Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the R.W. Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Shear, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Paul Sanders and Lee McElroy to discuss the legacy of the legendary Christian businessman and philanthropist Morris Oldham. And we've said this a number of times on this show. You know, if you ask the typical Christian, who are the Christian heroes of the last, you know, 100, 150 years, are typically going to give you the names of pulpit ministers and evangelists and people that left the business world to go and do quote unquote missionary work. And you're you're typically not going to hear the names of business people. And and that because for me, as a marketplace person myself, that's and I'm wanting to look toward other examples of Christians that I can relate to. And I look to, for example, RG Laterno and John Wanamaker and Mary Kay Ash. And one that if you haven't heard of him, you're about to uh get it get a good dose here. An incredible man of God with an amazing legacy of commitment to the Lord in the marketplace, Morris Oldham. And Paul Sanders and Lee are here to to tell us all about him, at least what were uh give us a taste of what's in the book, Lasting Good, which is the story of Morris Oldham and the Morris Oldham Little Church Foundation. Uh, Paul Sanders is the president and CEO of the Oldham Little Church Foundation, a foundation dedicated to helping small Protestant evangelical churches with facilities, completion grants. Since the establishment in 1949, the OLCF has granted over $46 million to 16,800 churches across the U.S. As an architect by training. His experience in complex project development and planning has included key roles with Rice University, Texas Medical Center, and Texas AM. And he holds a Doctor of Public Health from the University of Texas. And how did you put it, Paul? You went to AM for your formal education?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Formal education at Texas AM, then to trade school at UT.
SPEAKER_04So those of you who are familiar with the Aggie longhorn rivalry will can relate to that. And Lee McLoy is an author, speaker, and Bible teacher who speaks at conferences and retreats across the U.S. She's created print and web content and curriculum for a variety of nonprofit and faith-based organizations, including Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and the Oldham Little Church Foundation. Lee holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Texas AM and a Master of Arts in Apologetics from Houston Baptist University. Yes. She is the author of five books, including The Beautiful Ache and The Sacred Ordinary, and a collaborator, editor, or ghostwriter for another 17 published titles. And uh she may or may not have ghostwritten the book, Lasting Good, uh, the story of Morris Oldham and the Oldham Little Church Foundation. Uh, can we say that?
SPEAKER_01Oh, it wasn't ghostwriting, it was a definite collaboration, yes.
SPEAKER_04Awesome. Well, she's uh she put that journalism expertise to good work and um and just went after this this story of Morris Oldham's life. Um, you know, first of all, Paul and Lee, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_03Thanks very much.
SPEAKER_04Lee, what was it? How did you get this? Uh, because when I googled Morris Oldham, there really was not much that that came up. How did how were you able to tell this story?
SPEAKER_01It was really a challenge to tell Morris Oldham's story because he had no children, so he has no living heirs, so there's no family connections to speak with. And he died 65 years ago. So most of his contemporaries or colleagues in the business world have since died, or even some predeceased him. So as far as living history, we didn't have a great deal to go on. I started the project actually camping in Paul's office with 60 plus 70 years of Board of Trustees minutes to read the history of the foundation. And then the man, of course, comes through in um in the in the telling of the things that they were involved in and the kinds of decisions they made and the way they made decisions. Um, I used a few other sources. I found some local and national news stories that were helpful. Um I actually got on Ancestry.com to try to learn some more about his parents and his sibling, which we initially, I don't think, knew he even had a sibling. Um and then uh Stuart Morse Sr., who HBU listeners will be very familiar with, was actually the only person I could speak with who had real living memories of Mr. Oldham. Um, but they were they were vivid and and that was a delightful recollection from him. So it was kind of piecemeal for sure.
SPEAKER_04And Paul, you've really been the the chief torchbearer of the uh the Oldham legacy over the last decade. From your perspective, who was Morris Oldham?
SPEAKER_02Morris Oldham was uh he was sort of a unsung hero. He was ahead of his time. I think he was an entrepreneur, he he was a visionary. Uh his degree was in agriculture from Cornell. He came to Houston when not many folks were living here in about 1912. Once he got some experience working for another dairy, which is what he was interested in, he decided he would deliver milk to houses for the horse and a wagon. I'm not sure where that motivation came from. But it was simple, it was he was focused, and he slowly built the business that became one of the he was actually the largest independent dairymen west of the Mississippi when he sold the dairy in 1948. Morris Olin actually did deliver milk, even as the the business grew. He wasn't one who would hire folks to delegate. Stuart Morris tells us a story when he was a boy that the wagon would pull up in front of their house. Uh Morris Olin would come to the back door, open the ice box, not refrigerator, ice box, put the milk in, take the old bottles, walk back out. The horse knew the route. So when he went to the next house, the horse simply moved to the next house. Next house. So told me there was a lot of discipline here, Mars Oldham. Uh in what he would have to be. Um he just had uh I think a great uh desire to see people uh know Jesus personally. His dairies as they grew were in small community communities outside of Houston. I think he was aware of how those small communities, those folks lived, and I'm sure met some of those pastors, many of which were probably bi by vocational. So how he identified that these churches needed uh support and help with facilities is something that I think just slowly uh slowly morphed and and he he identified that need and sort of as they say the rest is history.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So it at what point in his journey uh of running this company and growing this company did he really start to make these investments uh and and these eternal investments in these small churches? Because I think a lot of times there's, you know, it goes that um, you know, maybe the the entrepreneur did some charitable giving during their life, but it wasn't until they actually died that they really, you know, left any sizable amount of um contribution to the charitable cause relative to their means.
SPEAKER_02I I think that from what I read and Lee may have come across some other information, that the real uh focus of supporting these little small Protestant evangelical churches was after he sold the dairy and the foundation was created in 1949. I have no doubt, I don't know any documentation that he and his wife Florence were they were active at First Baptist, and then at Second Baptist, you know there was, you know, beyond tithing that went on, and I'm sure helping churches along the way. But as far as being able to identify anything specifically, the first grant that we could find was about a $2,000 grant made in 1949.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Okay. Uh Lee, so I'm sure there were other players in the dairy industry at the at the time, but what made his company so successful? You know, in in today's startup vernacular, they might consider more Solden's um dairy a unicorn, you know, something that was just so remarkable and so rare that it would have unicorn status. What was it that was so special about this company that made it in in terms of just the monetary success of it?
SPEAKER_01Well, when he began, I would say his competitors would have been um uh storefronts. And, you know, producers of milk would have supplied storefronts with milk, and then the consumer would have bought from the storefront. Probably some consumers were also buying from producers, just in terms of a neighbor or a nearby, you know, nearby farmer, whatever. But but him actually delivering to the customer was an innovation. Um it's said that he was the first in Houston to develop a way to pasteurize milk, which would have made that delivery possible. Um and then he would just put huge blocks of ice in his delivery wagon and you know, take the milk and deliver it fresh that way. And then he started, and Paul, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he just began acquiring uh smaller operations around Southeast Texas and in the and then in the southeastern area, like Paul said, you know, um other side of the Mississippi River. Um and he just continued to identify opportunities and grow, but it really was a one-man, one horse, one-wagon beginning, um taking his product directly to the customer. Um, another thing I would say, Darren, is that, and this interested me as a journalism person. Um, he aggressively marketed his product. I mean, he was doing print advertising. He was doing what we would call today specialty advertising, creating little cookbooks and added-on things that had recipes that involved dairy products. Um, all kinds of memorabilia like that is sprinkled through lasting good, through the book. So you can see that he was an innovative marketer. He created an imaginary character named Phoenix Phil, who spoke to children about milk and dairy products. So, I mean, he really was very much an innovator. And I think that set him apart from his competitors.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And that was Phoenix Phil. That was really kind of before the you know, the the big ad age of the you know, 50s.
SPEAKER_01So that's it definitely preceded Elsie the Cow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, wow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Paul, anything you want to add to that in terms of what made uh his Oldham's dairy so successful?
SPEAKER_02I think a lot of it was the his employees. Um, well before uh employees owned portion of the business, he made sure they were able to buy stock. He took care of employees uh during World War II. Of course, many of his employees went off to war. He took her, took care of those families. He made sure those jobs were available when they returned. Um they had a uh talking about marketing, they had a uh a baseball team. Uh that we all played softball, they played baseball, and they had uniforms, and we have a photograph uh that that shows uh who was who, and uh they the the story we heard from our friends in Wharton is that the the team was so good that they really sort of asked them not to participate in the league after a few years. So uh again, whatever he touched was was quality. But uh employees, we see that throughout uh the stories and when we talked to a few folks in Wharton, uh one gentleman whose dad actually worked for Morris Oldham, and there was just uh uh high integrity, uh honesty, uh a focus on what you're doing, work hard, keep it simple, and uh and he took care of employees. So uh I think that was instrumental in his growth also.
SPEAKER_04And what else would you say about the way he ran his company and expressed his Christian values through the way he ran his company? And I'll let both of you weigh in on this as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, as I said, high level of integrity and honesty. We we knew that he really had a heart for the Lord and wanted folks to come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_04And uh how did you know what was the evidence of that? I know that we we heard um from Stuart Morris, and then we had a way, Stuart Morris, for anyone who might not be aware, you can go back previous, uh previous episode we did with Matt Morris, the CEO of uh Stuart Title Company, uh, one of the members of that family. But the the Stuart Title Company, you know, one of the I think maybe the largest um or one of the largest real estate title companies in the in the world, um, and and just won all kinds of awards for um just being one of the most trustworthy companies in America. Um, and so Stuart Morris is the uh the the founder of that company, correct?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was it was really uh a relative, but yes, it was their their family that that actually uh established uh title insurance in the state of Texas.
SPEAKER_04And and Stuart Morris is has been one of the the most generous givers to Houston Baptist University. And and so there's another lesson there, just the way that uh that these legends, these these Christian business legends kind of stuck together and kind of spurred one another on to good works.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Stuart's uh brother Carlos Um was an attorney. We had an audio interview years ago, and that really told us a lot. Also, he was a little bit older than Stuart and was Mr. Morris, I mean uh Mr. Oldham's attorney. So we we have firsthand information of how you know in the early days, uh, what was Morris Oldham all about? And Stuart Sr. tells a story of making a trip with Morris Oldham as a relatively young man, and how he was quizzed by Morris Oldham, wanted to know about Stuart. You know, what are you about? What's your life about? What do you believe in? What so it was it was pretty evident that that he was really focused. Uh he wanted to know who he was working with, he wanted to know about those folks. And uh all the indications we get from some of those firsthand conversations is that uh he was he was a Christian through and through. Uh every decision he made was was based on you know wisdom that he felt like that he was getting from God. Uh he's a prayerful man and was uh uh and and those principles were carried out throughout his life, and that's just the way he did business.
SPEAKER_04Lee, anything you want to add in in terms of how his Christian values emerged through the way he ran the company?
SPEAKER_01I think the the employee piece is that Paul mentioned is really important. Um every record that I came across about him would, you know, would verify his integrity, his care of people. Um when it came time to organize the book, because we couldn't organize it as a typical uh chronology history like this happened in this year, and then go straight through, what happened was we ended up organizing the book around the values that he demonstrated in the kinds of decisions that he was making. So the book is organized around the values of faith and focus and contextual awareness, um, stewardship, relationships, and and those things were hallmarks of his his work in the foundation, but obviously those were carryovers from his work in commerce and business. I mean, there's there's not two sets of values. They're the same set of values that were operational all the way through.
SPEAKER_04Right. And did you come across any uh any anecdotes or examples of how he expressed his his faith through the company?
SPEAKER_01It just seemed to be a part of who he was. It didn't seem to be a concentrated effort to convey it. It's just who he was, a phrase that he himself used over and over. And Paul mentioned it. Um, he would call it soul winning. And over and over, you would you would run across that phrase that he would emphasize. And he wanted people, like Paul said, he he wanted people to know the Lord. I think he viewed the way he operated his business with integrity and care of others as a way to introduce that life. So that was what drove him. It was clearly what drove him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We read in the minutes multiple times that as they talked about grants and helping pastors, that was his really his passion. How do we help pastors be prepared that they can reach more folks to the Lord? And that was always the uh the common thread. Uh we we I won't say we joked about it, but it was when we've come to decisions or trying to decide what to do, we would always go back to what would Mars Oldland do. I mean, that's that's the fact that's the foundation.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, that that phrase the soul winner was um that there was a famous book by Charles Spurgeon called The Soul Winner. And and I think maybe helped to kind of popularize that that term, but of course comes from the verse in Proverbs that says, He who wins souls is wise. Yes is really the um the the one of the the key verses for those of us that really are serious about evangelism and that and believe that that's really uh a chief part of our our calling, whether you're in the business world or standing behind a pulpit, and clearly if he was grabbing a hold of that term soul winning, that's um because I love in that book for anyone who hasn't read it, it's a classic. Um, you know, he Spurgeon talks about soul winning, is I mean, it's everything from winning a game, the the idea of winning a battle, of and there's so many dimensions to uh to winning where you really have to contend uh to because in in business we have so many uh forces and distractions that are kind of trying to take us away from that eternal mindset. And and clearly we have an example here of Morris Oldham who um he he was able to, I'm sure he had his fair share of of struggles, but you know, at the end of the day, that's what he was about was uh was soul winning. Did you come across any of those struggles, personal struggles that he had? Because sometimes these we can hold. These legends up as kind of flawless saints. And did anything come up in the research?
SPEAKER_01One of the things that surprised me, and I don't know about you, Paul, was to learn, you may have known this. Obviously, I I started with less knowledge than you would have started with, but um he uh his first wife lived only eight years and she died when she was 27 years old, and they were childless. So, I mean, he obviously knew heartache very early on. Um and and subsequently, of course, remarried Florence, who was the woman who came alongside him with the the philanthropy. But um, yeah, I mean, he was childless, which was very unusual for a man of his time. And he was a very, very young widow in a brand new city. And, you know, I mean, that's I would consider that a hardship.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. Yeah, he uh exactly what I was gonna say, Lee. Also, his wife Florence, who he married in his 50s, she had a similar uh marriage, and her husband was ill and died when he was in his 20s, and they both were widowed and uh for many, many years until their 50s remarried and uh met each other at Second Baptist Church and had this focus together. She was a uh had as much passion as he did. So I you can sort of understand reading some of the history of what she did at HBU, those two could make a lot of things happen.
SPEAKER_01Two forces of nature.
SPEAKER_04And so one of the things I've noticed uh about Paul, the way you've been operating the Oldham Little Church Foundation is that you are laser focused on the founder's vision, which I understand in the nonprofit world is not always the case. What were Amores Oldham's wishes concerning the Oldham Little Church Foundation?
SPEAKER_02Well, they started the foundation. We you go back to the uh articles incorporation, and they say that they uh will provide facilities and actually completion facilities grants for small Protestant evangelical churches and was all across the United States. They um from the very beginning, you look look at the the meeting minutes of board meetings. As I said earlier, the first grant in 1949 was made to a church for $2,000. And the common thread all the way through is supporting churches, those pastors, and uh many times the seminaries and scholarships, but always focused on what what can the foundation do to support soul winning. And um the the continuity of the board or um board members come aboard, they there's no tenure, uh the they stay as long as they want. And I think that has really helped. Stuart Morris Sr.'s been on the board 64 years, I believe. Um and there's there as folks come aboard that are new members and we begin to explain what we do and the consistency, I mean, there's there's no question. That's just that's just what what we do.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And at the time of this recording, we're we're in the middle of this COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, and I I know churches are really just being hammered uh economically right now, as are you know so many other businesses. Um what what is what is kind of the current state of uh some of those churches that you're supporting?
SPEAKER_02Well, our churches, the criteria are churches that uh have no more than 300 members. Average, I would say, our church. Uh church population of a church we support is around maybe 50 folks. I've talked to several pastors who've made application. The dilemma they have, some are by vocational. Uh spoke to one in a small East Texas town. He's a barber, his wife is a beautician. They've not been able to work for two months. They're opening back up now. So he has no income. Uh they're trying to pay the pay the light bill. Uh, some of their folks that work in that community, that particular industry they're working for, has either closed down or they've temporarily shut the doors. So now they're not working, they're furloughed, there's no income. They struggle anyway when everything is good. So this has really just added uh a lot of uh misery, stress, disappointment. We've we've done what we can with many of the churches to either uh hurry up a grant, make sure we get money to them a little earlier, um, to make sure that those that are because they're they might not be too particularly focused on trying to complete uh an application to encourage them and help them along so that they can be approved. So we can get money in uh to them quickly. But they are they are struggling. And I'm sure we're you know, the contacts we have are across the US and the story is pretty similar.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Is is there a favorite uh story of the impact of the old and little church foundation, maybe an example of a specific church or pastor or community that was that was helped as a result of the um the grants that have been given out.
SPEAKER_02You know, we we uh we always enjoy a story about a a church in uh West Virginia that made a grant or made made a request, and we provided a grant to them, and they they had an outhouse that was an outhouse. There was no running water, and they're they were trying to get so they could provide water, and that would that facility would be at least have a flushing toilet. That was not put about 15 years ago. Now that doesn't seem like much, but in the wintertime in West Virginia, you've got to walk outside, it's pretty cold. And so they they um they send us letters and notes. Um, we have the most wonderful, you know, thank you notes and cards that we keep from folks all over. But it's that seems like it's just such a simple, a simple thing. But when we provide these grants, is Stuart Morris told me 10 years ago, he said, we're providing grants, but we're also providing encouragement. That's the theme that we get with a lot of notes. Uh I try to visit about 20 churches a year. They're so thankful that someone from the big city of Houston comes to to see them. We're we're blessed by it. I we could we could write more books. Lee, we need to do that on on stories, lessons learned from some of these pastors, but uh they're so humble and they're so thankful for a few thousand dollars that those of us that live in the city that go to large churches that simply don't think that's a that that's really uh a big uh support, but it really is.
SPEAKER_04Yes. And as we wrap it up here, Ali, I'll start with you. What do you think Morris Olden's advice would be for this current generation of entrepreneurs?
SPEAKER_01Well, number one, I would say be brave. I mean, he certainly was. He came to a city, he he knew no one, he he did not know the city. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps and he started small and he wasn't afraid. So I first I would say be brave. Um, second, I think I would say um appreciate the value of a dollar. And some of my favorite Morris Oldham stories were stories of his frugality and just not that he was always generous with people, but he was frugal in the way he valued capital and operated on it. There's a story of a radio evangelist who asked him for a donation to his ministry and and Oldham readily agreed. He didn't, he wasn't, you know, uh holding on to his money. He readily agreed. But then the evangelist said, Great, I'll hop in a cab and come to your office and pick up the check today. And he said, Nothing doing, man. You start walking from your office, I'll start walking from mine, we'll meet in the middle and save the cab fare.
SPEAKER_04That's great.
SPEAKER_01So, I mean, he he really valued what he earned. He he didn't take it lightly. And then the last thing I would say is just love people. Um, and he he took care of his people, he clearly valued them, he built relationships at the beginning of his career, Paul. I think this is true that that lasted until he died. I mean, he didn't he didn't shift the the playing group on a whim every year. The the relationships that he made when he landed here in town as a young man, he carried through his entire life. So clearly loved people and valued those relationships. So that would be my that would be my opinion. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Beautiful. Paul, what would you say in response to that?
SPEAKER_02You know, knowing about it the the business, how he ran it, I would think that he would um you know ask questions of or or promote, uh, have a good business plan. Know the folks that uh you you are surrounding yourself with. Well, what are they about? How do they think? Um he was he was conservative. He pinched pennies, we still do that today. He um I'm sure would expect uh a day's worth of work for for good pay. Just just really simple um you know honest honest uh uh principles running running a business. Everything that we were able to read or hear about him was that um and you don't read much, we talked about that earlier, because he was he was under the radar. Um he even though he had dairies in several locations, he always traveled, he wanted to know who his folks were, what that business was about. I'm sure he could have uh explained anytime which one was performing better because that was all important to him. And uh we heard stories of how he traveled when he traveled, he traveled light, he had an old Plymouth, according to Senior, didn't have heat, and they made a trip one time and they got very cold. But the the from multiple sat on his hands for the whole trip. He did, he sat on his hands the whole time he was so cold and got quizzed the entire time because Mr. Olin wanted to know about him. But we heard a story that when Mr. Olin traveled, he wore khakis, and wherever he was going, he didn't take extra khakis, he's just bought another pair when he needed them. But he just he was just that kind of guy. You just can't explain how basic and simple he was, and that just is spread over what what he did, what he accomplished.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, people can get the book lasting good at if you just go to Amazon, type in lasting good, old'em, uh it'll pop right up. And you can also get it at oldemlcf.org. Uh old h a mlcf.org. Uh definitely it's a beautiful, beautiful book, uh, very well written, obviously, by our uh our very own guest here, Lee. And um, and as she said, it was a a real team effort because it was not easy, as I can imagine, to to track down and and get these these stories. And and because if you if you google, you're you're not really gonna find too much on Morris Oldham, which is uh which is really too bad. But hopefully now we've got some people listening that may say, hey, I want to dive more, dive deeper into his story and maybe see what else, see what else they can they can find. Um, and I'm a firm believer we need more of uh these stories to be told because what we're trying to do is is to provide models to to disciple Christian business leaders so that um they they understand that their calling in business is a calling. It's not that you make money so that you can give to real ministry, it's that your business is a calling. And yeah, you part of that calling is to be able to give to charitable causes, but uh clearly there's a a great example here for all of us marketplace Christians. Um, anything else you want to say about where people can um connect with the two of you and and learn more about what's going on?
SPEAKER_01I would say about the book, Darren, one of one of my favorite parts of the book is that we actually sat down with uh current uh leaders of business and faith today and interviewed them around the values that were expressed by Morris Oldham in the Phoenix Dairy and in the Oldham Little Church Foundation. So if you read the book, not only will you hear about Morris Oldham and hear from uh, you know, folks like Stuart Morris and like Paul Sanders, you'll also hear from Robert Sloan of Houston Baptist University and Greg Mott of First Baptist Church, which Morris Oldham was once a member of First Baptist Church, uh Hank Rush of the Star of Hope, because there are lots of ties between Star of Hope and the Oldham Foundation. So there's some splashes of history of the navigators of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association because Dawson Trotman and Billy Graham were were personally known to Mr. Oldham. You might not know his name, you would certainly know theirs. Um so it's just it's just rich with those kinds of connections and the voices that you'll hear in the book. Although unfortunately we can't hear Mr. Oldham's voice, you'll hear some voices that echo values that he very deeply believed. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Leah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01For the book.
SPEAKER_02No, it's very good. Um I'm glad you brought that out. I I would say that folks that at least grew up in Houston or have some roots in in Houston, there's a lot of early Houston history, and you can begin to see how how the dots are connected. And that to me was very intriguing having grown up here in Houston. So uh that was a joy, and I think that Lee did a terrific job of of uh tying all that together.
SPEAKER_04Well, well done to uh to both of you. Thank you for the work that you're doing uh for uh little churches and and thank you for the work that the tireless effort that's been put into telling this story. I know we're all better for it.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having us, Darren.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Thanks.
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.