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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
Building Stronger Communities through Financial Discipleship with Nick Nye
Ever wondered how churches can revolutionize their approach to finances while building stronger communities? On this episode of the Heart of Money podcast Nick Nye, executive director at For Columbus, shares his transformative journey from local pastor to city movement leader, shedding light on how churches are reimagining financial stewardship. From embracing real estate ventures to collaborating with local experts, discover how faith communities are creatively managing resources to better serve their cities and foster unity across diverse sectors.
Together with Nick, we also explore the challenges pastors face in navigating money discussions, and how openness can transform relationships between congregations and their leaders. This episode encourages you to take small, manageable steps toward financial discipleship, fostering a community that supports each other through the trials and triumphs of financial stewardship.
Links from Episode:
www.forcolumbus.org
www.financialdiscipleship.center
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. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Heart of Money podcast. I'm your host, courtney Markley, and joining me today is a really good friend, nick Nye. Nick is the executive director at 4 Columbus and he spends a lot of time focusing on the city-reaching movement where we are bringing unity to the body of Christ, and so Nick talks to a lot of church leaders. He talks to a lot of nonprofit leaders and a lot of business leaders and community builders, and we're just so excited to have you here today, nick. Welcome.
Speaker 2:I'm so honored, it's so good to be with you.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm thrilled. So for those of our listeners who may not know you, you know the Heart of Money podcast has a pretty wide reach these days, so not everyone listening in is local to our great city of Columbus. Why don't you tell us just a little bit about yourself? You know what does it feel like to be Nick for a day?
Speaker 2:That's a big question, complicated, and that kind of thing is what comes to mind when describing myself. But I have been a pastor for just about 23 years and found myself in this space where I loved pastoring my local congregation. But I also had this incredible heart, for how does the whole city really work together? The prayer of Jesus in John 17 just really became a resounding desire in me. Like what does this actually look like? To be a church that's one as Jesus and the Father are one. And then you know the next phrase what does it mean? The so that mean so that the world would know his love. And so that kind of became an obsession for me of really wanting to see that embodied, and the best place I think to see that is in a local city, and so Columbus is my home city, and so I love being able to process that, work through that, and so that's how I got here.
Speaker 1:Oh, wonderful, thank you so much. And I know our city is deeply, deeply blessed by you and the work that you do. And recently you attended the launch event for the Center for Financial Discipleship. Not only attended, but you were one of our featured speakers, because at CFD we're focused on, you know, three main pillars. Right, we're focused on serving the local church, financial professionals and then individual disciples, and so I gave you quite the big task of hey, nick, could you come and speak on behalf of the local church? And the things that you were sharing were so rich and so deep, and I wanted to take three hours and just dive much further into that, but I don't think anyone would have stayed for the entire event at that point. So I said you know what, why don't we bring you onto the podcast so that we can continue this conversation? And that's part of the reason why I love the Heart of Money podcast.
Speaker 1:Is it initially started out of this heart?
Speaker 1:For you know, I just want to have coffee chats with people and record them so that more and more people can listen in and also be enriched by them.
Speaker 1:So let's dive in, nick, I'm going to kind of pick up where we left off during the launch event and if you weren't there, don't worry, we're going to catch you up to speed really, really quickly. But essentially, nick, why don't you start off by telling us, in terms of the local church? I believe you know what you're going to share. I mean, you have the pleasure of working with hundreds of churches, so even if you're not local to Columbus, I believe what Nick is going to share will be very relevant to where you're at. You have the pleasure of talking to so many local church leaders and I'm just curious, in terms of leaning into money conversations, what do you see that's going really well right now in our churches? It's easy to kind of shine the light and say let's talk about all the things that's going wrong, but I want to begin with, you know, share with us what is going well.
Speaker 2:I definitely see a reimagination happening with how pastors are thinking about just the resources that they're entrusted to steward within their own congregation. I think there's just this kind of realization that you know, just the dependency upon tithes and offerings, and that kind of thing has changed and it's shifted and there's just a lot of new opportunity and new horizon to explore on like what does it actually look like to steward the resources here? And so I'm having that conversation regularly and I think that's something that makes me excited. I know we're going to get into the opportunity side of it, but I think there's still a lot of play, a lot of sort of field to run in. What does that mean? What do we actually do with the resources that we've been entrusted? But I think the good thing is is that there is an openness and a kind of preparingness for sort of the new space.
Speaker 1:I love the word that you used of reimagining. It kind of expands beyond, like the traditional conversation of tithes and offerings and kind of what we're used to. So go a little bit deeper for me. What are you hearing, or what are some of those open spaces that you can see, that we can start to step into?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, maybe I'll just give a story, a couple of stories we had. One of our networks is a church planting network and so we have a handful of church planters in the city that all meet up pretty regularly and we invited in a local real estate leader and just asking him to give us a kind of vision of like, how do we think about real estate in the church and what that looks like in the future? And I think a lot of folks are trying to figure out how do I utilize this building that might sit empty, you know, or have a lot of gaps in the week that could be filled. How do we utilize this space for our city, for our community, for our neighborhood?
Speaker 2:And so it was just a really fascinating conversation and one of our friends, jordan Smucker, who leads Ethos, they started on this thinking and trail a while back and one of the things that came out of that was, before they even built a church building for Sunday services, they started a cafe and it's become such an important piece in the neighborhood in North Columbus of how people are connecting and discipleship relationships that are forming out just from a physical space and utilizing that, and so I think that kind of imagination has been really cool to see, and I also think there's a lot of leaders really thinking through not just the physical buildings but also mission.
Speaker 2:You know, how do we physically or tangibly utilize the resources that we've been given as pastors to fund mission locally? And so there's sort of become a reimagination of, okay, what if we don't just give to that missionary overseas which they still do but what if we think about how do we put some of those resources into how we work together locally or how we steward a partnership with a nonprofit invest in that? And so there's just been a lot of kind of like retooling from just the typical Western budget. I just think that's just so great in reimagining where our finances as churches or as local congregations go.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is so good. So what I'm hearing you share, nick, is like our church leaders. They're thinking a bit more creatively and outside the box and essentially saying how can we ourselves look at this differently, how can we lead with stewardship and recognize, like you said, it doesn't just have to be on a spreadsheet and on a budget, but we can think about how can we utilize our buildings to better serve our cities and how can we partner with different nonprofit organizations and different things like that, invite more people in, and how can we think differently about missions to steward our time and our resources really well to serve them. So it sounds like you're saying one of the things that the church is doing that you're excited about is they themselves are just thinking more creatively. And as we're watching our leaders do this, the congregation can also get inspired to start just kind of re-examining how we use our time, our talent, our treasure, to quote the three Ts, if you will.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that Good. Well, let's keep going. What else, if I can press you for another example, like what else do you see that's going well right now in terms of the church and how they're engaging in financial discipleship or money conversations?
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe this is unique to Columbus and it's not everywhere, but I think there's this really interesting convergence happening in Columbus between different groups like financial planners that are really starting to ask bigger questions about how do we steward our financial impact. More I'm bringing in, like these groups of pastors working with financial planners, working with financial coaches like you and different groups. There's kind of starting to become a convergence. Nothing's been solved necessarily, in a sense of like we've got the silver bullet that's going to be the best resource stewardship for whatever. But it's more like we're starting to at least acknowledge that the economy shift the gauge of how missions typically worked. You know where again, putting myself in the pastor's role, we've sort of built this machine that said, okay, give finances to build our buildings so that we can have more capacity on Sundays, but there's more leaders coming around and saying, no, what if we kind of rearrange that and the outcome is not just the building but it's actually more mission that can be stewarded and it's not to an exclusion of the building.
Speaker 2:We all understand that real estate is very, very important in just rootedness and community engagement and all kinds of things. But it's more like okay, how do we think through a stronger strategy. And again, I'm kind of going back to the same thing, probably, that we originally were talking about, but I think the thing that I get excited about is that more people are coming into the conversation with pastors that aren't just pastors replicating what other pastors do, but they're starting to pull in business leaders and financial planners or people that are really kind of thinking strategically about how do we steward impact or steward investment and steward the relationships that are going on all around the city. And I think you know some of us. You're spearheading a lot of that, courtney, of just like your relationships and stewardship with foundations and different advisors and things you know. Getting us all into a room together is vital and I think that's what's happening in Columbus. That really will move the needle in the long run for how we really think about money as a whole, resources as a whole for a city.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think what you're describing is really like the church body at work. You said it's the missions of our city unifying our city. It's not solely up to our pastors. The missions of our city unifying our city. It's not solely up to our pastors, but it's up to all of us, all of us who are part of God's body, the church body. And I will say that I get to talk to a lot of financial advisors all over the country and this seems to be a central theme. You know, it was really funny. We hosted a webinar not too long ago about how to start financial discipleship strategy for your church, and a large majority of the people who came in from all over the country worked in finance and volunteered at their church. As you know, maybe they're the stewardship leader or the one who's driving these conversations, because God has uniquely wired them to enjoy talking about money in some sort of way, right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so it was really cool to see how many financial people we had on the call that was specifically geared towards church leaders, because they're part of that community. They're part of stepping into their church and saying, hey, this is something that God's gifted me in and I just want to send this as an offering to the church. Right, Please utilize my gifts. This is what I have. Right, I'm maybe not the door greeter, but if you want me to come and like, have great money conversations with people, allow me to come and do that, and so it is cool to see people collaborating together and saying, yes, let's use these different skills and pull people together.
Speaker 1:So I love that yes, and so tell me, yes, let's use these different skills and pull people together, so I love that, and so tell me all right, so we see some really great things happening right now in the church. Tell me what are some of the opportunities that you see right now for church leaders to step into in terms of money conversations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean just to continue to jump into that same theme that you're talking about. I think the vision of collaboration has to become more and more regular, where you know pastors just speaking at a pastor or as a pastor, we're not necessarily gifted in how it all works in some ways, and like, how do we maximize the things that we do financially? Some pastors are really good at that and sometimes I'm jealous of that but I also know that pastors typically carry a very high vision and very big desire to see lives changed, and so I think that is something that is worthy of just celebrating, and the opportunity in that is like okay, how do we not just like give money to fuel and fund that? But how do we build infrastructure and long-term change trellis, you know, change infrastructure that actually can be sustainable and impactful, and that's where I think we need a lot of collaboration with both, you know, community leaders, nonprofit leaders, but also business leaders. And that's why for us, like for Columbus, where we're kind of always pointing out the three strands of our work, which is, you know, pastors, nonprofit directors, marketplace leaders, because when you get those three kind of generally in sync and synergizing and working together, what you see is, you see, vision for the soul and vision for society and vision for actually making the wheels spin and work, kind of at play. And so I think that's the opportunity, that's the huge opportunity is that collaborative, relational, listening to one another and stewarding something bigger than ourselves.
Speaker 2:I also will say one of the opportunities we have is thinking beyond just our local church, and again I'm sort of putting on my pastor hat, which is saying we have to think beyond just the things that impact and work in our congregation in and of itself, but we have to think about our neighborhood as a whole.
Speaker 2:We have to think about the city as a whole. We have to really understand the city as a larger ecosystem that when one area is dried out, the fire can start there and spread. And we have to make sure we're thinking about other parts of the city. And I think this is especially important for maybe a suburban congregation really understanding their stewardship responsibility for an urban setting or white church investing in a black church that might not have the same resources or opportunities. I think this is thinking about how does the large church like, how can they fuel and care for the smaller church? Or there's so much opportunity for pastors to think beyond. You know their one congregation and I think that the more we can get outside that bubble a little bit more, the more we will see actual fruit of the gospel. The gospel and not just building a better sort of small K kingdom for themselves, but something much bigger, that looks more like Jesus imagined.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad we're getting into this, Nick. What I'm hearing you say is there's a really good opportunity for our churches just kind of start to change our thinking a little bit about how we're handling our money, to say it's not just about me and it's not just about my church, but stepping into a greater role and recognizing that we do have a responsibility to care for the people around us, not solely make our own church bigger, better, prettier, nicer. So let's dive into this a bit more. Tell me, what's God been putting on your heart recently in terms of this conversation specifically?
Speaker 2:I've been thinking about this a lot more post-election because I've listened a lot to the news and been reading articles. You know everybody's trying to parse like what happened, why did votes go this way or that way, and I love to listen sort of what's behind all of that, beyond just the candidates themselves and you know those kinds of things, but like what's kind of the cultural implications going on and how does that apply or look like to the kingdom of God? And one of the common threads I hear in just observing this cultural space we're in now is there's a lot of people that sort of voted solely because very, very little talk about how does the economic state impact others, Like what are other people feeling? Or what are other people thinking about Meaning, for an example, like we typically when it comes to money and when it comes to just the stewarding of resources, everything is so individualistic how I feel at the gas pump, how I feel about the grocery bill and, again, reasonable, I do the same thing. But we kind of struggle to say how do we feel and how do we think about my stewardship of finances, beyond just my own pain or success, into how does that impact others. And so you know, when you think about collective communities like a church congregation, they kind of adapt a lot of that too.
Speaker 2:And when there's pain sort of on an individual basis, like personally, and a pain on an individual basis as an individual congregation, then there's sort of a closed offness to what's going on in the urban setting or what's going on in a different neighborhood than my own, and so I think that actually really impacts just the kind of whole narrative of what and how we use finances or how we utilize and steward the resources as a whole. So we kind of clam up, we pull everything in, we shut down and we make it all individualized. And the other thing is we don't really talk about you probably see this more than anyone it just goes to like that becomes our sacred cow that we don't talk about. We don't talk about our debt, we don't talk about our struggles with money or anything like that, because it's just all become so internalized and shameful or powerful instead of like imagining how does this work as a whole and how do we collectively have the conversation.
Speaker 2:All that to say, I'm really wrestling and thinking about how we live in this cultural moment and this cultural opportunity of how do we think about the whole ecosystem, the whole thing as a kingdom in our city, Because it seemed like that's what Paul was really thinking about when he is taking up an offering for the Gentile church you know, from the Gentile church to the church in Jerusalem is going through a famine Like he's thinking about the whole ecosystem and putting that a little bit more into my modern day language. But he's thinking about the whole and I just want more and more of us Christians, us pastors, us stewards of the kingdom of God, to be able to think beyond our own. That's just a challenge.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It is a challenge because, as you mentioned, it rubs directly against what's culturally normal, what's culturally acceptable. It's interesting. I can kind of go down quite the rabbit hole, nick, when I start to think about. You know how many scriptures point to the warnings against greed and self-indulgence and all of these things. And yet in the church we can highlight certain sins and be like those are red, hot, don't you dare touch those. And then in others we're like oh no, that's perfectly fine, everyone does this one. You know, I feel like it's not intentional. I believe we all have good intentions, but it's just run so countercultural to how we live to say what do you mean? My money's not for me. Even the folks that I get to talk to who tithe or give 10% of what they have to the church. A lot of times what I hear after that is like oh yeah, I give 10% so that I can do whatever I want with the 90.
Speaker 2:The rest is mine.
Speaker 1:The rest is mine. And I'm like I have not read that scripture where Jesus says it's so simple Give 10 and do whatever you want with the 90. I haven't read that scripture. If you have found it, nick, please share it with us. I haven't found it. I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist. And so, even when we do give, are we giving with the right heart posture? Are we giving with this intention of? This is an act of surrendering to God and surrendering myself? Right, and saying it's not about me, it's about the collective body, and that's what a lot of scripture's teaching is about. And with money and possessions, right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so let's lean into this a bit more. What do you think needs to change within our church and I'm talking the Big C church, right, we're not singling out one church. What do you think needs to change in order for us to lean into this conversation more, Because it's not an easy task and it's not a light ask. Right, it's hard walking into a church where you may know people who are seriously struggling with money and saying listen, Jesus calls us to be generous, and they're sitting there going. But what about me? Like you said, our tendency is to look inward, but what about me and how I'm feeling? So what do you think needs to change within the church to help people start to think beyond just themselves or beyond the four walls of their own congregation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the challenge before us, right? I think everything rises and falls on discipleship and how we spend time with others and the sort of long obedience in the same direction of like what does not? Just a mental like how does God want me to think about my money? But like what does that look like? And it takes a long time because, again, our cultural waters that we're swimming in has wired us and geared us to think just about me and what's mine and what I own, what I am kind of in control of, and you know that's sort of the Western mindset which is kind of obvious. And so I think there's needs to be just discipleship out of a little bit of that. I think some of that is good because you know we want to be healthy people and you know we want to take care of ourselves and be mindful of our own, but we also have to kind of step beyond that and move to a space where we're thinking about the whole.
Speaker 2:So I think it comes down to discipleship and I think the reality that you face, courtney, that you know, is why I care a lot about what you're doing, because there has to be some willingness to open up the inner world of how do we see ourselves in money and how do we kind of see where our heart is, where our treasure is, where our spending and all of the kind of things that we do are. There's just so much to unpack in all of that and that's not something you know you can do in a seminar. I love some of the seminars that are out there and you know the one hour workshops of how to make a budget and those kinds of things. Those are super helpful tools, but the reality is there's sort of a discipleship process that we all have to go through and I'm curious for you like how do you see if you're answering that question? How do you see that playing out?
Speaker 1:Thank you, nick. Thank you for what you're sharing. I wholeheartedly agree. You know, I always think it comes back to vulnerability. I think it always comes back to leading with vulnerability. Absolutely, discipleship has to be a key piece of this and that's why we started CFD is because we want to essentially reintegrate financial discipleship as a regular part of spiritual formation. I think it's incredibly difficult maybe if I could go as far as saying impossible to be a follower of Christ without surrendering your money to Him. And I'm thinking back, you remember this, nick.
Speaker 1:We were in a meeting, together with just a handful of local pastors, and there was a question that was asked that said how well does your congregation understand the theology and God's purpose of money and possessions? And we had them rate themselves on a scale from one to ten, ten being like oh yeah, my congregation knows it all, they could recite it to you. And one is like they know nothing. And I think the general consensus was like a two or three right, like yeah, our people don't really understand God's purpose for money and possessions, okay, and the follow-up question to that was how often are you teaching the theology of money and possessions? And again the conversation was like well, almost never. So I think it starts with discipleship. I remember listening to Tim Keller once share that he never talked about money possessions either within his church. And it's Tim Keller I was thinking, nick, you knew him much more than many people, and the reason why he said that was because in order to engage in money conversations, you have to be in relationship with people, and he serves such a wide audience and he's like I can't talk to people about the relationship with money before I talk to them about the relationship with Jesus and I have to know them on a deeper level. And so I think it opens this door for pastors to say if you don't feel comfortable talking to your congregation about money, what's the relationship dynamics that you have with the people that you're shepherding? Can we get a little bit deeper?
Speaker 1:And then, bringing back to what I first mentioned, can we lead with vulnerability? And I think that's a really again, it's easy to say. It's harder to do and execute because we put pastors on such a high pedestal and there's very little grace there and we're saying wait, you struggle with this too, you can't struggle with this. You're the leader of this group, you're the pastor, right? And we forget that they are also human, but I think it can start there. I'm reminded of a friend.
Speaker 1:I went to a big Christian stewardship leadership conference and the president the leader of the group, stood up at the very beginning and very humbly and with a lot of vulnerability, said you know what, guys, I've been teaching this for nearly two decades and I think I might be getting some of this wrong, and these are the things that God's putting on my heart. And can we just spend some time praying and engaging in conversation and studying scripture together and just leaning into this a bit? And I think it could potentially start there of just to say you know what? We may not be doing this. It might be really hard. This is a really sticky conversation, but why not? What could happen if we did lean into money conversations?
Speaker 1:And that's why I feel so passionate about it, nick, because I truly, truly believe that the easiest way to draw people closer to Jesus is through a money conversation. If I can get you to sit down and talk to me about your finances, I will very quickly be able to unearth. You know what's going on in your relationships, what's going on with your walk with the Lord, are you struggling with any addictions, and on and on and on and on right. And then it's so easy to then take that conversation, lead in with compassion and say let me tell you more about Jesus, let's pray for a bit. Right, it's so easy, it's so easy, and so I want people to be excited and just see the potential of what it means to engage in financial discipleship with their congregations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's. You know the old saying that your wallet is the last part of you to get saved. I think there is some truth into that and I think it's funny, but probably spiritual leaders should really pay attention to that. It's funny because it's true, people know that and Jesus tells us where our treasure is and our heart is also, and so there's a reality to that. But what does that actually say and what does that mean for us as spiritual leaders?
Speaker 2:And I also I wonder and you know you and I have talked about this of how few pastors themselves have actually gone through some discipleship. You know, I've seen it over and over again that there's. You know, pastors typically have good relationships and they typically have older people they look up to, but a lot of their discipleship has come from books. We've read a lot about a lot of people and we've had some maybe good college professors and, you know, had a few little coaches here and there that help us through, you know, church growth or some strategy or something like that that we've had, but we've not really had a lot and that's not the case for everybody, but we've not had a lot of really healthy discipleship as pastors and therefore it's constantly new territory for pastors, spiritual leaders, to figure out. How do we bring discipleship into this? And I know there's a bigger conversation. We're talking about discipleship but it all kind of funnels into this space of like.
Speaker 2:We're struggling to get into the particularities of what people are thinking about all the time. I mean, if finance is like one of the leading causes of divorce, finances is one of the leading causes of depression and anxiety, then wow, you know, we care about depression, anxiety, we care about divorce. Let's get under the hood and figure out. Okay, there's some common threads in all of these things. Maybe we need to look further, but we're ill-equipped, we don't know how, and I think we're trying to figure out. How do we get beyond? Just, you know, running a program in our church that helps people on a better budget, those are good. But how do we really think more and holistically and deeper? And I think that's a great opportunity that we all have in the local churches.
Speaker 2:But I know, for me personally, I'm always coming at this as one who I'm not even the blind leading the blind, I'm just the blind. You know, I'm kind of in this space where I'm like I don't know, I'm trying to figure it out. I want to figure this out for my own family. And how do the many of us who don't make a lot of money and we know God is abundant but we're like, well, I don't have a lot of that abundance in my life, but I am and want to continue to be committed to being generous continue to be thinking about not just my own family and my own needs, but how does this work for my neighbor? Or how does this look in a whole city? It's just really hard to steward all of that and I think that there's just so much gap and so much opportunity there that we don't even probably know exists.
Speaker 1:Oh, I absolutely agree. We certainly can't pretend that this is like an easy task or an easy subject. Right, and it's very nuanced and there's a lot of moving pieces. But my hope and my prayer for all of our listeners today is that they simply lean in and say, okay, what's one step, where can I start? Right, how can I start to integrate more financial discipleship into my church right now? And, yeah, maybe that looks like having a sermon series or a workshop or, you know, a class or whatever. Or maybe it just starts with like, well, have we been praying for the wisdom of financial discipleship? How are we speaking and inviting people to participate in giving in our church? And it can look very small versus now we have to start this whole second ministry or third ministry, right. And so my prayer for people listening in recognize like it doesn't have to be this huge, massive undertaking, but it can begin with just a single step and it's manageable. It's manageable and you can start today.
Speaker 1:Nick, what would you share? What's your vision? So, let's say, more churches started leaning into financial discipleship. Yeah, we're talking about churches more on Sundays and we're just actively discipling our people to become more like Jesus. That's what financial discipleship is right. It's just looking more like Jesus with our money, right. What could you see potentially as realities that would come fruit, that would come from that work?
Speaker 2:potentially as realities that would come, fruit that would come from that work. I think you know that because this is such a sacred cow, this is such like a hidden activity that I think bringing it to the light just means there's more light, and I think that's just creating deeper community. I think that's creating deeper relational strength. It's simply fueling a lot of the desires every pastor has and I know every church member has is they want to see more community. They don't want this to be hidden. They don't want to go home and be freaking out all night because they don't know not sleeping, because they just don't know how to manage. And so I think that's one of the biggest things that it's going to do in a community is just really bring light and so much communal connection and just simply talking about this you know it's super awkward, we don't know how to do it, and I think we just need to acknowledge that we don't know how to do it. I don't know how to do it. So I'm kind of saying this is like maybe a giant hypocrite, but I'm wanting to take some of those steps and I think there's just really great opportunity.
Speaker 2:I do think too, again, speaking of pastors, there's a reaction. That kind of happened and reason why we don't talk about money a lot of times, and it's because there's been this whole cultural narrative, you know, of pastors only care about money and the health and wealth, gospel and prosperity gospel and these kinds of realities that are out there, and so that's made us sort of like no, no, no, we're not doing that. You know, the pendulum might've swung the other way. And so I think the other big thing is just if this starts to happen, it just kind of writes the pendulum a little more, it just keeps it from, you know, swinging and just saying no, like we're rooted in the scriptures.
Speaker 2:Jesus talked about money. Jesus wants us to be good stewards, and Jesus really, you know, he wants us to think and be thinking about more than just the dollars and the cents, but the motivations and the anxieties and the things behind all of that that he wants us to pay attention to and see those seats at the table of our own heart. And so I think not only does it just open the door, bring light in, bring more community together, but I also think the last big thing that I keep thinking about is that it really does root us more in the way of Jesus, living out what he has called for us and rooting us there, rather than just where the world is.
Speaker 1:Amen to that friend. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate you coming on, nick, thank you and sharing just so much wisdom and insight. Like you said, it's okay to come to the table and be like man. I'm not really sure how to do this, but I know Jesus did it and so let's learn. Let's learn together and think about how much deeper and richer our faith could be if we put ourselves in situations where faith is actually required.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So my prayer for everyone listening today is that you take again just one step, whatever that might be. Let it be Holy Spirit led, you know. Pray and ask God. What's one step that you can take to bring financial discipleship into your church right now. And if you have questions about this and you're wondering how to do it, or if you are a pastor who needs financial discipleship yourself, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. This is the cause that keeps us up at night that we're so passionate for at CFD, so you can reach out to us at financialdiscipleshipcenter. So please reach out to us. We'd be happy to have a conversation with you.
Speaker 1:Just again, help you to explore what those first steps could be, because the whole point again, like you said, nick, it's not about the dollars and cents. When we read scripture about money, very rarely is it talking about practical money applications. It's talking about the heart posture, the thing that's keeping us from pursuing God with everything that we have. And so that's why this conversation is so important is because there are people within your church, people within your circle and your community who are just struggling to pursue God with everything they have because the love of money, fear of lack. All of these deep emotional things is holding them back and we have the opportunity to step in and help them. So I pray for a spirit of boldness to come over all of you, that you are excited to lean into money conversations, that let's just embrace the awkwardness together. It is going to be okay. Thank you all so much. Nick. If people walked away with one last thing real quick, what would you want that one thing to be?
Speaker 2:Well, for the pastors listening, I think just the vulnerability of just opening yourself up and just being able to say, okay, I don't have to have all the answers, but I can just start walking. And how does this like really root sin in our cities, in our congregations, in our world? Like how does that really get exposed to the light and we bring the grace of the gospel all over that? So that's my one thing, it's just being vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Amen, friend. Thank you all so much for listening. Big thanks again to Nick Nye for joining us from Fort Columbus. Nick, if people want to reach out to you, if they want to get in touch with you, how can they do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm on social media, so at Nick Nye in most places, and nicknyenet is for my coaching, but also for Columbusorg is a great spot too.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Thank you so much. And for those of you wondering that's Nye N-Y-E, you can find Nick Nye. Thank you again everyone. Please now go in boldness, go have a money conversation with someone. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Thank you friends. Have a it becomes. Thank you friends. Have a great day. 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.