Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the R.E.W. Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Shearer, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Mike Holmes. Mike is the founder of tithehacker.org, a site dedicated to stirring up a revolution of giving. And he's the author of I Shall Raise Thee Up: Ancient Principles for Lasting Greatness. And another book that's going to be really the focus of our chat here today is Success Habits of Christian Millionaires. Mike, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Hey, Darren. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01So why did you dive into this topic of success habits of Christian millionaires?
SPEAKER_02Well, the main reason is because I wanted to find out what millionaires and billionaires were doing at the same time. I wanted to find out what millionaires were doing because there are a lot of millionaires, unfortunately, who will go, who might, if they don't know Christ, they'll go to hell. And I wanted to find out people who love God, you know, did his work, but at the same time were affluent. So I really just started to study their habits and study what they were doing and study how they thought. And then you little by little you start to see patterns emerge from these people. And then I was able to put that information in a book, and here we are today.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. So who are some of your favorite Christian millionaires that you profile in this book?
SPEAKER_02The biggest surprising one was John D. Rockefeller, because a lot of people just see him as a uh Robert Baron, but he was a really um he loved the Lord, he loved the Bible, he loved everything, and he was by far the richest Christian millionaire. I also love uh the Benham brothers, which are very contemporary. They're doing a lot of great things um for the work of God. David Green, which is the founder of Hobby Lobby. Then you have True Kathy, who's the founder of Chick-fil-A. And if there was another one, I would say uh a lady by the name of Fullerons Lakija, who is uh according to Forbes, she's a billionaire. Um, she is a pastor, businesswoman, oil magnate, uh fashion designer. So those would be the favorite people that I really look up to.
SPEAKER_01What are some of the the stories and examples that that really encouraged you the most?
SPEAKER_02Here's the funny thing. The overarching habit that I found with every single one of these people was that they they prayed. Because, you know, like you look at a billionaire, they're so smart, they're so driven, they're so intuitive, uh, they just know how to how to have a great vision. But one of the stories um is happened with the founders of Century 21. So they first came over, they came over and they had no uh the husband was working three jobs, the wife was working two, and they were just wondering how to get out of the mess they were in. They wanted to have a better life for them, their family. So one day, the wife, Jin Sook, she went to a mountain to pray and said, God, what do we do about this financial situation? And in that moment of prayer, God gave her the answer and said, You need to start a business and it's gonna be very successful. And they saved up for another couple of years to start Century 21. That first year they made $700,000 at their peak of 2016. Um, they had $4 billion in sales and employed hundreds of thousands of employees. And that business came as a result of them seeking God first before they, you know, and it's not to say that they they couldn't have been successful otherwise. It's not to say that at all. But the fact is, is it they cut so much time just by going to God first about their about his plan for success. And I believe in Isaiah 48, verse 17, it says, Um, I'm the Lord and I will teach you how to profit and I will lead you in the way that you should go. And so when you just seek God first, it just saves so much more time than you just trying to figure out on your own.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you also mentioned uh John D. Rockefeller, and like you said, a lot of people uh just assume that he was just this robber baron that history has painted him out to be, you know, his company was found to be or determined to be uh a monopoly and was broken up and everything. Uh what is the evidence from his life that he was completely just sold out to God?
SPEAKER_02So John D. Rockefeller, he he was the oldest child. His he had his mom and then he had his father. His father was a womanizer, right? He was an absentee. He'd gone to believe he had another family.
SPEAKER_01Devil Bill.
SPEAKER_02Devil Bill, yes, just selling everything, selling what didn't work and whatnot. Devil Bill. So Devil Bill left the family, and John D. Rockefeller, he left high school because he had to go work. And he had this determination about him. And I believe he called it a job day, where he went six days a week for about six to eight weeks looking for his first job. While doing that, while trying to find his way, it was at that time that he got saved at a Baptist church. He got baptized at a Baptist church, he sung in the choir at a Baptist church, he read a Bible, he read his Bible consistently, just like we all would. Um, he was giving his money away to charitable causes that would that would uh glorify God's kingdom. He did all these things silently. He didn't let everybody know. Like I think, I think one of the mistakes of John D. Rockefeller is that he didn't really defend himself as as he could have. But then again, he probably just left it in the hands of God and said, All right, God, you deal with it in your way, you deal with it however. I mean, he did deal with it later on in life, but not during the time it was happening. But just through just through regular things like prayer and seeking God and Bible study, things like that, that caused him to really show the fruits of his conversion.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And he was he was quite convinced that it was God that made his business so successful, and and that it was it was God that was um really had anointed him to take over these other companies, right?
SPEAKER_02See, because the oil industry at that time was very disjointed, it was very disorganized, and he saw it, and he saw it and said, No, I'm gonna bring order to this, I'm going to really be the the chief shepherd, as it were, over this. And even in his 70s, he still was unapologetic. He said, he said emphatically, God gave me my money. God gave me my money. That's what he said, and his biographer uh you know attests to that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What are some of your other favorite stories from maybe maybe people companies that people probably heard of that they just might not even recognize that that they would be that just the way that history has, they can tend to weave God out of the story sometimes.
SPEAKER_02We'll stick with Standard Oil. So so Standard Oil um was a monopoly, it was, but the the thing about the personal thing about John D. Rockefeller is that he was a big giver, right? So I'll stick with John D. Rockefeller, I'll go to Standard Oil. So John D. Rockefeller was a big giver. He gave, when he would just start at working, he was giving 6%. After his 20s, he was giving more than 10 to 20% of his income. And he believed by him doing that, that allowed God to get in his business. As it related to Standard Oil, a lot is not really known, but it was run really well. John D. Rockefeller had a love for numbers. So he knew where every dime of every dollar was going. Um, he took care of his employees rather good. He was a great, he was one of those hybrid starters and managers, like we'll see, like uh uh a Jeff Bezos, as it were, or even uh uh Bill Gates, where they can start the company at the same time. They have the emotional uh stability to manage the company. And he was a phenomenal manager.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I remember correctly, he he carried his ledger around with him pretty much everywhere he went. And and you know, you're talking about how what a good manager and and how frugal he was. Uh one of the stories I remember from his uh biography was his uh his children, he would only get one bicycle. Obviously, he could afford a lot of bicycles, but they got one bicycle because he wanted them to learn how to how to share it and be and just learn from his frugal lifestyle.
SPEAKER_02His wife was actually more frugal than him. If I'm and I I know the story you're talking about, and he was like, Well dear, I think we can get them one uh another bicycle. And she said, No, they'll learn how to share. Um, when she died, she only had two dresses in her closet. The richest man in the world, his wife just refused to spend money. Uh, they would just believed in in in austere living. He, on the other hand, he would, you know, he had horses, he had things that he loved and whatnot, but the wife just refused to spend money. But he was very frugal. Um, but he was also very a very good steward, too. Like there was a there was a story of John D. Rockefeller when he came to one of his plants and he noticed because he he he was a great overseer. He watched everything. He was always trying to, I guess, fire himself. He didn't want to be involved in everything. He just wanted to duplicate himself and everything. So he comes to one of his uh plants and then he notices that they're filling up the they're filling up the drums. And he said, How many, how many, how many drops does it take to fill up the drum? They said 40. He said, Can you do me a favor? Can you try 38? He tried 38 and said that, oh, he saw a drop. So he said, Okay, can you try 39? And that 39 was they were able to seal it up for less than a drop. And he said, I'm gonna quote him, that one drop of solder saved $2,500 the first year, but the export business kept on increasing after that and doubled, quadrupled, became immediately greater than it was then, and the saving had gone steadily along, one drop on each camp and has amount can and has amounted since to many hundreds of thousands of dollars from one drop of solder. So he knew he understood the concept of uh trimming and and budgeting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and many of today's well-known prestigious institutions were founded with his with his money, you know. University of Chicago, a lot of people don't recognize that. What some of the other some of the other institutions. I mean, really, institutional giving, he had so much money, he was kind of one of the first or really pioneered this whole concept of found uh giving from a foundation, you know, institutional giving.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I agree. Because it's funny when we really talk about stewardship. I mean, we talk about it in a sense of cost cutting and just giving away your money, but that's not real biblical stewardship. Real biblical stewardship at the end of the day is about multiplying capital, multiplying money. Um, Jesus said, I believe in Luke chapter 19, verse 13, he said, and he called his 10 servants and delivered them 10 pounds and said, occupy till I come. Now that word occupy in the Greek, it literally has different business meanings. It means gain by business trading, busily engaged in making trades, increase by trading. So it literally implies active trading and buying right and then selling right. Basically quadrupling or making more than you had before. That's stewardship. Because at the end of the day, Darren, let's say, let's say you were my steward, right? And I give you five dollars and I leave and I go somewhere for about a year, and you give me back five dollars. That doesn't make you a good steward. That actually makes you uh, you know, like pretty bad. But if I give you five, and if you give me back eight, I say, okay now, now you're being a good steward because you're multiplying money. And I think that's one of the things that we often forget about, especially as Christians, that it's not just about cost cutting and clipping coupons, and it's really about managing, multiplying, being fruitful and multiplying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well said. That's a that's a great distinction because I think a lot of our um Christian finance uh discussions revolve around just you know, being frugal, staying out of debt, and uh but there's there's the income producing side too. There's um the stewardship is is giving a return because you know the the wicked and lazy slave, he gave the master his money back. It wasn't like he like squandered it on uh loose living like the prodigal son. I mean, he he actually gave the money, gave the money back, and um, and then he was thrown to the outer darkness. So we'll uh we can have another theological discussion about what that means. Uh well, what are some of the other let's keep going with some of these stories from these other Christian millionaires?
SPEAKER_02So I think another story is like to even tie back to um what we were just talking about, because we had a conversation, we were talking about philanthropy and pastors, and I just really want to stay on that. I really want to stay on this vein of of multiplying money. Because at the end of the day, like an entrepreneur is somebody who is going to create new opportunities, they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna break up monopolies, they're gonna be productive, they're gonna, they're gonna know how to allocate and multiply capital at the end of the day. And I think one of the habits, the main habits, another main habit that I saw with these Christian millionaires was that they did have multiple streams of income that knew how to create money. Create money, not just make money, not just run after money, create money. The Bible warns, it gives a very solemn warning about chasing money. In Proverbs, it says if you chase money, that money grows wings and just flies away. So at the end of the day, you're never supposed to chase money. But you do create something that attracts money, that multiplies money, that brings in more money. And so when I think of, when I think of um Christian millionaires, I do think of like um, I think of uh a Chick-fil-A who started with one restaurant and moved on to other restaurants. I think of uh uh in their prime, Century 21, um, unfortunately they um, you know, they they kind of lost their way. And there was a New York Times piece on it where the reason that they lost their way was because of leadership. The the the unfortunately, the the person who started it, he refused to take his hands off of it, didn't allow for good leadership to come in, unfortunately. And that's why um I think they'll come back, but I think that that's the really the main reason for their downfall. And then I also think about you know the Benham brothers, who have at this time 11 functioning businesses, 11 streams of income coming in. And if there's anything that we can learn from these Christian millionaires and billionaires is how to create and how to multiply money. Because at the end of the day, the first commandment God gave man was to be fruitful and multiply. That's what he said. Not to clip coupons, not to only wear one pair of shoes or anything like that. Be fruitful and multiply and have dominion. And whether if you're an entrepreneur or a millionaire now, if you're doing that, I do believe that you are doing God's work. Philanthropy now. Now, here's another thing is uh I'm getting old, I'm getting older. So my kids always say, like, I tell a lot of stories. Because I have like a seven-year-old and a 12-year-old. So I try to prove a point, I find like a story works better. So John D. Rockefeller, he'd given money to a pastor, and the pat and he came back to the pastor and he said, What are you doing with the money? He said, Um, well, we have the money in the bank. And John D. Rockefeller nearly fell over. He's like, What you have the money in the bank? Because you know, the time they were, they were, they were getting an interest of maybe half a percent. And so he took the money that he gave them, front gave them, and then loaned it to them. And I believe the interest rate that he was giving them was around 10%. Just for the fact that this Christian, this man of God, this businessman of God, he could not stand money not making money. And he could not stand um any level of unproductivity. So I think that productivity is a really, really big thing, especially as we deal with COVID-19, because we can't go back to the way things work. We cannot. We have to go back to finding ways to be more productive, to investing in ourselves, to, to, to, to, to creating better versions of ourselves. Um yeah, yeah. That's my right. Sticking with it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well said. So there's the habit of being industrious. This is one of the uh the habits you talk about, the habit of seeking God first, the habit of giving, the habit of purpose, habit of having a big vision, going the extra mile, managing money well and persistence. Um, is there another habit that you want to kind of camp out on?
SPEAKER_02Let's stay with let's stay with industriousness, because um, at the end of the day, we're right now we're we are in a pandemic where lives are going to be changed. We are going to have companies that are be that are going to be birthed, and we're going to have companies that are going to die. That's just the truth. Um, and I think that industriousness is something that we're all going to have to really learn to be. Um, I think that when people hear about industrious, they think, well, that's not really godly. You're supposed to just wait on God and God will come in and like on a white, on a white horse, and he'll fix everything, he'll pay the bills, and and he will do that. He will do that. At the end of the day, though, the Bible does say in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 28, let the thief steal no more, but rather let him be industrious, making an honest living with his own hands, that so that me he may be able to give those in need. There's going to have to be a level of taking the little bit that you have and finding ways to multiply it and to do more with it. And if there's anything that we need more than ever, it's we need people praying. We need people fasting, we need people reading, but we need people who are willing to do what it takes to get it done. Uh to just to just to just make something happen. Um, business owner, entrepreneur, leader, you don't have enough? Okay, use what you got. You don't have enough money, you don't they're not gonna give you the loan? Okay, find another, find another way of financing. Find finds find a way to make it happen. And I think if anything we need post-COVID-19 is that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's one of the things that is really missing from church history is the stories of the business people.
SPEAKER_02Uh Shri Masiwa, he is um Zimbabwe's first billionaire. Um, according to Forbes, right now, he has uh he has a net worth around, if I'm correct, he has a net worth, sorry, for the the the table, he has a net worth of $3.6 billion, right? So in Zimbabwe, unfortunately, there's a lot of government corruption, especially at that time when he was uh uh when he was starting. So he had an electrical firm that employed a couple hundred people. He saw an opportunity in telecommunications. So he said, I'm gonna go into the telecommunications business. The only problem was, well, the main problem was, is that the government did not want telecommunications to happen among that country because the government was corrupt, it was under the uh on the leadership of Robert Mugabe, very, very, very corrupt leader. So the problem with Strive or Mr. Masiwa is that he had the right based on the based on the Zimbabwe's constitution to do this. The problem was if he did this, the government, which was his largest competitive, which was his largest customer, would take their contracts from him. He thought about it, weighed the options, and he decided that he was gonna do it because he saw the good opportunity. His wife came to him and said, How long is this gonna take? Yeah, what are you doing? You're you're you're you're you're suing your biggest customer. He said, Oh, honey, it'll take three to four months. It took five years. Within that five years, the government pulled their contract, they pulled all their contract, and so now he had no revenue coming in, and he's dealing with high legal fees, high legal costs. It got to the point that a court there was one Forbes article where he said that they they couldn't even serve tea to people who came over. That's how broke they were. Couldn't even serve tea. One day he went to one day um he had gone to a service and he was seeking God, seeking God, and he had gotten a word. And uh he said, according to him, he said that uh the God told him to fast for 72 hours. And by that time, he didn't want to do it because he was a diabetic, so he needed you know food. He did he fasted for 72 hours, he was healed of the diabetes and Within a week, his lawyer said to him that I think we had them on the ropes. And then it had gone to the Supreme Court of that of Zimbabwe, gone to the Supreme Court, and then they overruled the government's decision. And then with them overruling the government's decision, they were able to freely, you know, do business. Within three weeks, Econet became the largest provider of wireless telecommunications within three weeks. The moral of the story is this is that the habit that is really, really prevalent is persistence. And I think that you know, most people it would have been like, well, it's not God's will. Well, God must have been in this one. I'm sorry, Lord, I tried, but this man had a bulldog determination to not give up, not quit, had no money, going against the the government, not a competitor, the government. And he did this, and for five years he stuck it out and God made a way.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's powerful. And I think that requires uh a Christ-centered courage to to be able to go the distance in the face of such odds. And and I think it's a timely message right now as we're um rebounding from this this lockdown from the coronavirus, and there's a lot of fear, but now is is not the time to be fearful. It's the time to be aggressive and and to go after that vision that God has put on your heart. And uh, Mike, is there a parting piece of advice you'd like to leave with our listeners today?
SPEAKER_02The the central habit, of course, is seeking God first. And the good thing about God is that He knows things that we don't know. And I think that with all our technology, and we look at, we look at um, we look at the Wall Street Journal and Forbes and Fortune and Barron's and we look at all these industry periodicals. And I think one of the things that we can often forget is to seek God first. Um, Proverbs chapter three, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean out onto your own understanding and all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths. And I think that, you know, we as you know people who are productive, we're trying to do everything and sometimes forget to seek the God who knows everything. And it's almost like saying, I'm going to learn, I'm going to learn about something without using Google. You don't have to use Google at the end of the day, you really don't. But it just saves so much more time if you went to Google than just trying to figure it out on your own. So if anything, I think that with the world just being turned upside down, there's so many opportunities, um, so many things that we can that we can take ground on. And the only way we're going to know how to take ground is to seek the commander in chief and see what he wants us to do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well said. And it is hard to truly seek God first if if we're not seeking him with our with our finances. And giving is is a core part of your message. And I know you have more resources at tithehacker.org. Uh, anything else you want to say about how people can connect with you?
SPEAKER_02Um, tithehacker.org. You can also check out the the podcast that we have that I have as well. Let's check out my Instagram. All my links are there. Um, giving two free chapters of the book away. As soon as you sign up for the news, uh as soon as you like just say, hey, there's a there's a big link that says, hey, I can get two free chapters of the book. That's my gift to you. You'll enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01Well, Mike, thank you for your uh thank you for sharing your heart today. And uh and thanks for your your passion to tell these stories of these Christian millionaires and and to shine some light on some church history that we don't often hear. And and and these are I say church history because this is uh church isn't just what happens in the pews on Sunday morning or from the pulpit, but it's what's happening out in the marketplace. So uh thank you for shining some light on this today. We appreciate you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Dun, for having me.
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 HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.