Henry: [00:02:52] Finny, thank you very much for being on the show today. We’re excited to hear all that you’ve got going on at Eventide to get things started. We want to give the reader some insight into your background. Tell us a little bit about your personal journey and the steps that led to where you are today and then bridge into what is Eventide. [00:03:08][15.9]

Finny: [00:03:09] Sure. Yeah. So my journey started in the 1990s. I moved to Boston, where I am right now in 95 to go to medical school. And while I was in medical school, I had a scholarship. I was doing an MGP PHC program. And this is common among the MGP h.g students. You get a modest stipend. It’s ten thousand dollars a year, not a lot. This was back then and my parents were encouraging me at this phase of life here. You’re in your 20s to start to think about saving and in particular saving to buy a house one day. And so here I was, a single person at the time and very low overhead and very low expenses. And so I said, hey, that sounds great. And so I went to the newfangled Internet was just coming out around that time and tried to figure out what kinds of options were available for investing. And you could see even back then this vehicle of the mutual fund and I could see the top 10 holdings of these mutual funds through the various literature brochures that they have available. And I couldn’t bring myself to invest in any of those funds because I would look at the companies that they were invested in and these are top 10 holdings and saw a lot of things that as a Christian, I felt a personal objection to. And so my roommate at the time, he was doing his PhD in economics and he said, hey, you should just learn to invest on your own. And so he gave me a book by Peter Lynch and I kind of self taught myself the investing world. And Peter Lynch’s Paul thesis, as you probably know, is by what you know, his basic sense is that a specialist who really knows an industry well can far outperform a generalist, because by the time it gets to Wall Street, by the time everyone’s covering it, well, one, you’ve missed a lot of the. And 2, they’re not going to be able to really understand a company or an industry as well as someone who is a practitioner of the field. And so if you’re a construction person, you’re going to know the tools and the instruments that are used. Much better than someone who is a financier who’s going to have no idea who’s just going to be basically looking at the financials. And so I thought, hey, that makes sense. And so I decided to start to invest in the biomedical realm and pursue that just at the time on the side as a hobby, because I was in medical school, obviously. But for the next 10 years, kept that up and found that one, I enjoyed it. And two, I thought I was decent at it. And that was the early days of what became even tied to finishing med school, did my residency at a local hospital here and saw mostly patients who had a variety of blood disorders sickle cell anemia, leukemia, lymphoma, people who required bone marrow transplants, things like that. Did a residency fellowship, a postdoc and eventually started even at the end of that. And the vision that we started was if it was that much work for me to do all that, I had to go off and read all these books and leverage the expertise that I had accumulated in the medical realm, more democratized and accessible for the everyday Christian who wants to invest in ways that are more compatible with their values, both on the negative side of things. So not investing in objectionable areas abortion, tobacco, gambling, things like that. But then more importantly, or as importantly, embracing the positive capacity for change that we as investors leverage and as those who supply capital to investors leverage on behalf of causes that we feel really good about. So we started it in 2008. And here we are 11 years later. We’ve got now several mutual funds, a little bit more than four billion dollars under management. And it’s been a blast. [00:07:08][238.9]

Henry: [00:07:09] So I see that a tagline for Eventide is “investing that makes the world rejoice”. Talk to us about the mission and vision of Eventide Fundss. It look like when the world rejoices at the investments we make. What does that mean? [00:07:23][14.3]

Finny: [00:07:24] Yeah. There’s a great verse in Proverbs Chapter Eleven, verse 10 that says When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices, and that this has become our theme verse and the way that we define righteous and many others we follow in the steps of many others who have done really great work in understanding the Hebrew behind it. But the term righteous basically refers to people who put others interests ahead of their own. They’re willing to disadvantage themselves for the sake of others. [00:07:56][32.3]

[00:07:57] And the opposite is, of course, the wicked. Who are those who put their own economic or social or personal desires ahead of others? There is a great book by Amy Sherman called Kingdom Calling that she also really develops that verse in a beautiful way. The term rejoice there as well as a special word. [00:08:16][18.6]

[00:08:16] It’s not the ordinary term that’s used for rejoice. It’s something that is used as the handful of times in the Hebrew Bible, for example, is used after Hannah gets the good news that she is now pregnant. And I’m thinking there, Samuel. [00:08:33][17.0]

[00:08:35] And so that’s been something that we have used in our own thinking quite a bit, that when the righteous prosper, it’s supposed to be the case that the city rejoices, meaning that they’re blessing redounds to those around them, that there’s such an overflow of prosperity in all dimensions that the city rejoices and isn’t a kind of tragic today, that when people prosper, when the rich get richer, people tend to go around. It’s the opposite because it tends not to lead to that overflow of blessing that makes the city rejoice. And so our aspiration and eventide is to instantiate that for the cities and the communities that we’re at, that they can experience some of the blessing in the rejoicing that should come from biblical and wise investing. [00:09:24][48.8]

Henry: [00:09:24] That’s awesome. That’s a great vision. I want to pivot right into the heart of the episode. Some of the things that we picked up in the past and some of the times you’ve given. Oftentimes we hear that phrase and oftentimes we say the phrase capital equals influence. And most of us in the Western world throw that around. But I’ve heard you share some interesting thoughts on the importance of recognizing that capital does have influence and how we see that in history. Talk us through that. [00:09:49][24.7]

Finny: [00:09:50] Yeah, well, let me start with a book that if you haven’t read it, if your listeners haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. It’s a book that I think is a classic and everyone who’s a faith based investor or entrepreneur should read. It’s called To Change the World by James Davis Hunter. And what he brings out in this book is there’s really a widespread myth out there, which is the myth of the heroic individual, that individuals have the capacity and the ability to change the world. And what Hunter, I think very persuasively argues and demonstrates in his book is that the real. The power is, in fact, within institutions and institutions, far more than individuals shape us and shape the world in very profound ways. And so if you really want to change the world, then you have to be able to either change institutions. But as it turns out, it’s very difficult to do because institutions generally resist change or start institutions. And that turns out to be a much easier act, because as I said, there’s this natural resistance to change that institutions have, whereas starting new institutions is much more likely to be in line with the values of the founders. And he shows, as I mentioned in the book, that virtually all, if not all of the great change movements that we’ve seen in the last several hundred years in the West have been the result of institutions. Although we often put the credit on individuals, it’s really more of the institutions that deserve the credit as having the ability to affect change in broader society. So with that thesis and again, you can read that or anyone can read that in his book, which I do highly recommend. I like a look at this from historic perspective and I like to go all the way back to Christopher Columbus. So all of us know Christopher Columbus, who sailed the ocean blue and fourteen ninety two. It’s one of the most famous voyages of all time. But what people don’t realize is that he was doing this as part of a for profit venture and he was looking for investors to finance his voyage there. [00:12:00][129.7]

[00:12:00] So if you think about it, the whole enterprise of exotic ship building and these faraway voyages was fraught with risk. I mean, it was something that unlike today, you had very little hope or very little confidence the person would come back on any kind of known schedule safely with goods intact. And so this was the basis of what most historians would say is the modern corporation that modern corporations were born out of the necessity to share the cost of financing these expeditions as well as sharing risk. And Christopher Columbus in particular was looking for investors and he traipsed all over Europe trying to find investors and eventually structured a fairly sophisticated deal. So if you go and actually study the specific terms that he received, he was going to receive 10 percent of future revenues that came from later expeditions as well as he played or not, got an option to invest in one ace, a future commercial businesses that were formed as a result of his adventure. So he had a quite sophisticated financial contract that he negotiated, but was as interesting is to think about the fact that he went to France. He went to England. He went to Portugal. And he could not secure investors from those countries. And in fact, although he ultimately gained investors from Spain and the Spanish investment ended up being very, very lucrative for those who were behind it. And importantly, this is why so many people today from the Caribbean on down all of South America, why they speak Spanish. [00:13:45][105.0]

[00:13:46] You know, literally world history was written with the decision of who financed Columbus’s expedition there. If it had been the French, there would be French speaking. If it had been the British, it would be English speaking. But lo and behold, it was the Spanish. So to think about the decision there that investors made. That was literally shaping the religion and languages of millions and millions of people. It was all bound up in the choices and the decisions that investors made at the time. And that goes on. And so that was obviously in the late 40s, hundreds, early. Fifteen hundreds. But this continues. And so Columbus is one of the pioneers were the trailblazers of this industry. But in sixteen hundred and sixteen 02, you have the British and Dutch East India companies form. So these were formed explicitly with the goal of trading with India as the name communicates there. And same thing. [00:14:40][54.3]

[00:14:40] So they have incredible capital requirements. You have capital calls that are required. You have something like dividends that were paid out. And so those companies were financed using a mixture of stocks and bonds. And again, most historians, economic historians will tell you that the modern corporation was born around this time, complete with liquidity. And in fact, the very first exchange was developed in the early 60s, hundreds in Amsterdam so that people could trade shares of these. In this case, the Dutch East India Company. And for those who know I’m ethnically Indian, even though I was born and raised in the US, for those who know anything about the history of India, you will know that the British East India Company defined so much of what we today call India to be. So India, as it turns out, just like America, ended up being a colony of Britain, which is why today the official language is English and India was really defined, the borders were defined, the culture was defined, the railway system was defined by a group of investors who form this British East India company. So you talk about massive implications for culture, for language, for religion. It’s all bound up here in the choices that investors and these these corporations made. So I think it’s very profound. There’s a lot more that could be said on the historic side of things. But if we now then maybe jump forward into modern history and think about what this looks like here. I mean, surely we would agree that our world is shaped very profoundly by Facebook, by Netflix, by Google, by these entities that we’re all venture backed. When you go back and trace how these companies began, they’re fascinating stories in some cases. Movies have been made about these companies that have really changed the whole world. I mean, it’s hard to even imagine how differently the world would be without some of those companies there. So I think from the genesis of what we would today call investing in the sixteen hundreds and fifteen hundreds to today, I think we can confidently say that that James Davis at Hunter thesis is correct and that it’s really something that is an amazing testimony to the power of investing and the power of entrepreneurs and those who are minded to change the world through the power of business, to tell us how that impacts the way that you invest. [00:17:09][149.0]

Henry: [00:17:10] So understanding that business can be used to explore and to be able to solve challenges that exist in the world and to be able to advance trade. What’s it look like for the themes that you look to invest in where the modern day equivalents, the eventide as you get out to put your investors money to work? What are the themes and the adventures that you want to invest in? [00:17:31][21.6]

Finny: [00:17:32] Yeah, there’s a lot that we can talk about there. So what we have done is we have made a list of themes, as you pointed out, that we believe are themes that have great capacity to change the world and to positively advance human flourishing. One of my favorite quotes that I say often in different context is from Henry David Thoreau, who says For every thousand people hacking at the leaves of evil, there’s one striking at the root. And that’s true in many domains of life, but probably none as true as in medicine, where we’re definitely dealing with symptoms. And so just to illustrate with a little bit more specific up an example here, we have a number of investments where what we do is we will finance companies, both private companies as well as public companies. And we’re very active in our investments. We sometimes even take board seats on our investments. But what we’ll do is we’ll find companies that are getting at that root cause level of disease. So companies that are doing DNA sequencing to figure out what is broken in a particular patient and using the sound sci fi. But believe it or not, it’s true, you can actually take a virus. And we think of a virus as being bad. Right. We get a call that’s from a virus influenza. There’s all these diseases from a virus. But what you can do is you can take a virus and you can engineer out the bad parts of the virus that cause disease and you can drop in to that virus. The good part of a gene that’s broken in a person. So let’s say there’s a patient in front of me who’s got muscular dystrophy, a real example for us. And you can sequence that little boy. Those boys typically die around 20 years old and figure out where exactly is that break? Where is that mutation would be the technical term in that little boy’s DNA. And then you can make a virus that has that same gene, but the corrected good copy into that virus and then give that little boy a one time injection. This is what’s amazing. So you just go into the hospital, get a one time injection, and we only have a couple of years of follow up now. But in theory, you’ve now cured that boy for life. They want to come back into the hospital for later treatments. I mean, you’re talking about an absolute game changer. I saw some videos of some of the boys that were treated in a clinical trial that we helped to find along with many others. And it literally brought tears to my eyes where I saw the pre and the post videos of these boys. One video there was a boy who was going up the stairs and he was dragging himself up by the rail because he didn’t have strength in his legs coast. This injection of this virus. The boy was running up the stairs. There’s another one where a boy could barely walk. And then in the second video, he’s playing soccer in a field. I mean, it’s the kind of thing that when I was in medicine, when I was still practicing, nobody believed this was possible to actually reverse the kinds of. Damage that these muscular dystrophy patients have suffered. So you talk about massive changes in the way that health care is done. You know, it’s so exciting. I’m giving you here just one little slice of why we’re excited about these kinds of therapies and how much we think that investors can get really excited about putting their dollars to work to change the lives of thousands, if not eventually millions of patients in route causeways. [00:20:56][204.4]

William: [00:20:58] That’s amazing. That’s amazing to think about. It does kind of sound Sci-Fi at some level when I think about Capital equals influence from your perspective, maybe let us in. Do you focus more on the products and services that you’re investing in or do you also take potentially board seats or do you have influence over the company? You know, there’s lots of different types of influence that capital provides you. Could you drill down on which ones you think you’re focused on and where you get to kind of bring the gospel to life and maybe some others that you maybe look at in the future? [00:21:28][30.2]

Finny: [00:21:28] Yeah, that’s a good question. So we don’t often take board seats. That’s the exception, not the rule for us. And most of what we do is public investing. But because we’re a decent sized firm, as I said, we’ve got a little over four billion dollars when we invest. We’re usually a top 10 shareholder. It’s not a top three shareholder. And so, not surprisingly, you’re going to have the ear of management there. And we’ve used that position quite successfully in a number of ways. So the first is having conversations about the ethics of products and services. So we will have very direct conversations with management about, hey, why do you want to go into this particular area? Not that particular area. And speaking as a Christian here, obviously we have a set of values that we believe should inform those discussions. We’ve had discussions and we’re going to be releasing some of these examples pretty soon. We’re very excited about where we’ve been able to change corporate giving. So giving to causes that we would look at and think like, hey, one, you’re actually giving to causes that are going to alienate those who are traditional faith based employees and customers there because they’re pursuing one particular agenda. And by us having a conversation around inclusiveness. Now, when you hear the word inclusiveness, people tend to not think about the inclusion of the Judeo-Christian moral view in that. But we remind people that a traditional world religions, whether it’s Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, you name it, they stand for, for example, certain views of sexuality, certain views of how to look at the world, that you can alienate your customers and even employees over there. And have you even thought about this significant source of constituents here that are right under your nose? So we’ve had some great conversations and even positive examples of change, as I said, that we’re hoping to release shortly there. In general, we believe that every business has six primary stakeholders that they need to think about. So number one is customers. Number two is employees. Number three, it’s supply chain. Number four is the host community, wherever that business is located. Number five is the environment and then number six is broader society. And as we engage with our companies, at least we use those six stakeholders as our basic framework. We call it Business 360, which is our way to make sure that a business is operating ethically and compatibility with our views of what the common good really is and what human flourishing really is across those six stakeholders. So, yeah, we’ve got a lot of great examples there that we’ve been able to come up with over the last several years and now that were the size that we are. It gets a lot easier because our size in that whole capital equals influence idea, right? People pay more attention to you. The larger you are. And so I’m very excited about what you all are doing, number one, because the Christian community has the potential to be a much bigger force for change. And it currently is. I mean, it was Martin Luther King and the church was a sleeping giant. And I think that’s a good term to describe the latent power that is resonant but unused as we band together around causes that we care about. So, yeah, we’re very excited about that overall potential. [00:24:50][201.6]

William: [00:24:51] That’s awesome. I love that phrase. Sleeping giants. I’m going to give you a little bit of a soapbox here. One of the things I love about some of your presentation does I think you do an incredible job of challenging and pushing people to think about the world in a little different way. So we have investors through the podcast. Some are just getting started. Some may be tuning in, some in the business a long time. If you add a challenge from the capital equals influence and from a perspective of people may not have been thinking about this the right way. What would that be for some of our listeners to maybe take away a challenge to think about what their own portfolio or what their own job in general? [00:25:28][36.8]

Finny: [00:25:29] The world has bought this. I would say lie that investing is largely a passive activity. And even that term passive, you know, people think about ecac think about very low cost products where there’s minimal basis points. The whole world of investing has become commoditized where and it’s becoming something more and more where people think about the market as this abstract entity that is is almost divorced from the productive capacity of the underlying companies. And if you ask most people what they own, they have no idea. Investing in general has just become very divorced from its original purpose, which is supplying capital to companies. And when you think about that original purpose of investing, then it starts to reframe and hopefully rekindle how exciting investing is, right? It’s giving capital to companies. It’s not just being a passive participant in a larger world where somebody else determines the rules of the game. And when we begin to recover that very simple thesis that investing is ownership, it changes everything. I mean, if you’re an owner of a small business down the corner, you care a lot about that business, right. Because your name is attached to it. You would care about the investing practices. You care about the practices that the company had. If that company going to legal trouble, you’d be in trouble. If that company got accolades, well, then you would look good as a result. We get it. If it’s a private business that is owned by a couple of people, even though it is quantitatively different, it’s not qualitatively different. Investing is ownership and we should have a real degree of pride in the companies that we own and I like to use as a test. [00:27:11][102.3]

[00:27:12] Would I be proud to tell people that my son or my daughter worked at that company as a way to kind of just calibrate myself about is this company that I want to invest in here? And if it’s not, then we shouldn’t be investing. And if it is, well, then that’s great. But, you know, using just some really simple tests like that, some really basic reminders of what the purpose of investing is, I think that’s extraordinarily helpful. And we are standing against a tsunami of, like I said, information that goes the other way where it’s all about, like I said, being passive low fees and profiting from this thing called the market, which somebody else is going to determine who the market is and that scheme and why not take more more of a stake? Given the ethical implications to the downside as well as to the upside. [00:27:58][46.3]

Henry: [00:27:59] In some of your time to get it both the negative and then also the positive aspects of being an active investor. And I like this a lot. [00:28:05][5.5]

[00:28:05] And in particular, to go to the illustration you have about apartheid, how people of faith got together in the early 70s and use their influence to be able to help some large companies curtail what they did. But then also on the positive side, which is less of going ahead in time, people stopped doing bad things. There are also three themes that you guys like a lot. Cyber security, clean water and then also some aspects of mental health that you think that Christ followers might be able to be proactive and invest in key touch on both of those. Absolutely. Influence of the negative screen side. Maybe. But then also on the positive side, yeah. [00:28:43][37.9]

Finny: [00:28:44] So I love both sides of this. And the Christian community should realize that there have been all those small. There have been some small efforts through history that have had very dramatic effects on history. [00:28:55][11.9]

[00:28:56] So the one that you mentioned there is apartheid, which I love that example. So in 1971, four years before I was born. But I know that the government of South Africa had ignored U.N. sanctions and multiple embargoes that were already in place specifically over the issue of apartheid. And so the governments stick didn’t work. And as it turns out, the way that that ultimately shook out was it was a group of Episcopal shareholders that filed what’s called a shareholder resolution with General Motors, the automotive company. So the shareholder resolution is a tool that public investors have. All you have to own is a thousand dollars of stock in a particular company. You can file what’s called a shareholder resolution, which will then be put up to vote at the next annual meeting of the company. And this is widely regarded to be one of the very first examples, if not the first example of modern shareholder advocacy. So this group of shareholders basically said, hey, what are you doing in General Motors with respect to working conditions, to employing whites and blacks, separate bathrooms, you know, all those types of issues and longer hold. What they did was they enlisted the wisdom of a Baptist minister whose name was Leon Sullivan, who was an anti-apartheid activist. And he proposed specific resolutions for the board of General Motors that they ended up adopting because of that shareholder resolution. And then, not surprisingly, after GM. Adopted those what are often called the Sullivan principles after Leon Sullivan. Then Ford and Goodyear followed suit. And so most historians will tell you that the key instrument in the fall of apartheid was investor pressure. And that’s great. I mean, that is so exciting that this small group of investors leveraged their influence to change General Motors, which in turn changed Ford, which in turn changed Goodyear, which then changed corporate practice and ultimately led to the dissolution of apartheid, although not quite as moderate. There’s a similar story to be told with abolition. So if you look at the history of, for example, Quakers, people like Charles Finney and others, they certainly used the power of business and investing to assist in the demise of abolition. So those are powerful examples on the negative side. And I think that there’s a lot of examples today that we could think about. One example that I really like is mental health. Mental health is something that we don’t realize how big of a problem it is. So one of the examples that I really like is schizophrenia. Schizophrenia afflicts about three million people today in the United States. And a lot of people don’t even know what schizophrenia is. They think of it as having multiple personalities. You know, this alien schizophrenic because you’re acting differently. That’s actually not what schizophrenia is. That’s a completely different disease called multiple personality disorder. And it’s kind of offensive, actually, to people who have schizophrenia. So we need to make sure that we use more accurate terms there. Schizophrenia represents something very different, which is a set of positive and negative symptoms, but in particular on the positive side. For example, it’s hearing voices coming from a wall. It’s auditory and visual hallucinations. On the negative side, it’s the inability to initiate. People just have a very flat affect. This is ranked by the W.H.O. as the third most disabling condition in the world. If you ever encounter homeless people and you actually talk to them, you’ll find that a huge percentage of homeless people have schizophrenia. And if you could fix the schizophrenia problem, you would be dealing with a root cause of a lot of homelessness. And right now, for example, we actually financed a private company that has since gone public that has had one of the most game changing results in schizophrenia and probably the last 30 years. And so this is really, really exciting, right? So if you care about homelessness, you care about mental health, there’s excellent ways for Christians to be deploying their capital in ways that support very high innovations. [00:33:11][255.0]

[00:33:12] And again, these are companies that aren’t in indices. If you just go out and buy the S&P 500, you’re not going to be participating in these kinds of companies. Why not consider moving our investments into areas like this that are so high yield in terms of net positive impact to society? I used to work in a homeless shelter many years ago, and I’m sure many of your listeners have as well. And while your heart breaks and you interact with these patients and you realize there’s some very profound issues there that you can’t even deal with, you don’t have the tools to deal with with what we have today. When you have somebody who’s coming in, who’s a true schizophrenic and they’re totally disassociated from reality, well, you give all the warm meals you want, but you’re not really going to be changing the trajectory of that person. What we really need there is to change the underlying disease and to begin to heal the pathology that we have in their brains. [00:34:05][53.3]

[00:34:05] I’m really excited about that as yet another example. [00:34:08][2.3]

Henry: [00:34:08] So you talk about that and I’ve heard you talk and present before about clean water and some other issues, including cyber security and maybe on another podcast we’ll get in. It’s clear to me as a listener how your investment in these types of industries, in some of these types of problems can advocate for human flourishing. But I also know that you are a fund manager that is graded on your performance. You hit Morningstar reviews and things like that. You ever find that where you as an investment manager say, oh, my goodness, this company is doing things are super important, but it’s just not representing the stock price. [00:34:43][34.2]

[00:34:43] So therefore, we have to sell the stock, whereas their attention with delivering shareholder returns versus some of these themes that you think are so important, you ever find that they’re at odds with each other? [00:34:53][10.0]

Finny: [00:34:53] You know, there is. But I would say that in general it’s an overblown tension. A lot of people think that if you can kind of dance in and out of a stock at the right time, you’ll be able to do much better than those who are just more patient, long term buy and hold investors. [00:35:08][14.5]

[00:35:09] And it sounds really easy, like, oh, yeah, it’s overvalued sell. And when it gets undervalued by and to some extent people try to do that. We try to do that. But in general, I think there’s lots of data. I know there’s lots of data. And we certainly have found this to be true, that you’re much better off as an investor finding great companies doing your homework. They are investing and then a while the magic of compounding to do its trick. And most of the time I think people would say that when they found great companies, the main problem they’ve had is they’ve sold too early and they haven’t allowed time and the greatness of a management team to really prove itself. And when you look at some of the investments that we’ve had that have been 10 baggers, 20 baggers over the years, it just takes time. And yeah, you could try to game it from month to month and dance in and out quarter quarter. But it’s a fool’s game. And although, like I said, in theory, this pension does exist, and I think there are times where you might want to lighten up a little bit. I would say it’s way more important just to make sure that you’re in great companies and that you feel confident in the companies that you’re investing in and you’re spending your time and your energy not on watching the day to day stock moves, but on understanding the people and understanding the industry. Warren Buffett has said this before and I think he’s spot on that the market would be way better off if it was open for trading one day a year and that was it, so that people could spend more of their time on what actually matters, which is the fundamentals and not the gyrations of the market, which are just very difficult to predict and very difficult to handle. [00:36:41][91.7]

William: [00:36:41] I love your quote about would you want your son or daughter to work at the company? I had a similar experience recently where at a good friend going through a couple a job interviews and he got some offers. I wrote a column in one of these companies as well-known companies and as I don’t work there. Why would you work there for this reason? This reason, this reason? And then literally, I looked like the weight I own stock in that company. It was so obvious to me and to him what I laid it out to him. He’s like, oh, yeah, you’re right. Why would I go work for that company? And so I sold my position the next day. And, you know, I’ve lost money on that. The company has done well, but I know it was the right call. So I love that framework. And so maybe people don’t have children, maybe think three, you know, would you want a good friend of yours going over there or would you go work there? Right. Another good screening thing that was really interesting for me is I think you bringing that up and it reminds me of something recent. And then as we do come to a close, one of the biggest things in particular, the most important we love asking our guests is if you’d be generous with us is where is God? Have you right now in his word, in his scripture, maybe during the season, maybe this morning? You know, what might he be taking you through that you could share with our listeners and let us into your world and your journey? [00:37:49][67.8]

Finny: [00:37:50] Yeah, sure. That’s an excellent question to do. Well, this is by way of encouragement. I am married with I have seven children. And one thing that I would highly recommend that everyone do is as a family and this is what we do. We pick one passage per day and we’ll generally pick a book of the Bible and do one chapter per day. Then we journal everyone journals who can write all my children and write. But those who can’t write, we have a set of questions that we go through every single day together. And we started the morning when we wake up. Open up revivals of George Arnwine. And then in the evening we discuss what we’ve learned. And the questions that we ask are what did you learn about God from this passage? Second question, what do you learn about the nature of humanity from this? Question is this what did you read in this passage that makes you want to worship God? Fourth question is what promises did you find in that passage? The fifth question is what did you see in yourself in this passage that you want to put to death? You want to mortify in some way. This question is what are you going to do differently today? What kinds of applications are going to put into practice? And then the seventh is to write out a prayer. So those are the seven questions that we do as a family every single day. If there’s any parents here who don’t have a practice like that going, I will say that it will be a complete game changer for your family to do that. [00:39:10][80.6]

[00:39:11] And your children will form with scripture. God will bless you in ways that you can’t even know until you go through it and probably even in this life fully understand it. [00:39:19][8.4]

[00:39:20] So that’s my general encouragement. I’ll give you a passage that we were just talking about the other day. It’s a very familiar passage. In fact, yesterday we were talking about how so much of the life of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you know, those first three individuals is it’s almost representative or emblematic of the whole rest of the Bible. I mean, you can see so much of the gospel, even in the stories of those individuals. So, you know, one famous story of Abraham offering Isaac, for example, that even though the New Testament doesn’t explicitly mentioned that, I think we all justly take that as a foreshadowing of the father offering the son two thousand years later. And I remember when I was reading that passage, it struck me that at the end of it. God says to Abraham, he says, Now I know that you fear me. And I thought, wow, this is Abraham, who already left her of the calley’s. He left his father’s home. You became a sojourner in Tainan. [00:40:21][60.8]

[00:40:22] You talk about someone who was a radically obedient follower of God and what it took. Was this episode of offering his beloved Isaac on the altar for God to say. Now, I know that for me, you know, you did all that before and what it led me to be reminded of and to share in my family was you can be an amazing person. And so many ways and I sometimes like to point out that you can confess 98 percent of the stuff in your life, the junk in your life, but it’s that last 2 percent that will ruin you if you don’t confess it, that there’s often this like the hard thing in your life. There is something deep that God has for all of us that he wants us to put it on the altar, so to speak, and that Abraham like manner, that even though he had done so much, much more than I think most of us would probably have a tolerance for. But that final 2 percent is where the real gold is. And I would encourage everyone to think about what does that look like in your life? What is that, 2 percent? How do you confess that? How do you work through that? How do you lay out on the altar? And I believe that God would give a significant blessing on those who are willing to go that final step into that full hearted obedience where you’re just putting your most valuable person possession, whatever it is on the altar for God to use it as he was. [00:41:43][80.9]

Henry: [00:41:44] So this has been a great podcast, but I’ll go with what you said. And that is the real gold of this podcast is in the last 2 percent. Yeah, that was awesome. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much for sharing. We look forward to having you back on the program and God bless you and Eventide. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure being with you. [00:41:44][0.0]

[2306.4]

Henry: [00:02:24] Tom, thank you very much for being on the show today. We’re so grateful that you’ve joined us on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast on our other channel. Your episode there was fantastic. And we’re pleased and privileged and blessed to have had you on before. But we’re also really sad to have you on today to speak to the FDI audience. This is an audience of investors who are looking to store their investment capital for God’s glory. And we all get fired up about having you on board because you’re one of the few writers and authors and pastors. Somebody comes out of the workplace that speaks about not just the workplace. And that’s a great thing that more and more people are focusing on what the church has to do with the workplace. But also economics is a part of your teaching and your ministry. And so you’re in a great perspective to be able to share the views that you have on the economics of the kingdom of God in such a way that I think that we’ll be in a better position to invest better. So perfect for you to be on before we get going. [00:03:23][59.0]

[00:03:23] I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about just generally Made to Flourish. What is Made to Flourish, what’s the work you’re doing, and then generally even go so far as maybe even suggest how it might be able to be helpful for us, an audience of faith of investors. [00:03:39][15.3]

Tom: [00:03:40] Yeah. Henry, great to be with you and your team. And yeah, Made to Flourish. I have the joy of serving a remarkable organization. It’s only four years old. So we’re involved in the expansion of a really important mission around the world, particularly in the United States first. And so, yeah, our mission is really about helping pastors first and foremost. I mean, we work with business leaders and parishioners as well, but helping pastors to more effectively empower them and encourage them and equip them to connect Sunday to Monday better. [00:04:07][27.6]

[00:04:08] So what we really do is we emphasize the importance of the integration of faith, work and economic wisdom for the flourishing of your communities. We’re deeply committed that the Christian faith profoundly speaks into the common good and the flourishing of all humans made in God’s image. So we are a national network. We’re growing and we’re trying to make a big difference in helping pastors and churches more effectively be whole like disciples and really impact the marketplace. And I’m really, really thrilled that I’m a part of this FDI conversation because all who are listening. You matter. Your work matters. I just want to say that the importance of investing well in building capacity, providing dignity and opportunity and jobs for the world, and it is so important what you’re doing. I just want to thank you for the work you’re doing. First and foremost, I’m a big cheerleader. It’s awesome as well. For God’s glory, for the kingdom and for God’s people. [00:05:02][53.6]

Henry: [00:05:03] Amen, brother. Amen. So let’s jump into your latest book. You’ve got a book out called The Economics of Neighborly Love. Rusty has joined us on this podcast because he’s such a big fan of your work generally. And then this book specifically, you talk in the book about a broader definition of the economy and not just in our business, but how and where we do our business. [00:05:29][26.3]

[00:05:30] It’s a big thought and we’d all love to hear you expound on this more for our listeners and now and invite Rusty on to narrow in on some of the different lessons and some of the applications that he took away from the book. But just a broad overview first. [00:05:42][12.7]

Tom: [00:05:43] Could I just briefly give you my autobiography because so much to understand if that’s okay, Henry. You know, I grew up in a faith tradition where I was in church on Sunday, but there was very little connection with my life on Monday. And as a young boy, I grew up in an impoverished economic life. My dad died when I was young. My mom really worked hard as a single parent to help us survive. Some say saying this conversation of economic flourishing and the importance of economics is not an abstraction to me. It’s deeply personal in my own autobiography and I share that in the book. And again, that helps inform, I think, my understanding of the theology and practicality of what it means to connect our faith with our work with the economy, with investment and so forth and how we invest. That has been a part of my story that is so important to me in terms of how I understand the importance of economic flourishing as it relates to human flourishing, as it relates to our faith. [00:06:39][55.2]

[00:06:40] I think when we look at the economy and economics, whether it’s entrepreneurship or particularly investment. We have to understand that economics is woven into the creation account. [00:06:54][13.9]

[00:06:54] So I may be a bit theological, but that’s sort of my bent. Right. I mean, wisdom, we understand. I’m saying in creation, we understand. We were designed to be fruitful. That’s woven into the Genesis record. Right. The cultural mandate is to be fruitful. Multiply, fill the earth and have dominion and fruitfulness in the Hebrew text means productivity and pro creativity. And this theme of fruitfulness is woven all the way through the Bible. So we think about economic life. We find this command to be fruitful. And then we were created with community so it can bring these two together. Right. Right. We’re male and female. Marriage is created that once Eve arrives on the scene in the creation story. We have an economy. We have an economy. We have a household stewardship. So God created us as economic creatures who create blessing from the creator order and share that blessing with others, whether it’s monetized or not. Some say this idea of an economy is woven into creation, it’s woven into the idea of being fruitful and fruitful in all dimensions of life. [00:07:54][60.2]

[00:07:54] So I think what you’re asking me in the beginning is when we think about Jesus and his teaching the economy, Jesus teaches us that we are to be fruitful “by this is my father glorified, that you bear much fruit. And so prove to be my disciples.” What I simply want to say is that all the way through scripture, the follower of Jesus is to be fruitful, fruitful in intimacy, relational intimacy, in productivity and neighborly love. So my book unpacks that, that’s one thing about the economy. Our economic life embraces intimate relationships with others because it’s a relationship and poverty is ultimately a relationship of impoverishment. Productivity and fruitfulness with the work of our hands or investments. And then the neighborly love that makes that possible, something the economy, economic life is a reflection of the great commandments and loving our neighbor and loving God. In one short statement, it changes how it’s not just about a graph, it’s not just about monetization, although that has an implication or supply and demand curves or leftward curves. It is about loving others in the world. Man, it’s a little long, but I’m just saying it is about really loving others, loving God and others. Great commandments stuff. [00:09:02][67.6]

Henry: [00:09:03] What does it look like? You’ve got incredible ministry that’s meant to equip pastors to equip the deployed, as you’ve talked about before, people, they’re already out there. So you haven’t yet written a book to help pastors to equip investors and help them to think through how they encourage their parishioners to think about how to invest in real estate or the public stock market or in private equity, et cetera. But do you have any just general thoughts knowing how important the economy is that we live in, that it’s biblical, you call it in the story. We’re in the garden. Our work was fruitful. We invested from the beginning. We’re meant to multiply. And that obviously has some application for investors. But when you look at the marketplace and the way that you might invest or other people invest is there are some things that are just observations that you have about way the easy Christ is investing. Well, or maybe the inverse of that is when you see Christ-followers, maybe not investing well. What does that look like for you? [00:10:02][59.5]

Tom: [00:10:03] Oh, that’s such a that’s a question that’s so important, Henry. And it needs a lot of reflection. A couple of just the initial thoughts. One is let’s just take biblical wisdom, because we have parables like Matthew 25, where there is an expectation of a financial manager. Right. Managers to make more right to invest. Well. So the expectation of return on investment, whatever is very much woven into faithful discipleship for God’s people. [00:10:28][24.1]

[00:10:28] I mean, Matthew, 25 is just I think most of us know the parable of talents. It’s such a rich teaching on the importance of investing. Well, yes, but not risk-free. So there is a sense of deep risk that is built into the system. And the one investor who is strongly reproved, I mean, is one who wouldn’t take the risk. Right. So I think there is a sense of God has an expectation of multiplication for the good of others, not just for self-indulgence, where multiplication, fruitfulness, thriving, living. So investment to me is forward looking. It’s opportunistic looking at what’s the need, what are the opportunities right now. Also, progress has more of a long horizon. Right. So, so much of it depends on tell us and time horizon. It makes sense. Like what is your purpose in investing? What’s the target? What are you trying to do? In theory of God, of course. Right. If you’re a follower. Well, what’s your tell us what’s your purpose? What’s the big why? I think we all have to answer that as investors or leaders. But then what’s our time horizon? Are we investing for a year, for 10 years, for a generation or multiple generations? So when I started cross-community community 30 years ago with my sweet bride to questions. What is the purpose? What’s the time horizon in our institution is built for a time horizon. Should the Lord tarry, much more than 30 or 50 years from now will be here? William James says the greatest use of a life. William James was a Harvard professor. The greatest use of a life is to invest it in something that outlasts it. I’m just saying, I would suggest and I’ve not written on this, but I’m just giving you my thoughts more than tactics. It’s more clarity of the why and the time horizon that guides that investment decision. Ultimately it’s the glory of God in the furtherance of his kingdom. But what’s the time horizon? What’s the long play? [00:12:23][114.7]

[00:12:24] And so within that I would just say I think proverbs has several themes of wisdom. One is. We need to think about economic life, investing, whatever it is, consumption through the lens of diligence, justice, generosity and ethics of what is right. And we can talk some more about the practicality of it. But I would say tell us some time horizon. And then I would suggest that risk has to be measured. What level of risk? And then the fiduciary responsibility if you’re investing someone else’s resources. [00:12:56][32.3]

[00:12:57] But the importance of investing before God, it’s a given in scripture. The outcome is not certain. Right. But you can have a tell us and time horizon. So I think it’s very important what my underresourced friends in under-resourced communities keep telling me to invest my life, not just my talents, my resources in giving others access and opportunity. So that would be another thing I’d love to engage with. We think about investment. Are we investing not just for a particular return, but to provide other people opportunity and access? Yeah. So I like that. Thanks. I mean, I haven’t written this out, so I’m just… [00:13:36][39.0]

Henry: [00:13:37] No, no, I think is great. I mean, effectively, we’re doing this core collectively crowdsourcing your next book, which is awesome. But I rarely get an opportunity to do this where I get the real time process, something with a pastor and who’s an author. And so this comes to me because the two things you said. One is that you talked about the biblical mandate, the creation mandate, the charge to take dominion. The fact that we were designed by a creator to operate in an economy. Second thing you talked about was the parable of the talents. Matthew twenty five. And their lesson from that and I thought popped to my head as you’re talking about it. So it’s also partially formed. But I’d love to riff with you about it for a second. I’ve always thought it was a great lesson about investing, but I’ve always been thrown off by the part at the end where one of the sevants comes back and says, I was afraid of you because I know you’re hard, man. And his master replied, You wicked lazy servant. Well, then, you should have put my money on deposit. What do I even make of that part? [00:14:37][60.9]

[00:14:38] But the thought I had from it is is the lesson that the servant should have endeavored to understand the intent of his master before he invested. And clearly, God is not the type of hard person that the servant saying. But the lesson there is, you fool, you should have understood what the commander’s intent was. What would have pleased your master? You went off and invested, or in this case, didn’t invest you, regardless of what I would even think about it. And that’s what really makes me mad to you. And I wonder if there’s application for us as Christ followers and that rather than just going to investing with Fidelity and Merrill Lynch are all fine institutions, but just kind of passively investing, kind of going through the motions. What’s it look like for us to really endeavor to understand what is our master’s intent? Our master is not a hard man. He’s a generous person and he wants flourishing. And so are we as investors really endeavoring to understand this is what God would have us do. And it’s that kind of the message is that maybe I’m one of the takeaways from Matthew twenty five. [00:15:41][62.3]

Tom: [00:15:41] No, I think you’re right. I mean, I’m just saying I think one of the things I’m most encouraged with you and Eventide and others who are thinking about this space is as just an individual investor. What are the implications for my investment? Does it own or God does it further the mission in the world? Common good. So I’m just saying, even this kind of movement of thinking investment, not just to prevent bad things, but to nourish good things. So I’m just saying I’m really excited very early in the conversation, FDI and the movement of investing wisely. But I think we’re on a good trajectory. Heart hard as you know more than I do. It’s hard to know what is exactly good and not good and where you draw the line. But I guess that’s right. The incredible opportunity for creativity, for impact is thinking more dynamic on the area, not only of diligence, but of justice and goodness that guide that investment decision. [00:16:32][50.4]

Henry: [00:16:34] And what does the master tell us elsewhere when he reveals himself to us about the things he cares about. And it’s those very things you’re talking about, about justice and access, opportunity for the marginalized. [00:16:44][10.1]

Tom: [00:16:44] Yeah, job creation. Right. To me, one of the great questions of our investing, not only return, but is this creating that energy of job creation, good job creation and dignity and opportunity for people. That’s a part of that investment ripple effect. [00:16:59][15.0]

Rusty: [00:17:00] Tom it’s Rusty and I want to thank William and Henry for inviting me into this FDI podcast. I’m a big fan of your book. I feel a little bit like a fanboy at this point because I’ve marked your book up like crazy and there’s at least a dozen, if not more thoughts that you bring in the book that I really hadn’t thought about. And one of those is you say those who apprentice their lives to him will bear much fruit. And what really struck me there was this word apprentice. I mean, I’ve never heard it put that we can apprentice our lives to him to bear the fruit. So I want you to dive a little bit into that as faith driven investors how we can apprentice our lives to him and you start to talk a little bit more. But I’m really interested in how you’ve apprenticed your life to get you to this place where you’ve written and can speak so eloquently about, you know, the economics of neighborly love and the economics of the kingdom. [00:18:00][59.9]

Tom: [00:18:01] Rusty. It’s a great question and my heart really animates with it. First of all, the word apprenticeship and fruitfulness, the biblical text we use the word disciple or student or pupil as a follower of Jesus and that word not to get into biblical languages. But one of the primary meanings of that and the early understanding of that word in the Greek text is apprenticeship, which again, apprenticeship is a really good word because it captures a holistic life, not just skill, but intimate relationship. And the best metaphor that captures this is Matthew 11:20-30 when Jesus invites us. And he just quoted two because he gives us this metaphor of the yoke, which is an apprenticeship metaphor of two animals being brought together in the first century to cattle or two oxen who learn how to plow others. They’ve learned how to be a part of that farm and what their purpose is in the world. So he takes this idea of learning from him, like being in the yoke, not like this, not an egg yolk. So he says, come to me, all who are wearing heavy laden and I will give you rest. Rest is a picture from Genesis of the Life. God has forced the full. I’ve got his words. But how do we do that? We take his yoke and learn from them. Right. And then he says, you’ll find rest of your soul. [00:19:15][73.8]

[00:19:15] But this idea of learning from Jesus in an intimate apprenticeship captures a sense of submission to him, relationship with him, and learning from him and in and through him. So what I’m saying is this apprenticeship piece ties to fruitfulness. So in John 15- Jesus and all who are my disciples, my apprentice, same Greek word, all who are my true followers are not only my friends. Remember that intimate with me, which is the number one thing of all of life, is relationship intimate with him. But as I’m intimate, I bear much fruit and so proved to be my father’s disciples or my disciples. So fruitfulness here has not only intimacy first, but it has character transformation and productivity and love. Right? This idea of productivity. So apprenticeship with Jesus is not just a vertical, it’s a horizontal that I take with me in my vocational life and many smart people. Dallas’. Well, one of them said that Jesus is the most brilliant person to take with you on the job. Right? Jesus, the most brilliant economists. He’s the most brilliant psychologist. I believe that from the core of my being. [00:20:20][64.8]

[00:20:21] So when I’m saying that connects to our work life now, because to be an apprentice with Jesus is not just something I do on Sunday. So I’m just praying to him and with him, which is important. But it’s all of life. So when I enter my investment zone, when my work zone, my primary teacher is Jesus in that career, that endeavor, that skill, that wisdom, not Jesus doesn’t give us the technical pieces, but he gives us the wisdom and empowerment and spirit, creativity to live into that world. So apprenticeship is the best summary of the word for disciple in the New Testament. And it’s all inclusive. My intimacy, my work, my relationships and marriage all of life. Our apprenticeship is comprehensive and holistic. So it profoundly shapes my Monday life and its shape and life. You ask me about me. I look to Jesus first and his teaching and his presence and his empowerment to do my job today, whatever it is. More than anybody else. I mean, I learn from everybody. But Jesus is my ultimate teacher. Every moment when I’m leading a meeting, when I’m planning, when I’m creative, when I’m making an investment, I mean that that’s the paradigm. It’s profoundly transformational. [00:21:31][70.2]

Rusty: [00:21:32] Right. And was there a catalyst in your ministry, in your life that opened up this window for you around how we can be better faith driven investors? [00:21:43][11.3]

Tom: [00:21:45] Yeah, I think the catalysts, first of all, would be, as I mentioned, that I am an apprentice with Jesus 24/7 in all dimensions of my life, that I look to Jesus for wisdom and guidance. And again, if I have that Rusty fire that then when I think about my understanding of work, economics, all aspects of economics, including from spending but also investing, that I am going to try to listen carefully to his voice, look at what he said. Think as he thinks, love as he loves, and try to make a wise decision about a particular investment or investing in the market. Where is I look to Jesus? I pray in making those decisions. So this is not weird. This is deeply existentially true. So I’m saying when I think about that. Of course, I look at all of the wisdom of scripture as an investor of my time, talent and treasure. So I’m looking at proverbs, but Jesus is the most brilliant investor. I believe that he’s the wisest person who ever walked this earth in all dimensions of life. And he’s invited me. And a great invitation. Matthew Levitt to come to me. Take my yoke and learn for me. And I believe that’s true every day. [00:22:56][70.6]

[00:22:57] So that’s been the transformation. And that does guide my decision. One of the struggles I have was how much do I invest now for later return? How much do I give now? And I’d say that that is the hardest decision for me. Do I give more now? Do I wait and invest? Hopefully with a greater return later. So maybe you guys are wise and your listeners, how do you do that? How do you navigate the goodness of giving now of your capacity, but also taking some of that capacity and hopefully multiplying it for greater generosity later? That to me is a really crucial question. I’m turning it on you now. [00:23:32][35.1]

William: [00:23:34] That’s a good question So, yeah, so you haven’t figured it out. That’s all right. Now, that’s one to pray about. I would love if any of our listeners have thought through that. Please let us know. I Feel like we hear that a lot. You know, there’s great principles around, you know, giving. You can see needs everywhere in the world. But God does tell us to be wise. You know, I feel like that’s both with disposable income but also with retirement income. I mean, all different types of investing are wrapped up in that. [00:24:00][26.0]

[00:24:00] And I feel like you can find biblical wisdom to support some version at least. Of course, there’s bad versions of all those, but some good version of most of those things. So yeah, if any listeners have thought through that, let us know and maybe we’ss bring Tom back on as he continues to think through it and to shift gears a little bit as we’re coming towards a close here. [00:24:19][19.5]

[00:24:20] You know, we usually ask kind of where God has you right now. So if you want to answer that and be great where God has you and his word. But also, as we think about that last question, I’m interested. I’ll change the question in the moment here from the spirit, hopefully. What could be a verse or a story that maybe our listeners could meditate on with regards to how to invest well, with how to think through that paradigm, maybe something that’s not the parable of talents, because I feel like we’ve all thought through, not all of us, but a good number have thought through that and not really found that answer in there, you know, is it in the easy yoke? [00:24:52][31.5]

[00:24:52] I’ve heard pastors say, you know, the yoke is a set of teachings in the ancient rabbinical tradition. So while it is an oxen analogy, it’s also more about come to me, be an apprentice, learn my ways, learn my yoke, my set of teachings, and then your burden will be light. And I’m interested if there’s a piece of that yoke that stands out to you in this moment for our listeners to maybe go to the great imitations. [00:25:15][23.0]

Tom: [00:25:16] Matthew 11:20-30 is a very misunderstood text, so we could spend time talking about that. But I think the invitation is so important. It follows from Genesis 17 and the texts of Torah because God says to Abraham, Here’s the picture of the life God has walked before me and behold, I will make you fruitful. I mean, that’s the big idea for the world. [00:25:37][20.9]

[00:25:38] So what I want to suggest is that the great invitation and Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 17, is this really an invitation first to intimacy with Jesus, with God, then out of that is wholeness, this integral life of rest and wholeness and then fruitfulness. So that tax particular I mean, if I might just want to finish in terms when I’m meditating on Jesus invitation. You think about to be his apprentice to find rest. We can not fulfill the great commandment. And again, investment fits into that loving God and loving our neighbor or the great commission of making disciples if we have not embraced the great invitation. So here’s one I simply want to say is that the great imitation is Matthew Levin, 20 30. It’s often a misunderstood text and lost text. But Jesus gives us the path to loving God and loving our neighbor in all its comprehensiveness and also making disciples of the world. If we do not embrace the great imitation, if we do not enter his yoke, which demands submission, submission to a person first and to his teachings, then we cannot love God and love our neighbor. It’s truly the Great Satan. And so many people talk about loving God to love your neighbor, but without apprenticeship to Jesus without entry is a joke with learning from him becoming like him. We cannot do that. So it’s the great I called the great set up. Just love God, love your neighbor. But if you’re an apprentice with Jesus, we’ve not entered his yoke of apprenticeship. We can not do that. On the other side, the great commission. Think about Mathew’s design. It ends with the great commission, which most of us know make disciples of all the world. Well, the problem is, if we’re not an apprentice or so we are making Fawlty disciples. So it’s the great mission. We call the great set up a great mission. So I do think this affects our investment group. Because when you think about our stewardship on Monday and the different vocational stewards we have of what God has given to us. How do we love God and love our neighbor? Well, with that investment. But the stewardship God has given us and how do we multiply that in apprenticeship and helping others? Right now, I assume that’s a big part of our mission is how do we help other investors? Other followers of Jesus invest? Well, we can’t do that apart from truly inviting them into the yoke of apprenticeship with Jesus. I just think that is being a yoked apprentice of Jesus to learn to live our life like he would if he were me. That’s the basis in all dimensions of life really connect. The great commandment and a great commission and profoundly, I think would speak into our investment challenge in our Monday vocation of investing well for the glory of God. [00:28:09][150.9]

William: [00:28:11] Amen, amen. I love what you said at the end there, too. You know about how, you know you learn how he would live our lives. And that’s not the same for everyone. My favorite little books on calling vocations come out of your life speak by Partner Polymer. And he gives this great phrase. He talks about how, you know, the rabbis of old want to be like Moses, right? That’s the person who they’re trying to model their life after. And this rabbi, Rabbi Zusa is passing away at the end of his life. And he’s lived a good life. And they and his disciples are saying, how do we be like you? [00:28:42][30.8]

[00:28:42] You imitated Moses to the greatest degree. How do we know that it will be like you? And he says this amazing quote that has stuck with me for a long time. He says. When I get to heaven, I don’t think that God’s going to ask me why I wasn’t more like Moses. He’s going to ask me why I wasn’t more like Zusa. I think it’s through that deep apprenticeship that we understand our unique calling and who God’s calling us to be and what our supporting role in his kingdom is. [00:29:07][25.1]

Tom: [00:29:08] Yeah. And the hope is rest for our souls, isn’t it? I mean this word rests on Genesis, but it’s living a life of good truth and beauty that God has called us to live and experience in all dimensions of life, that we experience that kind of life. That’s the hope of it, isn’t it? I just love it. And I will give you rest. Rest is repeated twice in that text. So the rest theme comes right out of Genesis to the life God has force inside of rest. Great, great. [00:29:30][22.7]

[00:29:31] So on this podcast, the feature investor podcast, we’re going to spend lots of time interviewing great folks that are experts in opportunity zones and who are experts in international currency arbitrage. And we’ve even heard from some people recently that think that there’s a great opportunity experts, spiritual integration and cryptocurrency in bitcoin investing. So we’re going to get pragmatic and actually look at actually how you deploy investment dollars. But if we miss as Christ followers and understanding about an invitation to apprenticeship and really to know God and to enjoy him forever, to know God, to love God and love our neighbor and to really endeavor to understand the master’s intent. If we don’t do those things first, then all the other things about how we think about asset allocation and ubit blockers and all the other things that we will absolutely take in this podcast, they will all ring hollow. And so, Tom, I’m grateful for the time you spent with us to help us to further our relationship with God, the father, to know him better, to respond positively to the great invitation, to encourage others to do the same. And I’m grateful for your leadership. [00:30:39][67.8]

Tom: [00:30:40] Thank you, Henry. [00:30:40][0.0]

[1663.6]

Henry: [00:03:01] Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We have yet another special edition this week as we interview a really key pastor in the life of Faith Driven Entrepreneur. When we think about a short list of folks that have really spoken into the strategy and just the mission in the coin and the vision of Faith Driven Entrepreneur. Todd Wagner is right up there. Right with the folks we’ve had on before. When I think about Chip Ingram and Tim Keller and JD Greer and as many of you know, he is the senior pastor, Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. He’s a great man of God. Very thoughtful about what it looks like to be a Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Investor. So much so that he and his elder board have graciously offered to host the first ever Faith Driven Entrepreneur in faith to an investor conference that’s happening a watermark this September. So we’re so glad you get a chance to partner with you, Todd, and the team there in advancing the conversation further. And we’re grateful to have your voice of encouragement in these crazy times. So welcome to the program. [00:03:59][58.4]

Todd: [00:04:00] It is a pleasure to be with you. Thank you, Henry, so much. And it’s it’s exciting that we’re gonna get to be together like a bunch of the guys that usually on this podcast. And we are grateful for the opportunity host. We’re glad that we can. And let’s get this corona virus outta here so we can make sure. Get done. [00:04:13][13.7]

Henry: [00:04:14] Amen. I want to start this podcast, though, before we talk about what’s going on this particular season. If you haven’t figured out by now, we’re recording these special editions in the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast at a time when Corona virus is really hitting the country hard. In March of 2020. And yeah, I think you to find that the context of this podcast is timeless. Right. Talking about how do we rely on God and how do we make most of the opportunities of Faith Driven Entrepreneur to know and serve him? One of things we always do on a podcast, of course, is to understand a little bit more about our guest. And so I want to start this podcast, Todd, by talking a little bit about your life pre watermark. And if I’m correct, you’ve not always been a pastor. You started your life as a lawyer. Is that true? [00:04:57][43.2]

Todd: [00:04:59] Well, not exactly, but I never thought I’d be a pastor. In fact, I used to tell folks that if you told me I was going to be one, I’d be taking a swing at you just because I had no idea really honestly what it meant to know Christ and the churches that I was around. Even from a distance as a nonbeliever, there were not churches that I saw doing anything really relevant. I saw men running a lot of very average weekly meetings with a bunch of bored adults. And I certainly whatever I would do with my life was not to lead average weekly meetings with a bunch of bored adults. So it was not too late by the kindness of God came to see the goodness of who he was. And then I got around his word. And then, by God’s grace, a few places where I saw men leading well, that he really captured my heart. Prior to that, I was headed to law school. And so that’s what I really thought I was gonna do. So, you know, just all the things to get my ducks in a row for that to happen. And then when God captured my heart, you know, really late in my teen years, the college years before, I was going to actually step into law school environment. I just found myself actively doing ministry. God just continued to grow my heart’s passions for some other thing. So I don’t think my passion ever decreased for what I would say is the faithful work of the Christian in the workspace, the largest made it clear to me that probably the best use of his life for me was going to be to convene, to equip and encourage the saints in the role that I’m in now. [00:06:27][88.1]

Henry: [00:06:28] But it would be possible for an attorney to be redeemed and become a pastor. [00:06:31][3.2]

Todd: [00:06:32] Well, let me just say this. My friend Kelly Shackelford, which if you are around that church and law space, Kelly argued cases before Supreme Court has a lot to defend religious freedom. Kelly wanted to be a pastor. I was gonna be a lawyer. He end up graduating number one from his class in law schools. And he was actually working as a volunteer at a ministry I was leading at the time. He said to me, I really think I want to be a pastor, so. Kelly, let me just tell you something, buddy. If God’s calling you to be in vocational ministry, I mean, I even don’t even like that term because all of us on this podcast are in vocational ministry. I might be only one that the world calls a pastor. We know, but we’re part of the kingdom of priests. And I have to tell you, Kelly, Kelly, we need godly law clerks. We need godly, you know, he clerked for federal judges. We need godly lawyers. And I had no idea when Kelly was 20 that he was gonna go on to be one of the leading advocates for religious freedom that was out there. [00:07:27][55.4]

[00:07:28] He probably had no idea that I was going to one day have the privilege of starting a church that would turn into what watermark is by God’s kindness has turned into. So, yes, God can redeem lawyers and God can redeem guys who think that life is going to be richer if they go into places where they can get earthly riches. And so my story is definitely a little bit of that. [00:07:46][18.0]

Henry: [00:07:46] The high end. And to be clear, as much as I love a good lawyer joke, it is amazing what folks have gone through three years of law school and see that as a vocation to be alone make really an incredible impact on policy and helping redeem all sorts of different aspects of society. Think about immigration law. I think about justice and some right with you on that. OK, so back to the things that I know a little bit more about. Let’s go into this. What’s going on right now, which is this COVID 19 coronavirus epidemic has continue to spread and it seems like the end of pandemic may even be in sight right now. You’ve written a few articles about it, one for the Gospel Coalition titled Should Christians Be Anxious About Coronavirus? And I’d love to hear about why you decided to write it. [00:08:28][41.7]

Todd: [00:08:28] Well, you know, it’s so funny. I wrote it right there at really the beginning of March. And as we can all look back now, just three weeks ago, it wasn’t that big a deal that very few people were that worked up about it. But I’d begun to hear some whispers. And so, you know, as a pastor. Folks usually let you know what they’re thinking about. And I had heard enough of this that I just decided to sit down and begin to shepherd myself and shepherd others by how we’re to think biblically about that. And so that’s really what the article was about to sit down to just find out a few thoughts that I’ve been a little surprised how much traction this court and how long it’s been a trending article in the Gospel Coalition. But when we look out there in the world today, well, it’s the Coronavirus, just a general sense of economic instability or just the fear of what might tomorrow’s going to look like. We all know that anxiety is well on the rise. In fact, what’s really interesting is I think two thousand eighteen, it was the first time. That for three consecutive years, the death rate or should be the life expectancy in America had gone down. And the reason it went down were all because of issues that are around this topic of worry that we’re going to talk about me because of suicide. Certainly that that was at an all time high and so it reduced the life expectancy. What’s interesting, too, before I finished the other two is the last time that America had a dip in life expectancy was in 1919 during the Spanish flu. Mm hmm. And so we went almost 100 years ago with life expectancy accelerating until the 2015 to 2018 timeframe. And it is because of suicide. It was because of cirrhosis, which we know is due to alcohol consumption and because of a spike in opioid deaths, which people looking to numb their pain and escape from their reality. So this issue is not related to the Corona virus. It’s been around for the last three years in a way that, you know, anybody who cares about people just needs to learn to talk about it now. [00:10:30][121.6]

Rusty: [00:10:31] Hey, Todd, you know, entrepreneurs just by our nature probably live with a certain case of paranoia. Right. I mean, we’re just like paranoid just to start with. Are they really going to turn out the way we thought? Are we going to hit the plan that we have in front of us? Will we get that next round of funding? And will we be able to hang on to that team member or get that team member or land that next deal? And there’s a sense of paranoia that comes with all of that that can turn into worry. And you mentioned worry there a moment ago. Can you dig into that for us and give us from a theological perspective, how should entrepreneurs think about worry? [00:11:11][39.1]

Todd: [00:11:12] All right. A couple of things. You know, it’s so funny when you said that Rusty and you just talk about how entrepreneurs are prone to that sense of paranoia. You know, I’m a bit of an entrepreneur myself, and I’m prone towards real optimism. You know, a general like with a can do spirit. That’s kind of what I think is innate in a lot of us that are creators and designers and developers. But part of being a responsible designer and developer is you’ve got to think through how am I going to finish this and take into account the cost. And so certainly there’s a sense of burden. So here’s a couple of things that I should say that we should think about, whether we consider ourselves an entrepreneur or not. If we consider ourself a person of faith, we just want to be individuals that are marked more by strength than we are fear. Proverbs, 24 10 says he was slack in the day of distress. His strength is limited and may never be said that God’s people don’t have what it takes at any given moment, because we know that our God is never shaken. And the scriptures would encourage us to once we experienced peace with God. Right. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. The scripture then says, if we will continue to keep our mind steadfast on him, will keep us in perfect peace. Or to use Paul’s words in Philippians, we are to be anxious for nothing because in prayer supplication with Thanksgiving, we let a request be made known to him. We keep our eyes focused where they should be, and it says they will not have just peace with God, with the peace of God. [00:12:37][85.8]

[00:12:38] And so let me encourage you with one little story that I actually heard. I’ve got a friend that last night was listening to our Dallas County judge who issued a shelter in place, command that goes into effect today. And he was just sitting there and he was watching this graph that this guy was showing that literally to make his case, said that there was gonna be half a million deaths, half a million deaths in our area if we didn’t do what he was suggesting we do. And he felt the blood pressure inside of him began to rise a little bit. And then he looked out his window and took out his iPhone. And he began to just film the birds that were out there. And the reason he did that is because you’re in that very moment, you know, his eyes and mine is the eyes of his mind. Went back to that little text of scripture in Matthew chapter six, where Jesus is just encouraging folks to not worry. He even talked about the birds of the air and how God takes care of them. And so don’t you know that you’re more valuable than the birds that are out there? He said the birds were not concerned about what the county commissioner was talking about. Right. You know, they were out there singing and they were flying about. [00:13:47][69.1]

[00:13:49] Somebody might say that’s all fine and well and good, but they don’t have 500 employees. They don’t have a bunch of investors that they use all their personal relational capital to get them to invest with them. And so this is my moment. So I’m not a bird. I’m a man and I’m an entrepreneur. So what should I do? Well, if you’re a man of faith. All right. What you should do is exactly what God tells you to do. Right. First, I want to say this to you. No temptation is coming to you as a man who started a business you start to fund. Was employees looking to them. No temptation is coming to you. But such as is common to man. That guy that works for you is wondering if the business is going to work. So you’re not to carry that guy’s burdens. And I’m supposed to carry you’re only supposed to let the Lord carry your burdens. And I just wanna remind you and one of things I said in that article was worry doesn’t really accomplish anything except creating weakness of heart and head. I love the story of Corrie Ten Boom, who, as we know, was one of the righteous among the nations, which is what the Jews called gentiles that did what God wanted them to do in a time of great persecution of the Jews. When you were a gentile and cared for the Jews, you got treated like a Jew, which is exactly what happened to Kaori and her sister. They ended up being locked up. And, you know, she just talks about how she realized and learned right then that worry didn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It just emptied today of its strength. And so as a leader, one of the things I would just tell you is you lead your company is it’s going to hurt your ability to do what you have to do with your employees and your investors are expecting you to do if you use your energy to worry about tomorrow’s troubles. That’s why the scripture says, you know, don’t be anxious for tomorrow. OK, folks. And today he says enough trouble of its own. So your job is to do what you should do today and not to worry about what might happen tomorrow. It takes the same amount of energy to praise. It does the worry. So it would be a man of prayer and prayers. And just like God, please show up and do this for me. Prayer is meditating on what God’s word has said and then to be attentive to that word so that you might do it. And so rather than fret, what you want to do is just say, Lord, you tell me if in trials and we’re certainly in trials and as a leader, you’re going to be in trials, a what it says, if any man lacks wisdom, he should ask of God who gives to all men, and he does it under grudgingly OK, and so God is ready and willing to help you. But she can’t help you when you’re spending your time worrying about what might happen as opposed to seeking what you should do. And so, you know, if God tells us to do anything you said once you worry about how you need to love people. Well, because that’s your job. As my ambassador, as my appointed servant leader that you have as a member of that company. So what I would say is your prayers should be Lord. Scripture tells me to trust in the Lord and do good to dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. So what this faithfulness look like for me today. And that’s where you want invest your time, not with worry. [00:16:51][183.0]

Rusty: [00:16:53] That’s good. That’s such a good word, Todd. And something that I think that’s not only relevant today, but for Faith driven entrepreneurs. Right. Is everywhere and should be at all times. And, you know, I think in moments like this, a lot of us try to look back at history and try to learn and bring forward. And there’s been such great words. And I know my e-mail box has been filled with C.S. Lewis and the atomic age. And his you know, his statements about that. And more recently, you know, I’m starting to see things and I know you’ve written about this and talked about it. You know what Martin Luther actually went through during the plague. And it’d be awesome to hear you talk a little bit about that, because that seems really relevant even today from a long, long time ago. So, yeah. Talk to us a little bit about, you know, what Martin Luther was going through and what we can learn from that. [00:17:40][47.7]

Todd: [00:17:41] All right. Well, this is great because you know Martin Luther lives in the 16th century, so the fifteen hundreds. And we know that the bubonic plague was something that was wreaking havoc in Europe for centuries, in fact, in the 14th century. So it’s been 13 hundreds. I think they estimate 60 percent of the population of Europe died. OK, that’s not 25 percent unemployment that we’re talking about right now on our economic forecasts. That’s 60 percent of the population of Europe died. The bubonic plague is a whole lot worse than the Corona virus. The plague would create not just high fevers, but large what they called weeping boils that would be on you. And even worse, because of some of the lack of medical development, the time there were doctors that would be propagating information that would say that you’re going to instantly die if the spirit of sickness that’s in somebody who has the bubonic plague even looks at a healthy person standing there. And so the conventional wisdom was, stay clear to sick, get out. Right. In other words, care for yourself and do what you can to survive in that particular moment. And so in the midst of that environment, we got him. John Huss wrote to Luther. He was another reformer in Germany. And in the 16th century, Luther actually had been commanded, if you will, by his government leaders to get out because he was a bit of a price leader. And they said, we want you to get out. His wife was pregnant at the time. So I want you to imagine this. And this is where Luther responded with this amazing little statement about what we should do. And I think there’s relevance for here for guys that are leading businesses, because when you are a leader of an organization. All right. You are responsible not just for the well-being of your family, but you are responsible for the well-being of others. And so when you think about what God wants you to do in that moment, you can’t just think of yourself. You can’t think about your reputation. Only you can’t think about your financial security. Only you can think about how you’re going to come out of this and maybe get people to invest in your next deal, because believers. And again, this is a faith driven investor podcast. Right. We’re believers. So we do nothing. We do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. But with humility of mind, we consider others as more important than herself. We don’t really look out for our own personal interests. We also look out for the interests of others. I read a Harvard Business Review article that we might even get to hear a little bit later in our conversation. That was just helping business owners rethink how they might act in this. But let me just finish what Luther said. He just said this. This is an answer to the question that just asked him. And the answer the question is whether one might flee from a deadly plague. This really great application, not just for pastors, for what believers do in troublesome economic times or in a time of turmoil. He said this. He said, very well, then, by God’s decree. The enemy is sent a pestilence. So let me tell my faith driven investors this sometimes that pestilence is a contract that didn’t actualize. [00:20:44][183.4]

[00:20:45] Sometimes it’s an employee that was unfaithful. Sometimes it was a guy that led you on that he was going to execute on our business plan that you had that he’s not. That can be a pestilence. All right. And so what Luther said is, I shall ask first of all, then God for mercifully to protect us. Right. So if it’s a situation where you caused the plague or the pestilence, then the first thing you need to do is own it. But a situation where you feel like you’re a victim of it, like let’s say we all are with the Corona virus or in this case, Luther was with the plague. You should just say, God be merciful to me. This is not a surprise to you. Right. And so my job is to be faithful in it. You would not have brought this to me if you did not want me to faithfully represent you in it. That doesn’t mean I’m going to get to always have it spin around and turn around. Just be this great Silicon Valley success story or this great Wall Street success story. It means I’m going to be faithful and faithfulness is success. So Luther says I shall administer medicine and take it. In other words, do the things you need to do to care for yourself. Make sure you’re practicing sound fiscal policies. Make sure you’re walking with integrity. The medicine of a businessman doesn’t change in times of crisis. And if you’re going to be in a world filled with some pestilence, the first thing to make sure you’re doing is locking down your own actions and being excellent in them. He said I still avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order to not become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others. If people in a city were to show themselves bolded faith, he says, when a neighbor’s needs so demands and cautious when no emergency exists, and if everyone would help ward off contagion as best he can, then he says in this instance the death toll would indeed be moderate. But and this is the key. If we are too panicky and desert our neighbors in their plight, then the devil will have a heyday and many will die. And so what Luther was saying is we have a responsibility not just to care for ourselves, but to not deserve our neighbors and their plight. And when I would just tell you, as a business leader, we do have a responsibility to our investors and to our employees and to those that place their trust in us. But your responsibility is not to be the messiah. You’re not God. You need to go to bed when it’s time to go to bed. And then you need to wake up and be diligent and have the mindset of Psalm 127. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain to build it. OK, so that means that we have to build a house. Doesn’t say pray God to build a house. All right. It says, unless the Lord is involved in this, it’s not going to work out anyway. OK. And so my job is to do what I’m supposed to do to frame this thing that was solid foundation to follow the blueprint. And then every good thing in my life is because of the grace of God and all that. Anybody who invests in me or who looks to me for leadership should want to see is that I’m doing everything that a man entrusted with the privilege of my position should do. And that’s your job is not to be a savior and not to save anything, but to work humbly, to work diligently, to work well in teams and to work in a way that isn’t just to further your best interests, but to honor God in all things. [00:23:53][188.0]

William: [00:23:54] Amen. William here. Thank you so much for walking through that. And as we think about this, I’m captivated by this specific virus where so far the number one thing they’re telling people is to stay home. Right. And to stay away from people. And so I think you did a great job walking us through the idea of listen and take care of yourself and do what people are saying. [00:24:14][20.6]

[00:24:15] But as churches are being canceled, as in-person gatherings are being taken away, and as that is the best way that we’re kind of hearing that we can love people, it seems like an odd dynamic where typically you would run and run to people you would want to be there, especially in the hospitals. I think about I’ve heard some terrible podcasts, right. I mean, a lot of these people are passing away with their loved ones, not their right, because they can’t be there. It’s just a very tough situation. And my wife and I were struggling with, you know, what does loving people well, look like right now. And as you have all have looked at that from watermarks perspective and your congregation’s perspective, what is the loving others look like while avoiding contact with them in this season? [00:24:57][42.6]

Todd: [00:24:59] So, yeah, we’re having to innovate, right? We all know that necessity is the mother of invention. And so we are having to innovate right now because listen, part of being a good citizen is asking how my actions are going to potentially affect others. We’re seeing a lot of the blogs that are out there right now. Is that the younger generation who is always fearless in the face of any kind of warning from any kind of authority they like is not that big a deal. A big I guess it’s just kind of a bad flu in my age group. Is that particularly at risk? Well, that might be well and good, but your age group interacts with other age groups and other age groups are a little bit more susceptible to probably some of the more adverse effects of the flu or specifically of the Corona virus. And so you have to be wise. And so again, Luther said this I would avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed or to keep myself being contaminated. Because I don’t want you to take a chance and in fact, and pollute others. I don’t know. Like Henry talked about how much we want to make this really about the Corona virus. But you know, the issue with this, the big flattening the curve ideology that’s out there is because of the fact that our nation is better supplied with hospital beds and ventilators than any nation on earth in terms of number. But we also have 300 roughly million people and we got a million hospital beds. So the entire at risk population is exposed to this virus, which they’re more likely to be exposed to it the more that they interact with carriers. And we don’t know who the carriers are. That’s what’s so sinister about this thing that our cavalier ness could put others at risk. So we don’t believe that we’re being good neighbors. If we just act like it doesn’t matter if I get it and it doesn’t matter if I give it to somebody else because I might give it to somebody else who puts people at risk, it won’t really get the care that they need at a particular time. [00:26:49][110.6]

[00:26:50] So I think we have to be wise. We have to again do nothing from selfishness or conceit. But at the same time, we don’t want to live in fear. I mean, a frightened world needs a fearless church. But let’s not use our fearlessness as an excuse to be reckless. OK. And so the Bible rewards obedience and faithfulness, not risk taking. And as a businessman, sometimes you take calculated risks. You step out what you would say in business faith. Would you look at the analytics and you look at the opportunities before you and you do your cost basis analysis as best you can and then you go? I think it’s worth I think I see a market opportunity is not guaranteed, but part of you using your intellect and your skills, you take some steps that are a bit of a risk, OK, and always have different risk profiles. Let me just say this to you. My point here is that in the midst of this, we don’t want to do anything just so that God has to show up. We want to walk with a God who’s already present in a way that other people look us to go. That was wise. That was insightful. That was selfless and not motivated by greed. [00:27:56][66.6]

Henry: [00:27:57] That’s a fascinating topic about the juxtaposition of obedience next to risk. And what I’m hearing and picking up from you is that there’s a lot of nuance around rescue, not saying don’t look at opportunities and seize them and don’t knock off into battle when there’s clearly a battle that to be fought. But wanton risk is not something that the Bible talks a lot about. And I think that’s interesting for our audience to hear because so oftentimes we think that entrepreneur equals risk. If you stay in your salaried position, that’s not risky. But if I’m an entrepreneur, I’m stepping out and I’m going to go ahead. I’m a lean forward into risk. And I think that’s really interesting. And I think that it’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs that are listening this to pray through. [00:28:39][42.0]

[00:28:39] What does that mean? Am I ever taking risk at the expense of being obedient on this podcast? I think we’ve talked in past about the good kings of Judah who went off and then took some risks and didn’t seek God and things went poorly for them and they were the good kings of Judah. Bad trade deal went off in a war when they weren’t supposed to. So what does it look like for us as entrepreneurs to be obedient during this time but all times? And are we ever erring on the side of taking risk? Because that’s what we think we supposed to do and entrepreneurs and leaving obedience by the wayside. I’d love that. [00:29:13][33.3]

Todd: [00:29:13] And one of the things I’ll just add, especially as Christians, words really, really matter. The Bible tells us all that God’s opposed to the property gives grace to the humble. It says, Your younger members submit to your elders and all of you clothe yourself in humility with one another. [00:29:27][14.3]

[00:29:28] And so as a leader, I would really encourage you to be very careful when you say things like, well, I really believe God wants me to do this. Sometimes I hear guys say this and I’m like, well, look, if you believe that God wants you to do this, then it’s not risky to do it. It’s risky to not do it. OK, because again, I want to just oppose, as you just said, risk from obedience and faithfulness is obedience. And so we have to ask ourself this. Did God tell me to do it? If God asked me to do it? And I’m his, then. I should even ask people to pray about it with me. But I think most of the time when we mean when we say that, you know, is a habit to kind of throw this out there, and maybe if it doesn’t work, then, you know, it’s not my fault because I was just trying to be faithful with God called me to do well. God is not a man. He’s a liar, son of man. He should repent, the scripture says. And so God’s not going to make mistakes. And so if God tells you to build a boat in the middle of a desert where there’s never been a rain inside the earth’s environment, that’s not risky. But you better know that God’s called you to do something. It’s also OK, though, to say, hey, guys, I as best I can as a man who’s studied and worked and gotten more proficient in analysis and leadership assessment, I believe there’s an opportunity here. And I really this is what businessmen do. They ask others. To have faith in them that they assess the situation correctly. And look, we’re not always gonna get it right. And the one thing that we can’t say to people when we’re talking in the business environment here. If you obey God’s word, you’re always going to get it right. But as it pertains to a business decision, one of the things that people will do is they want to follow individuals that will invite them into the process and not act like they’ve got all the answers they can share, why they believe this is the right thing to do, the analysis and the work. OK. They’re not just some slick salesmen. There’s not just a deck out there that tobi’s gonna be impressed with, but that you can come and lay before them your thoughtful work and then not intimidate them or even feel rejected if their risk assessment is different than yours, and that environments would love them by bringing them an opportunity. And if that thing is supposed to work out, it will. And if not, you did your best to try and create the opportunity and the pitch. Investors, I think and you were telling me that you get solicited a lot. Right. You say no to 9 out of 100 folks. And that’s not because those ninety nine did know God’s will. It’s because for that thing to happen this particular moment, you’re not gonna be a part of God’s provision. And men should walk away from you, not with bitterness or with a sense of disgust or some sense that you don’t trust me, but a sense of a Henry. Thank you that you gave me thoughtful consideration and loved me enough to believe I was even worthy of the conversation. And would you just pray that I see if this is not something I should do, or that God would give me the strength and perseverance to continue and then Godspeed. On we go. And we’re brothers. So I really mean, this is an interesting and fascinating conversation because God doesn’t guarantee us anything but that he’ll be with us and that each and every day we should consume ourselves with a desire to be faithful. And faithfulness is not to make success for ourselves. Success and prosperity scripturally is that this book of the law would not depart from my mouth. So I’d be careful to do according to all that is written in it. So faith based investor, invest deeply in your faith and just don’t slap it or God that the outcome has to be what you thought the outcome would be. Go to bed knowing that you were faithful and that you weren’t pursuing idols or trying to force God into your wonderful plan for your life. Follow him. [00:33:16][227.8]

Henry: [00:33:17] Yeah. That’s a theme we talk about a lot and it’s great to hear you look at it from a different angle here in terms of obedience. And we talk a lot about the difference between being willful or faithful or as kipping. I’m talking about whether we’re striving or contending, striving, being on your own power by contending, being with God’s power and in God’s power. I think there’s a lot about obedience in here as well. [00:33:39][22.0]

Rusty: [00:33:40] Todd, I love that whole idea. And what Henry was saying, too, about risk and obedience. Can you just dive in further on obedience for us? Because it’s such a hard thing so many times for us to figure out, are we really being obedient? And I think it’d be really helpful for all of us and me personally during this time. [00:33:58][18.3]

Todd: [00:34:00] Well, one of the things that we, you know, want to be as just individuals that are aligned with our sovereign king and you know, we are I tell you guys all the time to BYO that I want to go down for me as a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God. And that would be true if I continue to my legal career or if I go into business one day. I just want to say to my friends that are listening right here and just reminds you, we are a part of the royal priesthood together. We are a holy nation together. We are people of God’s own possession together. This clergy laity distinction is as unfounded biblically as the secular spiritual divide that some people have with the way they act on a Sunday or what they think about on a Sunday. And then Monday through Friday. You know, when they deal with Wall Street and investors, they go away. This is business. OK. Well, our business is always to be servants of Christ and to be steward of the mysteries of God. And so you want to just make sure that you’re not walking in the way the way you’re standing in the path, the center sitting with the scoffers. But your delight is in the law of the Lord. And on that law, you’re meditating day and night. So all of your principles need to be governed by who you say you are. Not on Sunday. But when you made a decision that Jesus was your king. All right. This should affect you in every aspect of your life. So worship. We don’t call our large gathering at watermarked the worship center. All right. If this was a video podcast, I would be pointing to my chest right now and say, this is the worship center. Right. My life is to use the words of Paul and Corinthians is the temple of God. All of us are worshipers. Jesus and John Ford just said, hey, there’s going to be a day when you can worship me on this hill or that hill, but you going to worship me in spirit and truth. You don’t need to have a central temple idea of worship or the sacrifices made because your life now I’m quoting Romans Twelve. Your life is a living and holy sacrifice which is responding to the sacrifice of Christ. That was once and for all made. So the temple sacrifices are necessary. And so that is our charge and our call. And so I and every large corporate gathered at watermarked with this little phrase that now it’s become hagwon. I saw a bunch of high school kids wear t shirts and then text messages with hashtag hagwow. And I go, what is hagwow? They laugh and go Todd, it’s what you say every single week when we get ready to leave. It stands for have a great week of worship, right? HAGWOW. And you know, that idea is when we leave our corporate time of remembering the goodness of God and reminding each other to respond to him. That’s when worship really starts. Well, we just got through was corporate celebration, corporate encouragement and equipping. But now we’re going to goby worshipers. And so what we’re going to do at work is worship. Work is worship. We say it all the time, right. In these environments that the work of the church is the church at work. So my job is to, if anything, as a pastor to encourage you and reminds you that God made you a businessman for a reason and be the best kind of businessman that is consumed with honoring Christ and everything. You know, I don’t wanna quote more Luther, but he’s got an amazing quote about a cobbler and the way the kind of shoes that he makes. I heard. I think there’s bread and manning. That said, you can be sure that there were no cricket chairs coming out of the carpenter shop in Nazareth. Right. And so there should be nothing crooked about the way you are leading your company or the way you’re making decisions. [00:37:41][221.0]

Rusty: [00:37:42] That’s really great. So we can now say it again. HAGWOW. Have a great week of worship. Great. So we used to have BHAG’s and now we’ve got HAGWOW I love it every day. [00:37:53][10.8]

Todd: [00:37:53] Hey, I like you better make sure you BHAG’s run through the HAGWOW grid. Right. Go ahead. I think it’s goal to honor Christ in all things as a worshiper. [00:38:03][9.3]

William: [00:38:04] Hey, before we get on, you were mentioning an article that you read in the Harvard Business Review recently that had some great truth in it about our current time and also about how we can do business as well. [00:38:15][11.2]

Todd: [00:38:15] Yeah, I’ll tell you why this is worth maybe pointing to. And so, you know, I’ll just share this with you. I don’t get to spend a lot of time with the hard news review, but I do have a friend that said, Hey, Todd, you would like this article. So, you know, I source articles lots of different ways. Sometimes I’m reading on my own time times a guy pay me. This is one that my buddy Jeff Ward, who is such a faithful friend here, who was a lawyer and is now on our staff team, he’s the one that turned me on to this. But the title of it, it was just written, gosh, three days ago. It’s called the Corona Virus. Christus doesn’t have to lead to layoffs. Now, here’s why I’m pointing you guys to this. [00:38:45][29.5]

[00:38:45] Whenever you read an article in the Harvard Business Review or any book by anybody, you want to read it in the same way that Paul and Luke said that the Bryans listen to him preach. Right, because you are being influenced by what you meditate on. And we should bet, Ted on the word of God. But we should absolutely be unafraid to be in conversation with people who bring across different ideas. I just wanna always test those ideas up against the word of God. So the Breen’s and Act 1711 says they were more noble minded than those who were deslonde icons because they listened to what Paul was saying and they tested it or they took it to the scriptures to see if those things were so. So when you read a Harvard Business Review article, what you want to do is just go, huh? Some of these suggestions that are in here, not only do they seem to maybe make sense, they’re also aligned with what we just got through, talking about what it means for me to be a servant of Christ, what it means for me to be a worshiper in the way that I lead in this particular moment. And so these guys did a decent job of just saying a couple of headlines in this thing. We’re like, hey, communicate openly. In other words, too many leaders assume that if we show any weakness and we tell our employees or our investors that we’re not really sure which is going to turn out, they’ll see us as a weak leader and they’re gonna want to abandon us or look for a different company when in fact, the very opposite is true. They love the openness. I mean, the scriptures say that. So here’s where I would say that idea is biblical, where it says that the goal of our instruction is love. A pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. I’m not managing information. To you, I’m going to be open about what I’m wrestling with and what I see potentially coming and what I’m doing to mitigate against a myriad of circumstances. The job of a leader is to anticipate what is coming right and is to define reality. And so one of the ways that you can help your employees is to just say, hey, listen, I’ve seen four or five potential tomorrows, not worried about them, but faithfulness in my role would be to consider how each of these could impact us. And certainly we all see certain things. Here’s some of my thinking about it. Here’s some of my concern and some vulnerabilities that I think we have in light of these things. And then the article goes on to say, one of the things that you might want to do is in the midst of being open and sharing, the plan is considering to crowdsource different ideas, which biblically is exactly what God’s word will tell us to do. I mean, he who isolates himself, the Bible says, seeks his own desire. He calls against all sound wisdom. And so there are ways to just ask others. Right. You want to wage war with wise consultation. The scripture says that the fool is more wise in his own eyes and seven men who give a discreet answer. So listen to other people and just say, hey, help me think through this. Here’s my plan. I’m not just numbed in activity, but I’m also not going to confuse motion with progress. So what do you think of these plans and what are some ideas that you have? So anyway, there’s just a number of different things that I saw these guys in this article talk about that I go, that is good advice because it lines up with what I see in the good book. So you should read every Harvard Business Review article, every Jim Collins book, and you should listen every Todd Wagner message at Watermarked Dawg the same way and just say, is it true? Is it founded in scripture? I love the way the article ends because it mentions and I can’t speak Swedish, but it ends with just that a leader should have ice in his belly and they use a phrase from a proverb in the Nordic countries that just talked about how a leader doesn’t get upset because his stomach is in effect strengthened and cooled by ice in his belly. [00:42:30][224.6]

[00:42:31] I would tell you that the scripture says the same thing, right? But that he was slack in the day of distress. The strength is limited. And as I said a while ago on the podcast. Far be it from us as God’s people that we should read more marked by fear, insecurity, anxiety and despair than by faithfulness and hope in our tomorrow. Even if that doesn’t turn out the way that we wanted to. From an investment standpoint or a future wildly successful career for me, if I’ve done what I should do with integrity, it’s successful. [00:43:07][35.9]

William: [00:43:09] Amen. Well, unfortunately, we have to bring the podcast to a close here. I would love to spend more time going through some of these topics and hopefully move some time on another podcast. But as we do come to a close, we always like to bring our Faith Driven Entrepreneur and our faith driven investor audiences into what God is doing right now in your life and in the life of our guests. It’s amazing how God’s word shapes itself through our listeners and through our guest. And so if you wouldn’t mind telling us maybe where God has you in his word. It could be in the season leading up to it. It could be this morning, something he may have placed in your heart and what he’s teaching you through the good book. [00:43:45][35.3]

Todd: [00:43:45] Well, my mind competed right then for five different places in the scripture. I was hanging out a little bit earlier today, but I think I want to go to this one. It’s at the very end of Deuteronomy right now. Kind of by reading through the Bible. I’ve been in Deuteronomy much. And so at the very end of Chapter 4, this is what it says. And I use this one because I think it’s just a good reminder for us all to have in season and out of season. That’s what the scripture means in Timothy when Paul says it. Timothy. We’re not just Christians when it’s convenient and we don’t just give God glory and honor when everything is up and to the right. Right in season and out of season. I want to be a man of the book. All right. So, by the way, in Deuteronomy Chapter 8, God says, hey, listen, I’m the one who gives you the power to make well. He’s also the one that gives you the ability. Now, I’m quoting from Philippians for. To do well in seasons where it’s not turning out the way that you had planned or had hoped. What I want you to know in the midst of every season and whether you’re in the midst of plenty or want, whether you are well-fed or hungry. Paul has learned the secret of contentment. And that secret was learned by Moses and Moses, who trying to remind the people of Israel to it. So this is what Moses says in Deuteronomy Chapter 4, and I’ll paraphrase the first part of this section of the end. And then our region specific parts. But basically in verse 32, he starts by just saying, just go back and remember who I am. So for the Christian, go back and remember what Christ has done for you in Romans 8 says you did not spare his own son, but deliver him up for sale, will you? Not also with him freely. Give us all things. So man was wonderful that he split the sea for the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. It’s wonderful that, you know, he covered the mountain fire. But what he’s done for you is even more wonderful. So remember the things that God has done for you. He says in verse 33, has anyone ever heard the voice of God speaking in the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and survived? Guys, we have the Bible in our hands and we can open it up to read every single day. And then a verse 34. He goes on just the list and the different things that he has done. But this is what I want you to hear. OK. He says, listen. Verse 40. So you shall keep the statutes and his commandments, which I’m giving you today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you and that you may live long the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time. This is what I would love our business leaders in this day and age to know there is something called gospel blessing. It’s what Paul is talking about in Philippians 4. And it’s very different than the perverted prosperity gospel. The Prosperity Gospel says that going well with you means you’re never going to get sick, which is crazy that your business deals always going to work out. You’re gonna be healthier, wealthier, wiser than you’ve ever been. Well, the wiser part will be true, but the wealthier part, I don’t know. Some faithful men. The Bible says we’re sworn in, too, and we’re fed to the lions. And sometimes God shut them out of lions. And sometimes you delivered people from certain death. I don’t know what your tomorrow is going to be. I just know that God is going to let you have his peace and whatever tomorrow brings. If you walk with him. And so that phrase in Deuteronomy, chapter four, verse 40 that it may go well with you is not to be distorted, to mean that your business is going to work. It means that the way you work in your business is going to end with you hearing the words. Well done, good and faithful servant. Sometimes God might love you just enough to let you be tested with a trial. He did that with Joe. And if anything, there’s not a health, wealth and prosperity trajectory for godly men. There is. I’m going to put you in situations that no men can continue to sink raises for me. Just to show that you love me and not things. That was certainly what he did with Job. [00:47:39][234.0]

William: [00:47:44] Amen, thank you so much for the good work. Todd, thank you for sharing your time with us. I know it’s a crazy time and I know you have a congregation that you’re chaperoning and for you to pay off in time to shepherd our congregation as well as just a true blessing. [00:47:58][13.5]

Todd: [00:47:58] Well, hey, guys, it’s a privilege. I really am grateful for you men as business leaders, the way that you are putting your faith to work. And through this podcast, through your ministry, through your gathering of guys and the fact that we’re doing to do it in person, September is going to be really, really exciting. So I’m humbled that you thought this was a good use of your time. And let’s just pray the Lord uses it to encourage people. [00:47:58][0.0]