Charitable Giving In a Post Covid World

welcome to the mission matters
the mission matters is a partnership
between 1615
and mission nexus who have a shared
passion to mobilize god’s people to be a
part of his mission the mission matters
is hosted by matthew ellison
president of 1615 and ted essler
president of mission nexus
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here are your hosts matthew ellison and
ted estwick
and welcome to another episode of the
mission matters podcast i’m matthew
ellison
and it’s always a joy to be with my
co-host ted essler ted
good to see you friend how are you doing
today matthew doing well we’ve been
stacking these up man this may not air
for a little bit
but it is great to see you once again so
you know we always like to start off
with a softball question here
and you’re a bit of a foodie i’m a bit
of a foodie
and you know if you eat food properly
it’s worship uh paul said whatever you
do whether you eat or drink do it all
for god’s glory so i hope
people don’t think i’m carnal by talking
about food today
but i’m wondering about your favorite
condiment let me tell you mine first
virgil and john will not be surprised at
this because
we’re both new mexicans the best
condiment in the world and my favorite
condiment is definitely green chili
most people wouldn’t think of it as a
condiment but if you live in new mexico
it’s at the breakfast table the lunch
table the dinner table
it’s everywhere and it’s just not a
proper meal without the condiment of
green chili
so ted what is your favorite condiment i
have to admit i
you know i spent uh i guess it’s almost
been a year and a half ago but i went to
the balloon festival
in albuquerque there
and got exposed to your green chile and
people outside of new mexico don’t
really get access to what you’ve got so
i can understand why you have
have that as your favorite that was very
good but you probably have never heard
of mine either
mine is called caiman and um this comes
so i you know i lived and worked in
bosnia and
in bosnia they serve kaimak on a on a
dish
that’s the national dish called chavapi
and kaimak
it’s kind of hard to explain if you’ve
never seen it but
it’s not sour cream and it’s not
butter but it’s kind of in between those
things
and it whatever you’re eating you put a
little bit of kaimak on
and it just it just my mouth is watering
trying to talk right now it just makes
everything taste better
uh because it’s kind of it’s got that um
i guess it’s the fact that brings your
taste buds to to life there and it’s
very hard to get kaimak outside of
bosnia
um we have a little bosnia store here in
orlando not i mean it’s across town for
me but
i could you can kind of get it there but
um fresh kaimak
uh from bosnia that that’s that’s the
thing so
i’m intrigued i’m intrigued ted what’s
that
i’m intrigued i want it it is something
else
it uh it just flavors up everything um
virgil how about you
well matthew’s already stolen my uh
suggestion that ran through my mind
immediately with the green chili but
i would add to that if you have a salad
a green salad
particularly a spinach salad and you put
some pomegranate vinegar red on it
that’s hard to beat that’s one i’ve not
heard of
all right how about you well the
compliment the you know the new mexico
state question is red or green and so
depending on where you are in the state
red chile can be a big winner
and so and i tend to want to lean to red
but i also like ordering christmas red
and green plus it reminds you during the
middle of the year
of that special time of year for for
christians
yeah before i traveled to new mexico i’d
never heard of uh
ordering like huevos rancheros christmas
style
but uh wow what a treat what a treat so
if you haven’t if you haven’t this is a
now we’re the new mexico tourism bureau
here but
definitely a trip worth making just for
the food uh the food there
to me is uh it’s hard to find outside of
the state
it’s incredible and we brought back
hatch chili pepper seeds and we grew
hash chilis and my wife made
green chili for most hatch peppers they
were incredible awesome
don’t get faked out by the colorado
green chile they they keep trying to
make some
claim to fame that they can’t even come
close to when it come compares to hatch
so okay so if you’re from colorado
and you don’t like that comment you can
write john his email and i’m just
kidding
so john could you um kind of kick us off
by introducing yourself and then when
you’re done virgil we’ll have you do the
same
sure i’m john moore we have a firm
called john moore associates and
it’s a group of 10 of us that are in the
wealth management financial planning
business and we have offices in
albuquerque
and in scottsdale arizona and
what we really believe in is that the
best way to
approach financial things is to do it
with a biblical mindset
and the bible’s got about 2350
scriptures about
uh material things and money and
obviously important to god and so we we
challenge ourselves and the
folks the families that we have the
privilege of serving
of uh managing their portion of god’s
portfolio
properly all right awesome
virgil my name is virgil dugan
i serve as president of now
national christian foundation southwest
which is new mexico and
arizona i’ve been
in the christian philanthropic world now
for
20 going on 23 years
come out of an r d background managing
very large
national security programs but i found
myself
in christian philanthropy for the last
23 years
so can you start us off by just talking
about
um you know how you view christian
philanthropy
how you view giving yeah that’s
you know that’s a wonderful subject that
i think is
uh maybe underrated and perhaps
understated i i really strongly feel
that giving is a fundamental or
key spiritual discipline so when i talk
about spiritual disciplines i think it
ranks right up there with bible study
prayer
worship fellowship witnessing etc
something that we need to practice
to be like or to be imitators of god our
father
and i believe that that giving in the
very holistic sense is a
very powerful way in which we can do
that so
john we talked about this in previous
conversations
it’s a spiritual act of worship giving
is as opposed to being a financial
transaction
and one of the things i love about that
and i learned this from virgil and you
as well
is that fundraising for christian
purposes
is a beautiful spiritual ministry then
so if giving is an act of worship
then those who raise funds for god’s
cause
are involved in a beautiful spiritual
ministry and maybe you can talk about
that because i know that
a lot of people who are in the donor
development world
they’re like i i don’t want to ask
someone it’s you know it’s
it’s frustrating it’s it’s humiliating
maybe you could address that yeah you
know i think you said it
matthew um i mentioned that it’s a
spiritual discipline well what are
disciplines those are
things that we practice in order to be
more like god our father in the lord
jesus christ
so if you’re in a fundraising mode
you might see yourself as a disciple
maker
right you know what is the disciple
maker someone who helps someone in their
practice of the spiritual disciplines
so if you’re enabling people to give
not only more generously but more
joyfully and
with great contentment and no matter
where you are on the spectrum
then that’s something that is a key
disciple-making
ministry you know when we talk about
giving let me also
just quickly say giving is not just
about
money or treasures that we
hold but giving is about time
a personal talents is about
sharing god’s truth it’s about
being thankful for how god has blessed
us so
giving spiritual giving financial assets
away
or giving out of income is just one way
in which we practice this spiritual
discipline
so um virgil or john i’d be curious
um this isn’t so we when we do these
podcasts we have questions we go out
this is going to be off script so be
ready for this
um i recently visited with one of uh
the many mission nexus member
organizations
and in the context of that conversation
they were discussing how they never
asked for money
and i would say in the mission world
you know you hear this story often about
uh john muir for example never asked for
a dime
and it’s almost like that’s a dirty or
wrong thing
to do or maybe a point of pride for
those who
never ask for a dime any reaction to
that or any thoughts on that
i think it to kind of dub on to
what virgil said but you may be missing
an opportunity to
provide discipleship and i i think it’s
important to not be bashful about that
and it’s interesting you know
we’ll end up talking about some
transactions because the transactions
are
how we take advantage of the government
tools that are out there to
be tax wise but ultimately
that transaction is enabling that
spiritual discipline to be
impacted and uh and if you are aware of
what’s going on in the conversation you
may see opportunity
to really unleash some assets for
kingdom purposes
and to miss that opportunity to ask that
question
that that’s a big mess in my mind
and i got to take off my host hat for a
second if i can
i’m sorry but you know as i’ve grown
into ministry
i i struggled asking people to give
because i was taking myself too
seriously and i’m not suggesting that’s
the case with this group at all
but for me it was an issue of pride it
was humbling to ask
people to give and i really had to have
courage
and i found great comfort in philippians
chapter four when paul says
to the church i’m not asking you to give
for my benefit
but to your benefit that it might be
credited to your heavenly inheritance
and so
i think virgil and john have helped me
on this pathway
if giving is a spiritual act of worship
then again fundraising for god’s
purposes
is a beautiful spiritual ministry and
you’re inviting people into life
and joy so i i just i couldn’t resist
that i mean paul’s our example
it’s not for my benefit it’s for your
benefit it’ll be credited to you in
heaven so sorry about that
no you know i agree matthew and i and i
also think
uh in this organization’s case one of
the things that’s awesome about it is
they asked me what i thought their
annual budget was
after and i’d been with them for an hour
and was learning all about what they do
and i guessed 10 times higher than it
actually is
because they’re frugal and i think they
have a core value of
spending kingdom money wisely so it’s
with no judgment that i
you know ask about this but i do think
it’s um
it’s kind of a common theme that i hear
about uh in the missions world
and it’s influenced probably by abuses
that are in the broader church with how
fundraising has happened
and so the reaction is then to figure
out
you know kind of a different theology of
giving versus
being able to ask so anyway
back to john and and matthew both john’s
in the investment management business
so one way i like to think about this is
if you know of a good
investment opportunity it’s good to
share that with people so they can
participate in that investment
opportunity
well what better investment
opportunities are kingdom enterprises
so in a sense giving is really all about
considering
investments in kingdom enterprises
matthew represents one of those you
represent one of those dead so
and there are many well virgil i would
like to talk to you about gamestop
no i’m just kidding um
um could you talk to us you know both of
you work in this area
um a conversation that you almost cannot
have right now is
kovid um what are you seeing happen
as a result of kovid i’ve kind of got my
own thoughts i’ve talked to a lot of
ministry leaders but
i’d like to hear from you on what you’ve
seen with covid in giving
originally you want to talk to ncf
2020 was a a very special year
of course many people struggled with the
covet issues and constraints
but as we got down to the end of the
year we saw this remarkable
rally in the market and there was an
abundance of
giving that took place in 2020
as a matter of fact the the total gift
revenue that came through national
christian foundation in 2020 was an
all-time record
2 billion over 2 billion dollars another
facet of that was
that a lot of that money came in at the
end of the year through
asset based gifts not just cash but
stock real estate business interest
et cetera now
the point is that not all of those two
billions of dollars were deployed in
2020
only about 1.3 billion was deployed so
there’s 700 million dollars of dry
powder sitting in
donor advised funds at ncf that will be
deployed as we move into 2021. i think
that should be an encouraging note
to a lot of the people who may view this
blog
and we actually wrote a blog post called
half your daf
and the idea was that if the money’s
sitting in a donor advice fund a daf
uh it’s really just in a pocket it’s not
impacting the kingdom
and we challenged people to half your
death and later i found out that some
folks in silicon valley
offered a million dollar match to anyone
who would half their death
so they they put an extra million in uh
and now
they’re not someone else was thinking
like me they i don’t think they read my
post but it was the same
idea that now is the time because of
what’s going on
especially we saw health care giving
dramatically change
we have a client a family we’ve been
working with for quite a while
she was a widow and
she was a prime candidate for a health
care donation
but had just been scared to do it and
because of the
strong appreciation in the markets and
because of the motivation of the health
care
crisis she went ahead and made a
seven-figure gift last year
something that we had been conversation
with her for maybe five or six years
and it motivated her to take action
then yesterday i had lunch with a
planned giving officer for one of the
hospital chains here in arizona
last year they budgeted a 27 million
dollar goal for their
annual giving and they ended up at 55
million dollars so they basically
doubled
what their goal had been in that
particular healthcare foundation
so there was a lot of increased activity
and much of it focused in the healthcare
area you wrote an article called
uh empty your pockets and i and i think
it’s on the mission nexus website if i’m
not mistaken
yes it is if you go to missionnexus.org
and just look up empty your pockets
i got to tell you i love that philosophy
because i know one of the criticisms and
and i don’t know if it’s found that i’m
just putting it out there i hear it
is that there’s a lot of money sitting
out there but but it is
it’s not deployed it’s just sitting
there and so i just love that heart to
see that those kingdom resources
deployed for kingdom purposes
so let’s get practical we’re on this
practical notes now so we’ll stick on
that but
the cares act has been extended into
2021
i don’t know if our viewers know that
but our viewers represent
churches and missions organizations
mostly and i’m sure that’s going to be
interesting and important information
to them so tell us about the cares act
and what it means to have this
extended into this year the first neat
thing about the cares act
is that it allows someone to give up to
100 percent of their adjusted gross
income
to charitable entities in 2020 and also
again in in 19
in 2021 now
that’s a very big thing because prior to
that in terms of cash giving you could
only give 60 percent and have it
count as a taxable donation
so that’s a 40 increase that we saw
in giving potential in 2020 and 2021
also
so you can give now in 2021 again you
can give
up to 100 of your adjusted gross income
in cash
or when we talk about giving out of both
income and assets you can give up to 30
of your adjusted gross income in
non-cash assets you can give another
20 percent in
cash and finally you can under the cares
act you can give another 50
so basically 30 non-cash assets 70
cash that’s a big deal particularly if
there’s someone who has a large infusion
of income for whatever reason during
2021
to be able to make that donation john
help me out on the details there
yeah so they so in some cases they might
have had
a bond mature a million dollar bond
mature so it wasn’t really adding to
their income
but they they are flush with cash now so
if maybe they had a hundred thousand
dollar income
they could turn around and put a hundred
thousand cash
right into the ministry and the other
thing that’s
actually around before cares act is
something called a qualified charitable
deduction or a distribution excuse me a
qcd
some people think of it as a charitable
rollover
and basically what it allows is anyone
over 70 and a half
to transfer a hundred thousand dollars
maximum
from their ira account uh to directly to
a charity
or ministry and uh we we have seen
nationally the use of these qcds
almost triple it’s 2.9 times since 2017
uh the use of qcds in terms of the
number of gifts
the average gift out of a qcd is at
seventy nine hundred dollars
so it’s very substantial we had several
people
give a hundred thousand dollars they hit
the maximum uh
by transferring directly from ira to the
ministry
and this is a terrific planning
opportunity
and something that each ministry should
be sure that their donors are aware of
because not only what happens is it
counts for your acquired minimum
distribution
but it doesn’t add to your income and
so that it becomes a highly leveraged
giving tool
uh and it’s especially one of the best
benefits of all
is it may there’s kind of a secret tax
out there that’s called your medicare
premium
and if and if you’re not recognizing
that income it doesn’t impact how your
medicare premium
is calculated and so
qcds are just you absolutely catch me
out right now
and we would highly encourage ministries
to be aware of that
to have something available on their
website
to facilitate that transaction but it’s
enabling a spiritual
act of worship with the transaction so
listening to this and i’m thinking a lot
of our
listeners might be out there thinking
do people really do this kind of giving
um
i mean i’m guessing a lot of our
listeners are going to be
working in churches maybe on you know
missions team staff or they could be
staff admission agencies
you guys are working in the in the world
of major donors
um help help kind of bridge that gap for
people because i i think
you know you’re talking probably at a
level i’m guessing
and matthew maybe you can correct me on
this but i i assume our
most of our listeners are not major
major donors like that
but if they have an ira account we sent
out multiple qcds in the hundreds of
dollars
the 500 thousand dollar in in
they may not have millions of dollars
but it really is impactful
in the way that they manage their
taxable income or reportable taxable
income
because once you hit 72 now you have to
take the minimum out
and the qcd counts for that minimum but
it doesn’t get taxed
and the other nice thing is we had
several people turn 70 and a half
this year and once they’re seven and a
half they can do the qcd
and and get ahead of their rmd
which starts at 72. and there are 10
000 people a day turning 70 and a half
right now
it’s the baby boomer generation maturing
and so the opportunity regarding it has
to be an ira not a 401k
but the opportunity regardless of how
many dollars it is is significant
and i might also add to that that money
has to go
directly to a charity
donor advisors are not allowed to
receive
those qcds there is something called a
designated fund or a single charity fund
that can be set up
at a community foundation like ncl but
again that
has to be identified with a specific
charity
it cannot be um in a traditional don’t
advise fund
so i’m with john it’s a great tool for
getting the money directly
to charity people talk about asset based
giving you guys used that term
a little bit earlier on um
it’s this yeah so you know you drive
around orlando here it’s donate your
boat everywhere
and i think a lot of people think of
that when they think of asset based
giving but that’s not the bulk of it
obviously what what are you what are you
referring to with asset-based
giving so what we’re referring to there
is to assets that are appreciated in
value
and a boat’s probably depreciated but
that’s still
a way to get rid of a boat if you’re not
using it so that it’s the same idea
but what we mean by this is if you
bought apple stock
at 25 a share and it’s now 125
then you can give away 125 worth of
stock
the ministry gets the full value and you
avoid the tax
on the game the 100 game um
and if you still want to own apple then
you just buy it back you buy it back at
at the new price and you’ve raised your
cost basis
without paying tax on it and what’s
interesting
because the qcd is so powerful normally
a giver who’s
under 70 and a half will talk
appreciated assets but once they get to
7 8 and a half
the priority starts to swing over to the
qcd
because it has this double leverage in
terms of
managing income versus the medicare
premium and
so there as you talk to your financial
planner
uh think of we kind of divide it
in terms of age as to where the priority
should be but they’re both asset-based
gifts
it’s just one is appreciated assets and
the other
probably is appreciated but it’s coming
from a different source
you want to say something on that virgil
yeah i always like to tell the story
about the
young widow with three small children
who wanted to give to her favorite
ministry which was a
bible translation recording operation
and she had a garage sale
raised 2500 in the garage sale which was
matched
by five families that
wanted to see success and when she took
it to the ministry with her children
the check it had just qualified for
another matching grant from from another
organization
so her garage sale turned into a thirty
thousand dollar gift
for a special ministry so i’ll never
never underestimate
what you have and what the power of
giving away what you have
can um can can uh affect
and her her goal is to teach her
children about generosity men did they
get a lesson
and these were depreciated non-cash
assets in their garage or house right
exactly we all have stuff
households and non-charitable
organizations
and i’m sorry charitable organizations
in the u.s have 123 trillion dollars in
assets
that’s 12 zeros that’s a lot of wealth
and a lot of that’s in the pockets of
just
ordinary everyday hard-working people
not wealthy people
matter of fact the great majority of it
is let me ask you this virgil on that
topic
let’s say somebody’s giving 200 a month
to a missionary out there somewhere
and they’re approaching 70 70
70 and a half some of these age brackets
is somebody like that the kind of person
that could be thinking about some of
these plan giving strategies
absolutely i think john made the point
when we
tend to get above that 70 age group
there’s this
question that we should ask ourselves
which is how much do i really need how
much is enough
to you know see that i can live the rest
of my life in
relative security and comfort well so
many people find they have
more than they need so then the question
comes
what do i do with the rest how do i
quote invest the rest
in kingdom enterprises and that’s where
people like john and myself try to help
people
see you know how to do that cost
effectively from a tax point of view
how to do that in a way that satisfies
their passion
or their leading or their longing
how to involve their family in that
whole process in order to
disciple them it becomes quite an
opportunity
for for everyone concerned and we we had
a family who was at a conference
and uh they were being challenged the
people at the attendees at the
conference were being challenged
to sponsor a jesus film translation
and they were at the conference feeling
highly convicted
that they should sponsor a jesus film in
honor of their son who had been killed
in a bicycle accident
and they called me from the conference
and said this is what we feel god
calling us to do
it represented 10 percent of their net
worth they were not wealthy people
but to do that translation was a 10 of
their net worth
issue so on the spot on the phone
we got the computer calculator out ran
the analysis determined they had enough
and and essentially gave them permission
to make that gift so we helped them
answer that how much an
is enough question and that’s part of
the role of an
advisor is to give people permission to
do what virgil said ask that how much is
enough question
and then we like to add what about my
family and then the third question is
what do i do with the rest
i love it you know something that i’m
reminded of john is i hear you talking
and i won’t go into detail here but
um we have some common friends and
things like that and
you ministered to someone i know very
personal very
dear to me and he he said um you had
more of a pastoral role in his life than
his own pastor did
because through crisis and difficulty i
just think god has given
christian financial advisors such an
opportunity
to be ministers of the gospel to their
clients associates
whatever disciple making is really what
it is and to steer them towards kingdom
enterprise so
uh yeah i just wanted to plug in there
man thank you yeah thanks and
and the the privilege that a and a
financial advisor has
because they’ve been invited to into the
life of a family is significant
and the world view of your financial
advisor matters
and that this group called kingdom
advisors is out there
teaching discipling uh financial
advisors so that they can then disciple
clients
and there’s a certification called cka
certified kingdom advisor that if you’re
looking for an advisor that’s one of the
criteria
that i would use as a screen and you can
go to the kingdomadvisor.com
website and actually do an advisor
search in your local area
find a certified cka
so i got another question again i’m off
script here
but um we have a lot of canadian members
in mississippi nexus
and a lot of what we’re talking about is
u.s tax law and how it applies
i’m curious to know if the two maybe the
two of you have never
gotten into this question but how much
do government
policies influence christian giving
can i can i first put another ka plug-in
okay
200 canadian attendees at the recent
kingdom advisor conference so
awesome there’s an active group of
kingdom advisors and ckas in canada
and uh versus you want to speak we’ve
had conversation a lot about
what if tax law changes you know what
does that
what does that mean in terms of giving
so you want to talk to that soon
well there’s no question that in the u.s
tax law is a very very big part of
giving
and really our our tax code is set up to
enable charitable giving unlike any
other country in the world i think so we
do have a very
a very um friendly environment for
charitable giving
on the other hand i think there are a
lot of people out there
who practice giving independent of tax
law
i happen to know a couple of people
right now that i work with that are
sponsoring a young minority man to go to
seminary
well that’s not not something that’s a
taxable contribution their paying his
tuition
and is expensive while he’s in seminary
and they’re just you know examples all
over the place
where people do things that are
beautifully charitable in nature that do
not benefit from tax law
you know there’s a widow i know about
who
she lost her husband a month ago and
the church rallies around her and is
cared for her home and
her personal needs you know in a way
that is beautiful but it’s not a taxable
contribution so my guess
is that if we were to have something
really strange happen where our tax
benefits
went away that would be the time that
the church would rally and would say
okay i mean giving is giving
practicing the spiritual discipline is
no different now than it was before
therefore we will go ahead and do what’s
right anyway that would be my
my strong my strong guess and i don’t
think there’s tax deductions in the
bible it’s not talked about but giving
is certainly talked about
and i’ll share a story of uh at the time
it was a fifty percent limitation on
giving
of got the adjusted gross income and i
was meeting with a woman
i said uh so tell me about your giving
and she says well i always get 55
percent of my income
and i said really he said why and she
said well if i’m not giving more than
it’s tax deductible i don’t feel like my
heart’s in the right place
and then she rubbed her hands together
and said and it drives my account crazy
with a big grin on her face so anyway
that
i’m agreeing with virgil i think we
would if it does change or if it’s
different in a different country
it’s it’s the tax laws help facilitate
it
but they shouldn’t be the driver this
shouldn’t be the why
and we versus and i have a friend that
he did a
fantastic job of charitable planning
when he sold his business and he told
he’ll tell you
that the reason he did it was taxes and
only later
did he learn the message of generosity
and it was
so they might have taken a tax step to
get you down that spiritual
journey of generosity but at least you
got down that
that road they as a family got down
there and tax is a benefit but it’s not
it’s not the biggest part of the giving
exercise
you know it may improve your ability to
give by
20 30 max but you know still the biggest
part of giving
is a decision to commit resources not
uh the tax issue itself yeah what tax
does is allow you to give a bit more
to your charity of interest rather than
to the government that’s what it
pulls down it really comes back to
ownership you know
does god really own it all do yes but
have you as a giver as a follower of
christ
made that decision do you really act
like you’re a manager and not the owner
and that’s ultimately how that giving
decision gets made is really an
ownership
decision first perfect segue to our last
question
john you talk about game changer gifts
and i think i have an idea where you’re
going with this i’ve heard a little bit
but i’ve not actually heard the details
so really interesting tell tell us more
about
game changer gifts so we’ve started
challenging our clients who have the
capacity
to think about talking to their favorite
charity or their favorite ministry
and asking them what would be a game
changer for them
and and and we have uh one client that
was
giving away oh about five to seven
thousand dollars a year
they had a game changer conversation
with
a group and they’re now given 150 000
a year because they’re funding the camp
for children with disabled disabilities
and they go to the camp they participate
in the camp
and every year they give more but it
changed that ministry because they were
not they were gonna have to cancel the
camp
and this was pre-covered but they were
going to have to cancel the camp because
it didn’t have funding for it
and it saved the opportunity for those
those kids to really get together and
celebrate
and i watched that family turn into a
joyous
giving family and then last year they
took their
children with them to the camp so that
we’re introducing the next generation
into that process
and so i would challenge ministries
to be prepared to answer the question
if a donor comes to you or giver comes
to you and says
i want to do something that’s game
changer for you have that project ready
and be prepared and think it through
think big trust god that someone’s going
to show up
and just be ready for it how did they
contact us
contact mission contact 16 that’s
beautiful what a great story thank you
so much
again i think of paul’s words to timothy
tell those who are wealthy to lay a hold
of the life that is
really life you talk about the joy in
that family
when god calls us to generosity he’s not
calling us away from joy he’s calling us
towards it
and sometimes i think we communicate a
generosity message
get out of debt you know be a wise
steward all
important things but the motivation is
joy in jesus that’s what you see
so much in scripture so ted i mean we
could go on forever this is a rich
conversation did i miss anything is
there any final thing you want to ask
ted before you
go to the end of the segment no i don’t
think so i i mean
like you said this is an important topic
ministry takes money
and uh it’s just
you know for good or for bad it’s it’s
uh it can be
i know i know it’s a negative
conversation for a lot of people
but having worked in ministry for much
of my life i’ve just seen
the good that generosity does and so
i’m glad we took some time to talk about
this topic today
yeah so the closing segment of every
show
is called something ted likes and ted
what is it today
well as you know there’s a lot of
discussion right now
about race in our culture and uh i want
to
recommend to you uh i watched a video
this morning it’s a church out of texas
and they interviewed a theologian named
d.a horton
who’s an associate professor at
california baptist university
and he unpacks some views on critical
race theory
and that’s a hot topic and
what i really liked about the
conversation was
the i just call it very
open and honest reflection about
where where the conversation is on
critical race theory if you want to find
this there’s actually going to be
another talk i don’t know
again we don’t know when this particular
episode of the podcast airs but
this is going to be more than one
session that he does with this church
it’s called cornerstone church
if you put in cornerstone d a horton
crt in the youtube search bar you’ll
find this talk
and probably one or two others that he’s
conducting over the next few days
i found it very helpful very
enlightening and just uh the kind of
conversation that we need to be having
in the church today
so that’s something that i like today
that’s great well virgil and john
on behalf of myself and ted thank you so
much i i trust this is going to be a
blessing to a lot of folks
and hopefully there’s some people
listening that
have that game changing mentality and we
see some kingdom things that are set in
motion so
brothers thank you for being here today
yeah thank you
thank you before you go would you visit
our hosts websites
there you will find a wealth of
interesting and challenging information
about the state of the great commission
they are 1615.org
and missionnexus.org if you enjoyed
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