00:00:49.880and if you guys are listening to this on iTunes know that you can also watch this as a video on
00:00:56.680YouTube if you just subscribe to our channel and you can listen to it on Google Play and Spotify
00:01:00.760if you have friends that aren't iPhone users you can let them know that exists in other places so
00:01:08.580on that note let's dive into the conversation. Alrighty so earlier this week Dale had actually
00:01:16.280showed me an instagram account that has recently popped up and it's going viral and it's called
00:01:21.720preachers and sneakers which basically highlights all of these mega church pastors wearing incredibly
00:01:27.860expensive shoes or clothing um and now i think the value of this account which could easily turn
00:01:33.840dark and divisive is in keeping pastors accountable keeping pastors accountable to the word of god
00:01:39.880yeah um james 3 1 warns pastors my brethren let not many of you become teachers knowing that
00:01:46.300we shall receive a stricter judgment um and dale and i know this verse pretty well we've we've gone
00:01:53.120over it quite a bit um because we're we're even trying to manage not just our own wealth but how
00:01:59.920it's stewarded and given and perceived by those who follow us um and what some people don't
00:02:06.260actually know is that Dale and I came out of the entrepreneurial business space, uh, where we own
00:02:11.700several large companies and we, you know, for a while we're making great money doing it for many
00:02:17.220years. Yeah. A lot of people that just joined in on our podcast think that maybe we've been doing
00:02:21.960ministry for years and years and years. This is actually quite new. We came from the business
00:02:26.580space and, um, sold companies and went into full-time ministry, not even two years ago.
00:02:33.340Right. So, yeah. And then, and in that time we had become, you know, in the time of us running and operating those businesses, we had become debt free. We paid off our house, um, paid off our car. We acquired a few small rental units. Um, and so we were trying to steward that, those finances well. Um, but in, like Dale said, in 2017, we sold our company, um, along with our income with it.
00:02:59.800We no longer have that income and went into full-time ministry.
00:03:04.540We now live on a modest monthly income supported by the donors to our ministry.
00:03:10.160Yeah. And so this is just important context to have when we talk about this because I'm a pastor.
00:03:15.220And so I'm trying to come at this level-headed and not just looking out, but also looking in on our own example.
00:03:23.860And, you know, without knowing this history about us, that we were in the business space and that we had several companies, some of which that had, you know, 50 employees.
00:03:35.800And, you know, you could think that our property and our film studio and our backhouse, the things that you might see on Instagram stories, you might think that we're living large on everybody's donations.
00:03:46.060But that that's not that's not the case. That's not what's happening here.
00:03:49.940Yeah, we actually had all this paid off before we even went into ministry.
00:03:52.940Yeah, exactly. And we are trying to, again, be transparent and live on a modest budget that I think like the average person in our area would live on.
00:04:07.980The point is, as a pastor, I have to be very careful how my life is being perceived by those who follow me as I follow Christ.
00:04:18.080You know, that's what the shepherd does, right? Follow me as I follow Christ.
00:04:20.940So I have to be really careful about that.
00:04:23.140And I think that's kind of the heart of this issue, of this conversation today, is just being careful.
00:04:45.720For you know that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.
00:04:55.700Now this is talking about eternal wealth here, but the idea is that this is like the theme of Jesus.
00:05:02.360We know that Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
00:05:10.280So there's this generosity element, this very meek element, humble element of Jesus.
00:05:17.000And we know that Jesus didn't have anywhere to lay his head.
00:05:20.780And so there's all these elements that talk about Jesus's perspective on how he lived.
00:05:26.600And it would be pretty absurd to put together an argument that Jesus lived a luxurious lifestyle.
00:05:31.040Like that's definitely not something that I think you could really put together.
00:11:02.600Now, he does receive money from other churches, but the Corinthian church, he chose to do that because it was a stumbling block for them.
00:11:10.240Um, the second thing we need to realize is that our money and possessions are not disconnected from our relationship with God.
00:11:19.220We like to think that there's these, like, private, off-limit areas, um, and money's definitely not one of those, those areas, um, that, that kind of escaped God's jurisdiction.
00:13:59.040and protecting and guiding and feeding those people.
00:14:03.420And so for those folks that are walking that rollout,
00:14:09.780there's actually, they're held to a higher set of standards in Scripture.
00:14:15.600We actually talked about this a couple episodes ago,
00:14:17.640but you can actually find those standards in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy chapter 3.
00:14:23.820And people say, oh, that's for the elders.
00:14:26.300Well, the word elders is really the same word in the scriptures for shepherd and pastor.
00:14:31.700And so if you're in the office of pastor, I'd say you should be looking at those qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and going, checking those boxes, making sure that those are true in your life.
00:14:42.420And one of those standards is that you're blameless, meaning that you don't have any like opportunity for accusation.
00:15:51.960The management, the poor management of that money absolutely could be sinful.
00:15:56.860And as I said earlier, if a pastor is wealthy because of whatever success they have had financially, they should be wise stewards of that wealth, very generous with that wealth, modest with that wealth.
00:16:17.860which is I think the bigger problem we're going to talk about today on this issue
00:16:21.480and on guard for the deceptiveness of that wealth and I've never met a man who or family who had
00:16:30.860all four of those components and was I worried that they're gonna let their their money take
00:16:39.080over their life and we have good friends that make great money incredible money they're blessed
00:16:44.940in money they are incredibly generous they are always on guard about the deceitfulness of riches
00:16:52.860they are wise stewards with their money and they are incredibly modest you would never know
00:16:59.620that they're wealthy and they walk out pastoral ministry um and so i think i want to close this
00:17:08.760as veronica is going to get started here in a second is you know how we handle our material
00:17:12.700wealth is a barometer of our spiritual health and so if someone isn't generous isn't modest
00:17:23.600with their money um you know isn't recognizing the deceitfulness of those things um you know
00:17:32.080isn't um what's the other what's the fourth thing that i'm looking for here um modest on guard
00:17:40.640uh generous there's one more i thought though oh and isn't a wise steward
00:17:46.100then man that that's not a spiritually mature brother it might they might be gifted
00:17:51.620and i think that's what's going on these megachurch pastors are we cannot
00:17:55.560confuse spiritual giftedness with spiritual maturity because just because you're a fantastic
00:18:02.800communicator and you have a lot of bible knowledge it actually doesn't mean that you're spiritually
00:18:07.740mature um maturity is something that's much much deeper and hard harder to evaluate um i'll close
00:18:15.460with just the first timothy 6 10 verse that says for the love of money is the root of all kinds of
00:18:20.280evil now the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil um the love of money for which
00:18:26.000some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many
00:18:30.580sorrows I think a really good lesson that we heard from one of our friends um he's a
00:18:38.020not a pastor um the president of a well-known non-profit um out in New York and he one time
00:18:44.540told us uh perception is reality to many people therefore as leaders and shepherds for Christ we
00:18:50.660must also manage perceptions and he gave us a few examples that I thought were really helpful
00:18:55.940one of them being um i remember him saying i can drive i can drive a fifty thousand dollar volvo
00:19:01.940but i cannot drive a thirty thousand dollar mercedes and uh this guy also has a lot of
00:19:08.120famous designers who donate their clothing to him um but he actually requests that they remove all
00:19:13.860of the labels and all of the tags that can be seen publicly um so that people cannot attach
00:19:19.780a uh like a financial value or right yeah monetary value monetary value to his to his clothing um
00:19:27.420so again looking back at these megachurch pastors who are wearing two thousand dollar shoes while
00:19:33.020they preach or a thousand dollar gucci belt or you know fifteen hundred dollar burberry pants
00:19:38.800um what can we learn from this yeah so this is i think the the point of the discussion is what do
00:22:56.960It can have hardwood floors, whatever, you know, your thing is.
00:23:01.280But like a 9,000-square-foot house for your four-person family that feels overwhelmingly grand when you walk in.
00:23:09.300where people like walk in and immediately like whoa you know I think a pastor should really
00:23:17.720not set himself above it's the opposite of what Jesus does sets himself below
00:23:22.300and so people need to be able to walk in your home and go this feels like a normal house like
00:23:28.960like my house or my my parents house or like the house I grew up in or you know like it's not
00:23:34.620It could be beautifully designed, and it can be, you know, but it's modest in terms of you're not feeling like, whoa, I'm in a mansion right now, you know?
00:23:45.060And so that's something that I just, for pastors, I want to be clear on.
00:23:53.080You know, my point is that Christians can be centered on quality and functionality.
00:23:58.980Just, I would be very careful for pastors, especially, to be centered on luxury.
00:24:04.620And can you have nice things? Sure, that's between you and the Lord on what you want to do there.
00:24:11.320um you know but having a you know buying a nice necklace for your wife on your 20th anniversary
00:24:17.120is much different than buying flashy lavish consumer goods that have very little long-term
00:24:25.260value like a shirt that's gonna like go away in a while you know where compared to like maybe a
00:24:33.020nice gold necklace celebrating 20 years of marriage with your bride that that's a different
00:24:36.400thing so again this takes wisdom and discernment and all of this there's no like right answer and
00:24:43.640and you just got to understand some of these deeper things bottom line i want to say as we
00:24:49.540close here is what is the heart behind you as a pastor or as a christian even wanting luxury items
00:24:56.780like what's the heart behind that because there's really great quality stuff that isn't luxury and
00:25:04.140that rest that money could be used to serving the poor or whatever it might be um are you trying to
00:25:10.260seek approval or superiority um over your fellow man just to kind of set yourself above people
00:25:17.600do you think that luxurious items somehow validate your leadership or authority like because i have
00:25:23.840these nice brands and wealth maybe it makes me seem more or just to be accepted by your peers
00:25:29.000Yeah. And a lot of these celebrity pastors are friends with celebrities. So maybe that's a thing. I don't know. As a Christian, do you really want your money and materialism to be what you used to motivate other people with?
00:25:47.600like are you really like wanting to use that to be your motivator like bragging about your
00:25:54.380wealth or your things is that how you want to really motivate people as a Christian
00:26:00.540or do you want to motivate others with godliness and good character and humility and again remember
00:26:07.520like I'm talking to like people in leadership mostly but even all Christians we should be very0.66
00:26:12.440careful around this um i said last episode that um you know the culture says if you got lots of
00:26:19.980money you're standing on thick ice the bible says if you got lots of money be careful you're standing
00:26:25.480on thin ice um so you know in my experience the most effective and godly wealthy people
00:26:33.080that we know and we've got a chance to meet some incredibly wealthy people over the years
00:26:38.380when we were in the business world veronica oh man should we tell veronica's story sure we should
00:26:43.960it's one of my moments oh this is so funny guys you're gonna let i hope that he listens to this
00:26:49.080episode oh my gosh um i don't even remember his name chad oh great chad i don't remember his last
00:26:54.640name you don't need to say it don't say it um this guy who's a billionaire sold his company
00:27:01.020to google for like a couple billion dollars several yeah several billion dollars i had no
00:27:05.620idea who this guy was i knew he was wealthy and i i knew his story but i like i didn't know him
00:27:09.880personally um and dill had a dinner we had had a dinner or something to go to with them um
00:27:17.840for this business group that you were a part of and you i walked up and you're like oh hey chad
00:27:25.400this is my wife veronica i was like oh hi nice to meet you and i he's wearing this really nice
00:27:33.080you know clean pressed button-up shirt and I was like oh here you have you look so nice you have
00:27:38.860a hair on your shirt like let me pull that off for you and I pulled it and it was attached to
00:27:44.640his chest it was like one of his chest hairs poking through his shirt and I was like oh my
00:27:50.340goodness I'm so sorry it was very funny it was pretty funny and he was totally gracious like
00:27:56.460didn't care he laughed it off but i was pretty embarrassed and this guy gives money away to the
00:28:03.280poor i mean this guy's an amazing amazing man i haven't i haven't talked to him in many years now
00:28:08.440but um but i would still call him a friend and uh and what i'm saying here is that you know
00:28:14.460these godly people that you that have wealth the people that we've seen in our experience
00:28:21.740the ones we really appreciate or i don't want to say appreciate the ones that we just
00:28:26.240go man that's incredible is that you never even know that they're that wealthy
00:28:30.640you know they're a good example to follow they're a good example to follow they're humble
00:28:35.840they're radically generous um they're modest they're reserved um it doesn't mean they don't
00:28:43.080have like a nice house and you know those kind of things because they do but you just go just
00:28:49.360the humility in it all that's the mark and and it's a journey for all of us it's a journey for
00:28:55.480us you know we're we're coming out of the business world into ministry and we're even evaluating like
00:28:59.780how much do we show how much do we give away like we're on our own journey here too and so
00:29:06.460i'm gracious with even these pastors are on their journey and and um you know while i'm not going
00:29:13.880to condone or say that man i would do that or i think that's okay um i think that it's something
00:29:18.920that we just go hey you know they're on a journey i'm glad that this account that came up uh if it
00:29:24.100stays healthy which i i don't know if it will um but but it does hold people accountable it's
00:29:32.860holding them accountable to the public square of showing a problem like hey this is a little
00:29:37.080bit off the bible says this you're supposed to be representing jesus and you're wearing thousands
00:29:41.320of dollars of clothing um on stage and some of these guys are wearing like ten thousand dollar
00:29:46.240outfits fifteen thousand dollar outfits and so it that's why we want to do the show i thought it was
00:29:52.320a good a good conversation hopefully it was helpful and edifying um it was even edifying
00:29:58.460to me when i was writing it so um i think that's it for today um i guess you have anything else to
00:30:05.440say no okay um again if you guys haven't left a review this would be a great time to do that
00:30:11.620just be able to go to itunes and just hit the stars that'd be a huge blessing for us
00:30:18.840And again, you guys can watch this on YouTube and all the other places.
00:30:24.260And thanks for supporting us and just being a part of our journey with us.
00:30:27.780We're excited for just the season of life of walking through and teaching every single week.
00:30:34.220It's a lot of work for us, but we are very excited to be able to edify you guys in the ways that hopefully it's helpful for you.
00:30:41.680So thank you, and we will see you next.
00:30:47.140And the day that this episode comes out is actually Dale's birthday.