Give It Up For Creating MILLIONAIRES In Your Church!

In this episode, Vance and Zoe explore the intriguing concept of churches fostering financial prosperity among their congregation. Drawing from a prophetic insight received by Vive Church, they discuss the importance of faith and works, and challenge common misconceptions about wealth in religious contexts. The episode serves as a bridge between faith, technology, and the entrepreneurial spirit prevalent in places like Silicon Valley.

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Transcript

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We also have a theology that is counter to let go, let God tell me more. We have a theology that actually says this pray. Like everything depends on prayer. But work like everything depends on work. Faith without works is actually the Bible says, dead. It's not a true faith. A pastor turn tech leader and a millennial churchgoer, exploring the intersection of technology, culture and faith, equipping you with innovative strategies to support you as you live out your calling leader churches with confidence to step into the future together. This is the give it up podcast events. Yes, it's time to talk about a topic that you are very passionate about which one? Well, I have a lot of a lot of things. This one's gonna rub people the wrong way. Just hearing okay to trigger alert. Trigger warning, creating millionaires in your church. Let's go money millionaires, baby. That's right, making it rain. prosperity gospel. Okay, no. So by the way, I don't subscribe to the prosperity gospel. Just to be clear, I feel like yeah, anyway, every five sentences in this, we're gonna have to be like, PS, this is a side note. But let's talk about the prophetic word that was given to vive church around this topic. And then we will dig into your very unique thoughts around this. Yeah. TL Dr. That is text speak for too long to read. Didn't Read? Yes. too long didn't read. Your right. Thank you. TLDR. Basically, early on in five church, we started in the Silicon Valley, we felt Hey, cool, there's probably going to be some millionaires that come join our church and help fund the mission and the expansion of five church. But somebody told us early on that that's not going to happen. Okay, that's depressing. But yeah, we won't inherit millionaires, but we will make millionaires. And so that is kind of been a calling on our house is how do we create environments? How do we pastor people, to where the orbits and the universes that we create, that's what my pastor and I always talk about? Can the people that touch our orbit, the vibe or bid be blessed? Right, can they they find themselves in a place of God's favor, and a place of God's blessing in their family, in their business in their endeavors? And we've seen that we've seen that there are people that are probably millionaires now, I don't exactly know, their net worth don't have a tally. But I would say they didn't start out as that. Yeah, people that we've been journeying with for a decade plus now that have seen the favor of God, the hand of God on their career, have had the ambition, put it on mission and see God's blessing, just his hand on their career. And it's been a beautiful thing to see. Because the more they are blessed, the more that they are a blessing to everybody around them, including the local church and the work that we're doing. At Vives, specifically. Yeah, I'm still stuck on the fact that you said had the ambition. Put it on mission. You like that? Yeah. Make that? Yeah, right there. But this is a really interesting perspective, because you bring up money in the church, and it was like, Oh, my God, money is an idol. This is bad. You're gonna create millionaires, then then they're going to run away from the church. Yeah, exactly. You know, the root of the love for money is evil. Oh, he's going there. Yeah. So this is a really foreign concept for people in the church understand? Why do you think that you guys have been able to tap into creating a language for because you're in the Silicon Valley, which honestly doesn't mean anything, unless you can speak the same languages? Sure. Sure. Sure. Right, break the frequency. But you started a church with seven people in the living room. And none of them were millionaires. Correct. So how did you learn partly because three of them were kids, but yeah. And then it was Kim and I were just starting our careers. I was at Google, I was like, literally, entry level. Kim was a teacher in East San Jose. She was in the hood. She didn't get paid, and teachers don't get paid. And then passes, Adam and Cara were missionaries from Australia, moved to the Silicon Valley and dumped all of their life savings into starting the church. And so that was, you know, the resources that we had. Yeah. So how did you learn to speak a language that the Silicon Valley and people who are into investing in tech and stuff like that would come around and get behind? One of the greatest blessings that we had was to be bootstrapped? Actually, that was one of the greatest blessings because There are church plants now that are raising literally like millions of dollars when they start, it's crazy. And if you lose an edge, right, you lose this mentality of grit and hustle, when everything is just given, and I'm not opposed to that strategy, if you gotta like that great, but you will negotiate on some stuff, if you're not intentional about producing things like grit, persistence, creativity, hustle that you need to get it off the ground in a way that's sustainable, right? Because in the beginning, because we had lack of resources, we had to lean on innovation. Right? I remember, we literally Pastor Adam, my pastor, he, he would print a marketing card that we would hand out. And we would get discounts if we made a bulk order. And so we literally put all the dates of the team meetings and the launch services on the card. And we did a bulk order. So every single Sunday, we would cross out all the cards if the date was done, say this is this is innovation people. We, we went to the local music store, and got their second hand. You know, guitar, sound systems, things like that. And we'd have to return it Sunday night so that they can loan it back out on a Monday. This is innovation people, this is called resourcefulness. Yes. And those are the type of things that actually in the Silicon Valley was highly regarded. Because the Silicon Valley is not just known for apple today, they're known for apple in the garage. Right? There. They're not just known for Facebook today. They're known for Zuckerberg building and coding in his house. Yeah. And so really, the startup journey is something that we really leaned into. And we leveraged. We also have a theology that is counter to let go, let God tell me more. We have a theology that actually says this pray, like everything depends on prayer, but work, like everything depends on the work, Faith without works, is actually the Bible says, dead. It's not a true faith that there needs to be substance. Right? that there needs to be substance to this faith. So we believe that there is a partnership, it is counter to the extremes of how money is mainly seen in a ministry context in modern day because there is like you said earlier this prosperity gospel Yeah, that you have not. Because you don't believe enough, ask enough. have enough faith. I have a Bentley, because I prayed. Because I asked because I have so much more faith in you. I have a Ferrari, your cadence change, and I'm gonna name it, I claim it, I believe it I manifested. This is this is this is this is the extreme nature of the prosperity gospel. I don't necessarily describe subscribe to that. But I do subscribe to God wanting us to be prosperous. So that is actually different from the other extreme of the gospel that I hear, which is the poverty gospel. Yeah, that if I deny myself enough, if I carry my cross, if I count the cost, these are all biblical themes. By the way, I'm not saying this is not Bible but manifest Exactly. But to to fully subscribe to the poverty gospel would mean that I am more holy, the more I go without. So so you know what? Everything is yours, God, it's all yours. I am going to pray and just believe food is going to be on my table. I'm just gonna pray. And this is a cool gospel when you're single. I'm telling you right now, with a wife, the father of four kids, Lennox Emerson Tatum. Wesley Dior? Yes, that's a luxury name, because it's luxury to have four kids in the Bay Area. I'm telling you right now, it is not cool to believe in the poverty gospel when you have dependents on your tax return. You know, I'm saying and so and so I don't subscribe to the prosperity gospel. I don't subscribe to the poverty gospel. I subscribe to the partnership gospel, that it is God in me and through me that wants to bring about his purposes on this planet. Your kingdom come here on Earth. We're meant to bring kingdom here on earth were we meant to bring heaven here on earth? It's not deferring until I get to this ethereal destination called the heaven. No Heaven now, what we're meant to bring heaven here on earth. So what does that look like? That looks like bringing about the purpose of God on this planet and the purpose of God on this planet might mean, you need to know how to create, attain and steward wealth. It might mean that, here's the reality, okay? We hear sometimes maybe as a byproduct of the poverty gospel, that hey, you know what, just rest. Just recline. Okay, God is already pleased with you. Stop working so hard. Don't subscribe to hustle culture. Don't subscribe to Tony Robbins. Don't subscribe to all these things. Because God is just a gracious God and just recline in His grace. It sounds so good because I have pictures of a beach right now. Right? I have pictures of serenity right now. I have pictures of a nice view, maybe a nice glass of wine, and reclining and relaxing. Newsflash, that does not bring success. I think sometimes we get our salvation doctrine mixed up with what actually provides for your family. Practically right. Okay. Yes, relax, recline in the grace of God when it comes to your soul. When it comes to your salvation. Do you need to work for grace? No. Is there anything that you can do to earn grace? No. Yes. When you believe and receive Yes, you can have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. But when it comes to creating, attaining, and and stewarding wealth that takes work, wealth takes work. This is biblical. I'm not preaching heresy. Don't add me. Don't come at me. You can unsubscribe to this podcast. That's okay. Ecclesiastes 1010 says this though, if the axe is dull, and its edge unsharpened more strength is needed. But skill will bring success. It doesn't say but fasting will bring success. It doesn't say more prayer will bring success. It doesn't say believe harder, and it will bring success. No, it says, But skill will bring success. How about you understand what your skill is and work at it? Well, and I also don't subscribe to hustle culture too. Because if you are requiring so much strength, and you need to work 80 100 hours a week, to get what you need to get done to make a living, your axe is dull. So once you sharpen your axe and realize it's not actually even about the hours, it's about the commitment to your craft that you can generate so that you can create a skill so valuable, yeah, that it will lead to success. Wow. And that's what entrepreneurship is. Entrepreneurship, which I believe is one of the greatest vehicles to creating wealth to making millionaires is about finding something on this planet that you have desire about. Right desire, if you break down that word D in zire, right in the the root of that is of D. Sire is father of the father. Wow. Right. And so when the Bible says that, he'll give you the desires of your heart, it's actually because you've submitted your life to him, and he starts transforming your desires for the purposes of God, oh, but he'll grant you those who grant you those. And so you don't have to minimize those desires. You don't have to minimize the seed of skill that he's given you actually, you need to maximize it in your world as you need to invite Him into that place. So you can breathe His Spirit on it, you could breathe His favor on it. So you can have his covering over it so that you can co develop it, you can co found it. With him. He is the founder and the perfecter of our faith he is if God is a founder, yeah, he's a founder of the universe. Now we can be co founders, we can be co heirs, we are the Bible says, subject to an inheritance. So this is not prosperity. This is partnership. He wants you to prosper, but for a greater purpose, that you can live a life that is beyond yourself. I mean, that's a amazing distinction and makes me really rethink. Let's just say My life flashed before my eyes and how I was on both sides of that spectrum. But yeah, what a freeing mentality, knowing that it's not all on you, but God wants you to do something so that he can use what you've done. Yes. And multiply it. Yes. And the same thing is compound interest lessons. You know, it's it works the same in that kingdom, God is the compound interest on your efforts. That's right. You know, I'm Dave Ramsey, we talked about Dave Ramsey in an earlier episode, which we will link up here for you guys. We talked about how the whole concept of what he created was to get the church out of debt through Financial Peace University, and it's based on the the borrower is slave to the lender, right? And that's part one of this, right? Because nobody should be in debt, right in that way, because it's not serving you, or is it serving the kingdom? And I want to know, why churches should actually want to create millionaires not just get people out of debt, but get them to a place and and be the resource for them to understand that you can give out of abundance because of that. Because of that obedience. Yeah. I mean, the Bible is really clear. Right? Be fruitful, brief, fruitful and multiply. Yeah. Multiplication. Yeah, is the economy of Heaven is the economy of God. Right? That actually in Genesis, it says that we are to take dominion, we are territory takers, if we go to Genesis two, five, this is a really, really interesting passage in the narrative of the creation story. It says, and I'm just going to look it up in the NLT version. Here, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants, nor grains were growing on the earth. For the LORD God had not yet set the rain to water the earth. There were no people to cultivate the soil. This is the theology of partnership. Wow, that there was no currency yet. There was no plants, there was no grain we talked about maybe this episode's make a grain. He did not send the rain, yet, because there was nobody to cultivate it. There was nobody yet to partner with him. Well, now there are people that he chose to partner with. And when he partners with us, He wants us to be fruitful. He wants us to create plants, grains, produce, he wants us to be producers, he wants to us to have production. And what that looks like today is maybe not agriculture. Maybe it's not plants, and grain, but maybe it's to become a creator. Maybe it's to become an entrepreneur, maybe it's to build businesses, or a YouTube channel, or an Instagram page, where you are creating something that did not yet exist, that's going to provide value to people, our universal call is to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves one way we can love our neighbors to serve our neighbor. One way to serve our neighbor to solve a problem, though, best way to become a millionaire is to solve a problem for as many people as you can. And then you go on the journey when you solve that problem to figure out the economics behind monetizing that. Yeah. And monetization is not an evil word. Okay. Melissa monetization, like if you go back to the origin story of even the tithe and Deuteronomy, right, the Bible instructs that people would literally have to take the crops that they were blessed with. And they would go into the temple. And in the temple, they would give up their tithes, but the Lord of hosts said, that you're going to put your crops on the altar, you're gonna put your produce, you're gonna put your fruit, anything that you have produced, you're gonna put a time to that on the altar. But Deuteronomy says, the Lord of hosts says, I want you to eat it at the altar with me. God don't need your crops, God don't need your currency. But if we submit it to him, we get to enjoy it with him. The modern day version of that is the altar call, that we submit our ties, our offerings, our resources, to see the local church to see this new construct called the way to see this new organization, this Ecclesia the called out ones come together. And when we give of our resources to see the ecclesia expanded on this earth, and every single Sunday, your pastor gives a message in a sermon. That is the gospel and the gospel is irresistible to people. People are hungry for the gospel, to have an appetite for the gospel when they respond to the altar from the gospel. It's not maybe eating your crops and your fruit that you made, but you gave money in it produced a miracle of salvation and you get to actually join in and participate with God. I enjoy a feast with him. That is effectuated through people's lives being transformed. Yeah. And so that is why more and more churches need to cultivate places in spaces where people can feel the permission to have an ambition that is put on mission for the gospel. And we're only gonna be able to resource that if we have millionaires in our church doing, you know, speaking of resourcing millionaires in the church, I just need to shout out our overflow insider episodes. That was that time we asked billionaires for money. overflow.co/insights right. If you aren't an insider, you should sign up right now. It's free and you get into that episode. Yeah, get access to the exclusive vaulted conversation. It's a It's spicy, let's just say that I love insider I also love our partners at grow leader Yes, row leader, I'm rocking the boat you Oh, sure grow leader golf shirt. And they have been phenomenal. They serve over 16,000 churches around the world with resources you can go to grow, grow leader.com To find out more, but they literally equip the local church with playbooks with free resources that you can download things like the Grow Next Steps program, and other things that will bless your church. But we are big partners with grow leader, so we appreciate them and love them so much. Yeah. No, I love that. And obviously, the whole concept of this conversation is around money. And I know that there's a lot of apprehension, because the ultimate fear behind it is, well, I don't want to be teaching people that money is good, because where is the line between money being good? And money being an idle? Right? How have you navigated that? It's the same thing with technology. It's the same thing with anything. It's technology, money, it's agnostic. It's a tool. Right? Like we said earlier, it's the love of money that is the root of all evil, and people have shortcut that statement to say money is evil. No, money is a tool. Yeah, money is a servant to terrible master. It's an incredible servant. You tell money what to do. They anecdote to money becoming evil. Money becoming greed is another way to say it in your life. That anecdote to that is generosity. Yes. Giving people don't greed, greedy, people don't give. And so if you can give your money, that means you are a master over your money. Yeah, if you can give your money, it means you can use it as a tool and tell it where to go. If you cannot give your money. If if your money talks to you. If your money has a conversation with you say, hey, Zo, you need me for rent. You need me for food, you need me for that Disneyland trip. So you cannot give me away from me like that. Don't give me away to your local church. Don't give me away to that person that can use it that could leverage it that I'm speaking that God is speaking to you about to be generous towards, you know, though you can't use me for hospitality. Because Because you need those shoes, because I'm like, coming right out. Right out right now. If your money is talking to you, yep. And you don't know how to talk back to it. And you don't know how to put into submission. And you don't know how to use it as a servant. It is a terrible master. The way it talks to you is with the language of fear. The way that money will talk to you if you allow it to is with the language of intimidation. No, no, no, you are in control. No, no, you have discipline. No, you have first principle truths in your life that you can adhere to. And as long as you can be a master over your money, as indicated by things like giving Yeah. Then God will bless it. Yeah. So basically what you're saying is teach your church to put that voice in a chokehold. That's what w e is what's needed. Generosity. Yes. Another good bar there. You know, one of the concepts and phrases that I learned that helped me put this into practice was if I'm uncomfortable, that's the telltale sign good you're doing something right. If it's uncomfortable when you're giving Yeah, then that you're doing something right and I'm glad I learned this when I was making$32,000 In my first job. There you go. Go and transparent. I am overflows. Now your first job by the way, people. This is actually me telling Vance that I would like a race. Yeah, exactly. You are coming at me. Yeah. You can't know but I couldn't afford really much of anything. Yep. And I had that exact thought of, I don't know how I can afford to give 10% of this. And I thought, well, if I, if I actually feel that way now, yeah, then every step, yeah, step up, I'm always going to feel like it's this ethereal thing that I, I never can do. And I'm so glad that I challenged myself good. Because the conviction that I felt around it of like, well, if this is the one area in the Bible, where God says, Test me in this, I should probably test him. I literally did it to be like, Alright, let's see what happens. I was feeling a little feisty. Okay. Oh, God, not we're dueling. Yeah, in that phase of my life. And I was like, Alright, I'm gonna test you in this. And my key takeaway was, holy cow. I'm so glad I had that moment. Because I actually always want to be uncomfortable. Because that is the god gap. I want the opportunity to continue stewarding whatever God brings my way, because I don't consider it. Mine to begin with. I love that. Yeah. $32,000. So that means that you tied that year $3,200 Correct. You know, I don't do public math, but I could do that. And, you know, sometimes people get mixed up, you know, you know, what's the tithe? You know, it's 10% people. Yeah. And so that that is a battle in that 3200 goes up every time you get a raise? Sure. Every time you're blessed with with increase, people get mixed up, though, because they take a legalistic view of the tie, then the tithe is very clear, biblically, but it wasn't even. It was the minimum actually. So in Levitical tradition, in Jewish tradition, back in the day, it was actually more than 10%. By the way, if you want to get real like in the weeds, you know, it was 10%, from your crops, in the modern day version of currency. But you actually, biblically, the Jewish people, they actually set aside another 10% as kind of a hosting budget. So you, you are required in Levitical law to be able to set aside 10% to host people hospitality to throw a party for your friends, and things of that nature. And then another 10% was meant to be given every three years, every third year, specifically to the poor. So technically, the tithe is 23.33%. But nobody wants to talk about that. You said the key though, it's actually New Testament giving. I mean, hopefully we can use the tithe as just the baseline as just a starting point. Yeah, but New Testament giving is, all of it is not even mine. Yeah. All of it is God's Yeah, right. X two, they gave everything. They gave everything to each other. They made sure that nobody in the community was with need. Right? You want to talk about real generosity and New Testament giving? Jesus would always raise the bar. Yeah, he actually Jesus reference a tithe once, and one of the passages in the Bible, but and he says you should do the time. Right. But he always raised the bar. Jesus I was always raised about that's what generosity is. Yes. Is extravagant. It's abundant? It's, it is, it is not just looking for Okay, how much do I have to give? No, no. What do I get to give? Yeah, partnership with God. And it does get exciting, like, very exciting. When you when you think about, okay, well, I know that percent is God's, and I'm totally fine with it. And I can't wait to see where it can be allocated this month, where God is literally just going to give me the vision to see and meet a need. Yeah, because I know, this has already been put towards doing whatever God wants to do with this. I love that too. I love it. I love it. Yeah, there's this idea of living an asymmetric life actually talked about this in staff not too long ago for the overflow staff. And there's a few principles in there. I heard it from this talk from the speaker at Stanford, he encouraged people to do hard things. That's how you can live an asymmetric life to do your thing, find the thing that you're specifically skilled at. And then to do it for a decade or longer, right. And it's interesting because the formula for compound interest is actually one plus r to the n. And so in that formula, the quadratic nature of that is the exponent, it's to the n, right? Are as the coefficient is the thing that you can, you know, let's say I'm a CEO, I can work on my skill set, I can get an executive coach, I can get training to be a better CEO. But the thing that actually takes me exponential is the end. What's the end? years Yeah, well, that's crazy. Test god. Yeah. Don't just try for one year. Just imagine continuing to be consistent. Yeah, to be faithful towards God. Yes, he is always faithful towards us and just watch the exponential blessing. And I'm not just talking monetary. I'm talking about the exponential blessing in every area of your life because God is covering it. God is redeeming it. You're partnering with God in it. Totally. It's a long term play. And it's worth it and double down on your messaging. That needs to be said that all the time. Come on. I love it. Thanks so much for listening to the give it up podcast if you want to receive even more insights on church innovation, culture, and giving now you can sign up for free to be an overflow insider, where you'll receive exclusive content discounts direct access to Vance Roush to get your questions answered, and also invite only access to our monthly fundraising leadership forums. Head to overflow.co backslash insider, are just click the link in our bio to sign up for free today. In order to get this podcast in the ears of even more church leaders. Could you please subscribe and leave a review for the show? This tells the podcast players what people are enjoying and want to hear more of and we are adamant about providing maximum value to even more church leaders. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time.