Subscribe to the Podcast:

Brett Johnson founded The Institute for Innovation, Integration & Impact, Inc. in 1996. His writings complement the work of this Silicon Valley think tank. Brett’s most recent book, Kingdom Economics, is an invitation to the faith driven investor who loves the nations and the planet too much to leave their money stuck where it grows but does not change the world for good.

Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Brett Johnson: And this is the fascinating part about Faith Driven Investor. It’s a combination of capital and faith, whereas in the world system, it’s capital without faith. The world system is crafted carefully so that you don’t have to depend upon God. And one day, you know, I realized one of the reasons I’m asking God for a million dollars or ten million is that: I don’t want to pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ That’s really why I’m praying for. But then I realized if God gave me $10 million, he’d give me a $20 million problem if I’m a kingdom person. That’s what God does. He gives kingdom people providence for breakfast.

Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. Brett Johnson founded the Institute for Innovation, Integration and Impact Inc. in 1996. His writings complement the work of this Silicon Valley think tank. Brett’s upcoming book, Kingdom Economics, is an invitation to the growing Faith Driven Investor community who love the nations and the planet too much to leave their money stuck where it grows. But it doesn’t change the world for good. We’re excited to talk to Brett about his new book and to learn from his four decades of experience, helping organizations discover a purpose that is greater than just the bottom line. Welcome to the Faith Driven Investor podcast with Brett Johnson.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I’m here with my partner, Luke Roush from Nashville, Tennessee. Luke, how are you?

Luke Roush: I am doing great. Great day to be alive.

Henry Kaestner: So our guest is very close to you. Up in Chattanooga and so on. The odd man out being out here on the West Coast. But I’ll tell you the different guests that we’ve had over the last couple of months. I can’t think of anybody that I’m more excited about sharing with our audience than Bret Johnson. Bret has been in this space of Faith Driven Investor and for a very long time, much longer than Luke and I have probably had longer than Luke and I have combined and has a great international and emerging markets perspective, great ministry and practice towards developing leaders, which he’ll talk to us about. And then just a great framework for us to think about the ancient truths that come from scripture, how we think about investing and the instructions from other religions and other faith traditions. And hopefully you’ll walk away from our time together here today, being better equipped to be a great steward of all the capital that God has entrusted us. So, Brett, thank you very much for being on the program.

Brett Johnson: I’m very excited to be with you. Thank you so much, Henry. Luke, good to see you.

Henry Kaestner: So, so many different places to go with you. And maybe we’ll even get into a little bit later. But lest I forget, you have this incredible podcast where you break down exodus and talk about what that means about faith in the marketplace. And you think, gosh, you could probably take the gospel, you probably take acts, you definitely take Nehemiah, but exodus. But somehow you just made that thing sing.

Brett Johnson: Yeah, that was fascinating during the pandemic. I think there were a lot of people thinking through What do I really want to do and how do I restart? You know, there was this great reset, and I think it was an opportunity for people to reset their foundations. And God is no stranger to restarts and there’s a whole national restart. And it’s a fascinating story. How God did that? So I just pulled out 50 principles of restarting something. And I think this is apropos in our careers nowadays in our working lives, we’ll have to restart numerous times, so we have to go back to scripture and say what the principles about restart. Otherwise, we get blindsided.

Henry Kaestner: I thought it was very, very good. We’re going to have the link in the show notes. Maybe we’ll mention again at the end, but what we like to do with every one of our guests before we get started into the meat of your current work, your current ministry, the things that you feel that God is teaching you. Give us an autobiographical sketch. Most of us know what a Tennessee accent sounds like. It doesn’t sound like yours, like

Brett Johnson: your quarry where you come from. I’m from the south, but the south of Africa, that’s right. And I grew up there, grew up in a family, actually that was somewhat by vocational. So my dad was a business guy. But I remember as a teenager, I asked my mom, what would dad do if he had no money? And she said, plant more churches, and that’s what they did. They planted churches and did business, and only much later in life did he become as it were a vocational pastor. And so I grew up in that environment. And for me, there were three things happening together. One was business. I worked at Pricewaterhouse, a chartered accountant, which is like a cousin of a CPA and worked with them for 10 years at the same time. I had been through the Sunday School Youth Group and ended up running a church. And so when I was running the church, I kept my ears open. When was God going to tell me to quit Pricewaterhouse so that I could do the church? And he never did. So now I had two jobs. And then what happened was I got connected with youth with a mission in Africa, and I found out that they were looking for guitar players, evangelists, etc. and what they really needed. Was it finance, marketing, business analysts and I had those people in my church seriously under deployed. So we had business, local church and missions. I had three jobs and I had to figure out how to integrate them. And so that’s how I got going. And that was in from about 1981, a little while ago. And then in 1986, we came to San Francisco for one year, a couple of kids and some suitcases, $300 in my pocket. And as the plane landed, God said, This is going to be your home for quite a while. So we started asking why? And through a series of things, God said, I want you to start a new kind of organization that integrates business, local church missions, all of that stuff into a new type of organization. So that’s how we got going.

Henry Kaestner: And so you end up down here in the South Bay, by the way, $300 would get you two tacos and a coke right about now.

Brett Johnson: That’s right. I was very much at that, said A. Credit card. And I remember Pricewaterhouse sent me to New York on a trip, man. I could pull out $300 a day out of the ATM. The hotel was $330 a night. I remember pretty quickly I had to establish credit and get a credit card in the US, even though I preached against debt for years. Yeah.

Henry Kaestner: So speaking of debt, you have a book that’s come out called Kingdom Economics. This give us your best elevator pitch to queue up this topic for us.

Brett Johnson: Sure. Yeah, I would say that heaven has an economy and we don’t know a whole lot about it, but we see indications in scripture that this trade in the heavenly somehow and there’s a lot in physical trade about that. And our job is to figure out how to bring heaven’s economy to Earth. And that sounds a little bit fuzzy. But we do see clear enough principles in scripture about biblical practices and principles. Tons of them actually in scripture. And so the goal of king economics is to look at the world of economics, finance, investing capital through the lens of scripture. And I would say, even with the faith driven investor, it’s not to become Christians or people who are driven by their faith to make investments for good purpose, but to actually figure out how do we beat people who do investing based on these heavenly principles or these kingdom or eternal principles of finance? Obviously, with the good results that we expect. So I would say, you know, there’s an economy in heaven and there’s an economy on Earth, and the underlying assumptions of what we call just business as usual are fundamentally different in many respects. There is some good overlap, but there are some things that are completely different.

Luke Roush: So Bret, as you think about kind of that work in your book, to what extent do those principles really speak into our relationship with money and how we shepherd money or our relationships with the environment that we work and the people that are our customers, our vendors, our partners, our employees? Does it really go into both sides of that? Or is it really more focused on the economics of it all?

Brett Johnson: Good question, Luca. I think right now we’re living in an era where financial capital has become somewhat commoditized. There’s a lot of it around and we’re recognizing when I say we, I’m not just talking about people of faith. I mean, you can go to the World Economic Forum or universities around the world, and they’re understanding capital is bigger than just financial capital, of course. And this is way beyond the triple bottom line, and there are many other facets. So there’s human capital, relational capital, social, environmental, et cetera. And there’s a big piece of it, which is spiritual capital, which we have to understand. And if we’re going to be engaged as people in faith in the warfare, if you like that is business. We have to have spiritual capital, so you can’t just look at it. In fact, many years ago when we. Started working with business people around the world, we’ve done maybe five years to work with hundreds of companies. And I found out there was an issue still around capital and this was about 2008 and Christians running good businesses getting a good purpose for their business still had a problem with greed. And Mammon means greed deified. So you’ve got to get to the heart of the issue. So I thought, what do we do about it? And we decided to do a Kingdom Economics forum in Johannesburg. We decided to put some truth together, which has now ended up in the Kingdom Economics book and the repurposing capital book that we could put a stick of dynamite up the giant’s nose if you like and blow the lid off this thing because we could get great business practices, great products that would bless people, we could be intentional. We could have pastors in every business, we could have prayer meetings, we could do all that kind of stuff. But unless you get to the issue of what is capital, whose money is it? What’s it for? What’s our relationship with money unless you get to the heart of that thing? We’ll never win the game.

Henry Kaestner: So if I haven’t made it clear so far on the podcast, I can’t think of a book that I recommend more heavenly than Kingdom Economics. If there’s one right behind it, be repurposing capital. You write something in Kingdom Economics that I think is really profound. I’d love for you to expand on it. You write a new future where kingdom economics becomes reality is premised on a great awakening among God’s people and an influx of people into the Kingdom of God. So that feels kind of heady and it’s kind of out there, and I think it’s a theological truth. But unpack that for us. What does it look like for us to experience this divine reality? And what does it look like for us to invite more people into the movement? I say this, of course, because Faith Driven Investor as a ministry is about inviting people into this movement as a way to help them experience the life that is truly life. But that’s something you’ve seen unpacked in scripture to riff on that a bit, please.

Brett Johnson: Yeah. And I’m very excited about the Faith Driven Investor community and the movement and the young generation, if you like of people, that’s growing up with a new and freer idea about capital and having to play. So I think that that’s fantastic. And when I talk about that awakening, I’m not talking about getting to a tipping point of fifty one percent Christians in a nation and so forth. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m actually talking about the fact that unless we get to a spiritual awakening that goes in tandem with fully integrated with the deployment of capital, kingdom business, et cetera, we will do no better than the Sustainable Development Goals with a bit of prayer and Christian sprinkling on it. That’s not what we’re after. So reformation is essential, not just salvation. You know, if it was just about salvation, as you would know, Africa would be the best continent on the planet. I mean, there are so many Christians you can’t swing a cat and miss a Christian. So it’s not just about getting people saved, but it’s getting Sunday into Monday. And actually, I don’t think the devil cares what Christians do on a Sunday if you can have the other days of the week. So what this awakening? It gets to the heart of the matter. Unless you get to the heart of a business leader, the heart of somebody who’s an investor will end up doing good things but with the wrong tools. So I remember a Christian guy, he’d sold one of his companies in the Bay Area for a billion dollars back in 2000 or so, so it was a decent sized deal and he was not doing venture capital and so forth. He came to me, said, Brett, I’ve got this great idea. I want you to head up a company for us and what are we going to do? Is What if the supply chains of big businesses and if we find out that there’s any shenanigans in the supply chain, then what we’ll do is we’ll basically guilt them into hiring us to clean up their supply chain. And I said to him, No, I won’t do it this, why not? I said, Well, you’re trying to get rid of slavery in supply chains, but the spirit behind what you’re doing is exactly the same. And so we can’t tackle the problems in the world with the spirit of the world. You know, when scripture talks about Babylon or Egypt, it’s the spiritual principle driving economic systems that are independent of a dependance upon God. So we need an awakening. Otherwise, we don’t get to the heart of the matter. And once you get to the heart of the matter, then all sorts of creativity breaks loose in terms of how you invest, how you build a business where you go to the lengths you’ll go to. So this is a big issue at the heart.

Luke Roush: So, you know that that’s fascinating, and so the idea that sort of God’s ways are not the ways the world, the ways of the world are not God’s ways, an inappropriate analogy. You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. Right? There’s something that’s more biblical than that that you could probably enlighten us with. But you know, I’d love just to kind of unpack that a little bit more because I think that there are a great many believers who are trying to do what God has called them to do in the marketplace, in their vocation. And yet some of the tactics that get used are basically the same tactics from the world kind of re-applied with some sort of gospel lipstick on it. Like, how would you challenge us, right? Henry and I and all of our listeners to like, reimagine what it looks like to bring sort of a set of gospel tools to those problems?

Brett Johnson: OK, great. I think I’d like to get to talk a bit about success because you’ve got to define the end game. I mean, why are we in things with God? Not for our own benefit? God didn’t put us on the planet to be blessed, to be happy, to live in Los Gatos, where the weather is fine and so forth. No, he put us on the planet to make a difference. To accomplish his agenda, he populated the Earth so that he had workers to accomplish his purpose. And we’ve adopted some evangelical notion that God was lonely. And so he made us so that he had his land. God could have got a puppy or a few more angels, and I know he created us to work with him in collaboration with him. So how do we define success? Well, it’s when God’s job gets done, not when the ROI is X or the return on capital or even the stewardship of capital is such and such a metric. So we have to define the end game. If we don’t define the end game well enough, somebody else will define it like the World Economic Forum or somebody you know, by 2030, you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy. No, no, no. We have to define the game. People from every turn tribe and nation living like God, looking like God, a flourishing living to their full potential, working like God and so on. So I think that we have to define the endgame. Then I would say, look, we have to understand that this three big economic systems in scripture as I see it. One is, let’s call it Egypt or Babylon, and the other is the promised land. And in between you have the desert. Now, Egypt is quite interesting, but Deuteronomy Chapter 11 says, Look, the land that you’re entering is not like the land you’ve come from where you watered your vegetable garden by foot. But the land that you’re going to is a land that I look after and it gets its rain from heaven. If you obey me, I’ll send autumn and spring rains. If you don’t, you’re toast. That’s what God says. So let’s unpack that a little bit. In Egypt, there was a predictable water supply. It’s still there today. All you have to do, take your bucket, go down, get it. Water your vegetables and you’re done. No dependance on God. Just a little bit of effort and you get your paycheck every month. Now, the desert is a bit different because you’re dependent daily for water, for manna, for quail on God. And, you know, every single day. And we call this living by faith. And we’ve made this the epitome, the ultimate of a Christian experience. I used to work at IBM. I used to work at Google. Now I’m living by faith, and we make that the ultimate destination. It was meant to be a temporary gap to get some Egypt out of our thinking and then get us into the Promised Land. And the weird thing about the Promised Land is that everybody had capital. Everybody had a piece of land. Every tribe had an allocation. Every family had a means of income production, and they had to exercise faith. And this is the fascinating part about Faith Driven Investor ERG. It’s a combination of capital and faith, whereas in the world system, it’s capital without faith. The world system is crafted carefully so that you don’t have to depend upon God. And one day I realized one of the reasons I’m asking God for a million dollars or ten million is that I don’t want to pray. Give us this day our daily bread. That’s really why I’m praying for it. But then I realized if God gave me $10 million, he’d give me a $20 million problem. If I’m a kingdom person, that’s what God does. He gives Kingdom people problems for breakfast. So being in the Promised Land, he says, OK, you’ve got a means of production and you have to exercise faith because if you don’t do things the way I want you to do it, there will be no rain and the place is going to be a desert. So it’s a strange combination of capital and faith. And we’ve separated capital in faith, but in the promised land, they fully integrated the ones not a substitute for the other. They’re just fully integrated.

Henry Kaestner: He gives Kingdom problems to people for breakfast. The. His faithful for breakfast, that’s amazing, that’s a very good that snip, it’s going to show up somewhere. That was really good. So you’re talking about a countercultural way to think about economics. Are you thinking about a counter-cultural way to think about money countercultural way even within the Christian circles about living by faith? What are some of the other countercultural things that you see Christ’s followers falling into and it could be in one of these two places? Number one, we’re told, of course, not to be conformed by the pattern of the world or the worries of the world and deceitfulness of riches. So how do we avoid falling into those traps? But then also, what are some of the traps that you see that doesn’t come from the Bible, but their Christian culture would have an investor buy into? That’s not biblical? And you alluded to that about the time in the desert, but expand on that concept, please.

Brett Johnson: Sure. We touched a little on success, and I would say the other thing is what’s normal when we go to money? We often think if I’ve got money, it’s an indicator of God blessing me. Or if you’re in another country such as India, if I don’t have money, it’s an indication that I’m spiritual when both of those are extremes. So in the West, we strive for comfort and a problem comes along and we expect God to take it away. And that’s what we pray for. And other parts of the world, they figure this is normal. In fact, in judges, it says in chapter three, verse two, it says in brackets there were some tribes left over that didn’t get conquered and it says in brackets and he left them only to teach warfare to a generation that hadn’t known war. As parents, we want our kids to be more comfortable than we are. Go to a good college, have a good dorm room, a good experience and so forth. And God says you’ve got to expose them to battle. So when people become believers, we should rip up their passports, give them a kingdom passport and a military uniform. We should let them know this is a war zone. You know, historically, there’s a battle between good and evil, and we going to deploy our business capital a time out talents one way or the other. And so culturally, we’ve got used to being comfortable. What makes me comfortable versus what gets the job done, no matter what it does to my comfort level? That’s a big factor. And so we’ve almost become acclimatized to if I’m being blessed by God, I won’t have problems and God is thinking, Well, is there anything, anywhere in the world that’s out of whack with the way I want it to be? And how can a deploy Luke or Henry to go and fix that problem?

Luke Roush: So, Brett, one of the things you talk about in Promised Land is around guard owning the key resources, just unpack a bit more. The key resources. What does that mean for us and how do we respond to that?

Brett Johnson: This is a dual thing, and you’ll see a bit of this in the book of Acts when you remember the the real estate guys and nice and safari, right? Not that I have anything against real estate people, but there’s an interesting concept over there because and it’s the same thing mirrored in the Old Testament between A.A. and Safire. Everything was guns, but between an alliance of fire and the apostles. Everything was this, Peter says, Hey, the land was yours before you sold it, the money was yours. After you sold it between us and you. It’s yours between you and God. It’s all God’s. So when they went into the Promised Land, they said, Okay, this area over here is for the Benjamins. This area is for this tribe, that tribe between the different tribes. There were clear boundaries and within that property rights, ownership of property, etc. But between the people and God, God says the land is mine. The gold and silver is mine. In fact, it is the people of mine. What’s the implication? Well, you can’t enslave each other. You’ve got to treat the aliens and the widows. Well, you’ve got to have justice, you’ve got to have equity. So there’s the strange paradox, if you like between us and God, it’s all God’s between you and me. There’s property rights, there’s rewards responsibility. And so.

Henry Kaestner: As you talk in kingdom economics, you suggest that other faith traditions have wrestled with these problems and have a framework through which they think about the allocation of capital. What about the way that Jewish people or Muslims and how they’ve processed some of these ancient truths about money? How can they be either an encouragement to us as Christians are maybe a wake up call? How might they be a warning? What’s different?

Brett Johnson: That’s interesting, Henry. When you think about the major eras of capital and just to simplify it, you know, I’ve broken that out in one of my books, but there was an era where Christians abdicated the world of capital. It happened after about 324 A.D., the Council of Nicea. They put a distance between the church and the Jews and Christians got out of the world of capital. There had been quite actively involved. I mean, they were actively working, banking, trading, financing and it became their band interest, a sort of a religious view that Jews never got out of capital. In fact, the banks, as you know, come out of the merchants of Venice, that situation, they brought the bench out. You know, the story, how that evolved. But Christians got out of the world of capital for about a thousand years, and during that time, Islam started up. Now I think that in many respects, the Jews and the Muslims have a more integrated view of capital and Christians. Do we have the secular, sacred dichotomy that says some things are spiritual and some things aren’t? The Jews don’t have that view. They’re much more integrated in their view of things. And the Muslims are more deliberate about the use of capital. I will invest in your business. It’s not alone like a Christian bank where we say, Well, if the collateral is bigger than the loan, that’s fine. It’s an investment. I’m a partner with you in the business. Therefore, I have an incentive to grow you as an individual. Otherwise, I lose my capital and they use capital to disciple people. I remember back 40 years ago, forty five years ago, a friend of mine said, who’d started why? When a youth with a mission in Africa that the biggest problem in Africa was leadership. Some years later, I was sitting down with a couple of people that, you know, in Cape Town, and I asked them, What’s the biggest problem you see in Africa? Because they’d been doing prayer gatherings around Africa? And they responded, The Muslims are buying up the place now. The Muslims are thinking multi-billion dollars to impact the continent. The Chinese are in their wake. And Christians are like 10000 for an orphanage or, you know, maybe 100000 in a good Christian business that’s doing a bit of fintech in Kenya or Cape Town because it’s cheaper than doing it in Silicon Valley. And we think we’ve done it a whole deal, and we have to think bigger in this regard. And I think that the Muslims and the Jews have done a better job in that regard.

Henry Kaestner: As president, it makes me think of the speaker we had at the first Faith Driven Investor conference, Kenny Kuruvilla, who talked about maybe the fact you mention the merchant of Venice. He talks about Columbus being from Genoa and presumably trying to raise venture capital among the Italian city states and going to offer and then going to Portugal and not getting any. And and that’s why they speak Spanish in Ecuador and Peru and Bolivia. They should be speaking Genovese, right, or Italian or something like that. And the extent of that thinking is what language is going to be spoken in the marketplace in Africa, a place where you have more entrants into the job market than Indian and China, are they going to be speaking secular or are they going to be speaking Christian? Are they going to be speaking Arabic or Chinese? Or are they going to be speaking the language of redemptive products and services and loving your neighbor and being thoughtful? And I think that your admonition there is kind of hits me like when I hear about people just like in their giving is like, really, it ends up being like tipping, right? Christians are giving like three or four percent. It’s not giving. It’s tipping. When you say, guys, you know, go ahead and write a check for $10000 for an orphanage. Are we really in Arab? Would you suggest, other than looking at some of these other faith traditions? How is it that you’ve been able to get to a place where you feel about being all in on investments and seeing that this is something that is not just a kind of a side thing, but how do you reconcile that with a listener? That’s listeners right now is like, Wait a second, I want to send my kids to college. I want to have a retirement. If I go all in on a place like Africa, like it sounds like this podcast is encourage me to do. I got currency devaluations. I get all these different things. How do you break through that? What’s the wrong thinking there or is that the wrong thing?

Brett Johnson: Well, I think the thinking is, you know, what is God up to? The question is, you know, many years ago, I think it was Ed Silver, so or one of those guys used to ask people it might have been one of the other guys used to ask who once got in their business and all the Christians would raise their hands. And he said it’s the wrong question, the question is, who wants to get their business into God’s business? Same thing with your portfolio, with your assets. It’s very easy to get God in your business. You have a problem. Everybody wants God in their business. That’s when we want God in our best. Same with our finances, with our investments, and we’ve got to see the bigger purpose. I’ll tell you a story I said in Redwood City. Sitting with a lady, she was a money manager. She’d invested in the South American country, and no sooner had she get the money in the country than they froze the bank account. So now she was upset and she would say to me, Brant, please pray that there unfreeze the bank accounts. After she’d asked me this so many times, I’m sitting at breakfast with her. I started laughing. She said, What are you laughing about? I said, to get a napkin and I said, You went into that country because you wanted to do a capital deal. Get your capital in, get a return for your clients. Get out. But God wanted to impact the nation. So he sent you a problem, and the problem forced you to understand what’s going on in the nation. She found out it was corruption. A politician didn’t like the bank managers, so froze the money. So she starts praying. She goes down with intersperses. She’s meeting with local pastors. What’s going on? She funds out the societal problems about education and health care and corruption and everything. She even goes to the president and says to him, This is what’s going on. If you don’t sort this thing out by such and such a date, I’m doing a press release to all of these media outlets exposing this thing, which she did. I said you went in to do a capital deal, but God wanted to change the nation. So now you’re involved in government, in business, in church, in media, in family and so forth. So I said to some guys recently they wanted me to do something in some country. I said, You want to go in and out and sell a product. God wants to impact the nation. You can decide upfront. God will give you a problem that gets you squeezed out like a good fragrance into that whole nation. So my view is start with what God wants to do in the nation. That’s the big picture or in your city. It could be. Chattanooga could be San Jose, California, or it could be, you know, Namibia or some other country like this. You pick the country and you say, What is God doing there? You could also pick an industry if you like and say, Okay, what does God want to do in the world of, you know, food security or energy or whatever it might be, whatever your giant is, pick then and then work backwards into your investments and then look at the metrics. I think that resets things. Otherwise, we bring old school thinking that God doesn’t care about, you know, am I beating the index? Am I doing this? Am I? I mean, it’s just really we’ve got the wrong metrics on the thing. We have to look at God’s endgame and understand that. And then how do we fit into that picture? So then, you know, go ahead, Rick.

Luke Roush: Now I was just going to say to the discernment process of trying to understand sort of what is God doing in this nation? And then how might I participate in God’s story? Not sort of my own story and inviting God into what I want to do in discernment process for a believer to kind of understand what that looks like, what would be sort of three pieces of advice you would give to someone who is trying to understand sort of where is God at work and how might I be called to participate?

Brett Johnson: I would say God is interested in all of the nations, of course, and it might be through relationships or other ways that you end up there. That’s great. Once you get in there and look for their assets because God is just and he gives every country the assets that they need for the blessing of that nation. Our Western mindset says I’m going to bring in my American thinking or my European processes or my laws, my Roman Dutch laws or whatever to fix your country. A biblical approach says there’s something about the glory of God in this nation, and there are assets that God has probably put in that nation. Now, what are the assets so that they can start thinking possibilities? And then, yes, in the Kingdom of God, we can bring in some additional IP, some thinking, some financial capital, some other things relationships to add to those, but assume that they have assets because God is just find out the health of the assets. I think a lack of stewardship of assets for under stewardship of assets is one of the big giants in the world. You go to India. I mean, the place hasn’t been painted since the British left, you know, and you go to other countries and the railroads are messed up and so forth. So failure to steward assets is a problem. So you can bring the concepts of asset stewardship. I remember I went to Egypt, got a bunch of people together in the Wadi did. And I’m asking them, what assets do you have? And they look at me with a blank. Then they say sand sun. But the question got them thinking, and a guy came to me a few days later and he said, I’ve got a farm out in the desert. I did a calculation. I think I could put in enough solar to power half of Europe. But he just never thought about it before. But if you start with the assets, it’s respectful. It’s a good thing to do. Then I would say look at the health of the sectors of society. Look at the giants, the problems, the things that God cares about and then say, Who’s already tackling those? Let’s invest in the mezzanine type financing growth, financing into people who are already doing something and can be taken to the next level. For example, I went to Madagascar, found a guy that had bought a piece of land and built a mill to make bread, flour, gluten free bread flour out of some local ingredients bread, plant and cassava, and a bakery for $30000. I mean, all of that for $30000. Well, you can replicate that out again and again and again wherever they have those ingredients. So it’s not some speculative thing. So let’s say find out who’s doing good stuff, invest in them and be in it for the long haul. I remember going to Bali and met a guy who went there when there were no churches in Bali. Then he had about 47 churches around the world and he told me, Bret, the Kingdom of God is trench warfare. You don’t go into Indonesia, have a rally, declare that Indonesia is transformed and leave again. So this concept of patient capital so that there is a bill I would say is a key.

Luke Roush: You know, one thing that came to mind in some of your early comments about God’s Kingdom come in kind of here on Earth. This idea of restoration and Wright has written a lot about that was surprised by hope. And it was just kind of reminiscent with some of your talk track there. So anything else that has been influential with your thinking around what does it look like for a new having a new Earth to sort of come to where we are versus sort of, hey, it’s all going to burn in the end anyway? So who cares? Right? It’s because it’s not just about salvation, as you said earlier. Any other thoughts on that?

Brett Johnson: Yeah, I think you know in the book Transforming Society, which I know we don’t want to get into too many books, but what I see actually is three responses which we could talk about to this question. The question is, do we still have a mandate? I mean, I have godly Christian people who actually do investing who say, No, you can’t do all of this stuff. And their view is that over spiritualized, the whole thing, they say, we’re just going to get people saved. If we can get a whole bunch of people say, that’s great. Don’t mess with the economy, don’t mess with politics. We’re not called to do all of those things. The Kingdom of God is above all of that separate from all that. So it’s not invoked. So let’s say there’s three responses, even with the, you know, in the repurposing capital, which changes three responses. One is interventionism, which we’re seeing heavily in western countries. The other is isolationism. We’re going to have a Christian bank. We’re going to take our guns and our seeds and head to the hills of Tennessee, whatever we are. I think somebody just moved to Nashville. That’s probably not on your mind. And or it’s evangelism. Well, if we can just get enough people saved. So I think those are the three. Maybe we should talk about those three big responses to the fact that the economies of the world are in a problem. And I think the world understands the economies are fragile. And then what’s our response? And I think for me, the danger look is that we we just throw in some Christian principles into investing our finances, stewardship, whatever we call it, but we don’t actually fundamentally believe that we can change the systems. So we haven’t talked much about. There are people who want to invest to bring hope, flourishing and so forth. And there are others who are saying, No, we actually have to change the systems and the systems can be changed. Now I see two groups of people over there. One like that says we could change the banking regulations. We could change the way the Fed operates. We could change the underlying policies and procedures. And another group that says, you know, we have to go back to the gold standard or, you know, bitcoin is the new gold and so forth and they looking for a replacement type of system. But I don’t know that there’s a deep belief that we could actually see God’s economy become the dominant economy, and it’s a little bit like revival. There was a book called Like a Mighty Wind Miltary. There was an Indonesian revival back in the day. East Timor. You should read about it. The guy by the name of miltary, he’s still alive. He wrote a second book called The Gentle Breeze of Jesus. He said Unless you had your eyes open, you wouldn’t see the revival, basically. And I think this is where we are in the world of capital and finance. It’s almost like the opportunity is at our fingertips right now and we have to have our eyes. And to see it and to believe that God’s economy can become the dominant economy,

Henry Kaestner: that was very good, that’s very helpful. And they’re just so much more for us to do in future episodes. I’m grateful for the time that you spent with us. I want to go on to something that we asked each one of our guests before we sign off, which is what are you hearing recently from Guy threw his word. And I know that you’re in tune with that. You’ve written a lot of books on that. We talked before about, have you even unpacked exodus for somebody who’s in the marketplace? But what are you hearing? And maybe it’s not today, but maybe it is. But recently that might be an encouragement for all of us.

Brett Johnson: Yeah, Henry, thank you for the question. What’s been exciting this year is just doing a read through the Bible in one year, which I’ve enjoyed doing and just got a little bit to go. And I’m sorry that it’s going to end in a way, but I’ll have a bit more time for journaling again. But what I see when you look at the broad sweep of history all at once, how all of these books of the Bible connect and when you look at it, there’s often times when it looks like God’s not involved. The world is in a mess. Politics is going one way health care. Another way the economy is going another way. The gap between the haves and the have nots. And the question is, where is God in all of this? And God is brooding watching over all of this? His fingerprints are all over history. And I believe that we’re at a crucial time in history right now. And as Christians, people of faith, we need to be alert to it so that we see what’s going on in the big game as it were. So I’m very, very encouraged that we’re at a time in history where we could make more of a difference than we’ve ever made before. If we’re awake, if we’re alert and I really think we’re living out some of the things that we see predicted through the people like Daniel and Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation and so forth. And I’m not saying gloom and doom, I’m saying opportunity, and it’s an opportunity to be grasped. So the fingerprints of God on things that are happening today, it’s like. There’s a bigger game that’s being played and we can get wrapped up in politics, in economics, etc. that God is sovereign and he’s working and he’s wooing us to partner with him in the big things he’s doing in the world.

Henry Kaestner: OK, that’s very encouraging to look on. Big takeaway for me here is and I’ve heard this repeatedly through what Bret has shared. I hadn’t expected to hear this, but it’s just pay attention, be awake, understand the winds of what God is doing. Look for the problems or the opportunities that he serves you up for breakfast and understand that we were built for such time as this, and that there are some ancient truths that help us to think about how to deploy capital, how to think about assets in the different countries and cultures and countries that we invest in. And I’m just I’m grateful. I’m grateful. This was a great time

Luke Roush: is really high, high quality Britain. The other takeaway that I have is that as believers, we need to be very careful about applying secular solutions to problems that God’s call us to solve. Let’s just not rinse, repeat the solutions from the world. And that’s part of what I, you know, I think we see all around us, particularly in the last two or three years that has created some divisions and even some confusion around the witness that we have in broader society because of how we’ve at times as believers body, the church tried to use conventional solutions to resolve differences or other things so that that also is going to come up for several weeks in my mind.

Henry Kaestner: Great. Thank you. Very, very grateful for your partnership, your leadership in getting out there. We’re going to put the links to the books in the show notes link to the Exodus podcast, and we’re just grateful for you.

Brett Johnson: Thank you so much. It’s been a privilege to chat with you, and I love the work that you’re doing.

Subscribe to the Podcast:

Filmmaker Jon Erwin has worked his way from operating cameras at sporting events to producing a major motion picture about a sports legend. His move from the sidelines to the studios has been earned through hard work and perseverance. It has also come by way of Jon’s strong desire to draw people to the hope and the truth of the Gospel. On the Faith Driven Investor Podcast, Jon shares about the early days of his career. He also talks about the making of “American Underdog,” how it came to the big screen, and why he believes in the power of strong stories that positively influence culture.

Episode Transcript

Richard Cunningham: Jon, we are so grateful you’re here. I’m actually going to start reason for having me because it’s so impressive. And then we’ll have you fill in some of the gaps, though. All right. Here’s some of the Jon Erwin story. Jon Erwin began his career as a teenager working for ESPN as a camera operator in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. In 2002, he founded a production company with his brother, Andrew, the brother were directing videos and producing concerts and television programs for platinum recording artists such as Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Casting Crowns, Switchfoot, Skillet and others. They received 11 GLAAD Award nominations and three wins for Music Video of the Year. In 2010, Jon and Andrew began exclusively developing dramatic feature films. The features of all opened in the top 10 box office on opening weekend, and they received the coveted A-plus CinemaScore twice. Some of those titles are October Baby, Moms Night Out and Woodlawn. Additionally, the list also includes the surprise hit ‘I can only imagine’ which became the number one independent film of twenty eighteen, earning over eighty three million at the box office. In 2019, Jon and Andrew launched the Kingdom Story Company alongside their partners Kevin Downs and Tony Young, and the production company just released the new feature film American Underdog. Based on True, an inspiring story of Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Kurt Warner and his wife, Brenda. So if you don’t have plans this weekend, you’re going to watch American underdog. There’s a lot of your Bible Belt, man. Let’s start with the basics. Who are you? Fill it in. Then what has God done in your life to bring you here today?

Jon Erwin: Well, I mean, my name name’s Jon. I appreciate you guys having me. You know, I think I’m a living testament that God can use anyone. And we all have unique gifts. I had to do what’s done in the bios. I had to do kindergarten twice because I was an ADHD disturbance to the class. It was more everyone else’s grades than it was mine, but it was like I was that much of a disruption. And you know, you can’t grow up further away from L.A. or from Hollywood than Birmingham, Alabama. So I just think, you know, as the Bible says, God uses the weaklings of the world to confound the wise. And he’s given us all gifts and there’s nothing more fun and fulfilling vocationally than when you can really find, you know, there’s a lot of things that we can do. There’s only a few that that we can uniquely do, and I think even fewer that we’re sort of called to do. And if you live in your calling and your unique ability and you do it for God’s glory and for reasons beyond yourself, vocationally life does not get more fulfilling than that. So I’m one of those lucky people that gets to, I say, the coolest job in the world. And, you know, we say that, you know, we work for the fans. Everything we do is is about the people sitting in the seats and the experience they’re having with the movies. And I’m very grateful to have the job I have, you know, and to tell stories for a living. And so we say we’re storytellers serving the greatest storyteller of all time. And you know, it’s interesting. God is really, really on the move in Hollywood in ways that are really cool to be a small part of.

Katherine Trout: Thanks for sharing that, Jon. I know one question I’m sure you get a lot is how did you get to where you are today and where you just see the hands of a in that? And he started you in a surprising place on the sidelines, operating guys.

Jon Erwin: Yeah, yeah. I can’t recommend this story, but I can tell you what happened. It’s I mean, first of all, desperation is a powerful motivator. And so sometimes it’s like when your only option is to figure it out, you keep going. I’ve heard it said success is long obedience in the same direction. And, you know, the Bible echoes that that, you know, in due season will reap. If we don’t lose heart, we don’t quit. Which was really the theme of the Kurt Warner movie American Underdog, which we wanted to do that film. But for me, I started working at a cable station when I was 12. My dad helped show there and he was a radio show. And then when I was 15, I had apprenticed for a cameraman from my church. You know, I think you get big opportunities when you do small things, well, you know? And so I had just carried around Australia and helped them out, and I was super curious, you know, as a kid and try to maintain that. I think if there is a nitroglycerin to success at any level, I’ve found it’s sort of the the two most valuable elements, I think would be just a level of resilience and a level of curiosity, like if you just watch those people that has a high pain tolerance and won’t quit. But you also love to learn and love to stay curious. Eventually, you’ll figure it out. And so when I was 15, that cameraman was on a University of Alabama football game. I should say roll tide and somebody got sick randomly a cameraman about three hours before the kick off. I lived an hour away, and so this guy, my mentor Mike, called me and said, Get over here right now. Don’t tell anybody how old you are. Just don’t say anything. You know, lies a strong word, but you know, basically just neglect to inform anyone of the actual truth. And so I went over there and I had the time of my life. I just, you know, 15 year old homeschooled southern Baptist, you know, in the reddest of the states. And all of a sudden it was like joining the circus and I had just a blast and did the game. They pay me $300. We’d have any money. So I had never seen that much money at one time and accruing agent called me the next week and just said, I guess they looked at the list and said, Are you a freelance camera operator in Birmingham? Because it’s right in the middle of the assessee? So there’s lots of televised games. I didn’t know if that was three different jobs or a single job, you know? So I literally just said, yes, that’s what I do that that’s that’s me. And I did a game on Auburn and then just started doing games every week. My brother quickly followed my dad with money. He did not have helped me buy a camera when I was 16 and help me get a loan, which you should be 16 for $10000 for editing equipment. And we just were off to the races and my brother and I, we started making stuff and I like this. There’s a Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers that talks about the 10000 hour rule. And, you know, basically that anybody that’s really successful has been 10000 hours refining their craft. And that was sort of what it was for me. And we were just we had the good fortune of charging people a little bit of money, like a $500 wedding. We videotaped orthopedic trauma surgeries. You know, we did birthday parties. I mean, anything that you could possibly do just to make stuff and just to refine our craft. And that’s how the whole thing sort of began.

Richard Cunningham: I cannot tell you how much I love that story. That is a wild 15 year old sideline of Alabama football game. We have one of the co-hosts of the faith driven podcast William Norvell would be just jumping out of a seat to hear that story. He is a diehard Crimson Tide family. All right, so incredibly humble beginnings. So cool to hear about how your dad also gets involved and kind of help with this passion, this calling. Now it’s 2002. You’ve got this incredible experience, the camera. You’re talking about 10000 hours and you and your brother just mastering this craft. You guys decide to go out on your own producing music videos, working alongside a lot of these Christian artists. What was that like? Yeah, I like the fact that

Jon Erwin: sometimes you have to have in life, you know, the courage to leap. You know, my kids go to the school, behold. And you know, they say that in the Bible, it’s based on the version of what God says. Behold, I’m doing something new. You know, can you see it? And for me, when there’s nothing really left to learn, that’s where vocationally I’ve got to move somewhere. And so I love working for ESPN. It was a great sort of 10 years of my life, but in my early 20s, we were trying to start really get our production company off the ground. And sometimes you can’t serve two masters, as the Bible says. And so, like Cortez, had to burn his ships, you know, to motivate his men. And I just remember calling all of the crewing agents and say, this has been a wonderful season of life and I have this dream. At the time, it was to direct music videos and commercials and really going to go for it. And I think I just need to chase it fully, and if I fail, I’m going to call you and beg for a job. But I’m going to I’m going to try and, you know, I have never regretted those type decisions. You know, looking back where I have regretted hesitating, you know, and maybe being afraid of what God could do. And there’s been, you know, three or four of them in my life. And so jump to music videos and commercials and did a ton of music, a lot of Christian music videos, some country music videos. And really, that was great fun. I mean, that was really where we found our sort of visual style and voice, and we did some fun videos at the time. The label would submit a song and you would have to typically write a six eight page treatment with a bunch of nonsense and adjectives like amazing and nuanced, and the band’s going to look beautiful. And it’s, you know, all these words that I don’t even know. They mean, you know, just to try to get the video awarded. But we had gotten popular and we’d won via the year a few times. And I remember we did a video. It was a we did a video for Skillet, this Christian band and literally the whole treatment was the band is singing at night. Things start to blow up. Then it starts to rain. Then it rains and things blow up. Then everything blows up the end, you know, and that was just the type of things that were just great fun to just do stunts and explosions and car chases. And, you know, each music video was like this little mini movie. So again, it was a way for us to refine our craft. And then sometimes the questions can be the most powerful agents of change. And I went to direct second unit on a faith based film called Courageous that Sony was doing in this real Cinderella story. A church out of Georgia was making movies. And as luck would have it or whatever George Washington called the Divine Hand, you know Sony was trying to get into Faith-Based films after The Passion of the Christ. And so they acquired these films from this church, Sherwood and started releasing them, and the first one to ten million a football film called Face the Giants. The second one called Fireproof, did like 30, and it was this big sort of thing. And so they wanted to do a film called Courageous, but they were making their films primarily with church volunteers. So it’s an incredible story. And so I went into direct because it was a police drama and there were car chases and action sequences and foot chases. You never want to combine car chases with church volunteers. It’s like that’s where people can die. And so it

Richard Cunningham: was really massive red flag, right?

Jon Erwin: Yeah, yeah. So I had directed all these music videos like the skill at one. And so it was my job to come in with a smaller group of professionals and some people and go do those action sequences in that film. So nobody died. And you know, it’s a Southern Baptist church in Georgia. And so, you know, exaltation is a big thing. And I remember Alex, the director of that film, got right up in my face right away and basically said, You know, we don’t quite understand you like, what’s your purpose and the purpose of your work? And what is the question everyone should ask themselves like? It’s a great book. Simon Sinek wrote it called Start with Why and that great leaders and organizations don’t begin with what they they begin with why. And they sort of emanate from the wire, you know? And so when you join great companies like Apple, I still I love Southwest Airlines and I just fly. I still stay on that airline just because I love the spirit of the airline and I love the way of it. And so it’s a great question, but this question I can answer. And so I for a long time, while doing those sequences on that film, I thought about that question like, why do I do what I do? It all just happened. My career plan was like. Indiana Jones, where like, I don’t know, making this up as I go, like from age 15, it it all just sort of manifested and I had gotten opportunities that people that dream of being a filmmaker from like birth and then go to film school don’t ever get. I mean, it was unbelievable some of the breaks that I got and some of the sort of the providence involved. And so I really that was my moment where a career became a calling and I realized I could fuze this thing that I had sort of practice for a while with my faith and that, you know, we’re this rare generation of Christians, and I think this is why Faith Driven Investor is so important that could actually accomplish the great commission in our lifetime. You know, when Jesus says take the gospel to the whole world, I mean, he said, it’s a people that know this content we’re on would exist for like 400 years. And so we’re this first because of technology generation that can really get it done. They can get the gospel all around the world. And I think the way we would have to do it is really to to harness some of the mechanisms. I love it where Paul says of David and actually serve the purposes of God in his generation, like the gospel never changes. The true truth never changes. But the way you get it to people really does. And so I love that phrase in his generation. You got to sort of own your time in mass media is just a great way to tell stories, a great way to communicate. So I think that that was the turning point where a career became a calling. Functionally, we went from a service company where, you know, sort of like Han Solo. So I got this ship. You need to go somewhere. You pay me and I’m out. I’m done as a service company to an intellectual property company where we were actually developing. You know, that was the business of it all. And that was another huge jump, completely different business. And, you know, like the line where Mike Tyson said every boxer has a plan until he gets in the ring, gets punched in the face. So beginning to sort of raise money for our own films and whatnot. It was, you know, we just you have to just get in and figure it out. But it was definitely we embodied that line for sure.

Katherine Trout: In Twenty Eighteen, that’s when you produced the film. I can only imagine which has quickly become a household name and not just Christian films, but films in general. We’d love to hear you share a little bit more about specifically for financing that movie. What was the process like? What ActionScript had you actually taken to get that up and running?

Jon Erwin: Well, from a financial perspective, it was very interesting project. We had raised money. Every filmmaker should. There’s two classes of money that you have to pull together to release a feature film in theaters. Now, as we do this podcast, we’re at a moment of disruption. It’s so fascinating. I could I could talk you off about a very similar COVID is is reshaping the movie industry in a very similar way that Napster reshaped the music industry. It’s that sort of level of disruption is permanent behavioral change. It’s like ten years of change in 18 months, and it’s just so fascinating to be in this moment of rapid and rapid change. But typically, there’s two classes of money. There’s the equity that it takes to make a movie, and then there’s what’s called pay, which is printed advertising, which is the advertising budget. And what’s interesting is I actually think that failure is actually the great teacher. There’s a great book from I think he runs the largest hedge fund in the world radio. It’s called principles, and he talks about just the power of a process he calls looping, which is basically just learning incrementally from your failures. And so we had made films that all open in the top 10. All of them had made money. Nothing had broken out, made a ton of money. And then we got to this film called Woodlawn that we did before. I can only imagine. And they say a filmmaker finds their story and tells it over and over again. Woodlawn is where we found the power true stories. And you know, tens of thousands of young people got saved because that movie I remember watching 800 teenagers go forward at a screening of that movie, and it just I feel like a movie doesn’t do the work. The movie just sets the stage. It’s like, we call it setting a volleyball that other people spike. It’s called emotional instigation. And no wonder Jesus told emotional stories, you know, and then explain them. But we spent more on that movie than we ever had before, and then we raised some of the money, but not all of it to market it. And that was the first time we didn’t recover the entire investment. We recovered about two thirds of the investment. And film is definitely a high risk, high reward. It belongs in your alternative portfolio. And if you’re a filmmaker out there, one of the big moral things to do is just never take money people need. When you make money, you make a lot of money, but it’s a volatile game. And so you just have to structure it right. And I think being honest about that upfront is actually a better way to raise money. But it just wrecked me. I couldn’t I couldn’t sleep at night and I couldn’t stop. I just I am hyper competitive, and so I have this thing. I say, either I win or we play again, like, I’m OK losing, but just please, let’s just go again. And so we did a five month postmortem on that movie. And really, you know, what’s interesting is that I’m in an industry where there is a category of people, literally. Called critics like it’s their job to criticize, and you have to separate your identity from the work and understand that’s OK. But what’s interesting is we never really solicit criticism from people that really care about us and want us to succeed. And it’s one of the funny things about business at every level is like because so much of it is just solving problems. And I think we don’t ever take the time to say, I wonder what I can learn. And I think a lot of times it’s actually worse in faith based film because we sort of back up the finish line to the results achieved. And then what I say is we sort of throw the God card in the sense that we say, well, we got the gospel out. So and we sort of don’t ever admit to not accomplishing our goals, and we certainly did with that movie. And it was the first movie that had this sort of burst of evangelical sort of use, but it didn’t. We didn’t accomplish our financial goals, and so we just confronted that head on. And one of the best things ever on a piece of paper was, you know, Woodlawn failed, and it’s my fault, and let’s figure it out. And so that led to this sort of study and so much came out of that process of learning. And that led to the way we were able to spot the value of I can only imagine when no one else saw it because of the data and because of what we had learned about theatrical, moviegoing and brands and it being sort of a branded driven event business. And so many people know and love that song. And so we saw value where other people didn’t see value. And that’s, I think entrepreneurism in general. You have to be looking at the same thing everyone else is and see what no one else sees, and it enables to do that. And then a very innovative financial model came out of that that no one said would work in the status quo of our industry. And basically, it was that these two categories of money, you have this equity category of money and then you have advertising put on top of that, this pay, which is debt, it’s last in first out that in the way most people, if you know anybody that ever lost money in a feature film, they’ll typically what happens is if the film implodes and doesn’t get made well or when it gets released, all of that money that it took to release it sits on top of the equity in your equity. Investors end up buried at the bottom of this totem pole of inequality. And then also, you don’t have leverage to negotiate your deals. Like in my business, I’ve found and I think in any business, the two most important words are control and leverage. And so you have to build cases of leverage. And when you only have the movie but you don’t have any money or plan to get your product to a consumer, you don’t have a business plan and so that you get into this acquisitions world. In the studio system, these are a publicly traded, diversified companies that can just bleed you out and wait till you’re broke. And so the fees were way too high with wood line and distribution fees and a lot of the fees on top of that. And so what we did is we just said, why can’t we? We did two things. We said, Why can’t we just take this sort of, you know, vertical inequality thing and just turn it over and raise money into a blended vehicle where if you invest in it, 40 percent of your money is deployed. Equity 60 percent is deployed to advertising all your money making money. But it becomes this thing that nobody thought could be achieved, which it was a dollar one return to the first investor and which was not the status quo. And so we actually went out raising money based off informing people of why they would lose money in film deals or had or knew somebody that had. And so it was this sort of whistleblower pitch. And then what we were trying to do about it, and it’s funny that honesty is what raised the money. We raised it quicker than we had ever raised money before, and it created this scenario. The other thing we did is I remember sitting my pastor at the time when I lived in Birmingham was Chris Hodges, which I still love him, and he’s one of the smartest guys in the church. And I was sitting in church. And I think a lot of business people have this sort of attitude towards nonprofits or towards the church that the business practices aren’t. But the Church of the Highlands, which is his church based off just a few very shrewd principles, is one of the most well-run organizations I’ve ever seen and debt free like a hundred and fifty million dollars in cash and assets. And it’s incredible. And his basic principle is this principle of margin. He basically does an annualized budget that’s 90 percent of the previous year’s spending, even though they typically grow 20 percent year over year. So that leaves this 30 percent margin that they just put away in the bank. So they never do, you know, financial drives. Basically, he plans forward based off where he’s been in terms of budgeting, and that hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember that service. I’m like, you know, he’s right, and we were so aggressive in where we thought we could grow that we forgot about margin. And so I can only imagine was built based off that principle with this blended vehicle to break even financially break even right at Woodlands box office of 15 million. Well, we did that in two days, and so everything between 15 million and 86 was margin, and so everyone did really, really well, and it led to the Lionsgate deal that we’re still in. Joined today, and so I just think that the enduring sort of things to consider are, you know, really take the time to learn from your failures. You know, I love to win, but I’ve found I don’t learn near as much when I when I actually learn a lot more, when I so just learned to micro fail and learn and apply quickly and just ask, you know, just have this curiosity to ask people what they thought, you know, you could do better or what went wrong. And then there are some principles that I love. A friend of mine, Craig Rochelle, is a pastor. He said, When you get around, great people don’t learn what they do. Your pride in their business, but learn how they think. And sometimes these simple principles of how to think can be pretty life changing in business. And so that’s how we raise the money for that movie. And then it led to the landscape you.

Richard Cunningham: I just we got to stop and point out real quick. Just some of the quotes you’ve pulled in that you’ve got a book of acts to Mike Tyson is just,

Jon Erwin: I you know, I’ll tell you this if you ever want to give me a birthday gift I collect, I love quotes, I just collect quotes and I have like your notepad on my phone. Is this ever running list? I love a good quote, and it is no

Richard Cunningham: secret you’re a storyteller because it is just amazed where you’re pulling from. All right, so I can only imagine massive success. You talk about the margin that happened between eighty six and fifteen and just love your humility in the way you all approach that and just kind of thinking through, like, how can we strategize on the failure we had prior so powerful? So the Lord gives you this amazing windfall and this audience right now we’re talking to is Faith Driven Investor, as many of you are credited who have probably had a similar situation. An amazing windfall and an opportunity now to steward some success they’ve been given. We’d love to hear about you and Andrew’s kind of mindset. Once that took place post, I can only imagine and say, Hey, how can we use this position of influence capital and how almost maybe our pick of the litter of what we want to do next?

Jon Erwin: Yeah, a really interesting thing happened. Normally in our, you know, entertainment is driven by a power law in terms of economics. And there’s some, you know, biotech is like that. And you know, basically it means that it’s a winner. Take all game and I love it for this reason. It’s a hyper competitive industry. And once you succeed, you know, it’s an industry where most things fail. There’s this natural inclination to sort of want to guard what you’ve learned and guard your brain and be like back away and sort of, you know, because it’s just so competitive. But I began to think, OK, if the real goal is to really substantively reclaim the imagination of a generation with the gospel, I give the gospel to our generation, our time. You know, that is something to be a part of that’s bigger than any one initiative. And what I had learned is these things that these anomaly events in faith film that really tipped like I can only imagine or what’s happening now. The great friend Dallas Jenkins and his show that shows and if you hadn’t seen it, it’s amazing. What a Kellyway that is. You should have him on your show. But you know that or even, you know, Phil’s company, the idea that the VeggieTales or even maximale movie The Passion of the Christ, it’s like there were these anomaly moments or Divine Franklin’s films, the Kendrick’s films, but nothing coalesced in the sense that there was no sort of snowball effect. There was no combined effort, and I began thinking about that. And just, you know, normally when a filmmaker succeeds, it becomes all about you. And it’s like, What? What do I want to do next? And I just began to think of this question, really that I felt God spit. Some have it in my life where our son, who’s eight now and he’s great, but he had sort of these health things we couldn’t understand up having to have immediate sort of open heart surgery when he was three and I was in the middle we imposed on, I can only imagine and I was actually directing a documentary called Steve McQueen American Icon, and I was immediately sidelined. You know, as they say, the show must go on, and that documentary was slated for the actual release in September. And it was not finished and people were buying tickets to it. And all this happened in June, and I had to recruit and empower another filmmaker, which was not my style. Prior to that, really, you know, I created things myself or with my brother and that filmmaker Ben Smallbone, he did so well. I remember sitting in that premiere thinking he didn’t do as good as me. He actually did better, and he took the ideas deeper and I was actually more fulfilled, having helped equip and empower him than I was doing the work myself. And that’s the moment that it sort of clicked. I’m like, Oh my goodness, we could scale like we could scale our processes, you know, you could always scale a system, you know? And so I’m like, This is, I think there’s a scalable system here, and I think that we could actually incubate and empower other filmmakers. And so I began to look at models like where these singular events, these anomalies, like a movie like Star Wars, actually birthed a company like Lucasfilm or Toy Story, birthed Pixar. And we began to think, what if this was bigger than our name? Because up to that point, it was called Irwin Brothers, and we just kept coming to this name Kingdom. And that led to Kingdom Story Company, which the idea just became this orbiting question. What can we do together that none of us can do alone? And it’s a very powerful thing. There’s a documentary series that I can’t recommend, but it’s great, but it’s called especially for an entrepreneur. It’s called the defiant ones, which is this guy, Jimmy Levine, who did this company called Interscope and Dr. Dre. And they’re sort of Jimmy’s company. Interscope and RJ sort of rise through hip hop, and they do beats together and sell to Apple. It’s really entrepreneurism story. And one of the things that Jimmy Iovine says to Will.i.am and that has become my my season of life that I’m in now that I’m really enjoying, which is, he said to Will.i.am. He said, You’re talented enough. If you can just keep your seat at the table, you’ll be successful. He said, or become the table. And he walked away and will.i.am was like, What does that even mean? And then it really clicked for him. If you can become the place where the right people can gather. That is a very powerful thing. And so what I realized is because I sort of love the business and love the creativity, and I see the art in the business and the business in the art that I could be uniquely useful at serving the visions of other creatives and really seeing them shine. And that’s really what this season of life that I’m in now is I’m loving that more and more, and it is unbelievable when you get a conspiracy of friends together in a common ideal and objective what can be accomplished and God’s just moving all over Hollywood. I remember when we did the Lionsgate deal was very good deal, and they dumped a ton of money into our films, our brand. But I was with felt the CEO and I came out and one of the heads of the other divisions was like looking around and he’s like, Hey, get over here. And I’m like, what? He said, literally, like, he told me his name. He said, I’m a Christian

Richard Cunningham: and there’s a few of us. And I’m so glad you’re here.

Jon Erwin: I kind to go, you know, and I’m like, I think this is you can come out about it. Like, I came through the front door. They’re paying us to be here. And it’s just. But there’s a lot of Christians in the industry at all levels that God has placed, and there’s just a lot going on. And I’m I’m really happy to be a small part of it, and it’s fun to just pull those people together that have never really worked together before. We’ve been what we call competitive allies. You know, but now we’re getting to work together, and it’s just an exciting time and exciting thing to be a part of.

Katherine Trout: Wow, that’s such a powerful story. And it reflects what the body of Christ is really designed to look like is to be collaborative and to be as one rather than competing against the other. So especially in a place like Hollywood, where it feels really isolating to be a Christian there, having that community is so inspiring, Jon. I also wanted to ask you, of course, about your new movie that’s in theaters now. American underdog? Yes, St. Louis native myself. OK, art has been always has held a special place in my heart. I believe that was my first ever football jersey was Kurt Warner.

Jon Erwin: That’s amazing.

Katherine Trout: Very exciting.

Richard Cunningham: I did not know this over here. It hit the big screen.

Katherine Trout: So tell us a little bit about what made you decide to tell the story of Kurt.

Jon Erwin: Well, I mean, as a filmmaker, I think you have to realize that you’re the first viewer, you know? And so I think, you know, it has to be a story that moves me, that I can’t stop thinking about that. I then feel like, OK, this is our story to tell, and there has to be a cause behind the movie that I believe in giving time to. So like I remember with, I can only imagine. I remember asking him because we’re documentary filmmakers first. So we do these sort of interviews. And I remember asking Bart, you know, if I were to literally put a gun to your head and say, Is Jesus real? What would you say? And he said, yes, and I said, And how would you know? I’m just always curious to answer that question, he said. Because of the change I saw my dad, he said, I I watch this monster transform into the man I wanted to become and into my best friend. And you know, his faith is the only way to explain that. And so we all know the song I can only imagine is a song about heaven. Come to find out it’s a son singing for his father, and I thought it was a very powerful thing. And so the idea and I remember, you know, it’s cool. There’s actually been over 400000 of these type responses, but there was a woman watching. I can only imagine there’s another woman in her and her son leaving, and this woman didn’t get obviously couldn’t and said, Are you guys Christians? And they said, Yeah. And she said, I’m not. But whatever happened to Dennis Quaid in this movie, I need to happen to me. I need someone to explain it to me. And they they witness to it right there. And so that’s sort of why we do what we do. What I love about Kurt Warner is I love the idea of I wanted to make a film. And I think anything I did, especially in the times in which we live. Famous story, well known story, one of the great underdog sports stories. But to me, it was about the audience and making a film so that people could see it and say, You know what, if he can accomplish his calling in life and his dream, you know, maybe I can, too. And if they can stay together and love each other, maybe we can, too. And it’s just it. It’s just such a thing. You could not be further away from your dream than Kurt Warner was from his, and yet, you know, we all you bought his jersey, you know, and I think that that’s the amazing thing and it’s just so much of life and success and fulfilling a calling is just never, ever, ever giving up. And you just never know. Funny with I can only imagine my dad when he bought me a camera, a 16, he actually said, Hey, dream ball, dream. Big dream, the impossible. And then he says, if you give 20 years of your life to something, you’ll be successful. And it was almost 20 years exactly to the success of I can only imagine. And I think that there’s something to that. I think a lot of people give up at your 19 or you’re 17, which is where all the work is, you know, and they just don’t endure long enough. And you just never know when that breakthrough moment in life is right around the corner. And so I loved the story for that reason, and I also loved the idea that Kurt Warner became a champion off the field and then brought it onto the field. He had the arm of a champion. He had the talent of a champion but didn’t have the heart of a champion. He found that in his relationship with Brenda and her son and her kids and their son specifically, who’s disabled? You know, I understand that part of the story well, and it was actually him really her faith rubbing off on him and him falling in love with her and her kids and embracing a world that was bigger than he was finding his faith, becoming a Christian, becoming a father and all those things that he learned off the field. And it’s it creates as much of a love story as it is a sports story. And they really won together the entitled son of Vince Gill, and we got and seeing as love changes everything. And it really is true for this story. They really won together, but I loved all that he learned. He found his character off the field, and that’s what allowed him to become a champion on the field. And I just love that part of the story. And I just want to make a story that reinvigorates the dreams of the audience. You know, we’ve all had a really tough year and a half, and our dreams have never felt further away. So I wanted to tell a story about someone that was as far from his dream as you could ever be. And yet he still endured and accomplished it. And, you know, willing to give it a platform for Kurt and Brenda to talk about their life and their faith and their love story. And so that was sort of why we did the film, and I don’t know if this is like everyone’s going to come out, but it’s still in theaters and lovely to see it. And then I think it’s Super Bowl weekend is when it’s coming to pulmonary edema.

Richard Cunningham: Awesome. So fitting come and come to home Super Bowl week and I love that.

Jon Erwin: Yeah. Yeah, yes. Good timing.

Richard Cunningham: Love this. So practical. How can investors invest in a portfolio of faith based films most effectively would love to hear you just riff on that for a second, Jon?

Jon Erwin: Oh man, let me get back to you because it’s a, you know, we’re we’re dreaming about that right now. You know, I was very fortunate in God’s providence to get in business with the movie studio Lionsgate after I can only imagine because our next film came out, it was funny. I can only imagine that huge run, never one a minute film of 2018, but we were never number one at the box office. We just sort of like, we’re a little Honda Accord that got behind the tractor trailer semi-truck that was Black Panther, and we just glided behind it. But you know, the film we did after that, I still believe, actually is no. The only time we’ve been number one number one movie the night it opened on Friday, the one in America. But that was March 9th, 2020, and so not the best we can to release a film that, you know. And so everything was shut down and we had to go digital. And what’s interesting and you know, I think the thing for those raising money is just always believe fully in everything that you put in front of investors. And you know, what’s funny about that? And there’s a ton of opportunity in the disruption. But COVID has ended up reshaping behavior in an incredibly fundamental way that I think while it makes one form of getting a movie to people, which is a theatrical movie business much more difficult not only for faith films, reward films and, you know, musicals and Pixar and a lot of the box office. Because during COVID, you know, basically it was the streaming wars. And so for new streaming services were launched. Everybody sort of upgrade their technology very similar to in the music business when the album was pulled apart and you could buy your favorite song for 99 cents. That just reshaped an industry, the revenue still there. It’s in different places. So I would say as disruptive as that is to the economics of the moviegoing business in general and the studio business and everybody, it’s also opened up some incredible opportunities elsewhere in the home. And so that’s what we’re really researching right now and really building is I think that there’s enormous opportunity and I think there’s an extent that we have to no one go where people want the content. And also and I realize this is a very political answer, and I’m sorry. The point is we’re building a strategy that really believe in that. I’d love to get back to you on. But I think that when you look at the streaming wars and this mergers and acquisitions bloodbath, that is the entertainment business, the end of that is. Basically, everywhere you consume, content is going to be owned in these sort of super conglomerates, ultimately owned by one of the four tech giants. And I just don’t see that sort of Silicon Valley mindset and political worldview sort of allowing overt Christianity in that sort of downstream. So at least my home, I’m probably not the best for controlling my home, but the way I feel is screens have sort of overrun my home. And if I look at the future, I could see three or four years a situation where it would be very difficult to get content on those screens. If we don’t act now, we don’t act in a very big way. And so I think that that’s what I’m really diving into, and I love the moment that we’re in the moment in time in our industry because it’s that mass disruption that just accelerates change that we’ll be talking about for a very long time. And I think if you’re willing to let go of old ways of thinking and see where the value is, there’s enormous value, but you have to sort of embrace change and embrace change very quickly. So I would say that the current model for what has worked up to this point, that was very difficult for an independent film where all your eggs in one basket. The question is right. You have to sort of diversify risk and, you know, go with a whole portfolio mindset. And then I think there’s just a lot of work to do on the economics of how these things, you know, we make money, not off people consuming entertainment. We make money off how they consume entertainment. And so when the how changes abruptly and quickly, it just takes time. And it’s these enormous opportunities open up and then other things sort of change rapidly what we’re seeing now. You know, just over the last two months, especially after Spielberg’s movie, that people’s expectations of where they want the content and where they would most enjoy the content are permanently changed. It’s got nothing to do with safety. It’s now have it loops that have been built, and I could talk your ear off on those just fascinating. So I think that there is an answer to the question, but it’s in sort of re-engineering the value chain of where the content is. And I think I wish I could say we’re close to being able to say what I really do believe is next and where there is a lot of value for films. But it’s going to look all different. The theatrical window will survive, but it’ll only be for specific things, and there’s a lot of things that were theatrical prior to the pandemic or not. So that’s my vague political answer. We’ve got it. We’ve got to build a different engine to the car.

Richard Cunningham: Jon, thank you again. Let me ask you this. But again, we are grateful. Thank you for the way you have used the story of Jon Andrew Irwin and the many, many gifts you’ve given them to Steward and the positions you’ve given them steward. And finally got it. It is all about your son and may we make much of his name? And thank you for the way people like Jon are doing that in the ever changing kind of spiritual warfare landscape of media. And so we just ask that you would be with Jon and the many endeavors that are in front of him be with all those that are on this call today. Thank you so much for the privilege together. We love you, King Jesus Amen Amen.

Jon Erwin: Appreciate you guys. I wish I could stay. There’s so many questions in the chat that I wish I could answer, but maybe next time, but come

Richard Cunningham: back any time we’ll take you, we’ll take you any time. Thank you, everybody.

Katherine Trout: Thanks, Jon.

Subscribe to the Podcast:

If you haven’t yet watched The Chosen, we would highly recommend putting it at the top of your to-binge list. It’s an amazing narrative of the life of Jesus that has enjoyed significant popularity. Dallas Jenkins is the creator, director and co-writer of The Chosen, which in addition to being the first multi-season series about the life of Christ is also the most successful media crowdfund of all time.

Episode Transcript

Dallas Jenkins: I reached a point in my career shortly before the chosen, where I was genuinely OK with never making another movie because my movie failed. The movie that I had done, I had finally gotten to this place where Hollywood wanted to make movies with me, financed my movie, produced my movie The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, released in theaters. Everything was great. They wanted to make multiple movies with me over the next ten years. I was a director with a very bright future, and then my movie completely bombed. And in my lowest moment, confused wondering why God allowed this to happen, wondering where my future was. I genuinely got to a place where I didn’t feel responsible to feed the 5000. I only felt responsible to provide the loaves and fish.

Rusty Rueff: If you’re listening today to our podcast that you haven’t yet watched the chosen, well, we would highly recommend putting it at the top of your to binge list. It’s an amazing narrative of the life of Jesus that has seen increased popularity recently, and today we’re talking to the man behind the show. That’s right. Dallas Jenkins is the creator, director and co-writer of The Chosen, which, in addition to being the first multi season series about the life of Christ, is also the most successful media crowdfund of all time. Let’s hear from Dallas and let him explain how all of this has come to be.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and at Faith Driven Investor podcasts were really fired up about today’s guest. I mean, any time we have a crossover podcast when we’re talking to Faith driven entrepreneurs and Faith Driven Investor, it’s kind of a big deal around here and it’s a big deal for me as a father of three teenage boys. It is definitely a big deal for William. If you’re not seeing this on video and this is an audio podcast, so we’ll do some video snippets. We put up on the website. William is sporting a t shirt today. What is the t shirt say? Get used to different, get used to different. And I think that if there’s something that you are more of a fanboy about other than Alabama, everything, it may be the chosen.

William Norvell: It very well could be. This is one of the highlights. This is definitely the first time I’ve ever worn a podcast t shirt to his interview and not really being ashamed about it. Like, you know, there’s certain times where you’re like, You know, I know I’m doing it and it’s going to be weird, but it has had such a profound impact on my life. I am so grateful for the work the Dallas has done and is a slogan get used to it. I ordered so many things with us because it it motivates me every day as as so many things throughout the series is done and just change my family’s life, the conversations we have and my walk of Christ profound way. So yes, I am wildly excited about today’s episode.

Henry Kaestner: So Dallas, thank you. Everybody now knows who our special guest is. It’s Dallas Jenkins, creator of the chosen Dallas. Thank you very much for being on the program.

Dallas Jenkins: Oh, I appreciate that and you look great. I know the listener can’t see it, but get used to different t shirt. Looks great, and that is based on episode seven of season one, when Jesus says that to Simon Peter, so get used to different. And that phrase really has become, I think, a calling card and a call to action for the show and for people who watch the show because I think it applies to Jesus, his ministry. I think it applies to everything that we’ve done with this show from day one. Everything about it has been different. So I feel like it’s something we say to the audience. It’s something Jesus says to us, and it’s something we say to ourselves. So I love that you’re that you’re bringing that T-shirt onto the podcast. I think it’s actually appropriate.

Henry Kaestner: MIT indeed. Indeed. OK, we like to do this with every podcast guest that is to understand a bit of your background, who you are, where you come from, the things that led you up until your creative career. Just give us five. Or please.

Dallas Jenkins: Well, my father is Jerry Jenkins. She’s the author of the left behind books, and even before the left behind books exploded in popularity, sold 70 million copies by the time I was getting out of college. He had written well over 100 books before that as well. So I grew up in a storytelling family. I grew up in a very strong conservative, fundamentalist Christian home, and I was actually sheltered a little bit from movies. Even my dad happened to be a big movie buff, but when I was growing up, they kept a pretty tight rein on things. I wanted to kind of protect my innocence until I got to about middle school when my dad started introducing me to some of the great movies of all time. So the storytelling side of me was developed from a young age, but the movie side of me didn’t come until I was in high school when I was growing up the

Henry Kaestner: set of those movies. I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a number of parents are listening to this and say, Oh my goodness, Jerry Jenkins Dallas Jenkins the inspiration in his he’s holding up dad. I want to see these movies, and then all of a sudden there’s like 12 that he’s kind of held back. And now, Son, I’m going to sit you down and we’re going to watch it. And maybe no one’s not the godfather. Where are they?

Dallas Jenkins: No one was The Godfather. Actually, I was actually literally going to say, Well, the first one was The Godfather, and that was when I was about eighth or ninth grade, and my dad started to say he basically started telling me, I’m a big movie buff. I watch all the movies just, you know, and I’d seen some as well. It’s not like my parents had me for movies and they were pretty. They’re pretty strict about what I watched. And then it became movies like The Godfather, and

Henry Kaestner: that makes me feel so much better about that being my number one. This is like, this is cathartic for me, so thank you. But he wanted

Dallas Jenkins: to introduce me to some of the great movies of all time. And I remember when I was a freshman in high school, I saw the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and that movie is what changed my life. It was there’s a scene in One of the Cuckoo’s Nest where Jack Nicholson is denied the opportunity to watch the World Series. And so he’s so angry about it. He goes over to a TV and just stares at the blank screen and starts broadcasting his own made up World Series game, and all of the other patients at the mental institution start getting into it and cheering and going crazy. And that scene, I was so emotionally engaged and I was so inspired watching it. I thought, whatever that is, I want to do that. I want to arouse in audiences the same kind of response that this scene is getting in me. And I thought in all the faith based movies or shows that I’ve ever seen, that never happens. I’m almost never moved emotionally. I’m almost never inspired. Sometimes I enjoy them. Sometimes I don’t. But I’m never emotionally engaged in biblical projects in Faith-Based projects, and there weren’t actually all that many back when I was growing up. So that’s when I turned from being an athlete, which was always kind of my goal and maybe a sports broadcaster to, OK, I want to make movies. I want to tell stories. And that’s when everything kind of changed in my life. And then when the left behind books exploded, when I was in college, I had the opportunity to work for the company that was going to make them into movies, just a small production company out of Louisville. And they were the ones who got the rights and were developing. And I went to work for them as a low level secretary, and I was just like an entry level, almost like I was like a paid internship. But over the first three and a half years or so, I worked my way up to help them with a lot of the things I really just decided while I was working there. I’m going to make myself valuable. I’m going to make myself irreplaceable. And so I’m going to try to find the things that they don’t understand or don’t know or need help with in the business, and I’m going to learn those things. And then by the time that they were ready to make the first left behind movie, I actually and my dad realized this movie isn’t actually going to be what we were hoping it was going to be. And maybe let’s do our own thing. So my dad and I started Jenkins Entertainment, which by that point he had the financial means to do something like that because of the success of the books. And so we decided to make our own movies. And that was the thing that we noticed really quickly. While we were kind of getting involved in the Hollywood scene was in the independent world at least. There were lots of people who were talking about making movies and developing movies, but there weren’t a lot of people actually making them. So we figured we could set ourselves apart by just going ahead and making one. So I was twenty five years old and we went ahead and produced my very first film. Hometown Legend High School faith based football movie before high school, faith based football movies were cool. We were a little bit ahead of our time and the movie didn’t do extremely well, but it got picked up by Warner Brothers, which when you’re an independent filmmaker, 10 percent of movies get picked up. I mean, most of them, don’t we? Right out of the gate got picked up by major studio, which is really cool, and that kind of began the last 20. I’m forty five now since twenty years ago that all that happened. So but that was that was the beginning that was kind of the Reader’s Digest version of how this all got started.

Henry Kaestner: What was it that you saw back then in just every action was about trying to solve a problem and lean into an opportunity? And just like the guys in the Cuckoo’s Nest are just trying to create their own experience and trying to to make something happen. There must have been something that you looked out there and just saw. Gosh, nobody’s doing things this way. We need to tell stories that do this with this type of quality to tell this type of story. What was it that drove you to that? What was it that you didn’t see with a company that was trying to do that with left behind? What was it that fueled you into this entrepreneurial space?

Dallas Jenkins: Well, yeah, it just seemed to be all or nothing. I mean, it was either movies coming from Hollywood that had a completely agnostic, atheistic secular. I don’t like to use the term secular too often, but when I would watch movies or television shows, I never saw myself represented, I never saw faith represented. It didn’t reflect the world that was. Not only did it not reflect my world, I don’t think it reflected the world at large. Art is supposed to reflect society in some way. And when you know, half the country, maybe a little bit less of the country are Christians, or at least have some sort of faith journey. And then the world of art and popular culture have none of that represented, just like 99 percent coming from one political, socioeconomic and religious worldview or lack of religious worldview. I just thought there needs to be more in that. There needs to be something involved in the pop culture conversation that includes faith or it includes my experience when it does happen, when it did happen, usually in the independent world, because the gatekeepers on the large scale pop culture world just had no interest in it, nor should they ever it wasn’t. I don’t expect them to necessarily care about a world that they don’t really participate in. But it was always really low quality or it was cheesy, or it was so Christian that it didn’t really connect. And I just thought there has to be room for a movie or movies that feel like normal movies. They just happen to have people of faith or happen to have a spiritual journey in some way that’s accurately presented. And so that was the hole that I was willing or eager to fill. Now the problem was, I don’t think I was good enough when I first started to make a movie that could truly compete on the pop culture level. So when I made this movie, Amen legend and Warner Brothers picked it up and I’m like, Oh great, a big, major studio. Well, the first thing who they wanted to do was try to appeal to a niche market, one that they didn’t understand, which was the faith based market or faith based market that hadn’t really evolved yet. The Passion of the Christ hadn’t come out yet. Left behind was popular, but that was on the book side of things. No one had really cracked the code. And so my movie was fine. It was good, but it wasn’t good enough to really break out into kind of the mainstream. So anyway, I ended up for the first, you know, kind of 15 years of my career operating in the faith based space and just coming to the conclusion that, all right, maybe I’m not going to reach kind of the pop culture mainstream, and that’s OK, but I’m going to at least do my very best to make the faith based media world as good as it can be, or at least what I can do to make it as good as it can be. So that was that was part of my journey and those were the holes I was trying to fill in. They tended to change over a couple of years. I think my calling shifted a little bit. At least my understanding of what I wanted to do shifted a little bit until probably twenty six or seven when I really felt God calling me to not try to shift any of my content. I’m just going to be unashamed and, you know, do content that brings people closer to Christ that isn’t trying to be cute or nuanced. While nuanced. I shouldn’t say that I’m trying to be nuanced, but I’m saying it’s not trying to apologize for its faith. Content is going to be unabashedly Faith-Based.

Henry Kaestner: So it’s clear that you’ve got a creative drive, and we did talk a little bit later about this on the podcast on a focus on excellence, but I’m intrigued by the relationship that you have with your father. It’s not often that an entrepreneur with a lot of vision and a passion gets started in a business with their dad, particularly one that’s a creative one like yours is. What was that like? There must have been a view that he had of what society needed in the stories it needed to be told, and you must have had the same or the same general concept. But what was it like starting a business with your dad when your dad had already been creative and maybe you wanted to taking a different direction? And, you know, left behind has a stern view on some aspects of theology. And one of the things that comes through now through the work that you’ve done is a more holistic view by, of course, examining the Gospels with so much more that’s in there. But what did that look like starting a business with your dad? And I shouldn’t ask a leading question as to presume that there are differences because maybe there weren’t but talked to us through that process.

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah, I wouldn’t say there were strong differences much. I mean, I didn’t have the same passion. I mean, left behind. We really wanted it to be a big movie that could really compete in the mainstream. We knew that it wasn’t necessarily going to be a movie for nonbelievers too much, but we really wanted it to kind of really be out there and be high quality, and we thought that that wasn’t going to happen. I think both of us had the same passion just to create something that felt like the kind of movie we would want to go see in theaters. And we didn’t get there initially. I mean, we didn’t. I don’t think we accomplished that for a little while, but I think we had the same passion. I mean, my dad is a genuine movie buff. He sees almost everything. And we had the same taste, for the most part. But he recognized that he was hands off when it came to the content for the most part, I mean, he would speak into the storytelling, but he recognized that there’s a big difference between writing books and making movies. And so that was really the only difference. Otherwise, he’s always been extremely supportive and has always been on my page when it came to the kinds of movies that we wanted to make. So my dad and I have been very, very close. As long as I can remember, I mean, I think he was always my dad, of course. But when I got into college is when we became friends as well. And we’ve just always kind of had the same passion, the same desire to impact the world. We love the same Jesus. We read the same Bible and want to make Jesus known. In the most fascinating thing is the journey that I’ve been on, that he’s been a part of and been able to watch in many ways to watch what has happening with the Chosen Today and how the left behind series came out 25 years ago. And to see it kind of follow a similar track, you know, to get out into pop culture relevance and to do that, it was not at all trying to be pop culture relevant. It was solely focused on like the left behind books were just solely focused on telling the story of the gospel in an interesting way, and that’s what the chosen is trying to do. So that may be a scattered answer to your question, but I don’t think we’ve ever really been in opposition to what our goals are, what our mission is.

Henry Kaestner: So as you look at taking on the gospel and you start off with some more general storytelling and then you get into like the greatest story ever told, I think about a staff meeting we had the other day. And William, who’s about to come on here in a second, was talking about how powerful one of the episodes was that he’s watching in season two. And one of the people that was on our staff, me said, Don’t tell me what happens. And then he realized, actually, I know what happened, right? Because we all know the story. And yet the way that you’re able to bring that out is done so well. And so it’s a question of like, how do you do it? And you know, is there going to be something that’s so memorable that creates this new shirt like, you know what we’ve got with season one, episode seven? Talk to us about that initial process, though, as you go ahead and say, we’re going to take on the gospel. Was that like, super intimidating?

Dallas Jenkins: Well, that’s a really good question. Yeah, I guess I have a bit of a superpower in that I don’t really care about the response to my work other than I want to have impact. I want to impact people’s hearts. And when I say I don’t care, of course, I don’t mean that in the arrogant sons. It just means that if I believe I’m doing the right thing, if I believe that God has called me to do something, and at that point, the train has left the station, so I’m not intimidated by it. I get excited by it. And I reached a point in my career shortly before the chosen, where I was genuinely OK with never making another movie because my movie failed. The movie that I had done, I had finally gotten to this place where Hollywood wanted to make movies with me, financed my movie, produced my movie The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, released in theaters. Everything was great. They wanted to make multiple movies with me over the next ten years. I was a director with a very bright future, and then my movie completely bombed. And in my lowest moment, confused wondering why God had allowed this to happen, wondering where my future was. I genuinely got to a place where I didn’t feel responsible to feed the 5000. I only felt responsible to provide the loaves and fish. And so all I cared about was making my five loaves and two fish is good and healthy as they could be. And when I really got to that place mentally, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, all of that and I genuinely believed that all I cared about was that if I handed my loaves and fish to God and he deemed them worthy of acceptance, the transaction was over and I was comfortable with that. So. I wasn’t intimidated by doing this because I was like, what have I got to lose? I mean, it’s all gravy from here. I didn’t expect any of this to work. I mean, I did a short film for my church’s Christmas Eve service about the birth of Christ. From the perspective of the shepherds who was only going to be seen by my church. I shot it on my friend’s farm in Illinois, 20 minutes from my house, and there was no pressure. And while I was making it, I had this idea for the show. And so then when the opportunity came to release the short film to the world and to ask if people wanted to crowdfund season one of a show about Jesus, I figured we’d raise, you know, fifteen hundred dollars. And when we ended up shattering the all time crowdfunding record and raising over $10 million from 19000 people. I’m like, What the heck is going on here? Like, OK, fine. Sure. All right, let’s keep going. I haven’t had time to be in Tim Keller. I’ve had time to stop and think about it. And every time I sit down at a blank screen, the blank screen for season three, which we’re writing right now, doesn’t give a crap about how successful season one was or how much people love season two or anything. I just haven’t had time to care about those things. All I have time to do is make sure that what I’m doing is as good as it can be and as pleasing to God as it can be. So I’m not intimidated by the critiques that I’ve gotten. I don’t. Every day I’m called a heretic or blasphemer or a cult leader, and then that doesn’t bother me. And then every day, I’m also called by some people, the greatest filmmaker who ever lived in making the show that’s changed their lives. And that doesn’t impact me either, other than to just make me really humbled and grateful that I’m part of something that God is doing. So I hope I’m coming across OK because I don’t mean to sound arrogant and I don’t mean to sound condescending. It really just is a I feel like I’m playing with house money here. I know maybe a worldly gambling term isn’t great for a spiritual experience like this, but I just don’t like how I’m intimidated. I don’t know this God’s doing so many cool things. I just think it’s really exciting and fun. So that’s really what’s been part of it for me.

William Norvell: I think that’s amazing and that amazing perspective. I love how you said just like, yeah, it’s just about offering the loaves and fishes and what God does with it. And that’s every entrepreneur’s journey, right? If you don’t get to that point, if you don’t find your identity there, you’re going to find it and everything else, and that’s always going to ultimately disappoint. And so I think,

Dallas Jenkins: Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Go ahead. I’m reading a book right now called Billion Dollar Loser. It’s about the rise and fall of WeWork, which was, you know, this unicorn company. And then it completely collapsed. And the founder, you know, collapsed and all that. And I’m early in the book, but I read a lot of books like that, you know, books about the rise or the rise and fall of certain entrepreneurs. And it strikes me that so many people seem to build companies with the goal in mind of, you know, changing the world. And I think we do that ministry to I think faith based ministries or faith based entrepreneurs tend to have the same kind of goal. And it’s a good goal because you’re thinking, what’s wrong with wanting to change the world for Christ? The problem becomes when you are thinking about the result and when you are thinking about the number of people who are going to be impacted instead of thinking about the very first step that you’re taking and make sure that it’s grounded in what God wants from you. And I’ve read all about, you know, be bags, and I’ve read all about the five year plan and all of that. And you know, Sylvester’s book me, myself and Bob, which is one of the top five books I’ve ever read. And for any entrepreneur, any business leader, any ministry person, anybody, I mean, I think it’s great book for anybody. But if you want a book on a blow by blow account of what it looks like to rise and fall and rise and fall and be steered and go your own way and all this stuff, I mean, it is an extraordinary book. Phil Fisher, the creator of VeggieTales and he’s the one who said Where you’re at and five years is none of your business. And that is in the same universe as it’s not your job to feed the 5000. It’s only provide the loaves and fish. And when you truly get to that place and it’s hard to get there, and sometimes you may have to fail to get there, but when you truly get to that place, I’m telling you it is life altering and freeing and exciting and not intimidating, and it makes the journey exciting and fun, regardless of whether you have success or not. I have been preaching the same message for the last three years, including before the chosen even existed. I was telling people I found joy, I found this freedom and that it’s not my job to feed. The five thousand is only provide the lowest dish. I have no idea what’s going to happen next, but I’m telling you I’m in a better place than I’ve ever been in my whole career, and I’m at my lowest point in my career. And that was before the chosen even existed

William Norvell: at this school. How did that play with your family, with your friends? So I’m hearing that and I’m inspired. I’m interested. I’m listening to entrepreneurs out there. Is that something that they heard and said, Yes, Amen. Or did they fight that? How did that message eventually take root? What was that? An encouragement discouragement? How did you walk that journey?

Dallas Jenkins: Well, that is a great question, and my family’s involvement in this is really cool because there’s an episode in. Season one of the chosen where Simon is home. Seven Peter and his wife, Eden, who’s not explicitly discussed in scripture other than to say that Simon had a mother in law, but she is really upset at Simon because she can tell that he is straying from his faith. He’s trying to do things his own way. He’s trying to solve his own problems, and he ends up staying up all night, trying to solve his own problems, fishing all night and he can’t catch a fish. And the next morning he encounters Jesus and Jesus. You know, does the miracle of the fish. It’s a famous story in the Bible, and it fills two boats full of fish, and all Simon’s problems are solved from a fishing standpoint, and then Jesus asks them to give up everything and follow him. So Simon comes home to his wife, and he has to explain to her why he’s literally giving up everything and to follow Jesus and their earthly possessions might be in trouble because he doesn’t have a source of income anymore, and he expects her to be really upset and she starts crying and he’s like, Why are you upset? She’s like, I’m not upset. This is the man that I married, and she gets emotional and she’s like, This is what I wanted from you all along. And for my wife, Amanda, I wouldn’t say she was necessarily. Wanting for me all along to not have a future in this business, she was just as crushed as I was. But when we were sitting there crying together. It’s not a negative memory, but I get emotional thinking about it because we were home alone and just so confused and so broken, and God was pushing us to read the story of the feeding of the 5000, it was my wife who we pushed to read that story. And we were trying to figure out what he had for us in that story. At four o’clock in the morning when I was writing a 15 page memo on everything that had gone wrong and everything that I had done wrong and every choice that I had made that was wrong. And how could I avoid doing this again? You know, the mortem that most of us do after a success or failure and a man across the world who was in Romania, God laid it on his heart. Kal Dallas, it’s not your job to feed the 5000. It’s only to provide the loaves and fish, and he’s like, really, god, that’s what you want me to tell them. And it’s like, Yes. And he told me that at four o’clock in the morning, just out of the blue, I put out a Facebook message and I. For a moment, I wondered if my computer had been recording what my wife and I had been talking about all day long is the feeling at five thousand. Yeah, exactly. Bill Gates has been tracking us all along. So then he says, Yeah, it wasn’t me. God just wanted me to tell you that. So my wife was completely on this track of we don’t know the future, but we just want to be in God’s will. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. And then I resigned from my job for lots of different reasons. I was working at this church and there was a scandal and it was all a big deal. And so I resigned from my job and didn’t have income, didn’t have benefits, just had this hope that the chosen would in fact crowdfund millions of dollars so that we could make a multi-season show about Jesus based on a short film I did on my friend’s farm. None of it made sense, but my kids were certainly confused and a little nervous, and we sat them down and we said, Here’s what God we feel is leading us to do, and we are not going to have benefits. And yes, a month into our not having benefits, we had gotten this Christian Health Care Ministry. We had applied for that. This called Samaritan Ministries. And I’m not trying to do a plug for them, but it’s one of those ministries where you, you know, everything is self-pay and and it’s not official health insurance. And that’s what we were doing us all we had and that’s what we were able to afford. And I didn’t have I didn’t have a job, so I wasn’t on a health plan. And within the first couple of months, we had more health problems than we’d had in the previous 20 years combined literally $100000 worth of things from like me having a appendectomy to my daughter shattering her collarbone. I mean, everything went crazy and I didn’t have a job, and we just sat our kids out here like we believe that the church is going to provide. We believe God is going to come through and let’s just walk through this together. And it’s been so cool to watch my kids get a front row seat to not only God showing up for our own family, you know, and through this amazing Christian Health Care Ministry taking care of everything. But to see the chosen do what it’s doing and every now and then when I’m able to read to them someone saying my entire family has been transformed because of this show or someone in Iran saying, because you’ve done this show and because you guys have made it free and because you know, you’ve put it on an app, I mean, a country hostile to Christianity, and I was able to download it and save my soul. I’m able to read that to the kids and go to remember three years ago, it was just three years ago when we were sitting at the table and had no idea what our future holds. I encourage people to when they are in God’s will or when they are following a spiritual path as opposed to just doing it on their own. I encourage them to include your children in that process so that when God provides that, it may not be financial, it may not be physical. But when he shows up and you see the consequences and the results by consequences, I mean, in a good way of surrendering to God and not caring about earthly success, it can be a really beautiful thing for your family to experience.

William Norvell: Hmm. Hey, man, thank you for sharing that. I imagine lots of entrepreneurs that have felt similar feelings and been in that moment because as we know, this is not a journey where everything works. You know, obviously, I don’t think we have time to go into the whole story, but you mentioned pieces of it. I’ve heard you talk before. I think people could look at the success that you get. Wow, viral hit. You know, he did it. And you know, really, your story’s more of a 15 20 year overnight success of a long obedience to the same direction. And I think you even met Jonathan Rumi. Wasn’t he one of the thieves in your short video? Yeah, you had met him years before even God was sort of riding that path.

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah. So Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in the chosen play Jesus for me eight years ago when I was doing short films and vignettes for my church, I was doing it for Good Friday services. And I did one about the crucifixion of Christ to the eyes of the two thieves on the cross. Jonathan played Jesus. He was only on screen for about five minutes and I thought, My goodness, this is the best depiction of Christ they’ve ever seen. Like his performance, I just loved it. And then we started doing it each year for Good Friday. And so when I had the opportunity to make the show, he was obviously the first person cast. But yeah, I’m telling you, sometimes it’s easy for people to go well, yeah. Viral hit. It’s easy for you to say now that you just trusted God, you just submit to do as well. And then, look, now you’ve got this international success and everything seems to be going well. I’m just telling you, I was giving the same message when I had no job. I mean, I remember I gave a speech to a Christian film festival and I was speaking to 750 people and was sharing the story of how God had worked in my failure. And I got up and I said, Look, I can’t give you much advice on filmmaking right now because I coming off of my biggest career failure. And the only thing I just did a couple of weeks ago was a short film for my church. But the. Birth of Christ. So all I’m just telling you is I have more joy than I’ve ever had, and I understand how God works more than I ever have. And you know, I feel like my whole career I’ve been seeking the wrong thing. I think I’ve been trying to be approved by Hollywood. I’ve been trying to be successful. I’ve been trying to be impactful. I’ve been thinking about the results and now I’m in this place where I don’t. I just I don’t care about that anymore as long as I’m going to God what he wants from me. And I think it’s two years later, I came back to that same festival. And it’s like, funny story since I talked to you last time, look at what’s happened. And they were they had already known they’d seen it, they’d seen the results. It was just so cool for the people at that festival, for my family, for friends to see this journey and to see what it looks like to be broken by God and to be surrendered to him and to not care anymore what your results look like. And then the cool thing to see what happens next and it won’t happen for everybody, you know, at least in terms of the results financial of the results being successful. But I do believe that there’s freedom and joy in that.

William Norvell: It’s amazing. And I want to switch to one thing we haven’t touched on much. You had the greatest crowdfunding campaign in history. Talk us through a little bit of that. Why did you do crowdfunding? Why was that the decision? Right? I mean, there were lots of different ways to fund this operation. You’ve been making movies. You had tons of connections. Why? Why did you go this direction and kind of what have been the results of it?

Dallas Jenkins: Well, I didn’t have tons of connections at the time because the movie that I’d made it failed. So all the companies had wanted to make future movies with me, you know, backed out, and I didn’t have much of a future. So the crowdfunding idea certainly wasn’t my idea. I thought it was ridiculous and I didn’t think it would work. You know, typically, the all time crowdfunding record was $5.7 million from projects like Mystery Science Theater. 3000, which had big crowds already behind them, had a big fan base, and I was coming off of a career failure, and our Facebook page that we started for the show had a couple of hundred people and it just friends and family. And it was Angel Studios, the company that saw my short film were blown away by it, heard my idea for the show really wanted to do it. And they said, We want to raise the money through crowdfunding, and I was like, Oh, that’s ridiculous. Now, crowdfunding doesn’t work. You usually see it on social media. People are trying to raise money for some small project or some little thing that they’re doing for their friends. And you never see the bar get all the way to the end because they never quite raise enough money. And I’m like, We need a few million to do a show like this to do it right. And the all time record is 5.7 million. When the world are, we think it’s going to happen. But I was in this loaves and fishes state where I’m like, Well, it’s not my job to worry about. That’s not my job to feed the 5000 that bringing my loaves and fish, my loaves and fish happened to be a short film on my friend’s farm in Illinois. So, you know, we’ll see what happens. And then I think what happened was, you know, because people have asked me, Well, how did you do it? You know? What’s the secret sauce? And I think the secret sauce is you do have to have, you know what we would call a proof of concept. And now our proof of concept, for whatever reason, was guttural, impacting people. I mean, the people, the 19000 people who invested, some of whom I mean the minimum was $100. And some people said, and I’ve never done this before. They don’t even have hundred dollars typically to put into something like this. But when they watch the short film, something about it compelled them. They just felt like when they watched it, something happened. Something supernatural happened, probably. And they just thought I had to contribute. I had to be involved in this. God was just like hitting me with a sledgehammer. And I don’t know why that is. You know, I don’t think I’m someone special who I don’t think I’m capable of doing something transcendent. And I think God had something to say. You know, I hesitate to say things like that because I don’t want to claim spiritual authority, but it sure does feel like God is doing something. And the proof is in the fact that through the show, people are reading their Bibles more than ever. People are praying more than ever. We’re just hearing that over and over again. And I think, OK, that seems to be the proof text that God has something to say and want something to happen as opposed to just doing it on my own, if that makes sense.

Henry Kaestner: At the outset, you talked about the fact that there are 19000 or there were 19000 that were involved in the crowdfunding, and there’s something really powerful about that and it hits home for me because we’ve run a ministry called Faith Driven Investor and Faith Driven Investor. So much of what we do there tends to be focused on the qualified purchaser or the accredited investor. And yet we know that it was the what owner might that really had the gift that really mattered to God. And what crowdfunding means to me is that faith driven investing doesn’t need to just be the purview of the rich young ruler. It’s something that can now be democratized as somebody that received money investment money from 19000 people. Can you just speak to that? A little bit more about what that means for you as you get out there and you rally the crew together and you focus on, let’s go ahead and let’s produce some more. What does it mean for you to have that many people rooting for you with real skin in the game?

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah, that’s such a great point. Yeah, I’ve talked about in that first round that we did for season one out of the 19000 people. There was one who invested $300000. There were a few others who did 100000, several who did 50000. The ones that meant the most to us and that were the most humbling. Like, we got one investment of two hundred and fifty two dollars. You know, clearly that woman she was from the Midwest, that was kind of the last of her disposable income for the month, you know, because it was such a specific figure. That meant as much or more than the gentleman who gave $300000. We think about that often, you know, we think about the people who are paying our salaries. I think there’s something really special about that. And when we got investors, you started to approach us and say, you know, we think we can get $30 million for you to do the next couple seasons and not have to worry about raising money all the time because it doesn’t stop there. Once we start doing season one, if we want to do future seasons, we have to continue to crowdfund. And this is a whole nother story of our decision to make the show totally free. But when we made the show totally free and now have to rely on people choosing to pay it forward if they want to, you know they don’t have to. We don’t force them. The show is totally free, but to keep the show going, they need to pay it forward if they so choose. And so we still have to pitch if for lack of a better term, our future seasons. And so yet when people came forward and said we want to invest, we just didn’t feel right about it. We didn’t want to diminish the share value of the nineteen thousand. It’s what keeps us up at night is making sure that we are honoring their faith in us. I mean, and they did that based on this short film that I did. They didn’t know if the show was going to be any good. They didn’t know it was going to be what it is. And I would say every single one that I’ve met has said, I don’t care about the return. I don’t care about the financial gain of it. If there is any, I’ll probably just put it back into the show and now their investment. I mean, we have done a valuation, a hardcore valuation, but their investment is probably worth five to ten times what they put in. The widow’s mite is going to return to them in a significant way. And there’s just something really beautiful about it, like you said, and it does remind me every day, you know, gosh, this is just something that we can never take for granted that our financiers are people who are not the kind of people who you’d normally expect. There’s a few of them, of course, but that’s not why they did. It is to make money. And that’s just so cool.

William Norvell: I mean, yeah, we are some version of that family. Our listeners may know I’m living with my in-laws right now, and we have lots of DVDs of the shows in here, and I’m not sure we have a DVD player. It is in the pay it forward mentality of my father in law just keeps buying them because he so wants to hand it to other people to let them know the story that you’re telling. And yes, this is not a promotional, but I’m going to promote it. The story of the disciples. I’ll let you tell it. Tell us a little bit. Give us a couple of minutes as we come to a close on why you chose to tell, like so intricate stories of the disciples and kind of their interactions with Jesus.

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah, I believe that if you can see Jesus through the eyes of those who actually met him, you can be changed and impacted in the same way that they were. If you can truly connect with one or more of our main characters, whether it’s Simon, Peter and his desperate attempts to provide for his family while being oppressed by the Romans and overtaxed and financially struggling. Matthew, the tax collector or someone who we portray as being on the autism spectrum and who is an outcast because he’s hated by the Jews for being a tax collector and disrespected by the Romans for being Jewish. Mary Magdalene, who’s oppressed by demons, has vices, has addictions, has fallen away completely from her faith. Nicodemus, a lifelong religious believer and leader, even someone who knows the scriptures and who is now coming face to face with something and someone who is turning his world upside down and wants a personal relationship with him, something he’s never had. If you can identify with their struggles, if you can identify with their questions, then you can hopefully identify with the answers to their questions and the solution to their struggles. And that’s why we take the time that we do. I mean, the first episode of season one, if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s been confusing for a lot of people, especially Christians. Non-Christians seem to have no problem with it. Because they watch it like they do any other show. Christians are like, wait a minute, what versus this based on? I don’t recognize this Bible verse. Who’s that guy? Where’s Jesus? I thought this was a Jesus show because we take the time to show you who these people are before they encounter Jesus. We take the time to establish their personal lives or personalities, their struggles, their story arc. And I think that’s what makes the show unique. And I think that’s what makes season by season shows unique multi-season shows as the characters. You really want to fall in love with these people so that you can engage with them over the course of multiple seasons. And so I just think that’s good television. I think that when you just take the time to really develop a story arc and a character arc and a journey for all of these people, it’s just that much more engaging than if you’re just strictly plot driven. Or in the case of the Jesus show, you’re just going verse to verse Bible, verse, the Bible, verse, miracle to miracle, and you don’t get a chance to understand or know anybody who is the recipient of these miracles. So there’s really no emotional connection. There’s not much you can learn from it. You’re just basically watching a reenactment of something you’ve already read. And I think that’s what sets our show apart and can sometimes be uncomfortable for people. You know, sometimes people are like, Wait a minute, that’s not in the Bible. You’re not supposed to add to the Bible, what are you doing? And we just have to remind people, this isn’t the Bible. Your Bible hasn’t changed since the show came out. This is a historical drama based on the people of first century Galilee, with using the Bible as their primary source of truth. And I think that that has been what has unlocked for people. So many of these stories and we hear constantly the Bible once one person said something we really loved. I felt like the Bible was in black and white, and now it feels like it’s in color. And it’s not because we’ve changed anything. It’s just because they’ve now, for some reason are understanding it better and being able to picture it now so that when they do read the Bible, it feels more alive than they did before they they understood it like they are now. So that’s a long answer to your question. I’m sorry, most of my answers have been long, but but that’s the why. That’s the reason is we want people to be more engaged when they read scripture Amen.

William Norvell: Now it’s a perfect answer. And you know, I can think of so many scenes from the wedding scene that I now see differently to the unbelievably dramatic conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus to the latest episode five where my brother texted me it got real. You got to watch it now. And, you know, unfortunately, we have to come to a close here, which means we may have to beg you for before

Henry Kaestner: we do that for you, I

William Norvell: might get a producer come in. We’re not. No, I’m

Henry Kaestner: not the executive producer. But I have a question that I love yet. It’s really very clearly it’s not all of it’s not scripture. Anybody who’s read scripture in the Gospels knows that some of the dialog you have is not part of the canon, right? And yet, because this is a tool that helps people to understand the God who loves them so much, you have decided to broaden these characters out so that people now watching it might be able to identify with them. But that’s some pretty heavy stuff, right? To be able to actually think about who this, you know, upon this rock, I’m going to build my church. I mean, this is Peter. I mean, he’s not supernatural and self, but I mean, he’s a pretty major historical figure, an incredible figure in the early church. And you’re endeavoring to understand what he look like, how he dressed and just the things that he wrestled with. What’s the process? You go by to just pray about that, to think about that, and then you’re the guy now who’s, you know, kind of defining for a lot of people what these Bible characters look like. How do you stay humble and all that? And that’s two questions the first good podcast host. I want to ask two questions all at once, but I’m trying to squeeze them in at the end. I’d love for you to go on a little mini recession on that, if you can.

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah, that is the scariest part. But I remember several years ago I was in Israel doing the research for the show, and I was in Magdalen, which is the birthplace of Mary Magdalene, and I was at a synagogue that had been on Earth. You know, just two decades earlier, they had found this synagogue under the Earth that had existed for 20 years. And I felt God laying it on my heart, and I don’t say that lightly. I say that with actually trepidation because, you know, how do you ever know fully that it’s God and not your own brain? And I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I felt God laying it on my heart that in several years, when people picture these disciples and Christ followers that the chosen is going to be what they have in their mind. And there hasn’t been up until now a definitive portrayal of these people like I didn’t have before the chosen, I didn’t have a picture in my mind of anybody other than Jesus, occasionally from a few movies. And you know, at the time when I felt, God blame it on my heart, I don’t know, you know, of course, at the time, I wasn’t sure if that was really God or just kind of my own thoughts. And I just thought, Wow, that’s really weighty, and I feel the weight of that and the pressure of that. But I felt also God kind of letting me know I’m not going to let you screw this up. This is going to be this is too important. And flash forward to now, and I hear every day someone will post on social media or send a note or something that says, this is who I picture when I picture the followers of Christ. And that is extraordinarily humbling because it makes you on one hand, you go along, that’s really cool. On the other hand, you go, Oh my goodness, I really need to be cautious. And we try to be cautious. But you mentioned episode five just now. You know, someone said it’s got real. Well, we made the choice to portray Mary Magdalen, who’s been delivered from demon possession. We made the choice of her to to backslide, to show her getting triggered by multiple things and backsliding and relapsing, basically. And if you haven’t seen episode five yet, I guess that’s a spoiler, but we give hints of it in the trailer and all that stuff. The Mary struggling. And for a lot of people, not the majority, but a lot of people really uncomfortable to really upset by it. Some people offended enough to claim they’re not going to watch the show anymore. And that decision took place on the front end. That’s where the prayer comes in. That’s where the consulting with our Bible experts and my pastor and, you know, our cultural and historical experts and biblical experts to go. Are we because we’re doing something that’s not in scripture, which is most of the show, really, if you think about it, if you just do the math. Ninety five percent of the show is probably not directly from scripture, because every time we show someone saying hello, it’s not from scripture, because scripture didn’t have anyone saying hello. So we’re always walking a fine line. We’re always having to be really cautious in making sure that we never violate the intentions or character of Jesus or the Gospels. So it is a lot of work on the front end to make sure that we’re staying within certain boundaries and making sure we’re not violating the character intentions. But then once we do it, I mean, there’s really no turning back. So the criticism is kind of what we expect anyway. We know it’s going to happen at some point from somebody. I’m sure even you as a fan of the show, if you haven’t already, you will have moments where you go. I would have done it that way or that doesn’t feel like the Jesus or the Peter or the Mary or whatever that I’ve read in the Gospels. I’m sure that’s going to happen, but hopefully. We just look at this as a this is a show that is attempting to be plausible, but it’s not a documentary he doesn’t claim to be scripture where is doing the best we can to portray plausibly an authentic version of what would have happened in these people’s lives during this time. So, yeah, it is a great weight and responsibility, but it’s also really fun, to be honest with you.

William Norvell: Am I allowed to go to the close now? Let me think about it. Yeah, I’m just going to close. I’m just waiting. I’m just waiting. You know, we’re we’re still in more Dallas this time, and that’s Crowd-Funding time. You know, he’s got things to do. Dallas will

Henry Kaestner: make it up to him then and make sure that you alluded the fact that he’s still doing crowd funding for season three, making it while

William Norvell: he is I, you know, and you can buy hats, you can buy shirts. I’ve got the hat on now you can buy DVDs or you can just give money and not profit off of it like I did, and I’m sure that that would probably go further. That’s probably his preference. But we are so grateful for your time. The number one thing we like to do at the end is try to bridge our audience and our guest and through the word of God. And so we love to ask at the end, you know, if you wouldn’t mind sharing something that God has taken you through, you’ve told us so much. But just maybe it could be something you came out today could be something you’ve been meditating on for a while. Just just where does God have you in his word today?

Dallas Jenkins: Yeah. I’ve already shared, I think, quite a lot of what God has shown me through this project, and I think that number one thing is the whole story of the feeding of the 5000. I want to read a verse that has become my life verse over the last five or six years, and it’s Psalm. Thirty four five. And it says those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed. And I think that’s just so much in that verse. Those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed. I can think of all the time that I’ve been ashamed in my life, and it’s never been what I’ve been looking at. God. It’s always been because I’ve been looking at myself. I’ve been inward focused. I’ve been lusting. I’ve been seeking fleshly desires. But when I look to God. And of course, now being in the presence of God can shame you in the sense that you feel human and you feel sinful. But when you’re really looking to God for your guidance, when you’re looking to him for your fulfillment, when you’re looking to him for your identity. And that’s the path that you are taking. Those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall not be ashamed. That’s where we need to be on a day to day basis are looking to him. That’s where we’re going to find radiance. And that’s what we’re going to find that lack of shame because shame comes from being alone and doing things that you wouldn’t be doing if you were looking to him. So that’s been, I think, a life first for me for a while now.

William Norvell: I met a man, well, I don’t think we cannot thank you enough for joining us here today and sharing the story and for just all the work you do and how faithfully you go about it and just grateful for your team and everybody tune in if you haven’t.

Henry Kaestner: That was. Thank you.

Dallas Jenkins: Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

Subscribe to the Podcast:

Founding Pastor of Redeemer in NYC, Tim Keller, unpacks the hidden truth of identity formation, its habits and rituals, in both the Western and greater world. We are fed these belief systems from the moment we breathe and too often we are defined by the greater world without our consent. He steps us through examples of how our thinking is specifically impacted by these external forces that define us outside of the context of Christ. Tim shares with us the cultural problems of both traditional (your community defines you) and modern (you define you) identity formation and shows why the gospel is the only solution to living an authentic, impactful life.

Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Tim Keller: I want to talk to you about what it takes to be a Faith Driven Investor now at this point, at least in this talk, I’m not talking so much about people who are professional investors who happen to be Christians. I’m talking about how every Christian who wants Jesus Christ to be lord of every area of your life wants to make sure that he’s lord over your your money, your wealth and how you use your finances, because all Christians should be people who use their money not just on themselves, but who are also investing in the good of others and in God’s kingdom. And so let me talk to you about just two principles on how to be a person who is a Christian, who is using God, allowing God to be in charge of every area of his life or her life, especially when it comes to the financial world. Here’s two principles. The first one, which I think people tend to miss because it’s so foundational, is you’ve got to make sure that your identity is solidly rooted in who you are in Christ and not in having money or being successful. It’s extraordinarily important. So the first thing is you’ve got to make sure that your identity is not your success or your money, but who you are. And Jesus Christ, just some thoughts on this. David Martin Lloyd Jones, who was a doctor before he went into the ministry, he was a physician and a very prominent one says he thought that there’s a lot of people who you could have put on their gravestone born a man, died a doctor, and he’s working back in a in a time in which basically only men were doctors. But what Lloyd-Jones is getting at is just this is that some professions being prominent, making money, having status, having nice big homes becomes an identity. Everybody has to live for something. And whatever you live for most becomes your identity. I remember a couple of times in my life that I this really was driven home to me as a pastor. One time I was counseling two women almost at the same time, both of whom had teenage sons, both of whom were mothers of only one child, a teenage son, and both of their teenage sons were not doing well at all. They were becoming rebellious and having troubles in school and so forth. And I do remember that even though both of them, their children did not improve and their their son’s life did not get better, but one woman using the resources of the gospel was able to get through it, and the other women just became more and more bitter and depressed. They’re both professing Christians and yet one God one was able to get through it and one was became more bitter and depressed. I also was counseling with or working with two men, young men who were actors, single men, and they were both professing Christians and they both were up for a great role that could really make or break their career. And neither of them got the roles and neither of them did well in their career. But one man became bitter and depressed and the other man got through it. And I came to realize as time went on that though they were they were all Christians, all four of those people were Christians. Nevertheless, one of the actors had made acting into his real identity, not who he was and Jesus. And so when he failed to be successful, he didn’t have a self left. And one of those mothers, though, they were both Christians, one of those mothers, her real identity was being a good mother. So if my son turns out well and he loves me, then I know I’m a good person. But one had made that our identity. And when she wasn’t successful as a mother, she had, like, no self left. Now, the reason I bring this up is because if if your success or your finances, your money is your identity, you will not be generous. You will not be able to give it away as radically as strategically as you should. You will tend to either not give enough away or you will tend to give it away and do it in such a way that you get a lot of esteem and you really will not be thinking about how do I invest this money in the good of others, our investors money and the good of God’s kingdom. You’ll really be it’s it really becomes you rather than something you can give to other people. And so, Luke, Chapter 10, there’s a great place where. The disciples are sent out to heal and cast out demons, and they come back and they’re really excited. This is Luke, Chapter 10, and they said, wow, God, sort of like that. Wow, Lord Jesus. Even the demons are subject to our name. We have all this power. And Jesus says to them, this is the old King James version. Rejoice. Not that the demons are subject to your name, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And what he’s actually saying is you’re getting to your eye, you’re getting too much identity out of your ministry success. Your identity ought to be rooted in the fact that your names are already written in heaven. You’re already saved your citizens of heaven, you’re loved in Jesus Christ. That is the real thing, that you should be rejoicing in an identity that’s received, not achieved. And so, first of all, you will never be a Faith Driven Investor unless you are willing to recognize that you must make sure your identity is in who Jesus is and who you are in Jesus Christ rather than in your your financial success or your business success or the money you have for your possessions. Now, the second thing is going to be even more practical. That’s a little more basic. The most practical thing is you have to make sure you are. Secondly, you are investing in line with the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Now, what people are constantly asking me is how do I let the Holy Spirit guide me so I know where I should invest my money, which is another way where I should give my money, where I should do philanthropy, for example, or where I should invest in a way that I know is going to do really good in the world. And here’s what I suggest. There’s an objective and subjective way to let the spirit guide you. Now, here’s what I mean by objective. The objective way is you want to put your money or give your money to some ministry organization that is meeting an important need. Very well. It’s meeting an important need. Very well. Which means you’re first of all, you have to have some idea about what is an important need. You know, Mark, Chapter two, Jesus has a man brought to him on a on a who’s a paralyzed. So he’s carried in on some kind of stretcher. And it’s very clear that the all of this it may be the man himself and all of his friends say his main need is he’s paralyzed. So help him. Jesus Christ, first of all, comes up to him and says, my son, your sins are forgiven, which everybody is shocked at since he didn’t come to get a sense forgive and he came to get his his body fixed. But God but Jesus shows that having your sins forgiven is more important than having even your body healed. And yet then he goes on and heals him anyway. So you haven’t text like this and this is what a Faith Driven Investor needs to do, need to be reading your Bible, always looking for this question. What are the most important needs as far as God is concerned? What are the highest priorities as far as God is concerned? I love Chapter two of Mark because it does show that that that evangelism and spreading the faith is an extraordinarily high priority. On the other hand, it’s just as important to see that God also does care about the body. He doesn’t say, well, as long as you’re going to heaven, who cares whether you’re hungry or poor or paralyzed? Now, of course he cares. But you see, when you read texts like that, you see, OK, what is God thinks, which is God is important. And so one of the things you’re going to do is from the word of God, you’re going to learn objectively what are the most important needs. So you’re looking for organizations and initiatives and ministries that are meeting important needs. Well, but subjectively and here’s maybe the most maybe this might be the thing that many people remember most from what I’m about to tell you is God has a calling on your life and he’s giving you certain gifts. And the way you can tell what your gifts are is what needs do you resonate to? Because one time, one thing people are going to say is they’re going to say there’s so many things I could be giving my money to. There’s so many things I could be investing in. How do I know where I should go? Well, I’m trying to say objectively, yeah, do some analysis. What is God say are important things and look at it that way. But subjectively, what do you resonate to? When I first got to know you to Hopewell, Virginia, many, many years ago, I was twenty four years old. I became a pastor of a brand, a brand new pastor, never been a pastor before. And I’m a pastor. This tiny little church in Hopewell, Virginia, and over the first three days I was there, I got a visitor each day, a different person. The first day a visitor walked in and said, you see that trailer caught at the end of the street away from the church? And it was a little trailer caught at the end of the street. As you see, that trailer caught there is lost people in there and our church is not evangelizing them. So I listened to him the next day, somebody came in a different person and walked in the door and said, do you see that trailer court down at the end of the street? I said, yes, I do. I said, You realize there’s poor people in there. There’s people who just can hardly you know, they don’t have enough food to eat. And we really need to go down there and we need to find out ways in which we can help them, help them get jobs, help them support their children, help them with job training and things like that. We really need to help them because they’re poor. The third day, somebody walked in the door and said to me, Do you see that? Do you see that a trailer court down at the end of the street? And I said, yes, I absolutely, definitely do see that trailer. And they said, well, you know what? Over the years, we’ve tried so much to have an outreach to that child care. We try to evangelize and we tried to help them because there’s so many poor people there. But the trouble is this church is just not administratively very smart. Nobody knows how to get things done. They have good intentions and they sit down and they say, we’re going to do this and that. And nothing ever happens because our biggest need is we just need better management here in this church. And I realized suddenly that here is three people that walked into or they looked at the trailer court. But because of their gifts, one of those people had a gift of angels and one of those people had a gift of mercy and justice and caring for the poor. I’m one of them had an administrative gift. And because of their gifts, they actually saw the need somewhat differently, which is great, by the way, all working together that you can really reach the trailer court, but only working together. But it was how do you know what those person’s gifts were? I knew immediately because it was what they noticed what what they resonated to what what gave them a certain passion. And that’s what you need. There’s nothing wrong with all these different great possibilities. But some of them you resonate to, some of them that you feel burdened for. That’s the Holy Spirit leading you through your gifts and through your calling. Now, to really do this. Well, you need to take time. You need to pray. You need a journal. You need to talk to a lot of other people. But get your identity straight or none of this is going to work objectively. Ask, what is the Holy Spirit doing in this world? And subjectively, what is the spirit leading me to do in this world? And you will be a spirit led faith build investor.

Subscribe to the Podcast:

 Obie McKenzie is the Vice-Chairman of Cordiant Capital and has served at some of the largest financial institutions like BlackRock, and managed hundreds of millions in assets. Obie joins us to talk about what it’s like living out your faith in the public square and the basic principles of Bible Economics. 

Episode Transcript

Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Obie McKenzie: So then I began to fold that into the doctrine of Bible economics, which is where I am today, and it says a lot about all the components of what I think is a perfect investment plan. Invest in God’s word first, invest in God’s work second, and the combination of investing in God’s word and his work yields God’s wealth, which is eternal.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I’m here with my buddy, my partner, great friend, Luke Roush. Welcome, Luke.

Luke Roush: It’s good to be on. It’s going to be on as always, Luke.

Henry Kaestner: I think we’re actually recording this video because we’ve got Ovie McKenzie on and we’re going to be using a segment of this, I believe, for the Faith Driven Investor conference that’s coming up here. Not the time to eat this too much. But for those of us who are watching this on video, we’ve all known that we get to learn a lot about somebody from the background they have in Zululand. So what’s on some of these walls tells you a lot about themselves. You think at least, but you’ve got this epic, epic landscape behind you. What is that and why do you have it?

Luke Roush: It’s actually a landscape from where my wife’s family lives in Montana. So we got we had a piece of property out there for a while and just actually recently got rid of it. But it’s a wonderful part of the country and it’s a place that absolutely speaks to my soul. So I love going to the in-laws.

Henry Kaestner: That’s a good spot. Although I’ve been up there in Bozeman, too. We’ve got a really special guest today. We’ve got the first kind of multigenerational element to any of the podcasts we’ve done. We’ve gotten to know OBIS daughter Keisha from her incredible work at Clode Factory, one of our favorite companies ever, the way that they are able to blend excellence at scale and have a very thoughtful spiritual integration in their work. And Keisha is such a big part of that. We’ve got her dad today and I’ve known Ruby for a while now. It’s been several years and I got to know him in New York City. And Obie is and has been a leader on Wall Street for a long time. I mean, he’s a founding board member of the National Association of Securities Professionals. He is a guy that has been at the top tiers of Wall Street. A good friend of ours worked with Bob Dole for a long time. Bob’s been on the podcast, great encouragement to the space and the movement and the different conferences we’ve done. And he’s always said great things about Olby. There’s so many different, really cool things about Will to include the fact that at any second he can break down or break out in song. And it’s a beautiful thing. It’s an amazing thing. I’ve seen it happen before and if I could sing as well as it would be, I’d sing all the time too. And he’s got just a joyful heart. And what makes him the perfect guest for today is the fact that he’s very, very thoughtful about his faith and he’s very, very thoughtful about what the Bible says about money. He is and he’s been called this the Bible economist. So I can think of nobody better to have on the program would welcome.

Obie McKenzie: Well, thank you so much for having me this morning. And I wonder where you are. It’s a beautiful background there. So I’ve seen the mountains and now see flowers and a nice garden. You guys know how to do it.

Henry Kaestner: And now we’re very fortunate. I tell you, I’m doing this episode al fresco, as they say in Northern California. We’re recording this relatively early in the morning and the kids are still asleep. So I thought I’d go outside and hopefully I won’t be defined by some of these birds around here. Obbie you and I met in New York and I was introduced to you as the Bible economist. We’re going to talk a lot about that. But one of the things we like to do with all the guests we have on is to have a little bit of biographical sketch. Who are you? Where do you come from? What brought you to being a Bible economist? Just tell us a bit about it.

Obie McKenzie: I’m a Southern boy by birth. I was born in Tennessee to a family of sharecroppers in West Tennessee, and we moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, when I was a very young boy. And as an African-American family, many African-American families left the South because we couldn’t make a living picking cotton and moved north to find jobs. Many of us wound up in automobile factories in Detroit and some of the other industrial centers to escape the inability to make enough money in the cotton belt to make a living. And so I grew out of that background. My father and mother stopped in Indianapolis, Indiana, where I grew up. I was educated in a multicultural high school there. Shortridge High School, Indianapolis, Indiana, participated in many entrepreneurial or extracurricular activities to include, you know, sports, music. I was good in academics left there in the sixties and went to Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee. And so I wound up going to Tennessee State, graduating there in nineteen sixty seven and took a job in the Human Resources Department at Bethlehem Steel, where I went around the country recruiting engineers, civil engineers, electrical and mechanical engineers from around the country, the major engineering schools. Someone told me while I was at Bethlehem Steel that I probably ought to consider Harvard Business School. And I said, help me over business. I couldn’t even spell it. So he helped me write my essays. And lo and behold, I was accepted to Harvard Business School in nineteen seventy. I came from a working class family where we really didn’t have a lot of money. We’re a very humble background. So the. Idea of going to Harvard Business School, which I had heard was a West Point of capitalism, was really kind of far fetched from my dinner table. But I did wind up at Harvard Business School and fell in love with the subject of finance, probably because we just never had very much money. But I wanted to understand what this thing was called, money. So I began to study finance. And even though I wasn’t a quant, I was very good at conceptualizing ideas. So I would start with the concept and work back to the formula. And I did pretty well and as a matter of fact, wound up tutoring a lot of my classmates in finance while I was there. And so I left Harvard Business School in nineteen seventy two and became the second African-American hired in the business department at Morgan Stanley. There was no such thing back in those days. Morgan Stanley was white shoes, rolltop desk, polished brown shoes with blue suits and doing spreadsheets with slide rules. And that’s where I started my financial life in a bullpen, working all night long on a spreadsheet, which if in fact it wasn’t correct, and the senior partner found a number in the middle of the spreadsheet the next day he would throw in the garbage. Even though you had been up all night with a slide rule, trying to put a spreadsheet together with a slide rule, a slide. Oh, yeah. I mean, these young people today, you know, they can push a button and do a spreadsheet and they have valuation models and algorithms and all of these valuation models and algorithms and spreadsheets were done with Cybele. Wow. Oh, yeah. And it better be right. And you better have the right attitude when in fact you presented it to a senior partner the next day after being up all night reading prospectuses at BAM Printing. You better come back to work the next morning by 7:00 with a smile on your face and don’t scowl if in fact you found something wrong with the spreadsheet because you were discarded and you’d have to start again. So I came up the rough side of the mountain in finance, but I’m happy that I did. It gave me discipline that I have been benefiting from since my days at Morgan Stanley. So I left Morgan Stanley through it the next oh, I say twenty. Twenty five years has been spent in a variety of positions in the financial services community to include commercial banking with Citibank International banking within what was chemical bank, which no longer is, as you know, Assistant Treasurer and New York Times newspaper, our senior vice president and Freedom National Bank of Senior Credit initial. I had my own broker dealer, McKinsey and Co., as the first African-American sole proprietor, broker dealer on the street. And then I left I joined Bob Dole at Merrill Lynch. Given that Merrill Lynch and Chase investors, I chase investors went to Merrill Lynch and Bob Dole was president of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, and I raised money for Merrill Lynch investment managers. Along came BlackRock, bought Merrill Lynch investment managers. I went with that group as a managing director with BlackRock. BlackRock, as you know, is the largest institutional asset manager in the world. I’ve been blessed to be a part of teams to raise probably 30 to 40 billion dollars of institutional assets to be managed across a number of asset classes. I stayed in that for 18 years. I left BlackRock about two and a half years ago to become now. They said I was going to retire, but I tell them that Phobe is retired, asked where he’s buried. I don’t I just am not going to do that. So I was blessed to take a position with Portland and Capital in Montreal where I work now. I am a part of that. Basically, I put OBM McKensie LLC together as an advisory business and then I developed verticals for cash flow with the likes of property and capital, which is a infrastructure debt platform out of Montreal, and then established relationships with Stern Brothers, which is a hundred year old woman owned company in St. Louis. So I’m allowed to do brokerage and investment banking. So effectively, the model is owned by McKinsey LLC in the middle with a number of verticals where I provide advisory services, strategy, business development and a number of other things. Now, the intersection of Olby professionally and Bible economics started many years ago when I ran into Crown Ministries and I discovered that there are twenty three hundred scriptures in the Bible about money. And that really piqued my curiosity. Again, being from a humble background and a Christian family, the whole idea that the Bible actually had something to say about money was very interesting to me. So many, many years ago, I started studying the Bible. Became a Bible teacher at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem. I was inspired by a preacher out on the West Coast named Fred Price, who recently passed away God rest his soul. And he inspired me. He was an expository Bible teacher who really took some of the themes and values out of his delivery in a way that I understood what it was saying, what it meant, and more importantly, what it meant to me. And so as I began to teach, I went to a retreat as a part of Canaan Baptist Church. And they had asked me as many years ago to ask me to teach some passages from the book of Galatians. And I said again, Oh, me, I really hadn’t done a lot of study. So I really started studying the Bible years ago and I became a Bible teacher. And then that exploded while I was attending Baptist Church. And I discovered that that the Lord given me a gift of expository teaching and that I had a gift of reading scripture and my daughter. I’ll never forget. She was 13. She used to carry my Bible to church and she used to listen to me teach. And she said, Daddy, what’s the difference in the way you teach in the rest of the people? What’s the difference in you and them? I said, Well, I believe it. They believe about it. And she said, Oh, that’s yeah, daddy. What’s that mean? I said, Well, I believe it down deep in my heart. I believe what I’m saying. I don’t just believe about it. It’s just not words. I believe it. And so it was very important to her. So I understand what the difference was and why people were reacting to the teaching that the Holy Spirit was giving me the way they were. I also learned during those periods that I wasn’t really doing the teaching. I had to make a fool of myself a number of times being so absolutely sure I was right, that I was wrong and that I was humbled by little old ladies who had been studying Bible for many, many years and were not, you know, Harvard trained. They were Holy Ghost strange. And they used to pop in the back of the church. It’s like, Brother McKenzie, we want to talk to you. You know what you said about this or that. And by the way, we’d like for you to keep your jacket on while you’re teaching. We don’t like you taking your jacket off while you’re teaching. So all those little old ladies used to straighten me out. Well, after that, I went to New York Theological Seminary for a minute, a hot minute. And interestingly enough, I wound up on the board later in years, New York Theological Seminary. But back in that time, I didn’t stay in seminary because I felt from what that particular seminary, if you didn’t have Jesus when you went, you certainly wouldn’t have Jesus when you left. And so they were so theological. I didn’t feel that there was any Holy Spirit there. I felt that there was a lot of learning there. But not a lot of burning there. And so that was many years ago, so fast forward I began to get more and more enmeshed in what the Bible had to say about money. And knowing that I lived in a money environment. And when I really started digging into the fact that there were twenty three hundred scriptures in the Bible about money and fewer than the 500 or so about faith and fewer than the 500 or so about love, and the fact that over 15 or thereabouts of Jesus’s parables use money as a subject to reveal spiritual truth. It really got me started on becoming what some people refer to as the Bible comes, and that’s who I am today. And what is that? A friend of mine who is the dollar? And Greg told me that the word I think the economy Amen economy keeper of the laws of the House stewardship. And so is I really began to dig into the word of God, which I believe is between Genesis and Revelations. I do believe that it is God breathed. I do believe that it is irrefutable and it’s very difficult for many to understand where I’m coming from if, in fact, they don’t believe that the Bible is irrefutable. Just so you know where I’m coming from, I believe that the word is the logush Jesus who stepped out of eternity into time to show us how we ought to live to be reclaimed to God, which is his purpose for Amen is to reclaim us back onto himself. And so I find that the road map for that reclamation is between Genesis and Revelations. And I walk by faith and not by sight. Now, over many years, what I’ve had to come to is that there was a difference between believing God’s word in my head and believing God’s word in my heart. So I have been for many years trying to close the gap between my head, my mouth and my heart. And so I have had to work real hard in making sure that what comes out of my mouth is what is in my heart, what we believe becomes what we say, what we say becomes what we do. What we do. Becomes our habits, our habits. Become our character and our character becomes our destiny. So somewhere along the line, I begin to understand that that was very important, what I believed, my point of view. And so I always begin with letting people know what my point of view is and where I stand. So they will know, frankly, whether or not we can communicate at all or whether we’re speaking. You know, I’m speaking English and they’re speaking French or we’re just speaking a different language. And so so I had to as I have matured, I hope I have become less arrogant about what it is I think I know or what I thought I knew. I realized that God is omnipotent. Yes. And for me, God is omnipresent is in all. And he’s a nation. He knows all. So if God knows all, how can I know anything? The only way I can know anything is to borrow from the all knowing library of the Great I am and hope that my ego and my little pea brain will let me comprehend what it is I’m trying to know and hoping that I listen and I’m listening to God and I’m not listening to. So this whole walk for me has been an effort to legalize, if you will, me to say, hey, look, pal, you got a Harvard degree. But I had to work on my other age, and that’s my Holy Ghost degree. I had to really understand. That when Jesus left the Earth and went back to sit at the right hand of Father God to make intercession for those of us who believe in him and that have confessed to him and have them in our heart, that he said, I have given them thy word. He gave us logush. The word in the beginning was the word or was God. The word was with God. He came to dwell among us and we looked at him but didn’t understand it. So he was and is the word the logos. And so I had to try to really peel back my ego to the point where I really believed what I was reading, that I really understood that it was God breathed and that it was good for instruction and was good for direction. It was good for everything. And so then I began to fold that into the doctrine of Bible economics, which is where I am today. And it says a lot about all the components of what I think is a perfect investment plan. Invest in God’s word first. Invest in guys work second and the combination of investing in God’s word and his work yields God’s wealth, which is eternal. That’s in God’s word, first, invest in God’s work, second, and the combination of investing in God’s word and his work will yield God’s wealth, which is eternal. The other thing I had to realize and really accept, so I’m sorry for, is really the beginning of Bible economics is very difficult to cross into the concept of Bible economics until you really understand that the Earth is the Lord’s, the fullness there of everything in it there is belongs to him, including you and me. And if we belong to him, and if the Earth belongs to him, if the world belongs to him, then he ought to have something to say about what we do with this stuff. And so in Matthew, six thirty three, I think it’s six thirty three. But you know where it is. It says, see first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added onto you. We’ve got it backwards. We seek the stuff rather than seeking God. First, the things will come. If, in fact you turn it around. There’s a countercultural relationship between man’s economy and God. This is what I mean. Man’s economy seems to be motivated by self-interest. Greed. The objective is money. God’s economy, on the other hand, is motivated by love. The objective is abundant life in the here and eternal life in the hereafter. Both economies are in pursuit of a contented life, but one gets you there and the other one does. Let me say that again. Two economies, man’s economy is motivated by greed, self-interest. The objective is money. God’s economy is countercultural to that is motivated by love. The objective is abundant life in the here and eternal life in the era. The Bible teaches seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added on to you. Matthew Luke. Six thirty eight years and it shall be given to you not yet given. It shall be given unto you. Good measure. Pressed down, shaken together and running over for as you give it shall be given unto you. God gives to you. So you can give. So you can give to you again. So you can give again. The irony of it all is Satan, who was kicked out of heaven after having been the head of the Praise Ministry, is here to kill, steal and destroy. That is his job on Earth. Every single day is to steal, kill and destroy. And the place he does that best is in your mind. That’s where he works. That’s why the Bible teaches to put on the full on the whole armor of God, the helmet of salvation, which is where your mind is. OK, you can put on a breastplate, you can do anything you can dress up in any anything you want. But if your mind is exposed to thoughts that are not of God, that’s where you get killed, because that’s where Satan gets you. If you don’t think that it’s important to fight back with scripture, look what Jesus did. When Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights exposed to Satan, he was hungry. So he’s vulnerable. And Satan said, Hey, I got you. Why don’t you come on up here? I’ll give you some our money. I’ll give you stuff. Jesus responded with scripture. He responded with Deuteronomy eight three. He said, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, there’s Deuteronomy eight three. Whoa. You mean to tell me Jesus was using scripture to fend off attacks from Satan? Well, if he does, why shouldn’t we? If it’s about what would Jesus do, we see what he did? He used scripture and then when Jesus left and went back to Father God. To make intercession for you and me, he said, I have given them that word, that word is true now that rolls into what the Bible has to say about money, because the truth is irrefutable, because scriptures irrefutable. And by the way, when we doubt the fact that scriptures irrefutable, we’re questioning, frankly, God’s integrity because it’s either true or it isn’t. So I have to ask myself, are you challenging the integrity of God when you don’t trust that the word is true? I think yeah. I think yeah, so when I read Deuteronomy eight, 18, where it says that God gives you the power to get wealth, that is covenant might be established upon the face of the earth. What covenant? God gives us wealth, so we might do is will on Earth as a true statement for the covenant relationship that we have with him, and that is regardless of what we do in business, whether it is budgeting, saving, investing or giving, that’s my four pillars for business activity budgeting, saving, investing and giving, budgeting, saving, investing and giving. Given it shall be given under UV good measure. So as you give, it will be given unto you. And that’s what he wants us to do, because we’re walking by faith in the reality of his word, which is motivated by love, which means to give and not to get. And that’s you know, I could go on about the scriptures that are Bible, the silver and the gold belong to God. I don’t be too impressed with yourself again. Deuteronomy Sikhi, first Matthew

Henry Kaestner: Obbie, as you talk about Deuteronomy 18 and talk about managing the wealth that God has entrusted us with for his purposes. Help us understand a little bit more practically about what does that look like? What does that look like in your life? I think that at some level and to be clear, it’s awesome to hear you unpack it and it just is more of a conviction for me about God’s word and then also just the opportunity we have to to participate in what he’s doing with Matthew. Six thirty three. But when we get to practical purposes about storing that wealth, what do you think that looks like? And maybe the answer is that it’s not always the same for each person. But how do you as an individual,

Obie McKenzie: I can I can apply that. And I’ve said very simply, I believe that there are multiple gifts in the body of Christ as you all the Bible scholars know that there’s a list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the body. There are a couple in the first Corinthians, one in Ephesians and one in Romans. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit are to edify the church. And one of the gifts is we know the gifts of helps, prayer, et cetera, et cetera, sometimes gifts of prophecy, gifts of preaching, all these different gifts. But everybody has a gift, our gifts. And so I have been in search of my gift, my gift. I have a gift of teaching and a gift of help and a gift of song. And so I take those gifts to try to line up with God’s will for my life. So one has to ask oneself. What is God’s will for my life? What is my purpose? Every one of us has a purpose. We had a purpose before we were born, Jeremi 9/11. We were destined to do certain things while we were here. And we are all either locally or otherwise in search of what that purposes and when. What we’re doing lines up with God’s purpose for our lives. There’s no traffic in the lane. You will know because you’ll know when you’re nowhere. Now, what does that mean to me? Practically? I’ve spent over 50 years in financial services and 30 plus years studying Bible. And part of my purpose is exactly what’s happening here is to take the message that God has given me and give it back. But on a practical level, and this is practical. I am vice chairman of a infrastructure debt platform in Canada which makes loans that have impact on people’s lives to multigenerational families that are not being banked by the banks and don’t want to do private equity offerings. And so at the table, when I structure a deal in my or help to structure a deal, my concerns are whether or not it has the quantitative metrics to reflect an impact on the lives of those who are less fortunate. For example, I’m supposed to have an interview today, frankly, about this hour with Advanced Communications given to Communications is a satellite company out of London. It was mission. Part of his mission is to get into rural Africa with Internet connectivity to unlock the genius in the minds of those who do not. Africa has millions and millions of people, and there are millions of them that do not have broadband connectivity. And cable does not reach certain rural regions. And as a result, the satellite is probably a more effective way of connecting broadband to people who really need to be supported educationally, agriculturally, economically, etc.. Without that connectivity, the genius that is there is not enough. That’s just one practical way that I am currently involved. I’m an impact investor now and I have taken my financial skills from my fundamental finance and gotten involved in initiatives that have a double bottom line and they’re not mutually exclusive. You do not have to leave your IRR and your MLSE off the table when in fact are engaged in business activities that have a social impact that’s in line with what God would want to happen in as much as you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it unto me. Jesus peeps are the least. As everybody and so to the extent that on a practical level, I can make some modest contribution by bringing a different way of thinking about a transaction to the table, then I have fulfilled part of my purpose and I’ve taken some of the gifts that God has given me and planted them on a practical level, i.e. to produce. I are an animal. I see and do it again. But at the same time bringing other people along to benefit from that. So the Cordie Capital Vice Chairman there, and I am also being interviewed for a non executive board directorship at a Vontae Communications, and they’re both situations that allow for impact. And I could go into several other practical examples of what that can mean,

Luke Roush: what your encouragement, just as I think about biblical economics and just the way that Wall Street is perceived maybe from the outside. I mean, 20 years at BlackRock at the most senior level of what Wall Street does with a real deep understanding of what the Bible says about money and now identifying kind of this new evolution. Let me ask a question. How would you see impact investing having changed over the last 10 years? And then what would your encouragement be to other managers who maybe find themselves where you were 15, 20 years ago in a key role and a key bank? What would your encouragement to them be to practically implement in terms of how their faith manifests?

Obie McKenzie: I think that the whole concept of purpose driven investing has evolved enormously over the last 10 years. I think that more and more people have lived in corporate America long enough to feel that the whole idea of looking for a purpose, for example, Larry FDE, who was my boss, he was chairman and CEO BlackRock has written to many investors about purpose and about impact. I mean, his letters go out every year. And one of his most significant, most impactful letters as recent as the last couple of years was on purpose. And so I think there’s a much more corporate conversation about purposeful living that’s occurred. You said use 10 years as a timeline, but it’s still evolving. Now, of course, we when purpose and impact and ESG at the market, there are always charlatans around who use that as a catch word to attract capital and to continue doing what they’re doing. And we call that impact washing or FDE washing. But as we’ve evolved, we have learned to identify metrics and keep records of those metrics and checks and balances on the metrics to know who really is an impact investor and who isn’t. So if you ask me how it’s evolved, it’s continuing to evolve. You’ve got your back there. You had the unresponsible investor principles, and then you have the establishment of Gen Global Impact Investors Network and then Ierace and then the IFC and then sustainability jumped in there. And then people started debating the difference between ESG impacts and sustainability. So it is a road under construction, but it’s a good road because now there are more and more people that are talking about it. And given that I’ve had a heart for the right side of my being as well as the left side, they stepped into my wheel well, which is, you know, caring about somebody else other than just myself.

Luke Roush: Thank you. That’s helpful. I think that your commentary around impact ESG and how some of that has evolved in the last 10 years, it’s become more professionalized. And it’s also a topic that I think a lot of CEOs are now paying attention to. And you know, how BlackRock thinks about ESG is oftentimes similar, but oftentimes different than other firms. And I think there’s more and more understanding of how different capital providers think through those issues and things that they care about that maybe once or we’re not on the radar. So it’s a hugely timely topic.

Obie McKenzie: The one thing I skipped over that really has been a major milestone for me in that is I learned that Obbie was depending on the size of his stock portfolio and for one K to represent security for me. And as that sometimes will ebb and flow and occasionally it will dissipate in a big way between deals or between situations. And what I’ve had to learn first, I didn’t know just how much I was depending on my phone when it came to the level of my savings, my investment portfolio for security. And during those times when I didn’t know what to do and I was crying out in my heart for help from Jesus Christ, I learned as my bank account went down my trust level, I don’t know how I could possibly feel better when my bank account went down than it was when it was a lot more robust. And in the middle of that battle, I learned to trust Jesus. I learned to trust God. Elementum know, I found out that the Lord is my shepherd is a real personal, that he is my shepherd. He may give me. He restores my soul. And if I would bungee jump. With the reality of the word that he’s got me, that he will supply all my needs according to his riches and glory by Praxis is that I would be freer, that I would feel more secure, that I would have more peace in knowing in my noer for real in my heart that he got me. He got me within my bank account. Is up or whether it’s down? He got me in, so that, frankly, is a a recent phenomenon that I thought I’d already I’d already jump that hurdle. I thought I had, but I hadn’t really until I got smacked a little bit again. And I prayed and called out to him and he answered, I heard him. I’m a walking testimony that God answers prayer. And if you will trust him and trust what his word says is an incredible wealth. My wealth is in my relationship with him. My wealth is in how much I can trust to have my faith in him as my well.