# God’s Wealth Plan: The Financial Blueprint Every Family Needs w/ Lee Jenkins

An episode of [Earn Your Leisure](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1450211392), 14 May 2026, 1 h 15 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8dbc4f54-a337-4481-9ef2-b355012b0a3d/c9493bc7-4214-449b-802f-b44a00fca255/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=eac4c628-29cb-469a-b5c8-b355012b0a48

TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Money and the Heart 01:21 Meet the Guest 04:59 Wall Street Origins 05:24 Trading Before Apps 08:27 Old School Order Flow 10:30 Building a Client Base 16:19 Habits of the Wealthy 17:59 Invest What You Know 20:05 Faith Meets Finance 22:34 Church Money Mindset 27:09 Stewardship Over Extremes 29:36 Prosperity Gospel Reality Check 32:28 Money as Servant 34:10 Money Reveals Values 35:23 Faith Meets Finance 36:24 Stewardship Mindset 38:12 Tithing Debate Online 39:44 Church Money Misuse 42:50 Black Church Economics 47:35 Real Costs of Church 51:19 Bible Money Principles 53:53 Marriage and Money Teamwork 58:16 Scaling Church Impact 01:03:38 Three Step Wealth Plan 01:06:40 Investing in Tech 01:08:29 Next Mission and Wealth Gap 01:14:40 Closing Thoughts and Handles Faith, finance, marriage, wealth, and the truth about money — this conversation with Lee Jenkins goes deep into the mindset and principles that shape financial success. From the evolution of the financial services industry and how athletes were financially exploited in the 80s, to why spiritual values should be integrated into how we handle money, this episode challenges everything you thought you knew about wealth and faith. Lee Jenkins breaks down why money isn’t the root of all evil, why poverty doesn’t automatically make someone righteous, and how Black churches are often judged differently when it comes to business and tithing. He also explains the key differences between wealthy people and everyday people, how biblical principles can improve your financial life, and why financial alignment is critical in marriage. We also dive into instant stock trading culture, the 3-step blueprint to build wealth in 2026, prosperity preaching after the Great Recession, and why finance and religion have always gone hand in hand. This is one of the most thought-provoking conversations we’ve had on Earn Your Leisure. #EarnYourLeisure #LeeJenkins #Finance #Religion #Wealth #Investing #Marriage #FinancialFreedom #MoneyMindset #BlackWealth #FinancialLiteracy #Entrepreneurship #FaithAndFinance See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[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,

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.