Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Shear, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Abel Pomar. Abel is the president and CEO of Adelphi, a Christian credit union serving individuals, businesses, and ministries across the entire nation. He joined Adelphi in August 2014 as Chief Operations Officer from Bank of America, where he led the delivery of regulatory compliance change and transformative initiatives across the enterprise. Abel, welcome to the show. Thank you, Darren. Glad to be here. Abel, when did you first realize God wanted to be involved in your work and business?
SPEAKER_02You know, that's a really great question. I think the first time it really hit me over the head like a sledgehammer was in 2014 when I had the opportunity to join what uh Delphi was before called Evangelical Christian Credit Union. Um, I at the time I had been living out a career and I was at a national bank, as you mentioned. And uh, you know, I lived out my faith in the office. So, you know, people knew I was a believer, but I never really imagined that there was a financial institution, a Christian financial institution out there in the world where I could actually not just kind of live out my personal faith, but actually marry my like enterprise market skills and the workplace kind of marry it all together. And I think that was the first time it really hit me, um, clearly hit me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what changed as a result um in terms of how you really approached your work?
SPEAKER_02Uh you you know, I really realized that we are like light and salt in so many ways. Um, as a Christian business, when you're in the financial services industry, you're highly regulated. And um we have two regulatory bodies for our institution. One insures our deposits, and that's a national um organization. And then one is our state, where we're chartered in within the state of California to conduct business around the country. Well, both entities um you know have their laws, rules, regulations that they hold us accountable to. But when you are being measured against those things and they know that you're overtly Christian, you're it's in your name, it's in your mission, it's in your DNA, they the humans that come in to examine you, they are looking at you as a Christian. So it's a very unique opportunity to actually live out what you what you believe, meaning, you know, uh having respect for them. Um, also engaging with them, with helping them understand why we exist, our mission, who we serve, which is ultimately Christ, our Lord, right? But helping them understand that in human terms where they may not be believers. So it actually opened the door for much more witnessing opportunities in settings that I would have never imagined possible, right? So, you know, we could have very significant faith-based discussions with uh regulatory bodies in this country. And because we're a credit union, we're allowed to have these principles legally because credit unions can define who they serve. And it's one of the unique business structures in this country that allows you to be very specific around who you can serve and exclude others. So we serve exclusively Christians, evangelical Christians specifically, that agree to our statement of faith. And then from there, you know, we kind of build that into our DNA and culture. So yeah, we we live it out in everything we do, and it was a it's it'd been a grand opportunity to do that with with them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and tell us the previous name of the organization and the new name and kind of what the what this new name means, because it really your identity is summed up in that. And and tell us a bit about your more about your mission as well. Absolutely, I'd love to do that, Darren.
SPEAKER_02Um, so going way back in the history books in 1964, we were created as the Conservative Baptist Credit Union in Whittier, California. So our roots go way back there. And originally the organization was established to serve Baptist pastors and ministry leaders because in those, in that era, there was a difficulty in them really proving maybe their income and other things and obtaining basic things like auto loans and and other personal loans and other things. So that back then it was established for that reason. It grew up through the 80s uh to a point where it merged in in the mid-80s with the Association of Christian Schools International, and then it became evangelical Christian credit union at that at that time in the mid-80s. Um and around the mid-90s, we began shifting as an organization to focus more on ministries, churches and ministries and serving their needs, their financing needs, their banking needs. So from about the mid-90s all the way until the time I joined the organization, about 2014, 2015, it was really focused on ministry. Since I've joined the organization, we've started to really branch out. So we serve churches, ministries, but uh in the mid-2015 range, we started to serve consumers. So congregants like you and I that attend church, uh, we serve, we serve individuals like you and I, families. And then just this year, we began to serve um Christian business owners and Christian investors. And so we look at their business needs and we try to serve them as well through our banking and lending um products and services. Our mission, as you kind of asked, um all this time has been to really further the kingdom of God. And so one of the things we were exploring about a year and a half ago was our name, right? We were called Evangelical Christian Credit Union. We really, I think from my standpoint, coming from banking into the credit union world, I always struggled with most people really not understanding what is a credit union. And having that in your name could be a point of confusion in this already very cluttered, you know, ecosystem that we all kind of participate in with either social media or digital marketing and other things. And so we we conducted our own internal study focus groups, and we uh determined through the focus groups that we were right, most people didn't know what a credit union was or how it functioned or how to even become a part of it. And then the other thing we learned through that exercise is the term evangelical, even for believers, had various definitions. So there was not a consistent definition of what evangelical meant to even believers. And so that confusion around brand was a reason why we started to study well, what could what could our name be? And we really looked at who we were, and what we who we were was really a group of believers, because we're all believers. All of our employees profess the name of Christ as their savior. Um, so we're a group of believers that serves other believers. So, in the spirit of that, um, we hired a marketing firm that helped us kind of comb through, you know, early Greek and other um languages to find terms that could maybe resonate with that core element of who we are. And they identified the term Adelphos, which appears over 300 times in the New Testament. And basically, we took Adelphos, which means brother and sister in Christ, we shortened it to a del, and then we just added on the FI suffix to make it a delphi. The FI is really meant to be kind of a wink at financial institution and kind of that techiness that of who we are. And so our new name as of February of 2022 is a Delphi. Um and really is uh a financial institution of brothers and sisters in Christ coming together to kind of in in common stewardship to help kind of grow the the body of Christ and the kingdom of God here on earth, help us move forward, you know, for godly purposes.
SPEAKER_01It's a great name. What would you say, Abel, is your favorite Bible verse or passage related to business and entrepreneurship? And how do you how does that um resonate with Adelphi?
SPEAKER_02So it's it's going to be a verse, I think, that you probably or you or most people wouldn't tie it back to entrepreneurship or business, but I like to go back and ground my thinking in leading this organization in Acts 432. Because in that passage, you've got at the early church coming together and they looked at their assets. They looked at possessions they had and they looked at the needs of the body of Christ, and they used assets, so they pooled assets, sold assets, and worked with assets to help those that needed uh help within the body of Christ. So basically, it was it was kind of the DNA of our new name, right? And this idea that we, being a financial institution, get to participate in helping steward the resources of those that join our credit union. Um, we get to take people's deposits, and now we can protect those deposits. And what we do with those deposits is we use them to lend out to other believers, whether it's a church, whether it's a Christian business owner, whether it's a Christian investor, those loans go out to further their mission. And some of these missions, um, the mission of some of these organizations and individuals, as we all know, when a believer is doing well financially, they can give back more, even personally. So we see our role as helping to magnify what God is doing in everyone's life so that they can give back into the kingdom to spread the gospel so more people know who Jesus is, and therefore we grow the kingdom, right? So that fundamentally is how I tie back to that Acts 432 verses. You know, it doesn't specifically speak about business and entrepreneurship, but I love this idea that the body of Christ coming together, pooling resources, recycling Christian dollars in such a way where the kingdom grows. I think that's fundamentally why I love that verse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that phrase recycling Christian dollars. Um Delphi recently did a study with, I believe it was Lifeway, uh new study on how young Christians manage their money compared to their non-Christian peers. Um, what were some of the key findings from that study?
SPEAKER_02That great question, um, Darren. So, you know, the one of the things that I thought was confirming or made me feel very good in the results is that Christians give more than non-Christians. So we did a basically it's a survey of believers between the ages of 25 and 40. Uh, and we did this survey in the beginning of 2022. And basically, when you look at the results, um, one of the key results is that Christians within that age band give three times more than non-Christians on average. And that's exciting. So when you think about that, we see the generosity that exists when the Lord transforms your heart, right? So uh that that's an awesome data point there. The other uh elements that I think were noteworthy was that Christians are more likely to volunteer their time than non-Christians to causes they care about. So there's kind of an element of not just your treasure, but your time and your talent being given as well. And I think that's very powerful as well. Um one of the other things that came out of the survey was that 69% of Christians feel that they have a responsibility to be good stewards of their finances. So there's a high level of desire to be responsible before the Lord with the resources he's entrusted with us as believers. So all of that's very, very positive. Um, one of the things, though, that back to the point about recycling Christian dollars, that we're trying to understand is that when you see the results of the survey, all those data points are great, right? They reaffirm how we're living out our faith in this world. And I think that's great. But what I think is lost in as an opportunity is when you look at who most Christians use for whatever service. You know, in our case, it's banking services. Um, I don't have data that tells me specifically, but with my estimation of around 30 million approximate evangelicals in this country, and you look at the membership level of our credit union and other Christian credit unions, I would venture to guess it's pretty safe bet that most of these Christians are banking with large national banks, right? And so I think there's an opportunity in our case for Christians to rethink where are they entrusting their dollars? What are those institutions doing with those dollars? Are they funding organizations and activities or supporting causes that further the gospel? Or are they supporting um indirectly things that maybe in a sense conflict with the faith that we we share? So that's an example of one of the things that coming out of this study, you were wrestling with is like so so people say this, but how do they actually live it out in practice? And it isn't just with financial institutions, it could be the dry cleaner on the corner. You know, I think we we should, as Christians, be looking for every opportunity to find that Christian business owner to help that business do well. Because when that Christian business owner does well, they're gonna give back to their local church, local causes, which then furthers the gospel and it just strengthens the body of Christ on earth. So so that's the one area that I think we are gonna probably end up doing more studies about because we see that people have the right principles, biblical principles around you know, stewardship and giving. But can they take that further now? Can they take it beyond just the Sunday, you know, offering plate or the you know the tithe that they give regularly? And can they, in a sense, tithe with every every dollar they spend or every swipe that they they do online? Um, you know, that's that's the next step I think we want to understand better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And this may have been beyond the scope of the study, but these encouraging statistics about how these young Christians uh really want to um partner with companies and institutions that align with their values. Does that does it look like there's been an increase in this generation's commitment to do that over the previous generation?
SPEAKER_02Or yes, there actually there is. Um I I it was not part of our study, but I a recent study looked at um generational differences and attitudes around finances. And this was not a faith-based study, but it was a secular study. But it did show that um baby boomers, I guess, grew up in an era where we probably can't relate to all the challenges that they had growing up necessarily, but they tended to preserve and try to protect and and and almost like make sure that they're gonna be okay. Like the circle was was narrower. But as you get to these younger generations now, millennials, Gen Z, they are externally looking out as to how they can make an impact in the world around us today. They're kind of looking a little bit broader at where they want to have impact. So it isn't just let's make sure my family's okay, that we have enough resources, that we have a strong like retirement plan. No, they want to actually be involved in organizations that have impact. They want to work for organizations that have impact and they actually want to impact the world around them. So there are some shifts that have been going on between generations.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. It it definitely seems that uh that just the idea of sharing and and having uh things in common is is more in line with this generation than the previous generation. I'm I'm kind of uh on the fence of the Gen X and Millennials, they call us Bridgers, born in 1982. And I remember when I was growing up, just even watching the commercials, they were very like even from serial commercials or uh just those Saturday morning commercials, it seemed like the theme was always like um like nobody better lay a finger on my butterfinger, or like this, this is mine, and no like Lego my ego, like those ego waffles commercials, it was always like very selfish, like this selfish um kind of um just just ethos in the in the culture that was really just I think had permeated that my generation. But I think with these these next you see the commercials now, it's much more about like sharing things, right? And doing things with other people. And so it seems like just the credit union um approach and and and the value there, I think it seems like it would resonate much more with these younger generations now than previous generations, don't you think?
SPEAKER_02I would definitely think so. And I think for us it's uh it's our job to tell our story through our new brand um and to you know explain to the to the believers out there, the young believers, you know, the middle-aged believers, that they have a choice. There's a legitimate choice. You know, we we're headquartered in in Brea, California, in Southern California, but we have no branches. We, you know, you can carry us in your in your pocket on our mobile app, and you can do pretty much everything you can do uh with any bank. Um, most of us don't walk into branches anymore. I think studies show that um branches are used kind of as a security blanket, so to speak. Everybody wants a branch nearby because they feel they want to have it there in case there's ever a need to walk into one with a major problem. But in reality, we can help you solve those problems from a distance as well, just as easily, right? So that's just then a fact of things, right? So I think it's our job to tell that that new brand story and to use every platform possible to try to help people understand that every dollar on deposit and every maybe loan or every swipe of a card somehow ties back to us receiving revenue that funnels through our operations and ends up in our bottom line. And just like last year alone, we gave nearly a million dollars back to ministries, missionaries, and other causes to help further the gospel. So, I mean, that's that's why we exist. And I think if if we can do that, other Christian businesses can do the same thing and we can all combined have a magnifying impact on how we really get to proclaim Jesus. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01In light of what we've heard about your mission, what is your invitation to Christian business owners, investors, and other Christian business professionals now about how they can get involved with Adelphi Banking?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I I would encourage them to visit our website, uh www.adelphibanking.com. That's probably the place you can get some general information um about us. We are also, um, as I said earlier, we've launched into this area of the Christian business owner, Christian Investor here this year in 2022. And we're putting together um plans to really support and sponsor more events like Faith-Driven Entrepreneur Event. We're going to be holding a simulcast in Brea, California, where um you're going to be able to, you know, join us in person, meet other Christian business owners, potentially create some relationships there, also be encouraged in the Lord, and then look to how you can kind of fit into a network of other believers so that you can spur each other on. We're also looking at sponsorships, opportunities with uh Convene and other groups like that, where where it is uh kind of iron sharpening iron, um where you meet together and you hone your skills, both in the marketplace skills and your your faith together and you kind of walk this journey of life. And so we're here for that. One of the big things that we've been doing um this year is uh commercial real estate loans for uh those that uh Christian um investors that own office space, uh multifamily unit uh rental uh apartments. We're be we're doing those loans today and we're serving that population um very effectively. So back again, um going into our website is probably the easiest way to get information about us in that regard. And I would encourage any individuals, consumers, if if you're thinking about where is the best place I can honor God with my financial resources, I would encourage you all to give Adelphi a look, see, and maybe you'd find that we're a really good alternative to that national bank that you're using today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Beautiful. Um, Abel, what's one action you would want people to take as a result of listening to this interview? Um, certainly we want people to go to AdelphiBanking.com. Um, what else would you say?
SPEAKER_02I would say really think about where you spend your money, because where you spend your money has a direct impact on our culture. Um we can support organizations and companies through donations, and that's wonderful, but you're also supporting organizations and companies through your purchases. And I would say, you know, if we all, if the body of Christ really looked at where they spent their money and channeled and funneled their resources through to primarily Christian-owned entities or at least Christian um-led entities, I think we can begin to also affect the culture in a in a positive way through how those dollars get recycled back into the kingdom of God. So that's the one thing I would say, you know what, check who you who you do business with and you know, the restaurant owner, the dry cleaner, you know, seek out those believers in your community so that you can support them and we can just help each other, just like in Acts 432.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well said, Abel. Well, thank you for the the work that you're doing. And um, and just may God continue to pour out his favor and wisdom on you as you uh head into this new chapter of um uh with with Adelphi and the and the rebrand and and um and thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you, Darren, and thank you for your podcast too. I I think I mentioned to you I'm a big fan of uh Christianity and business, and uh it had spurred me on over the years to keep moving forward and what God has called me to. So I encourage all those uh leaders out there listening to you to just keep following the Lord and keep listening to the podcast, too. It's great. Thanks for that.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about the HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.