Transcript
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Welcome back to Pastor Plek's podcast.
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I'm your host, pastor Plek, and with me in studio once again is another than my really sweet wife Adrienne Plek-Impola.
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Adrienne, how are you?
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Good, I'm feeling really sweet today too.
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So you are a little spicy.
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How are you feeling?
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I'm okay so far.
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Give me a couple more hours, let's see, have you had coffee yet?
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Today I have.
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I ran four miles too.
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I'm okay so far.
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Okay, give me a couple more hours, let's see have you had coffee yet?
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today I have.
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I ran four miles too Good for you.
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I'm really motivated.
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Now the real guest.
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Not that you're not a real guest, but the guest that we're going to be talking to today is none other than Jake Ridley, and if you don't know Jake, you definitely need to know Jake.
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Jake did 10 years 10, 12 years ago.
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I'm super grateful for Jake and the ministry he provided for us until he fired us, Cause we had some crazy things happening in Africa that we couldn't really account for.
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I don't know if we could account for them.
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You're the only client that we fired, by the way.
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What's that?
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You're the only client that we, that we fired, by the way.
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I didn't ever know we were fired, oh yeah we were fired Long story.
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Were fired long story, glad to know.
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Uh, that was circle.
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It all comes back around.
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Yeah, we, we did some creative accounting in, uh, tanzania it was.
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It was a little we, you know, because we owned land in tanzania, yeah, and um, it was a wild time but we traumatic for your bookkeeper to try to keep up with it.
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We couldn't keep up with that, so we're like wait wait, what is this?
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Buy goats, pigs, corn.
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Anyway, it was, it was a wild time.
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So, jay, I'm so glad you're back.
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Motorcycle, motorcycle, oh man Trucks, I mean we bought it all.
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I mean it was, it was.
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Might've had some financial anxiety at church biz.
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I don't know.
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Adrian would not be happy about financial anxiety.
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Adrian do you want to talk to him.
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No, I don't.
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I don't.
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Okay, that's good.
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All right, so, um, so the reason I brought you on here is one of the things that Jake does is you're a financial advisor, who are you with A story of strategic will, okay, so, and the thing that I thought was cool uh, jake sends out like emails like everybody sends out emails that are really, you know, boring and you put them in your spam.
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You don't read them.
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But Jake's actually caught my eye and I actually read every one of them.
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So I, I actually find them interesting.
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Like I love it when you give me like a like a mid, you know medieval quote from somebody and then you kind of show how the market fluctuated, even back then and economic times throughout history.
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I really, I actually enjoy all of it.
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Uh, and they're not way too long where you just want to like, okay, this.
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Uh, and they're not way too long where you just want to like okay, this says what's the name of the company?
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again?
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Uh story of strategic wealth.
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Oh, that's cool.
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Yeah, very cool Story of strategic wealth.
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Named after.
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Like Jay Astor, or whatever there's a neighborhood in New York called Astoria.
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So that's where it came from.
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So I'm not from New York.
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Uh, yeah, right.
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Yeah, it doesn't sound like you're from New York, but anyway, well, so, okay.
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So that's why I I, after I started reading that, we started talking at the football fields or soccer fields or whatever they are being used for at the moment.
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Yeah.
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Multi-use fields.
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I was like Jake man, I definitely want to have you come on the podcast because I feel like you've got a lot to offer.
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And so, as we started talking, we're like we really kind of want to get into three areas.
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One, just generosity, is specifically one of the things that you sort of, as you manage people's wealth, one of the things you're trying to challenge people, especially Christians, is how to give generously, and that's something that churches need to talk about, because in general, we just either shy away from it and we don't talk about that, or we just kind of go give your money today.
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That's kind of a there's you know spectrum of of talking about money and then, uh, secondly, we want to talk just about a general biblical approach to money in general, like not just like giving, but like how to manage, steward the wealth that god's given you.
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And then, finally, I as a personal, like bias, I want you to give me free financial advice as a pastor.
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I want to talk about how pastors really we we have a unique, if you're not familiar with pastors have the weirdest um, and I probably made some mistakes I probably need to correct uh, based on some advice I was given 12 years ago, uh, by certain people, Anyway.
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So we're going to talk about that's kind of the direction where I want to go.
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So, um, jake, let's talk about generosity in general.
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Uh, told me recently you got a little generosity get-together.
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How did you even come up with this?
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It was like, hey, guys, let's talk generosity.
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So it was a member of Hill Country Bible, which is where we go, lakeline, and one of the members is super passionate about generosity.
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His name is John Jonas and he was a Dell employee and just had his life changed by.
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You know, generosity and uh and just say, his life changed, like he started giving first, then Jesus, or it was yeah, I don't know the exact order of it, but, um, just you know, and putting words into John's mouth.
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But you know, his focus was on money as a Dell executive and you know, really felt God calling him to give and just saw God release his control and his, you know, love for lack of a better word for money and wants other people to experience the love that he has for God through generosity.
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So, yeah, so it's helping others experience the same journey that he's experienced.
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And so did he call a meeting, or how did that come about?
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So yeah, so he's in the middle of coming up with a curriculum to help churches and members of churches become more generous, and so it was really an exploratory conversation.
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He invited some people from the church to just kind of vet like hey, this is what I've got in mind, here's some ideas, here's some biblical principles, and we just talked it out together.
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So it was super inspiring and encouraging and insightful.
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So you told me, like before this, you're like essentially what you kind of compressed it down to.
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When it comes to people, there's four types of different givers.
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Yeah, that was one of the big insights that I got from this.
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You know, seminar or get-together was, and it really resonated with me that there's four types of Christian givers.
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There's the non-givers, which is just what it sounds like they don't give.
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What do you think that the reason for the not giving is?
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Probably the same reason that people struggle to read their Bible pray.
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They don't have time.
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I see it as a spiritual discipline.
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Right, it could be financial, like they're just don't have a place in their budget for.
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But when I say giving, I'm not even referring to to a 10% tithe, I'm just talking about giving like a dollar.
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A dollar, right, yeah, and so um.
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So I would say it's not usually like most people, even if they're in debt, they can give a dollar to the church.
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So it's usually um, either they just they don't know they're new Christians and they've never been taught that.
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Right, and I think so, adrian.
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You grew up in a Christian home that was pretty taught that Right, and I think so, adrian.
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You grew up in a Christian home that was pretty, pretty like.
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That was like giving was not, not, not.
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Was it called an option?
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It was, but it was like something you were trained from from the get go.
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How did your parents instill that for you?
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That's a good question.
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I don't know.
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It was just always something that we did.
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So I did grow up in a legalistic church and my parents had grown up in that same, and so there was definitely-.
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You're not referring to Hill Country.
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You're talking about before Hill Country.
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No, no, no, we were raised Church of Christ, and Church of Christ is very just, very legalistic and there's a little bit of theology that would suggest that there is a direct correlation to your obedience and your salvation, and so I think that.
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But it was pretty effective for creating some great tithers and creating a great habit.
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I mean, this is where it's so, this is where you can criticize all day long, but at the end of the day, like I don't know anyone that has a more faithful like giving prayer life, Bible reading life than my parents and my grandparents.
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So there's fruit from that.
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You criticize it all you want, but man, there's a lot of fruit from that.
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It was effective.
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And it was it's.
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It's a sad strategy to get effectiveness, but I think it's actually kind of cool once you have the discipline just instilled in you and you've seen the blessing Like.
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this is the great thing about God is like but when you were in middle school you didn't have that fear part because you were at Hill Country then and so I think.
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But you still had a tithing.
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Just because I was at hill country doesn't mean like the theology had gone away.
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I definitely I was sharing the gospel out of fear, for sure, um, but I definitely felt like um, this is where I think God blesses our, like, our motive for giving.
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It doesn't have to be always pure, god bless.
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There's still blessing, I think, for his.
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I think there's blessing in the discipline, even if our motive is maybe misinformed.
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And so I feel like, for growing up and for with my parents, I saw just tremendous discipline and I, for me, it was like we passed a basket down the whatever down the pew and I would always just like it wasn't even a question.
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It was like I just never, ever, did money come to me that there was even a question, that you wouldn't give a 10th of it and so but for.
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But this is where, for me, when we got married and you were actually I was feeling some conviction in this before our marriage, like I remember I was a teacher and I was giving 10% of my teaching salary and I remember feeling a little bit like God was asking me to give towards some other, like you know, like a third party thing, asking me to give towards some other, like you know like a third party thing.
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I think it was maybe a friend, that was a missionary or something, and I was like, well, I have to subtract this from my.
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It was very mathematical, like this is my tithe was not going to go over 10%.
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And so this can only fit in this certain way.
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And the thought, when I married you, of like we're just going to like, throw 10% to the wind, I was like, like, like that was mortifying because there was no faith in my, in my discipline.
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It was just kind of anyway, so, but that's really not I I was trained.
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I think it's training.
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Yeah, you were trained like, like when you got your first paycheck from heb there was not a question, it was like did they have to tell you that no?
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No you knew, with your first paycheck, 10 I mean I would get birthday money from my great-grandma.
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She would give us like 10 ones, and I would always give one to the.
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I mean it was since I was like four.
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I was like here's my dollar for the church from the 10 we're behind the curve on that stuff, yeah our kids are yeah, okay well you know all right, sorry go back, that's to your point like you asked
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about know the no giver Like I think, just like any other, I think it's a spiritual discipline and I think, just like you know, you don't wait for your the right motives to start reading your Bible, or you'd never read your Bible, or pray, or and so so starting giving like just start giving, not not talking about tithing, but just start giving to your church.
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I think not to get too into the theological weeds, but I think Paul provides pretty practical reasons for giving, to not muzzle the ox.
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Right.
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Right, like if you're plowing behind an ox and you muzzle it and it can't eat, then you don't have an ox for much longer to plow behind.
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And so he says to provide for those physically who provide for you spiritually.
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And so if you're getting a benefit and you're being loved and shepherded by your church, then I think it's good to give, or otherwise you won't have a pastor to provide.
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That, like, it's pretty practical reason.
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And so there's the no giver, there's the reluctant giver.
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So they give but they really hate it, yeah, um.
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Then the third type is a dutiful or a willful giver.
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So they're not cheerful but they do it out of out of duty, which kind of.
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Does that with me, for that's how I am for the most part is it's a dutiful and then, uh, the fourth is a cheerful giver, and so I just think there's different approaches for different like you can't just give a blanket.
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Like you need to give right.
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Like if you know the stats are, 30 to 50% of church members give right and so you're excluding, you know, roughly half of your church that already are giving.
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But they may be reluctant givers, they may be dutiful givers or they may be cheerful givers and just helping, shepherd them through that and become I'm not sure if you.
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I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask questions.
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Have you gone from a dutiful giver to a cheerful giver?
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So this is what I always say to this is I firmly believe I read the treasure principle back before our first giving campaign and that book really wrecked me because it um, treasure principle was very I don't really read books in general and so it was a big deal that I read it, but it was very small and it only took maybe a couple of hours and I was it rocked my view of giving because it presented giving it as this honor and this privilege of partnering with the Lord and the kingdom and I was like Whoa, this was like none of this was ever on my mind when it came to giving.
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But what was cool about it is we had been married, I think probably about five years at that time, and I had always told people like I do believe I'm receiving the blessing of generous giving because I'm married to Chris, even though I'm annoyed and irritated that he's giving the amount that he's giving, I really do believe that I still am a part of the blessing and so that was softening my heart.
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So my heart was being softened over time by that.
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But I was also like kind of critical too of Chris, because I'm like, oh, this is unwise, like obviously you're not using wisdom.
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I really believed that, and so when I read the treasure principle, I was like shoot, it's telling you not to live in wisdom when it comes to generosity and giving.
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And it just so messed my worldview up when it came to generosity and giving.
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And and it was, it was just so messed my, my worldview up when it came to like finances and the kingdom of God and it helped in.
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It gave total validation to Chris's mentality that I had been kind of yoked to.
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That I then kind of decided to throw up my arms and be like, okay, I'm wrong, to be angry and bitter and resentful by his giving strategy, but I'm not yet able to say I'm like cheerful about it.
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And.
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I think that and I honestly feel like I'm still there, a little bit Like I threatened when we have marital arguments over money.
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I'm like, well, it looks like you're going to have to stop.
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Oh yeah, it's usually whenever we can't afford something, it's I need to just take it from the giving.
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Yeah, Cause he, he likes to add percentage percentage every year, which, and I and I'm over here and I'm like I have some questions about the motive.
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I have some questions about all of this and I'm just like, okay, well, look look at you.
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This is the Lord, like you know, shutting you down on your, and I'm like who am?
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I I think, just providing the space to talk about that kind of thing, churches could not do a better job.
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Not hammering churches, but just providing that space to talk about those things Like where does faith and wisdom?
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Like, how much giving is there too much giving?
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Because if you take some of the like, yeah, there's a faith principle obviously in giving, but if you do like me and you take it to his logical so I should be given 100 or otherwise, I don't have enough faith, right, right that god's going to provide for me.
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And so just having some space to to talk about those things and wrestle through yeah, the way that I have things in the guilt.
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And then you add I mean, that's the like, that's the secret weapon that the church has right, and that's like one of my big convictions is to not be driven by guilt but by passion and conviction and so just having space to talk about that.
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Because, again, you've got these different types of givers and I've seen it in my own profession that there's some clients that I have that we, you know we see their charitable giving from the tax return and you know they don't give very much.
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But then I have other clients that you know I was literally meeting with one a couple months ago as a doctor has a very, very high net worth and you know he broke down in tears because he felt the responsibility of the wealth that he had and he wanted to be a good steward of that money.
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So that's just a different conversation and requires a bigger space to address than just you need to give to the church.
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You need to give 10% and then that's it.
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Because it's people's hearts that you're shepherding, and generosity is a big part of that.
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That's my soapbox.
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No, no, I think where this starts starts and this is why I asked Adrian earlier is like what you know, you got a discipline that got you to like the 10%.
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And I come around and I'm like let's do 1% more every year and you're like right For me, I you know as as one who kind of came, came into like owning my faith at really 22.
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That's when I started giving and I was like, okay, I'm gonna give 11, because I don't ever want to like make a mistake, so I give less than that.
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And then over time I was like when I was here, after reading the treasure principle, I said I only have enough faith to give one percent more.
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Because one percent more, I was like, okay, I can do one percent.
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And then the next year I was like, okay, we survived, let's do one.
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You know that was the whole Malachi 310,.
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Bring the whole tide in the storehouse that there may be food in my house.
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Test me in this as the Lord of hosts and see if I can open the windows of heaven, pour down for you a blessing until there's no more need For me.
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What that meant for me it was I can trust God and God's given me this amount of faith and I'm going to operate in this and I would love that my faith to stretch.
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And so, as we've given more, there hasn't been, and I don't want to say that there's not going to be a change in your standard of living, Like as if like yeah
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cause.
00:17:37.325 --> 00:17:40.560
I don't want to I'm not name it, claim it, but when?
00:17:40.560 --> 00:17:47.334
When I think you told me this, which I think this is the funny part that you is like, if you have a need, why don't you ask God for it?
00:17:47.334 --> 00:18:10.852
And so, um, when it came to giving, and I think last year, when our uh, when our kids made it rain in our garage from the upstairs, uh, bathroom, uh, and then when an air conditioner went out and I was like, okay, we we hit like three huge financial expenses at the beginning of the year, right when we had added a percentage and that was nerve wracking.
00:18:11.622 --> 00:18:12.384
But yeah, did you.
00:18:12.384 --> 00:18:13.406
I'll let you finish, no.
00:18:13.487 --> 00:18:14.810
And then that's when I started tracking.
00:18:14.810 --> 00:18:18.691
I started, I took, I got a spreadsheet out and I was like okay, the Lord said, test me in this.
00:18:18.691 --> 00:18:19.981
All right, I'm putting you to the test.
00:18:19.981 --> 00:18:20.781
And so I got.
00:18:20.781 --> 00:18:24.686
I have my, my spreadsheet from 2023.
00:18:24.686 --> 00:18:32.256
You know what we gave and, with all the expenses that we had, you know what we received, which is this is the wild part.
00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:38.192
What we received was like well, hang on, but it was you were tracking what we received.
00:18:38.192 --> 00:18:41.240
That wasn't like a part of regular income, Like it wasn't a plan.
00:18:41.560 --> 00:18:42.063
So what?
00:18:42.143 --> 00:19:01.171
so what we gave was X amount and then we'll receive was like like almost 10 times that it was a lot more it was like a wild thing, and so that's where I'm like God is trustworthy, yeah Well and what it's taught me in in some of this is like the Malachi is a three 10 is.
00:19:01.171 --> 00:19:07.730
That was really convicting to me, cause God literally does say test me and this and see if I don't open the storehouse.
00:19:07.730 --> 00:19:14.305
I mean he doesn't say see if I don't like, give you your daily bread, like he doesn't actually say that it wasn't 10 times, it was three, it was 213%.
00:19:14.665 --> 00:19:26.432
So, uh, we received back 213% of what we gave, yeah, out of from, gave from outside of like the church salary or whatever of like and some of that was some of those things we did.
00:19:26.692 --> 00:19:29.375
We worked for some of that money but it wasn't expected Right.
00:19:29.454 --> 00:19:30.695
Yeah, and I think that.
00:19:30.695 --> 00:19:40.326
So what I have learned from some of this like financial stress, that I feel is for me, like the finances are a way of the there's security for the future.
00:19:40.326 --> 00:19:52.068
There's security for things that we need that we might not see right now, and what I, what I had, the one of the ways in which we've seen God provide because we're kind of looking for it um is like we've been given.
00:19:52.068 --> 00:19:57.028
There was this like weird weekend, this military camp that allowed us to come.
00:19:57.028 --> 00:20:04.556
This was like a, this was like four years ago, but we basically got probably what would have been a thousand dollar like family camp experience.
00:20:04.576 --> 00:20:05.378
Way more than that yeah.
00:20:06.220 --> 00:20:06.986
Probably like $2,000.
00:20:06.986 --> 00:20:10.266
I mean, we had a professional counselor following us, it's true, and it was completely free.
00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:21.813
It was like we got invited to come on this experience with our kids, and it was like giving us that cash would have been far inferior to the experience that God just gave us.
00:20:21.873 --> 00:20:32.963
Oh, that's a great point, and so I think that that's what I started to recognize.
00:20:32.963 --> 00:20:38.182
I'm like, okay, god isn't confined to our to like cashflow and so what the things our marriage actually needs and things our family actually needs can be met with other than like just checks in the mail or just cash.
00:20:38.182 --> 00:20:45.681
And that's really where I'm trusting God to provide us with the right experiences, the right opportunities, like even this women's retreat.
00:20:45.681 --> 00:20:53.186
I got to speak at this women's retreat a couple of weekends ago and as part of my weekend I was, I got to run on the beach twice.
00:20:53.186 --> 00:21:09.529
I got to do long runs on the beach and I had this great spiritual time with God and I felt like I heard from God on some areas where I'd been really asking and not not hearing, and it was like I needed that more than I needed any amount of money, but yet I left with $500 that we weren't planning on.
00:21:09.529 --> 00:21:10.573
That like really helps.
00:21:10.573 --> 00:21:11.521
It's just.
00:21:11.521 --> 00:21:15.214
It helps, I think, by by giving to a place where I feel nervous.
00:21:15.496 --> 00:21:34.871
What I've seen is God provide not with cash, but with opportunity and actual provision for the things that our family and our life are way bigger needs, but also, but we mean, like I said, when last year we wanted to get a new car because my car was a dying, yeah, and there was a part of me I had a little bit of pride like look how crappy my car is, I know, uh, and.
00:21:34.871 --> 00:21:41.060
And then, um, I was, you know, looking for a used truck that was you can't get too nice of a truck with a, been a pastor though.
00:21:41.101 --> 00:21:41.942
You can't, you can't.
00:21:41.942 --> 00:21:43.084
But here's what happened.
00:21:43.084 --> 00:21:46.469
Here's what happened, right so out of nowhere.
00:21:47.369 --> 00:21:51.839
Um, a bunch of people donated money to me, just not not through the church, just like.
