Episode 165 - Marks on the Markets: State of Faith Driven Investing in 2024 with Henry Kaestner and Justin Forman
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We’ve barely made it past January and we’re already seeing incredible work happening in the Faith Driven Investing Movement around the world and across various asset classes. From the conference streamed in over 100 major cities to small group meetings and an intimate gathering of Fund Managers, God is moving through Faith Driven Investors who are taking on this charge to build, give, and invest for God’s glory.
So in today’s episode of the Faith Driven Investor Podcast, we’re going to hear Justin Forman and Henry Kaestner will share about the current state of Faith Driven Investing and show how you can get off the sidelines and get in the game, to be part of this exciting work.
They mention a handful of videos and resources that we’ll link below
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Joey Honescko We've barely made it past January, and we're already seeing incredible work happening in the faith driven investing movement around the world and across various asset classes. From the conference streamed in over 100 major cities to small group meetings and an intimate gathering of fund managers. God is moving through faith driven investors who are taking on this charge to build, give and invest for God's glory. So in today's episode of the Faith Driven Investor podcast, we're going to talk about the current state of faith driven investing and show how you can get off the sidelines and into the game to be part of this exciting work. Let's get into it.
Rusty Hey everyone! All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies of securities discussed, and this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization. Thanks for listening.
Joey Honescko Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. My name is Joey Honescko, and I'm filling in for our usual host, John Coleman and Luke Roush today. On a regular time, I'm getting to work behind the scenes as a producer of the show, but today I get to come out and chat with our two guest today, co-founders of faith driven entrepreneur and faith driven investor Justin Foreman and Henry Kissinger. Gentlemen, how are you doing today?
Henry Kaestner Well thank you. It's great to be with you guys.
Justin Forman Awesome. It's it's an honor. It's great to have you back. I mean, you're you're traveling a lot there for a bit.
Henry Kaestner I was traveling a lot. And it is a beautiful thing. More travel than normal. But, you know, we changed the way that we do the feature of an investor conference this year. In the past, of course, we've had this feature of an investor live, and we've had thousands of people around the world dial in same time. And there's something really special about being a part of the programing and guest there talking. And just everybody's experiencing at the exact same moment. And yet, of course, is the movement is getting more global. That gets to be pretty difficult with time zones. And so then we went ahead and we started doing it. So it'd be the same time, you know, say 8:00 in whatever region were in. But most recently we did something that allowed us did have a really neat barnstorming trip through Asia, and that is that engaged host and long term advocates for feature of an investor got in and said, you know, we'd like to host a watch party and cash would be great if some of the folks that are featured in the conference might actually be there for it. So that gave us an opportunity, as we've tried to be more and more flexible with that, to be in Jakarta on Tuesday and Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, Singapore was on Wednesday and Manila Friday, Hong Kong on Saturday. So it's awesome. And what was so encouraging for me is that, you know, ours is a movement that's powered by 3500 volunteers. And most of them, to be clear on the feature of an entrepreneur side, but a growing number on the feature of an investor side. And they're just leaning into the fact that, you know, we've got space in a church or in my business conference room, and I can invite 15 or 20 folks and let's get around the table and let's watch it. So we've had watch parties. I think it's small with maybe 5 or 6 and as big as, I guess, maybe 120 or so getting together and community fellowship. And I get a chance to experience that and eat some phenomenal food. But there's just something really special about experiencing a movement of God in different cities and realizing how universal God's love is. Anytime you get to be with God's image bearers, they come from different cultures. That's a special thing. And just, is really encouraging.
Justin Forman Yeah, it's so fun to see it. It's a local movement, but connected with that shared DNA. But, you know, you're talking about watch parties of all sizes. It's fun to see some of the yeah, ten, 20, 30 people in a smaller watch party. But you also had some hosts that had some epic setups. I mean, there were some screens there that, like, belonged in the basketball. Oh yeah. I mean, you had some great setups here.
Henry Kaestner The technology in Singapore was amazing. We had a, I don't know, a 70 foot wide screen. It was unbelievable. If you sat on the far left of it, just the way it worked, whoever was on the video looked much bigger. And so it's funny, I was sitting on the left hand side and as I was doing that co-host segment with Luke, it made me look like a giant. It made him look like a little puny guy, which I thought was very, very funny. I took a bunch of pictures of it I sent to Luke is Luke's, of course, a former football player, and I'm very much not. So I enjoyed my couple of minutes of being physically bigger than Luke.
Joey Honescko Yeah, it's cool too, because it's not just in Asia. That's where you got to go. But you know, we had dozens of folks meeting in Ukraine, was one of the big watch parties. We had, people all over Europe, Africa, in the US. So there were all these really cool things. One of the videos that stood out to a lot of people was this Dear investor, story. And, Justin, we're going to play the clip here in a second, but I wanted to set you up a little bit because you were kind of thinking about the value of this clip. Talk a little bit about just the vision behind it, and then we'll play it and talk about it a little bit.
Justin Forman Yeah. It's a gift to be able to work with such a creative team. And as we're thinking about some of these pieces with a Dear Entrepreneur video that we did at the Feature an Entrepreneur conference this year, we felt like we wanted to present the issue from a bunch of different perspectives. And so in that piece, we were trying to speak to this wound that a lot of entrepreneurs carry, this feeling like there's a disconnect in the church. And so when it came to investing, we came to this piece we're trying to wrestle through, I think really two things. One, like, how do we present this thing that God's calling us into, not as it got to, but as it get through. And I think internally we've talked about like, how do we marry that passion and boldness that we. A friend like David Platt has in his teaching to this contagious joy of like, Nicky Gumbel. And so the people see it's not like out of compulsion, but it's this upside down journey, an adventure that's fun and exciting. It's living on the edge. And so we endeavor to try to create a piece that did that. But then the second thing that I think that was so much fun was really showing what Henry's remarking on us is the global nature of the movement, that this is not one ministry, this is not one organization, one fund manager, one pastor, one anything. It is a collective thing. And the snippets of these pieces from voices of leaders in the movement from Africa to Asia to the US, in all different asset classes and generosity in investing and young and old. It was just fun to really kind of pull together a piece that I think is kind of like an anthem cry of saying, okay, what is this really all about? So yeah, it was a lot of fun. We're so grateful for so many friends that contributed to the piece, and it's been really encouraging to see how it turned out.
Joey Honescko Yeah, the video is definitely worth watching. It adds a lot with the visuals, but here we're just going to play. It's about three minutes. We're going to play the audio clip and we'll jump back in after that. It's time we had.
Video Transcript An honest conversation about wealth. Money has power, and Christ followers are just as enticed by what it offers. We've been trained to think that comfort comes from collecting and consuming. We fill storehouses with security and give just enough away to feel good while staying safe. We might check boxes of generosity, but our desires are suddenly focused on prestige, recognition, stability. We don't have to settle for a casual, comfortable Christian spin on the world's definition of success. We don't have to try to balance God and money. Jesus makes it clear that we cannot. We can only serve one master, not two or even one and a half. Money beckons us with promises of power, but then it holds his power over us, makes us operate from scarcity, not abundance. As if God never fed thousands with a willing kids lunchbox, the boy gave up all his power. Five loaves, two fish, 100%, not ten, not 20, or even 90. And it wasn't about. The tools he held, it was about how he held them, saying, Lord, use what power I have for your good and your glory, not mine. God has given you a lunch box to. He's equipped you with capital, influence, leadership. And he's inviting you into an incredible journey where you partner with and see lives changed and communities restored. But it starts with surrender. It's his plans for your investment, not yours. It's his reputation that drives you, not yours. It's his mission that consumes you. Now yours. See, there's a growing movement of faith driven investors deploying capital for God's kingdom. And you can be a part of it. As individual investors, fund managers, advisors, ministry leaders. We have different roles. Yet our calling is very similar to glorify God in all that we do. God doesn't want to guilt you into anything. He wants to invite you into a wildly different way of seeing everything. He wants to bring you on an adventure into an upside down world where you find joy through surrender, where you receive, when you give, and where abundant life comes down from weighing your life down. Every investment has an impact. What will yours be? We want to see God's will done in every corner of the earth, from every tribe and nation and time under his power and for his glory. Amen, Amen, Amen.
Joey Honescko I think one thing that stands out when I hear that video, and I've heard you guys both talk about this a lot, and it's worth mentioning, is this idea of joy through surrender that this isn't a trading down or a sacrifice, but this is a trading up that comes from living out the way that God has called us to. So I'd want to give you guys a second just to kind of riff on that particular topic. And then I'd love to hear what kind of stands out in the particular lines that are meaningful to y'all as well.
Henry Kaestner Well, I think there are a bunch of things that are at play here, and I think that one is absolutely a joy through surrender. But I think that it works best when we embrace this theological concept that God owns at all. You'd think that would be very, very bad news for the person who is. Up until now, I thought that they owned 90% of everything and got on 10%. Any day in which you lose 90%. You know, that would be a bad day, you'd think. And yet, the counter cultural reality of the way that God designed the world in us to be in relationship with him is that as we do surrender, we get this joy and we give up this monochromatic life that's conformed to the pattern of world. And we walk in this technicolor, beautiful life of living with God in and as his steward, rather than the burden of owning and all the things that money can do as the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches kind of crops us. When we change that, it is something that's really powerful, and yet that is amplified when we do it together in community. See, wealth isolates, and that's a challenge. And it's maybe the way that Satan would have it. Wealth isolates us. And as people have more and more wealth to steward above and beyond that which they might even need in this lifetime. But definitely in the course of this year, people try to hold themselves out a little bit because they're concerned that people are asking them for money, and most people do. When we've all done that, we've all been at different stages in our life. We've seen people that have more wealth or power, and so we are attracted to them and we want to we want to invite them into what we're doing or ask something of them. And so while it tends to isolate, I think one of the most powerful parts of what happens is FDI watch parties is that you get these two things happening together. One is the joy through surrender and the joy and real, with a real emphasis on the joy. And then doing that in community and experiencing that joy together in a non prescriptive, presumptuous way. It's not like, oh, well, if you're not investing in this fun, whether you're not doing this well enough. No, it just is. What is God telling each of us? How do we share best practices? How do we do this in community? And that becomes something really beautiful.
Justin Forman You know, I think one of the things that strikes me about it is what Henry is talking about here, Joy, is I think we've gone as far as obligation can take us. I think in the church that this conversation of obligation or obedience or you should versus you get to like, I think that we have to pivot because I think we've gone as far as obligation has taken us.
Henry Kaestner I think that's a good word, you know, because we try to be faithful and obedient. Right? But there's something on the other side. But what you're saying, I think, is that we've kind of maxed out the whole dialog around money and power and possessions and all those things has been about faithfulness and obedience. And there's great scripture on that right side of self take up our cross, etc. and yes, we need to be faithful and obedient. And yet so much of the gospel message, of course, is on this other end of the spectrum, right?
Justin Forman Oh, absolutely. And I think it's you have to get to the other side. And it's hard to like, even talk about the joy until you get to the other side and taste that joy. And I think that like, it's what you're hitting on is, is when you do it in community, people help you get over that gap, that chasm, whatever it is. And once you get into it, it's I mean, your analogy of Technicolor, some of our listeners might be a little bit too young for that. It might be 720 versus 4K, whatever the analogy is. But the point is still the same. It's like once you see it in Technicolor, once you see something in 4K, you just can't go back. And it's that joy element of it that, you know, it's like we've made it so complex sometimes that it's so simple. And I think that at times, like when you said that aspect of like, there's a selfishness in this, in some ways it's like, I do this because I want to feel God's pleasure and then experiences joy. But I think it speaks to Scripture where it says, actually, it's not selfish. It's like when your prayers are aligned with his heart. That's the beautiful thing. It's not that you're pulling in a different direction. It's it. You're praying for joy. You're wanting joy. And those are the prayers God wants to answer. You don't have struck by that because. So this week we're filming a project for faith through an entrepreneur, an investor about prayer, and a friend, Derwin Gray, pastor in North Carolina, spoke to this concept and he let this simple statement said. He said, If God answered all of your prayers, would your life be more holy if he gave you everything that you prayed for? Would it look more like his kingdom, or would it look more like an Amazon shopping list? Would it look like that? It really stepped into what God wants, and I think that's what you're hitting on is, is like when we're pursuing joy, when we're pursuing that, like God going to step into those moments. And yeah, there's just something about joy. It's going to be just, I think, a key piece of this movement for the years to come.
Henry Kaestner I've got to answer all my prayers. The Ravens are doing the Super Bowl. I think that's a great point. I'm so excited about that series coming out. It makes me think about Chip Ingram as a frequent contributor to all that we do. Effort driven. Who talks about the four prayers that God answers being Ephesians one and two. Philippians one, Colossians one two about really praying in a way that is in line with God's heart, with a hopeful expectancy, that in doing so we will experience his joy. Because that's the way the God designed us. And yet so much of what we do is it tend to be apart from that. And so it's this balance. Just to recap, for those of you who are following along, it's just faithfulness, obedience on one side. Right. There's this. You know, we hear about the tithe and there are different things that we need to be thoughtful about. And they're very good points in Scripture. And yet this movement is about taking that that's already in existence, of course, and then bringing over the sense of joy and gratitude on the other side. So the gratitude coming from the fact that we've been given this gift of life and we have it now and forever and just opportunity to participate in the work that God is doing in building the world. So we're grateful for the fact that we get to do that. And then the joy that comes with bringing that all together and doing it in community and seeing things that are just infinitely more fulfilling than all the things we otherwise would have wanted on our Amazon list. And yet, I'm so grateful we're doing this this morning, because otherwise, every day, if I don't talk about this or think about this, or do this in communion, maybe not every day, but on a regular basis, I will drift back into being conformed to the pattern of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. And maybe that's because of the power of mammon.
Justin Forman Yeah. A powerful thought there. You know, one of the other things that maybe change in conversation a little bit, Henry. I'd love to hear your thoughts on just these moments, these events, these conferences. It's a fun, like, kind of measure up moment where you can see where the movement has grown. The steps that have been taken. We're such doers as entrepreneurs. Investors were always thinking about what's next, what's next, what's next. And we don't have those moments of like pause and reflect and say, man, how far things have come. How much God has been up to. And I don't know about you, but I was just struck by so many of them. I think two things that stood out to me was one was just the momentum in the conversation with Dallas Jenkins that John Coleman had, and just about the wonder projects and some of the big things happening. And there have been recent news here in the last couple of weeks about the House of David series. That's going to be a part of that Amazon Prime getting behind it. You just can sense this momentum of conversation that's happening there on that front and the faith driven investing community really rallying behind that. But I think the other thing that stood out to me was just Tim's conversations about just the growth and the maturing that's happened in this phase. I mean, I think some of the statistics that he said in that was that we've gone from, what was it, 22 products to 155 with 29 new products and funds, kind of launched in the last two years. And in then he started talking about that, I think mainly first from just a public markets perspective, but then he shifted it into just kind of the whole movement as a whole. And I mean, you've been in this I mean, even from the beginning, like, how does that conversation, when you hear Tim talk about the progress and the things that are happening, how does it impact you?
Henry Kaestner Well, I'm encouraged by. There are a bunch of different things to point to. I think that this year we had a feature of an investor conference for professionals and the venture capital private equity industry. So it's last Friday, and we had 168 of them at the Rosewood Hotel in Menlo Park. And it was so cool to hear about how some of these fund managers are incorporating chaplaincy, or offering chaplaincy up to some of their portfolio companies, and starting to feel better about sharing their faith in a winsome way to their portfolio companies, and how increasingly faith driven entrepreneurs in emerging markets are getting access to capital that is aligned with their faith. So there's some incremental things that are developments in pretty much every type of industry, real estate. Absolutely. But then, of course, private equity in venture capital now, and also on the public market side. So we have, you know, there's a first ever ETF that's investing in Christian CEOs, a publicly traded company. So companies that are publicly listed run by Christian CEOs. And there's just great work that's being done by Eventide as they continue to invest in a way that makes a world rejoice. I mean, there's so many different great things that we hear about along the way. And yet when I hear of people coming away from these conferences, it tends not to be any one particular thing. It tends to be the sense of, wow, I found a community of people that are really wrestling with these things, and the benefit and the joy, and the thing I'm taking away from this was how I just feel much more alive in my faith in this community. And that happens on the watch parties, of course. And I happened at the conference we had at the Rosewood. But it happens with these faith driven investor groups we have. The biggest takeaway is like, I was in this group for six weeks, an hour a week. You know, we go through and learn about some of the things are going on. But I met people struggling with the same things I am. And, you know, can we make money doing this? If you're talking about feature investing, is it mean that we need to just go ahead and just, you know, give up Alpha and in the name of Jesus or what does this even mean? Am I judged because I do this or that? And just being able to process all of these things together and finding new friends and a bunch of them decided to go to Africa together to find out what's going on in Africa. So I two weeks from now, it's a group of about a dozen that are part of Phaedra investor Group are going to go to Nairobi, Kigali and Lagos, Nigeria just like, hey, we've all been in this group together. Let's go talk to some fund managers. Let's find out if we can do this in a way that makes an impact. Let's find out if we can actually find some fund managers that actually can provide some good return. And what does it even look like? But I think that in each case, the what's really drawing them together is this kind of like it's a I don't know if this worship is the right word, but it's this it's this togetherness, is this community of people just like, hey, we're all trying to figure out how to steward what God's given us. Let's do it together. And the joy that comes from that. I'm really looking forward to hearing with these folks, these 12 people learn when they come back.
Joey Honescko Yeah. What I'm excited about what you're saying, Henry, is pulling all these different pieces together. We've talked about heart change kind of in this early stage with this Dear Investor video, this going from black and white to Technicolor existence. And then you're talking about the role community plays in shaping that. And I think Tim's content and some of the other things that we've seen here talking about the. Opportunities to really get in the game. And one of the coolest takeaways for me when I was watching the conference was seeing stories like the Germans or the Farrells of these people that actually stepped up and saw, hey, I can get in the game, I can do this. And one thing that I was thinking about, Henry, as you were talking, is in your early investing journey, how did community help you align your faith in your investing? I've heard you talk a lot about the way that community in general does that. I'd love to know, just kind of from your own experience, what that has looked like.
Henry Kaestner Well, everything I've ever done entrepreneurially it's always been done with a partner. You know, the most recent example, of course, is Feature of Movements with my partner. Justin is on the line right now with us. And the case for me to answer your question is co-founding Sovereign Capital with Andre Mann and with Luke Roush. And Luke and I continue to talk like once a week as we just process what God is showing us as we steward our own personal capital. But then as Luke, as a fiduciary, and I've moved on now I have a full time in the ministry. But just as he and John Coleman are fiduciaries of other people's money. But I still get involved because we're looking at these trends about what's going on in real estate investing and what's going on in public markets, and how we're thinking about voting proxies, and how do we have a winsome witness to our faith as we steward capital? So for me, it was when you talk about joining a community started off really just deep partnership. And Luke and I committed. I can never done this by myself for that matter. I could never have done bandwidth without David. I could never have done Chapel of Brokers without Tom hunt. I think I know that God has designed us to be in partnership. Jesus, you know, sent two grown men to go get a donkey. So there's this opportunity to do things together because it's otherwise it's just super hard, super hard for me to do anything by myself. Thank goodness he sent me. Kimberly. I don't know what I'd be if I didn't have Justin as my partner of Faith driven, and Kimberly is my partner at home. I don't know, I probably would be eating wild honey dressed in camel's hair.
Justin Forman You know, Henry, one of the things that strikes me about that is it's like, yeah, you're just talking. You've talked about community beginning. Then you broke it down to like, from 0 to 1. You broke it down to that idea of like, what does it take to find that person, that partner, that person for you and your family, that person in different ventures and things. I think that's one of the things, Joy, that when I look at the stories about the women. And then when I look the one that we did about atomic Angel group. Like, there's such humility in that. And I just want to just, like affirm, encourage, celebrate that. Like there are people when I think about doing DNA and I think about the humility of that story in like, how Dana just breaks it down to say, hey, we stepped in this major wealth event and it scared me and it paralyzed her. And she tells the story of like every decision, like, do I buy, you know, is it window treatments? Like, is it this car, is it this trip, is it this whatever. And she talks about that. But then she talks about the point where they found another couple. I think it's April Chapman and her husband that then started this conversation where she felt safe and she felt they both felt safe having these conversations about things that are otherwise off the table in church. And I'm just so grateful for that story because it's fun to see the progression of the movement, or in some ways, the collective words of the movement go out, and then they come back, and they come back in a form that's so much richer than the way that they went out. And it's because of that humility, it's because of that authenticity. It's because of that vulnerability that we're able to say, oh, that's what this looks like to get in a game that's more accessible than I ever thought it was, that's more joyful than I ever thought it might be able to be. And so I'm just so grateful for Bill and Dana in that story. And of course, then the Potomac in January, maybe we'll get more into that. But it is just fun to see leaders of the movement, the humble heroes, taking this movement deeper by their authenticity, in their vulnerability.
Henry Kaestner I think through the grace of God and great content team, I don't know, we've done 120 stories or something crazy. I mean, a lot. The team has been prolific, by the way. You can find most of our videos on the faith driven, itinerant feature of an investor video library sites, and you can get a sense for this. And yet and maybe it's just because it's a recency bias. I think my favorite story that we've ever done, definitely a feature of an investor is Bill and Dana Westerman, because it's so raw and it's so real, and it talks about being in partnership as a couple. And there's a line in there. She's like, and I didn't want to be bullied, right. Because I see that in my relationship with Kimberly, because we've at different times, we've been at different places along our generosity, journey and generosity can sometimes get conflated with fate driven investing. And part of that's good, part of that's bad. The generosity part is helpful because that's what taught Kimberly and I both that God owns at all, and that that's not bad news and giving is a part of that. But then also is investing and so is our lives in our time. But I know that different times I've been ahead of Kimberly on the generosity journey, and there have been times when she's been ahead of me. Where is it point in time where we had a second home that we really loved, and yet we really were excited about making a gift to ministry called Hope International Microfinance. And it was Kimberly that suggested that we sell the house. So it doesn't mean that I'm always even though this is kind of what my vocation is, doesn't mean that I'm always the one in lead. In some cases, she's the one in lead. I was a little bit more excited about holding on to that than Kimberly was, but the investing side is something that is just altogether it's different and it's beautiful in there, can be really productive and participate in seeing other things grow fruit on other people's trees. And that happens too, with giving. But this concept of innovation and taking what's wrong in the world and using for those of us who come at this with an entrepreneurial background, just the creative process in coming up with an innovation that fixes what's wrong in the world, either to return us to the Garden of Eden where things were really, really perfect or to bring about the New Jerusalem is something that's just really powerful. And you get this tension and you get to see the sense at one point in time, Dana was behind Bill in this journey, but then she kind of goes out in front and just is able to just really get the sense of this, the beauty of it all. So it's just such a beautiful story. I shouldn't wax so long on that one. But I think that as people go through the series and see that Bill and Dana worked in story, they'll identify with it. They'll see the fact that's so important that we do this together, and they'll get a sense for just the challenges, but also the opportunities as well.
Justin Forman You know, I think it's beautiful to look at the power of the stories. It's beautiful to look at so many partners today would be remiss to not mention so many great ministries and partners and friends in the space. From generous, giving and generous, you have a national Christian foundation and so many the hosts of these watch parties. Nothing. I tend to think what they set in motion by their faithfulness and obedience and catalyzing movement in their city. And so encouraging to see that. I think one of the things that I would also before we kind of maybe move to the kind of some of the next ideas, is like, where were we challenged from this event and where were the things that we felt like maybe we got feedback on and said, hey, where do we go? Further still? And I was struck by one comment that somebody made about just saying, okay, there's. Some stories and some great things that talked about gospel proclamation and talked about sharing the why, what we do. And I think collectively as a movement and as a ministry, there's a challenge for us to say, how do we make sure that we don't just rap, either great results or great impact or social side of things, but we don't miss the opportunity to share the why that drives us. The story, the words weaving the gospel threads into this conversation. It's tough at times. It's tough as in faith to an entrepreneur. And sometimes it's even, I think, more difficult for the patron investor. But I think that's a challenge into growth area for us as we tell stories and content. But I think it's a growth area also for the movement, for us to say, what does it look like to make sure that we don't work so hard to get to that place and then miss the opportunity to tell that? Why?
Henry Kaestner Yeah, I'm trying to think about you. Get me going with what kind of feedback did I get about the conference and what's next. And the thing that is really our greatest challenge, I think, in the movement over the course of the next several years is developing the third leg of the stool. So many people want to get in the game, and yet for good reason. We're working with financial advisors who are trusted, fiduciary, who are working with us to help us to understand our need for income or our tolerance for risk, or the different places where we feel called. And that's a really valuable part of the ministry. There's some number of people come out of the faith driven investor group who then go ahead and are able to get right in the game, and they see a list of 35 different fund families that are on the feature of an entrepreneur marketplace. And they're like, okay, I want to go ahead and pick some that are in real estate, some that are in emerging markets, and some of them are private equity, venture capital. And I'm used to making my own investment decisions. But most of the way that people steward wealth is with working with an advisor, and for good reason. That's a really important role in society and the economy. And I've been encouraged by and this is a difference, I think, between this year's watch party and conference and the year before is that more financial advisors were hosting and involved in watch parties and are starting to develop those arrows in the quiver and just acknowledge the fact that that's difficult to do. So many of the ones that are working with wealthy people have been doing this for 25 or 30 years. So for them to change and go ahead and onboard new fund managers and to do the discovery and diligence behind thinking about, gosh, now I've got to go ahead and onboard another 5 or 6 different fund managers because I want to have something in real estate. I want to have more arrows in the quiver, so to speak. That's a lot of work. And that's the number one thing. I think that the movement needs are more advisors to come in and say, you know what? We see that there's an opportunity to start an investment capital way that builds God's kingdom. We're going to go ahead and do the work to onboard some of these new funds, understand what's right for our clients, and then we're going to commit a part of our practice to helping people to understand not just how they can make more money, just to give it away, but how in the process of investing the capital that they need for retirement or for college education or whatever might participate in work, that guy's burning Kingdom right now. And yeah, some of it could be negative screen stuff, which is, you know, just making sure we're not investing in pornography and gambling and some of the other things that some of the big name companies are involved in. But more importantly, I think what positive screens, what investments might we make that would allow for flourishing both on the private equity and venture capital side and real estate, but also on the public markets? That's the key part. That's what is not completely there. Hopefully there are some listeners to this podcast who like, you know what, I get it. I see that there's going to be market demand. More and more people are coming out of faith driven investor groups who want to get in the game, and I want to help them be that river guide.
Joey Honescko Yeah. As we come to a close here, I'm thinking we touched on heart change. We've touched on the opportunities in the movement. Now we're talking about some of the barriers of the movement. I would love to end this here thinking about what are the hopes for the movement in 2024?
Justin Forman You know, I mean, that could go so many different ways. And it's such a big, broad movement that it's going to be hard to even scratch the surface of the whole thing. But if I were to reframe that and say, what is one of the things you're most excited about in this season? And to build on some of the things that Henry mentioned when you talked about the partnership and recognizing that this is a decision with him and Kimberly. And then when I think about like what Henry is talking about with the River guides, I think one of the things that we just continue to be reminded of is that this journey to faith driven investing, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. It's going to take a lot of things, and it's going to take several key partners. It's going to be making sure that you're reunited at home and that you're connected, united, something different, but something similar with your advisor. And I think that one of the fun things that I'm really looking forward to is that we have this new project releasing, and Brooke and Luke Roush can talk through their journey. And so that they it's broken and kind of talk through it and just talk through their journey of like being in this space, but then also going there as a family themselves. And I think that that's going to be just an incredible tool. Do something that couples can go through with other couples individually. But I think it's just going to be a key step in the movement to uniting a home, uniting a family and saying, hey, this might take some time from us to get where we are from, where we are to where we want to go, where that's calling us to go. But it's such a needed one. Like if you want to go nowhere, try and go somewhere alone. If you want to go somewhere far, you know, go together with your spouse. And I think that that season is it's a fun thing that we're recognizing that like, these are needed conversations that have to happen. And it's one we're right on the edge of.
Henry Kaestner Yeah. And a further that, my hope is that husbands and wives get together on their knees and just ask God how he would have them steward their lives, but yes, their investment capital in their financial resources. That's the big win. That's the thing that can happen right now. I remember as we were getting started with FDI, maybe 6 or 7 years ago, as were coming up the idea, I think the first conference might have been five years ago, but a friend of mine named Ben Shelf was looking through the white paper we're putting together and sort of kind of our plan of action, and one in which we talked about one of the big challenges was that there wasn't enough supply. Now, five years on, there's a lot of supply. There's a lot of fund managers that committed themselves to their faith and written spiritual migration plans and big multibillion dollar funds and new funds and all that. So supply is not a problem. But Ben suggested there was supply wasn't a problem before either. He said. It's not a problem of supply and demand. It's a problem of us just not asking God intently about how he would have a store to camp on. The example that he had, and not a bragging way, was that they had gotten a big windfall from selling a company that he owned, and so he got down on their knees and they said, God, we have no idea how to invest this capital. How much of it should we give? How much of it should we invest? But we know it's all yours. So we ask that you guide us in the next week. Somebody that he knew who's on the board of, I think it was InterVarsity or just a larger organization who had had a good presence in the Bay area, was getting evicted from their building that they're in. So they went ahead and they bought a building to house this ministry. And it was a financial you know, the ministry had been paying rent before. And so they continue to pay rent. And so Ben and his wife were able to make a fixed income type of return in a way that was a great blessing to the ministry. And God answered that prayer. And that's the big win. The big win is just asking God lead us with hopeful expectancy that he will. But I think that more than anything else, God just wants us to be in relationship with him. And too often I haven't asked God about how he would have me make any one of a number of decisions, but way too often it's financial. And when it's financial. In the past it had been about giving or how much to give, but he did not until recently ever been about how would you have me invest? I just made the assumption that God wanted me to invest and make as much money as possible, and I just I never asked him. And that's the big win for 2024, is that more and more couples will get down on their knees and ask, God, how would you have a steward of capital? And there are a lot of listeners to this, to be clear, that are single. It's just that we want to make sure that for those who are married, they don't go, this, this is not a single player sport unless you're single and great. Being with you guys always is.
Joey Honescko Always a pleasure. Thank you Henry. Thank you. Justin. Justin, you said that phrase scratching the surface. And I think that's what this episode did. We're going to dive into a lot of these topics in more detail over the coming weeks. So keep up with the show. Check out the website for those videos and those resources that we're talking about. And, we'll see you in two weeks. The next show.