.png)
The Heart of Money
Join financial coach, Christ follower, and owner of the Markley Coaching Group, Courtney Markley as she takes on tough money questions and delivers actionable guidance. Courtney's gentle but straightforward approach creates a safe, nonjudgmental space for people to talk about their money challenges. After coaching for several years, Courtney understands that money stress is usually a symptom of a deeper problem. Her approach to money will expand your understanding of how to succeed financially. You will gain tools needed to improve your money mindset while becoming someone who can have deeper, Christ-centered money discussions. Join Courtney in her mission to change the way we talk about money, one conversation at a time.
The Heart of Money
Keeping Charity Simple: A Conversation with Brian Grasso
Have you ever been overwhelmed by the idea of giving? It can be difficult to know which causes to support, how much to give, and who to trust. Join me, Courtney Markley, as I engage in a compelling conversation with Brian Grasso, the insightful co-founder and CEO of Simple Charity. Brian sheds light on the often-overlooked challenges and emotions involved in charitable giving.
Brian's inspiring journey from fundraising in high school to confronting a nonprofit that misused donations reveals the complexities of impactful giving. This pivotal experience motivated him to study economics and nonprofit evaluation, bridging the gap between donor intentions and actual outcomes. Our discussion tackles the decision paralysis many face, emphasizing informed generosity as a means to align donations with personal values and create meaningful change.
As Brian shares, it all begins with love.
Link from episode:
Website: simplecharity.org
I'm Courtney Markley, and this is the Heart of Money. Talking about money can be really hard and uncomfortable, but it doesn't need to be. The problem is we're taught to think about money in terms that are too much like science, with rules and regulations, and not enough like psychology, with emotions and nuance. Join me on my mission to change the way we talk about money, one conversation at a time. Welcome everyone to the Heart of Money podcast. I'm your host, courtney Markley, and joining me today is my new friend, brian Grasso. Welcome, brian.
Speaker 2:Thank you, courtney, it's a pleasure being here.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm so glad that you are here. So, for those of you who may not know Brian yet, he is a non-profit entrepreneur of sorts. He's the co-founder and CEO of Simple Charity. We recently got together and I just absolutely love his heart for the Lord and you guys are going to love the work that he's doing, and he's here to help us lean into a great topic of conversation. Brian, welcome again, and let's start off by saying you are also a young father with three boys under four years old, is that right?
Speaker 2:My oldest is four Yep, and then two and then a newborn.
Speaker 1:My goodness Okay. So how are you guys managing right now, and how much coffee do you drink on a daily basis?
Speaker 2:You know I try to keep it under three cups of coffee, but that does not always happen. Yeah, Currently everyone has the sniffles. It's that time of year.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the baby has RSV, so we're kind of keeping an eye out on that Poor babe.
Speaker 2:But we're hanging in there.
Speaker 1:He has, oh, you just have like such an amazing smile and joyful spirit, which, like, can only come from Jesus, I assume. So praise God for that. So, brian, here's the topic that I want to lean into today. Okay, and you're a bit of an expert in this, understand that giving is important, and they might even feel like a spark of motivation or inspiration, like, yes, this is the year I'm going to start like giving, and I, you know, I know God's calling me into this, to be generous and to partner with Him in that. And they get this motivation. And then they start looking at all the different nonprofits and they start looking at the like thousand amazing causes that exist out there. And then they start to worry like, well, what if I give it to the wrong organization?
Speaker 1:or how do I know that they're going to use it the way that I want them to use it, Right, and then we just kind of start going down the rabbit hole. Do you experience this at all? Do you talk to people who have this? You know problem.
Speaker 2:Absolutely it's a problem and I'm excited to talk about addressing the problem. But before we do that, I wanted to share some stats of evidence that this is indeed a problem. So Christians today give less than they gave during the Great Depression, so giving is far below tithing when we're talking about giving from income. So it's around, you know, 3% or lower than 3%, and so that's a sign that it's a problem. Trust in nonprofits is declining. So around half of Americans say they trust charities. Around half say they don't trust charities. Charities actually are today the number one most trusted institution in this country, so more trusted than you know academia or government.
Speaker 1:Be careful, this is an election year, I know, I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more you know academia or government.
Speaker 1:Be careful this is an election year. I know, I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know definitely more trusted than government. Trust for government, you know, is not a surprise to any of your listeners that it's very low. Yeah, so we're talking about giving from income that's down. Trust from nonprofits it's down.
Speaker 2:And then one of the things we talk about a lot in Simple Charity is giving from wealth. So really important distinction there between income kind of the inflow that's on the kind of P&L side of our personal financial statements, but the wealth is on the balance sheet side. And there's the great wealth transfer coming up. $12 trillion of wealth is going to pass hands from sorry. $84 trillion is going to pass hands from one generation to the next. 12 trillion of that is currently earmarked for charity, to be allocated to charity over the next 20 years.
Speaker 2:But a lot of that wealth is going to end up in foundations. A lot of it's going to end up in donor advised funds or in charitable trusts and not actually even flow to address the urgent problems facing our country, facing our world, facing the cities where we live, because of this huge problem of people don't know how to do philanthropy with a level of excellence to be able to invest in the nonprofits that are making the biggest possible impact. So I say all that just to say this is a problem. It's a problem with actually a massive market, massive stakes here $250 billion in donor advice funds. Maybe I should explain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, please do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a financial vehicle where you can put various assets whether those are cash, but also stocks or real estate or business interests and you get your tax receipt and then you can allocate it to charity later.
Speaker 2:So it's like a foundation, like a mini foundation, but it's less regulated than foundations and you can't hire staff to manage your donor advice fund, which is the difference between that and a foundation. But $250 billion of assets are in donor advice funds in this country and those assets could be deployed to solve important problems, to advance the kingdom of God, to promote human flourishing, to promote mercy and justice. In the name of Jesus, and that's what we're passionate about is helping people who are struggling with where to give in their income. Yes, and probably the bigger opportunity for impact is people who are struggling what to do with wealth when they're doing their estate planning process, when they're maybe past a wealth financial finish line in their lives. So this is mostly older generations. Maybe they have a family foundation and they're struggling to even run the family foundation. Huge opportunity to help people improve how they give.
Speaker 1:I love how you're kind of setting this up for us in a really great way and just for y'all listening, know that Brian and I started today going. We have no idea what we're going to talk about specifically or where.
Speaker 1:God's going to leave us and I love where you're setting us up to go, brian. So thank you for this. So first, again, I want to just kind of capitalize on two things that Brian pointed out. One is there's multiple ways to give. First of all, the first way is just from my normal income, right, the normal pay that I receive.
Speaker 1:You alluded to the tithe, so giving you know, potentially 10% of that over to the church or other nonprofits, as the Lord directs. But then there's also giving out of assets and giving out of wealth, so that could be things that I've inherited, that could be different stocks, real estate, other things, and what you're seeing is a lot of people will put money aside into vehicles that are specifically for donating to charity, but then it's just sitting there Right, which shows again like people may be willing to give, but something is happening from the time they put that money into that vehicle. That's kind of acting as a roadblock to them actually going the step further and donating that money. So first let's talk about your own personal experiences, because you've had some great ones already. Tell us about what happened to you early on in life that actually kind of gave you the idea for Simple Charity. Tell us more.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, our biggest lessons are always our failures, absolutely. And when I was in high school, I actually started Simple Charity when I was 16 years old, with a group of friends in Bible study, and we were just reading the word of God and seeing how God's heart is for generosity, it's for love, it's for compassion, it's for his people to be a light in the world. A city on a hill, and we were like, how do we apply this call to do good works in the world? And he said, well, let's start this club, this high school club, and set a goal of raising $100,000 to fight global poverty in Jesus' name. And for a year that was a rallying cry and we worked extremely hard that year ended up raising over $60,000 for various global charities.
Speaker 2:And then the next year I learned that half that money we raised $30,000 went to a nonprofit that was deceiving donors about how they were using funds, and so it was an extremely painful experience for me. I don't know to this day to what extent that money did any good in the world. It's unclear what happened, but that made me realize, gosh, it's really hard to give. So I went to Duke University for college. I studied economics. A lot of my peers were going into the world of finance. You know I had a buddy from the campus history I was in who went into the private equity world and realized, gosh, the level of research, due diligence and hard, hard work that goes into making investment decisions, especially in the world of private equity.
Speaker 2:You know you want to have really good deal flow, a rigorous set of information about all the potential prospects, all the businesses that you're looking at. You know debate, figure it out, you know, and then narrow it down to this is the business that you know this firm should buy. It's going to get the investors the best returns. And then we buy the business and do the things that we do to improve it and to make it more profitable and so anyways. But then you look at the world of philanthropy and of giving and it's like well, you know, my nephew started this nonprofit and pitched it to me, so I'll give a little bit to him. And you know, if someone at my church has this thing they're passionate about, they're on the board of, and I went to the dinner and so let's I don't know give a $5,000 check to them.
Speaker 2:And not that any of those things are wrong, but the problem is the level of sophistication that people bring to their giving is not usually up to the level of complexity of the task of finding really good nonprofits. So that was kind of the journey task of finding really good nonprofits. So that was kind of the journey. And so learning from as much as I can from the investing world about how to do really excellent due diligence of a organization and then bringing that to bear for our clients and to help them really have a high degree of confidence that the institutions they're investing in are solving problems, giving them data on what their grieving is actually accomplishing in the world. That's what we're really passionate about. You know the reason people give. Sorry, courtney, I'm kind of going on.
Speaker 1:Keep going. You're doing great. I'll interrupt you if you lose us. You're doing great, okay.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. The reason people give is because they want to make a difference and because they want to make an impact. So this is a nationally representative study in 2023. Bank of America surveyed affluent donors and 97, 98% say we are motivated to give because we want to make an impact. At the same time, only 20% of affluent donors said that they do anything to monitor and evaluate their impact, and so we have.
Speaker 2:The motivation to give is to make a difference, to make a social impact in the world, to transform people's lives. And yet people don't know the impact that they're making. And then, even worse, over half of affluent donors people who are already giving do not perceive their giving to be having any impact. So we shouldn't be surprised that levels of satisfaction for giving are fairly low, and the reason for that is because we're motivated, because we want to make a difference. But then we go out there and it's. These problems are hard. Their problems are complex. Nonprofits don't do a great job of reporting back the particular impact of particular donors, and so there's problems on the nonprofit side too. But the reality is the current systems are broken and the result is literally hundreds of billions of dollars that could be given to charity to advance the kingdom of God. Assets are already given away a lot of times that are stuck on the sidelines.
Speaker 1:I hear you, I absolutely hear you, and I'm like man, this is a problem. Someone should be doing something about this. That's why you have simple charity. But tell us, like for the regular person who might be listening, maybe they come from wealth, maybe they don't. How do I step into this? Because I feel like most people feel this tension at some point right, some point of I want to be giving. I have no idea where. And again, sometimes it's just a like analysis, paralysis, or there's just too many decisions to make and you know, should I give to help this cause or this cause or this one, and they all sound great and, like you said, it starts to feel a little like mashed potatoes is the word that I'm coming up with like I'm just gonna put all these random things on my plate and, like you said, oh, like this relative does this, or I went to this dinner like I'm just gonna be throwing money, but it doesn't feel very cohesive and it's not necessarily what I believe at.
Speaker 1:the heart of our giving, it's always to draw us closer to Jesus, and so if it feels like very mashed potatoes, I'm just going to repeat that now I'm doubling down on it. That's not necessarily like doing what God initially intended it to do, which is draw my heart closer to His and make me more dependent and reliant on Him. So speak to us for a moment. For that person who's sitting here listening like what advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, one of the things I love about this podcast, Courtney, is that it is about the heart and it is not a formula. God does not call all of His children to do the same good works. He has good works laid out beforehand, before the foundation of the world, for each of us individually and personally. So this is really about discovering what those are for me and for my family, and truly it is entirely about love. You know philanthropy the root words are fill, love and anthropos, which is people. So literally, philanthropy means love, people, and I think one of the most important verses in the Bible on giving is when Paul says if I give away all that I have but have not love, I gain nothing. And so the root issue here is how do we, as followers of Jesus, approach our giving portfolio motivated by love and to do that discernment process of who God is calling me to love and how God is calling me to love those people? We have a framework at Simple Charity, we call it the three S's, and so essentially, we start with our life stories. So I believe that God gives us our stories, that they're sacred and that our stories actually give us clues about who God is calling us to love. So I'll give you an example of this.
Speaker 2:One experience I've had in my life is I had a close friend walk away from the faith in college and that was a really painful experience for me, really hard. But if I were to win the lottery, one of the things I would give to you is organizations that were presenting a thoughtful Christian witness to college students, and I can see that calling and that passion in my life because of the story that God has given me. And so I would just ask the listeners you know, consider your own life story. You know, where are those painful things that God could actually turn into something redemptive and beautiful through your philanthropy, or those really wonderful things that you could get involved in? So that's story.
Speaker 2:Second is scripture. So, looking at the Bible, you know what things are close to the heart of God. So we just we got to know our Bibles. And then the third thing is social realities. So where are we seeing needs in our own communities around the world and where are there great opportunities to have an outsized impact? So, anyways, so that's the framework we use Examine our stories, examine scripture, examine the social landscape and then, as we do that thoughtful reflection, we can come to a conclusion of who God is calling me to love. One of the things I love to tell clients too is the answer is not like everyone in every way, all the time.
Speaker 1:Like we are each, I don't have enough money for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Exactly, we are small, limited people, you know all of us are God.
Speaker 1:Bless us, no matter what's in the bank account.
Speaker 2:We all are limited in our capacity, but we're part of this body of Christ and that is throughout the world, involved in every issue you can imagine, and those people, our brothers and sisters, around the world, are working on every single issue you can possibly imagine. So our job is to discern what is God calling me to? What is God calling my family to? And then we can trust that God is going to call other people to do the things that we don't have time to do.
Speaker 1:That's right. Don't have time or capacity or skill or whatever. It is right.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for me it's mostly skill, like I'm not skilled enough to be over there it's all right, I'll stay in my lane over here and I think it gives like such a great framework for people to begin to like prayerfully consider, like, where God is inviting them to partner with him and building his kingdom. And once you start engaging in this, the one thing I would caution people to do is simply not compare yes, don't compare where God is calling you to someone else, because, like you said, it's going to be completely different and he's not using the same scales that we're using. He simply wants to know are we going to be obedient to the thing that he's asking us to do? Right, he just wants our yes, that's it.
Speaker 2:Right, so good, absolutely, it was Paul say. It's like, you know, the foot shouldn't say to the eye, you know, or the hand, like why are you, you know? Yeah, yes, but totally butchered the scriptures there. But we're all part of a body, you know, we all have a role to play, and it's going to be different.
Speaker 1:That's right. No, I love that so much. There's a lot of grace here. Don't worry, I would have butchered it too. That's good.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we're slowly walking people through this. Obviously, they may not in just a moment be like, oh, I know exactly the thing now. But hopefully what's happening, listeners, is that God is starting to stir your heart a bit and say, yep, I need to spend some time with you, lord, and I need to be praying about this and help me to see what you see in me, god. And so let's say we narrow it down. Let's say I feel called to help anti-sex trafficking in my city, right, yes, great cause, it's a big problem in a lot of places. But let's say there's also six awesome Christian nonprofits in my city who are doing that. How may I start to discern? You know we don't necessarily want to judge I should probably use my word super carefully here Like we're not trying to like rate them necessarily, yeah, but how do we, you know, if one specifically stands out to you? How do we prayerfully discern, like, is this a safe organization to give to or not?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for evaluating a nonprofit we bring another three-part framework to that question.
Speaker 1:I love three-part frameworks. You're speaking to my heart right now.
Speaker 2:It's important to keep it simple. You know that's great. To my heart right now it's important to keep it simple. You know that's great. And I would say the big thing here is to have an intentional process, ideally written down. It could be half a page long that you write down. Here's the process we bring to the table when we are evaluating a charity and deciding whether or not to invest our capital into that charity. But our three-part framework is we look at an organization's operations, their culture and then their impact. Framework is we look at an organization's operations, their culture and then their impact. And the operation side. That's a lot of what you would find on a guide star or charity navigator and it's transparency, accountability, integrity. I think most people actually overweight operations. The reality is that organizations can check all of those boxes and do that for years and years and they have an internal unhealthy, toxic culture that's going to hurt the long-term outcomes of the organization.
Speaker 2:that's going to be the real problem and at the same time, there are small organizations that they don't check those operational boxes, but they have this great culture. They're hustling, they're making an impact. It's a healthy place to work and those ones you want to bet we would bet bigger on culture than on operations. So how do you evaluate an organization's culture? You got to talk to them, you got to spend some time with them and you have to see, you know what motivates these people. Do they have this mission orientation, this passion? Are they more about accomplishing the mission than preserving the institution? So that's important.
Speaker 2:And then the second thing is is this a healthy place to work? I love to ask nonprofits what do you do to prevent burnout within your staff? So burnout's endemic in nonprofit organizations and you want to really support organizations that are simultaneously a very healthy place to work, where people can thrive while they're working there, and that are passionate passionate about solving a problem in the world. So those are the two things you look for in the culture. And then impact is what data are they collecting about their impact? How do they fit within the broader social ecosystem of actors working on this issue? And then, what stories do they have to show evidence that they're really moving the needle on this.
Speaker 2:So to do it well requires a lot of work. It requires some intentionality, and I think the reality is we have to approach these questions about philanthropy with the same level of rigor and intentionality that you would bring to your investment assets. You know, and if you were going out there and you're like I'm just going to pick some stocks because I like Home Depot and you know, so I'm going to, you know that's not bad for part of your portfolio, you know you pick some stocks, that's fine. Sure, but in general, I think people are like well, I'm going to do research, I want to know when I'm investing, I have a thesis of whether or not this organization is going to perform and why. Really, just bringing that process and that discipline to our philanthropic decisions as well is my main piece of advice.
Speaker 1:I love that advice and I know initially, upon hearing it, most people are like oh, that seems like so much work and it just seems so out of the norm.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you know, that's my initial thought. Right, that's the human side of me.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then I think about, like, how much research did I put into planning my last vacation? How many reviews did I read? How many rabbit holes did I go down, you know, in hours and hours spent right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so I think we can at least say and I'm saying this half like cheekily like we should at least take god's work that seriously like come on now yeah, come on now.
Speaker 2:You want to fight sex trafficking in your city? Yeah, like that's not gonna be easy like spend a little bit of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that normal time. Like yeah, it is gonna feel awkward at first because we're just not used to prioritizing time that way and we're not used to planning time. If people told me they went on a vacation and they spent half an hour researching and planning it, I'd be like that is so weird. Like why did you do that? Why not we bring that same script to our giving and our planning to give Right? So I think we can just put some healthy kind of framework and challenge our perspective a bit on philanthropy and on giving, like it should require time because it's important.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you know I mean for listeners who are interested in having some help with that. I mean that's what Simple Charity exists to do. We exist to serve givers and helping them develop a philanthropic strategy to find vetted nonprofits that are moving the needle in the causes and geographies that they're passionate about, and so we're happy to help with that. Part of our model is that people pay our fees quote, unquote fees as suggested donations so they can give to us out of a donor advised fund or foundation, and so it's just part of the portfolio. So I mean I do think that and this goes back. I mean this is the central thesis of Simple Charities. We just think there needs to be more philanthropic advisors.
Speaker 2:If you're talking about potentially six figure transaction with your philanthropy or higher, you know you want to talk to someone who's objective and can bring some counsel to bear on that, and that makes sense. You know. I mean this is why real estate agents exist. You know, yes, absolutely. I mean you can look up stuff on Zillow and that's helpful, but you want to talk to a human being and get that expert opinion and advice, and so that's what we exist to do. There are other resources out there other philanthropic advisors happy to share about those. And yeah, I would just encourage people to, you know, not get stuck because it's a lot of hard work, but just to know that love again, this is all about love. Once you answer the question, who is God calling me to love man? I'm a dad of three young boys. Love is always hard work.
Speaker 1:Amen, friend, it is.
Speaker 2:You know, marriage it's exhausting. Marriage is wonderful and beautiful and it's hard work. That's right. Parenting, you know leading a nonprofit you know this Courtney leading a nonprofit, seeing the blessed people doing that from a heart of love. So, anyways, I would just encourage people don't be overwhelmed by it, but dive right in. You know your listeners are smart, capable people with thoughtful and, and you can do it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, I love that. Thank you so much, brian. And again, just kind of challenging our perspective a little bit on philanthropy I love they say like it's okay to raise your hand and ask for help. Yeah, yes, it's okay.
Speaker 1:Like brian, I do not trust myself to cut my own hair because I look a hot mess so like if I need to pay a little bit of money for that, just simply for my hair cuts, you know, I pay someone to fix my car, I pay someone to do most things that I am not skilled to do. So if someone's sitting here again saying like I hear you, brian, I want to lean in, I want to love people well, I want to take God's work seriously, but like math and numbers and research and data and analysis and da da, da, like that is not my thing, like it's okay to raise your hand and ask for help, that I think again should just be normalized and celebrated.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it goes back to this, I think, the central thing, which is, again, we're a part of a body, you know, like we're not alone in our work. It's not I am called to be the light of the world, it's, we are the light of the world and I think, as Christians, if we can really figure out how to work together, then we can solve some amazing problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amen to that. And tell us real quick, brian, how can folks get a hold of you if they're listening in and they're like, yep, you're describing me like this is not my gifting, I need help. Like, how can they get in contact with you?
Speaker 2:Shoot me an email. Genuinely, it's brian at simplecharityorg B-R-I-A-N at simplecharityorg. Shoot me an email. You can hop on our website simplecharityorg slash advising and reada little bit more about what we do. But I would be happy to chat, to share a little bit about our services and yeah, and to see if we can move the needle on important causes that matter to the heart of God.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And one thing I want to share, and then I'll let you have the last word, brian think of something really awesome to encourage us all with before we go. By the way, I'll give you a second to think, okay. One thing I want to go back to that you said for a moment is like sometimes we learn from our greatest mistakes right.
Speaker 1:And that's how Simple Charity really took off, I believe, is from this kind of mistake that happened. I don't even know if we can call it that. It's not your fault. Learning, you know, learning experience this is new for a lot of people. Right, Taking this seriously, having a plan for your giving, no matter again, no matter how big or how small. I don't care if it's $50 a month, if that's what God has given you Totally, that is beautiful and that is amazing. We're going to celebrate that. Or it could be $50,000. I don't care how much it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's okay to fail and it's okay to try versus. You know, it kind of breaks my heart to think about all that money sitting in giving funds, just sitting causing up a stink, just wasting space a little bit, when people are literally in dire need of God's love right now. And so don't be so paralyzed by the thought of making a mistake that you don't even try and it's so. I don't know. God's timing is awesome, literally. Today, as I'm driving my five-year-old to kindergarten, we're having this conversation. We just had parent-teacher conferences last week and his teacher, as a kindergartner, his teacher has noticed like your son has a fear of failure, so he won't raise his hand in class, even though I know he knows the answer right, like he's a super smart kid. And so from that I just started sharing conversations of like. Let me tell you about all the times that mom has completely failed.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:And on the way to school today he was like mom, can you tell me about more stories that you've like, of when you failed? I'm like, yeah, and I literally told him. I told him a lot of things, but I told him a story where I literally got up on stage and fell on my face. So it's like you know there's so many great like failing stories. And then, as he's getting out of the car today, you know he's this tiny little guy and he has this huge, bright yellow backpack that looks like a school bus. It's so cute.
Speaker 1:And he's like bye, mom, I hope I make a mistake today and I can tell you about it later. And I'm like, yes, like this is so good, like could not have planned that any better, right, like so sweet, so genuine. I feel like that is how you know Jesus feels about us. Sometimes it's like just don't be afraid, I'm with you. You're gonna fall on your face a couple times, like it's okay, but try, like please don't just sit back and wait, Because I think that's like the greatest tragedy of all.
Speaker 2:Amen, Courtney. I don't know if I have anything to add to that.
Speaker 2:That was such a good way to wrap this up, and it's such a good point on the problem that we're talking about, which is people who have that capacity to give again, whether it's a lot or a little, and are are holding back in fear, and I would just say fear is not of God. And what I want listeners to leave this with again, this is all about love, is all about love. Jesus brings us back to love as the central issue in our spiritual lives, in our spiritual formation, and I would say before, this is about us loving other people. This is about us becoming the kind of people who truly believe that God loves us and that that love is not conditional, that that love is not based on our performance, that that love is an identity statement as we are adopted into the family of God. And if we actually believe that, then we have all this freedom and open space to go out there and to fail to go out there and to try, and we get these new glasses, this new vision in the world as we look out at this world that's also filled with broken, sinful people just like us who need the love of Jesus. I don't want to say that you know, you do these three-part framework and these strategies and you'll get there I mean the root issue the older I get, the more I believe this is whether or not we believe that God loves us, and I think the reality is in a lot of the wealth management conversations.
Speaker 2:For Christians today, it is fear, it is doubt. It is this, you know fear of our reputation and fear of putting our identity and our wealth and all this stuff that's really competing for the love of God in our hearts. You know, this is not to put guilt on anybody, but just to say this is the most important thing and what I want to leave listeners with is believe that God loves you and then go out and give generously and be a source of that love for other people.
Speaker 1:Oh man, brian, that's so beautiful and I think you're spot on friend. I think you're spot on. So, listeners, our prayer for you today. I think you're spot on Friend, I think you're spot on. So, listeners, our prayer for you today I believe you're resonating with what Brian just shared is at the source behind your lack of giving. Potentially, it's that question of like does God really love me? Is he as good as he says he is? Is he as faithful as he says he is?
Speaker 1:And I pray in this moment that God just draws your heart closer to his, that his presence becomes real to you, that he gives you eyes to see and ears to hear that, yes, god loves you, he sees you, he is with you, he is good, his word is good. You can trust him. Thank you, friends, thank you Brian. It was such an honor to have you Y'all. You can see why I wanted Brian to come and just share his love for the Lord with us, because that was such a gift. So thank you, friends, so much. And listeners, just please do not leave this moment before taking a moment and praying and spending some time with God. Thank you, have a good rest of your day.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Courtney.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. If today's conversation has blessed you, share our podcast with a friend and if you have a money question, email me at Courtney at MarkleyCoachingGroupcom. I'm Courtney Markley and this has been the Heart of Money.