
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: the Bible calls debt slavery. Now it doesn't say it's wrong.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: It just says, when you are in debt, Okay, you
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: are obligated to somebody else. You don't own all the
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: money that you have because some of that money belongs
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: to the mortgage company or whatever. I'm not saying anything's
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: wrong with that. It's just tantamount to slavery. There are
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: aspects of it. Until you pay it off, that's when
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: you're free. So the Bible does warn us against a
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: debt against debt. Now, all debt is not bad, but
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: you got to be very careful. Okay, there is a
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: such thing as strategic debt. Then the Bible talks about saving. Okay,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the Bible talks about estate planning. Good man leads in inheritance,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: inheritance to his children's children. It talks about really every
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: financial aspect there is, there is a verse in the
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Bible or a principle that we can follow.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about something that you're a veteran in. Obviously,
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: finance for sure, entertainment for sure, marriage, yeah, finance, spirituality.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I've been married for thirty eight years to an incredible woman,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: and we do a lot of teaching on how to
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: manage money within marriage.
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: I'm writing my nose now.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Man, it's no joke because statistics say that one of
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: the primary causes of divorce is money. How couples have
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: a difficult time coming into agreement or how it just
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: causes some major issues within marriage and couples can't get
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: on the same page. So what I tell people and
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: what my wife and I teach is number one, you
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: got to be a team. You don't bring in two
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: single mindsets into a marriage covenant all of a sudden,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: It's not my money, it's our money. And that's the mindset. Now,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: should a merit couple have some financial autonomy? Absolutely, and
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: everybody's marriage will be a little different, but overall, your
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: team And one of the primary ways to determine whether
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: you're really a team is whether you share your money,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: whether you work with money together instead of individually. So
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: we teach couples how to integrate their finances with some autonomy,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: but how to do that together. And two are better
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: than one. When couples get on the same page, man,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: they can make more money, they can build wealth faster.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: But a lot of them never get on the same page.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: So how do you get on the same page if
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: you have somebody that might not fully like There's a
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: lot of times because I used to be a financial advisor,
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: and a lot of times the wife might come in
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: and a husband woil is send the wife because they
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: and the wife will be like, well, he's not really
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: into finances and he doesn't really or even vice versas
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: some but a lot of times it was the woman
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: that was more like on it and the husband was.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: So if somebody's not financially aligned, can that relationship even work?
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: Absolutely? How can you get them aligned? Well?
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: First of all, when I believe when God brings two
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: people together, he brings them together to compliment each other
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: and when you compliment, just like the two of you
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: all you all are very similar as business partners, as friends,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: but you all are very different too, but your difference
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: is compliment each other. That's the beauty of a great partnership.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: So usually in a marriage, you'll have one spender and
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: one savior. You have a person that might lean more
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: toward risk and a person that's a little bit more conservative,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: and when you blend those two together, you really help
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: each other. My wife was more of a spender. I
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: was the savor. I had to learn how to loosen up.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: She had to learn how to tighten up. So what
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: I'm saying is, when you come in being a team
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean you think the same, doesn't mean you have
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: the same time. It just means you appreciate what each
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: other brings.
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: To the table.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: However, on the day to day basis, the best person
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: who has the most time and expertise needs to be
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: the primary manager of the money. And sometimes that's the wife,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: sometimes that's the husband. In my marriage, over thirty eight years,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: it's been me some seasons, it's been my wife some seasons,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: depends on how busy we were. But now she handles
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: the day to day stuff. Of course, a lot of
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: our stuff is done online. You know, it's automatic, so
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: it's a lot easier. So I guess what I want
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: to say, man, is you don't have to be the
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: same to make it work. And those differences, you know,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: they say differences or they say a track sometimes you know,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: opposite opposite a track when it comes to love. But
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: opposites attack when it comes to money. But I'm saying
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: opposites really should at track when it comes to money
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: because those skills that you have that are different can
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: work together.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: But it's tough, Amen, it's tough. You said you went
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: from twenty to four thousand, y'all. I think the message
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: that you have obviously around spirituality and finance is vially important.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: How are we getting more people, right, because you've figured
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: out the skill how to scale? How we getting more
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: people to get back in the church to hear messages
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: like this?
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Well, the thing about teaching and preaching the Word of God,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: which I believe is the Bible, and of course, you
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: know for the Christian faith it is you got to
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: make it real to people. People ought to be able
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: to come to church and learn about the Bible.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: But that's not all.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: You got to learn how to apply what you learn,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: how to take it home, to take it to your job,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: how to take it to whatever your career is, and
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: be able.
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: To apply it.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that I think helped me,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: and this is just the grace of God, because I
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: did not know that my business career was going to
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: be a huge advantage for me as a pastor.
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: In fact, when I.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Felt the call out of the traditional business world to
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: start a church, it was the first time in my
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: life where I felt very insecure. And here's the deal,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: I say, Lord, if I had known I was going
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: to end a pastor and I would have gone and
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: got my doctorate in theology, I would have gone and
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: got my master's and this and that. You know, I
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: played football and I was a stockbroker for twenty five
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: years and now I'm going to be a pastor. I
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: did not think that my background had anything to do
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: with what God what was calling me to do, and
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: it had everything to do with it. So I have
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: a gift of being able to look at the Bible
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: and people tell me I have this gift and be
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: able to explain it in a way where people can
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: number one understand it and people number two can apply it.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: And I'm not a very deep thinker, but I'm a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: very practical thinker. And I think that's because I came
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: from the business world. You can't be deep talking to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: somebody about stocks and bonds. You got to break that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: thing down where they can understand it because they're getting
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: ready to invest their money. So I was used to
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: talking about things and helping people understand it. Number two,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: a person asked me a question and they said, how
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: in the world do you go from being a stockbroker
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: to being a preacher. Those two are opposites, I said,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: not really from a skill standpoint. First of all, in
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: business I was in, I had to market well. We
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: market as a church, whether it's through social media, whether
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: it's we can call it evangelism, we can call it outreach,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: you can call it whatever you want to call it.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: It's marketing. Okay.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Then I'm in sales because when I'm behind the pullpit,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: we have to sell people on following Jesus or whoever,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: whatever religion you're in. We don't want to call it sales,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: but if you don't make a great presentation, then you're
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: not going to convince and be able to lead people.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: That sales when.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: You share your conviction with somebody else and hope they
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: will follow that and agree with it.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: That sales.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: I came from the sales background, so that helped me fundraising.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: You can't do ministry without raising money.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: I was very.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Accustomed to asking people to invest, and that's the kind
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: of language I use. At our church. We have a
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: lot of high level business people, and so I don't
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: use a lot of spiritual language. I call it investing.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: When you give, you're investing in people's lives. You're investing
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: for eternity, things that can impact people, you know, throughout eternity.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: And then you have operations. You know, when I was
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: an investment advisor, there was a whole system. Like you
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: know that you have to have a team. Well, I
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: have a staff. I have to have different departments that
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: I'm over, and then customer service. When I was a stockbroker,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: I had to check in with my clients, make sure
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: they're all right. The market goes down, I have to
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: call them and explain to them, make sure I'm pastoring them.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: That's all that was. I was a pastor for.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: My clients and didn't even know it. So when I
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: became a pastor, I drew on those skills that I
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: had from business and it helped me tremendously.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: So that's how I believe God blessed us is number one.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: It was just the grace of God.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: You can have all the skills in the world, and
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: if God doesn't breathe on that thing, it ain't going anywhere.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: But I believe God breathed on it, He blessed it,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: and then I was able to use skills that I
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: had from the business world. And I believe that's one
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: of the reasons we were able to scale pretty quickly.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: If you had to get people three step blueprint to
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: build well today, what would be.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: Number one is control your spending.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Everything starts with lifestyle and spending, and that is the
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: biggest mistake people make. The more they make, the more
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: they spend. And with Instagram and TikTok and all of that,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: I think it is more of a temptation to keep
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: up with the joneses is what we used to call
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: it back in the day, but basically to compare yourself
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: to others, and that can kill your finances. So I
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: don't care where you are. You got to start with spending.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: Number two, you got to control and or eliminate debt,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: and if you use debt, you need to use it strategically.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: And then number three, you got to save and invest.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: That means you've got to have an eye chore the future.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: You can't consume everything you have. You have to think
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: generationally and historically, because black people couldn't build wealth, we
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: didn't have the opportunities that everybody else had fifty sixty
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: seventy eighty one hundred years ago, but we do now
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: in many respects. We still do get shut out of
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: some industries, but it is imperative now that we think generationally,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: and that is a biblical principle. So I would say spending, debt, management, investing,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: And if I had to throw one more in there,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: I would say generosity. I would say giving, because it's
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: something about giving that helps you from being keeps you
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: rather from being selfish. When you make a million dollars,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: you make five hundred thousand, you make one hundred, you
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: make fifty thousand a year, and you know there is
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: a portion of that and you could spend all of
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: it if you wanted to, and you could save all
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: of it for your future. And nothing is wrong with
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: spending and saving, but you take a portion of that.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: And what I have done for my God almost forty
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: years is I have given at least ten percent of
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: my income to God's work, mostly through the Church, but
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: even through other organizations, either through the Church, through other ministries,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: through their nonprofits, or to just help people who need
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: my help. And I believe that has kept me from
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: can I say it like this, I believe that has
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: kept greed from taking over my life because I'm like
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: everybody else. I like money and I could have I
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: could have a lot of ways to spend money, and
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: it's something about giving a large portion of it away
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: that keeps me grounded. So those are the four things spending, debt, saving,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: and giving.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: I want to now, well amen to that. I want
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: to now, you know, do you still invest in the market?
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: I do? I want to of this century?
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: What has been the best investment you've made in one
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: that was maybe a miss two thousand and dollars?
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: Man, that's a great question.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: I invest mostly now in ETFs, some mutual funds. I
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: don't have the time now to pick a lot of
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: individual stocks, but I have some individual stocks. So remember
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when the Internet came out.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: The Internet. Yeah, it was the intro neet at first,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: then it was the Internet. And I remember some stocks
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: that came out and I didn't understand the Internet, and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I put a little money in it, and I made
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: some money, and I meant I wished I put everything
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: I had in it. So I think what people have
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: to do is look at what's going on in the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: world today. So I am heavily into technology, especially companies
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: that will benefit from AI. Okay, so those are some
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: stocks that I have, But most of my individual stocks
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: are just the blue chippers, Okay. You know, if I
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: had to name name, are same names that most people
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: talk about, you know, Apple Computer and Microsoft and Amazon
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: and and you know. And then of course I do
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: some of the other AI stocks. What's the big one
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: in the video, Yeah, and so, but I do mostly
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: ETFs and UH and some mutual funds uh and and
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: I kind of sprinkle some individual holdings in that.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: But I'm heavy in the stock market. What's next for you?
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: Like what are you working on with the with the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: church and then your online presence and like what's what's next?
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: Well, about a year and a half ago, I started
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: on Instagram the Stewardship Coach, and I wanted to see
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: what the world be interested in learning about money. All
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: the things that you all talk about, and I've learned
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: a lot from you guys, but I want to see
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: what the world be interested in learning about money from
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: a biblical slash spiritual perspective. So I took a chance.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: I went on Instagram and I give these two to
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: three minute vignettes in different financial subjects, and I incorporate
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: the Bible, and it took off. Between TikTok and Instagram.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: I have over five hundred thousand followers who just come
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: to my platform to hear me talk about that subject,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: money from a Biblical perspective. So I'm getting ready to
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: launch some courses some communities, but my biggest mission right
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: now is to get the church at large to learn
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: how to teach finances to their congregates. So I am
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: getting ready to start a training program for pastors and
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: church leaders to teach them first of all, how to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: handle their own money then and then to train them
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: on how to do a better job of talking about
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: money within a church context, and to train people how
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: to handle money from a biblical perspective, that's what's next
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: for me. It was football, it was the investment business,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: A little bit of the entertainment business is pastoring in church,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: and now it's teaching people how to manage money.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: From God's perspective.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: While I am pastoring and one day, you know, next
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: five seven years or so, I will probably be passing
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: the baton to another pastor at my church, but I
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: will still be involved in ministry.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: Do you have when you said, obviously we talked about
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: that the black church being the biggest business in our community,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: that mission that you're you're saying that is the future
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: for you.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: Do you have the wealth gap in mind? Oh? My god,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: when you when you're you know you're shooting for this.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: It feels like if we get enough people from the
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: largest business with that mindset, this is how we can
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: potentially chip away a little bit.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: So I want to go back to something you you
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: ask me, Well, you didn't really ask you, but kind
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: of in a way. You know, when we talk about
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: money in church and asking people to give I've done
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: some comparisons and many of my white contemporaries who are
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: pastors of large churches, they're giving its huge, Okay, And
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: when they do a capital campaign, they have people writing
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: million dollar checks easily. Well, when a black church does that.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: And I'm generalizing here, and Black people are very generous.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: In fact, there have been studies done that we are
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: more generous. Okay, but we don't have the wealth to
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: pull from like many of our white siblings.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: So and again i'm generalizing here, but this is real information.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: A lot of my white friends who are pastors, they
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: tell me, Lee, we just did a capital campaign. We
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: just had a guy to give us five million dollars.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: What does he do, Well, he does this business, but
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: his family had money and it was inherited, and this
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: and that, and so the bottom line, there's generational wealth there.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: There are not a lot of families like that sitting in.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: Churches that are black churches.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: There are some, and then many of the people who
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: do have that kind of wealth, who are sitting in
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: black churches their first generation wealth.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: So the wealth gap has not only affected black people,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: it's affected churches. Every aspect of the black community has
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: been affected by the wealth gap. Because the median wealth
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: of a white family is ten times more than the
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: median wealth of a black family, and that affects everything
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: we do in the black culture. So we can't do
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: anything about our history and do something about our habits.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm trying to get people to change their habits
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: so we can narrow the wealth gap. It won't ever
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: be closed because they had hundreds of years headstart. I mean, really,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: when you think about it, you all the last major
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: piece of legislation that affected black people collectively, the major
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: major piece was the nineteen sixty eight Fair Housing Act,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: And you had the Civil Rights Act voting right that
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: act nineteen sixty eight. What was that sixty years ago?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: Almost? Okay?
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: That means you could live anywhere, you could buy real estate,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: you can participate in home ownership and all that because
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: we were relegated to black areas and those areas did
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: not appreciate.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: But after the Fair Housing Act, even though it took
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: a long time because you had retlining and all of that.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: But the bottom line is my point is we didn't
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: really get out of the starting blocks economically and be
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: able to run freely to less a little bit less
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: than sixty years ago, when other ethnic groups, from a
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: opportunity standpoint, had one hundred two hundred year he had start.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: So the wealth gap is huge. I'm doing my best
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: to try to narrow it through teaching people through what
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: I believe the greatest institution.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: In Black America is, and that is the Black Church.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: Well appreciate it, my brother. Tell them your social media
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: handles and everything.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: It's at the Stewartship Coach at the Stewartship Coach on
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok, or you could just Lee Allen Jenkins
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: or Lee Jenkins on Facebook.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: You'll find me there. All right, You have it, ladies
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 4: and gentlemen. We'll see you guys next week. Peace. Peace,