God’s Wealth Plan: The Financial Blueprint Every Family Needs w/ Lee Jenkins

28:43In the church, people don't want to admit they want to make money, as if that's something to be ashamed of, as if talking about money is ungodly. Well, because, all right, you could argue that people have been trained to think like that because it's like the meek shall inherit the earth. Yeah. So the meek, to me, that means people that are not wealthy. Or it's like, I forget the exact wording, but it's hard. Like the eye of the needle. Yeah, hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than a rich man to get to heaven. And then it's like the love of money is the root of evil.

29:26So there's been a variety, there's a variety of different things, right? Where if you hear that enough, then it's like, I don't, in order to be righteous, you have to be humble. In order to be humble, you have to have some level of, I don't want to say poverty, but, you know, it's some level of grounding. Yeah. And not really, you make money, but that's not your primary focus. That's right. That's right. So how do you combat that? Okay. I'll make a statement. In business, the mission was to make money. The bottom line was profit. In ministry, it's to what we call make a disciple, meaning to change people's lives.

30:10But in order to do ministry, you got to have money. We like to say salvation is free, but ministry is expensive. In other words, yes, the mission is to change people's lives. But in order to do that effectively, you need money. But the way money has been talked about has been very detrimental to people from a wealth building standpoint, because we focus on many of the things that you talked about. We say money is the root of all evil. Well, it's the love of money. And then we talk about the, you know, it's hard for rich people to go to heaven. OK, but right before that, Jesus was talking about this rich guy.

30:55They call the rich young ruler. And this guy was money was his God. And Jesus said, look, man, give your money to the poor. Come and follow me. And the guy wouldn't do it. And he went away sad. And then Jesus says hard for people like that who were rich can't have two masters. That's exactly right. You can't have two mess. So the issue is money is not the problem. It's it's the priority. That's the problem. It's our values. If you have the right values, if you have the right, how about this? If you have the right purpose for money, then it's nothing wrong with making money and growing money if you have the right motivation.

31:38So all throughout the Bible, there are some of the most incredible people that we read about. We're wealthy. Not all of them. But the people who were struggling are the people we highlight. The people who were wealthy, we don't highlight their wealth, like Abraham and Solomon, okay, and David. So the bottom line is it has not been talked about in a healthy, productive way. It has leaned more toward humility means you're broke, you're struggling. What about prosperity preaching? That's the other extreme. That's an extreme. Yeah, no doubt. Don't subscribe to that. Okay, no, I don't. Because it's two different things, right?

32:22Yes, there's that side, but then there's the prosperity piece. And I feel like what you're doing is like that gauge in the middle. That's right. Right? Because even when you say struggle, like we were just listening to music yesterday, it was like struggle, another sign that God loves you. And I'm thinking to myself, yes. But then the person who's sitting there in that is like, well, look what they're doing over there. Yeah. Look at this is sinful. Yeah. Right? So like, how do you? That's why I'm like the challenge. What is the mindset of the people that you're trying to convert to disciples? Well, poverty is not a virtue and neither is being wealthy.

32:57Just because you're broke, busted and disgusted and struggling doesn't mean you're close to God. You can be, but that doesn't make you close to God. Just because you are very wealthy doesn't mean you're far from God. Okay. Okay, so, but there have been two extremes. One is struggle is spiritual.

33:24Or prosperity, you know, name it and claim it, you know, driving the best car and living in the biggest house. If you do that, then you really got a lot of faith. That's what people have preached. I'm really blessed. Oh, you're blessed. That's exactly right. That's a lie, too. But parts of both of those are true. But I say the poverty mentality is not healthy and it's not good. The prosperity theology, which means your material things determine your value. That's not good. I like to say right in the middle of that is what I call the stewardship theology. And stewardship theology is just you manage what you have the best you can, and you're always managing it for growth.

34:19And that comes from the parable of the talents. It's a parable in the Bible where three guys got some money. One of them hit it in the ground, and the other two multiply what they have. When the master came back to check on him, he criticized the one who did not grow the money. He said, you should have put my money in the bank. The other two who grew their money, he commended them. OK, so there is nothing wrong with growing your money. Stewardship is about taking what you have and multiplying, getting better. Some people, that means you're supposed to be in the millionaire category. category. Some people, you have the ability to make 10 million or a billion, but for some people, it's a hundred thousand.

35:08It doesn't make a difference. What makes a difference is doing the best with what you have and, and growing it. And that's, that's the standard. So what prosperity preaching, let's, let's talk about that for a minute. What is your viewpoint on what prosperity preaching really is? Cause I said, I hear different takes on it yeah like if if i were to ask you what is prosperity preaching what would you say that that is i would say prosperity preaching is equating your health and your wealth to your spiritual depth in other words you are spiritual if you are wealthy and if you are healthy and you are not spiritual or you don't have enough faith if you are suffering in those areas so they so they're teaching that if you see a poor person that's because they're not they're not spiritually right that's right or they don't have enough faith they don't have enough faith that's why they're in a situation right there that's exactly right that's being taught i don't think it's being taught to that extent but i can tell you what is like the Underline tone of it.

36:26Yeah, that God doesn't. Bless you. How your blessings is a direct correlation of your righteousness. That's right. Yeah, your financial. If you're right with God, then you will experience unparalleled, uninterrupted prosperity. And a sign of that is what you drive, where you live, the clothes you have. God must be, you must have the favor of God because you got all this stuff. Therefore, you're healthy spiritually. No, you can be very unhealthy spiritually. In fact, I worked with a lot of wealthy people for 25 years. And I am here to say that many of their lives were messed up. When I saw how much money they had, I was impressed.

37:20And I was honored to be able to manage it. But when I saw their lives, I was not impressed. Not all of them, but many of them. So I don't think the prosperity theology is preached as much as it used to be. And I can tell you when it started to change for the better is during the Great Recession, 2008, 2009, 2010. Prior to that, preachers, that's all they were talking about. Not all of them, but many of them. You know, if you give, it'll come back to you and you'll be rich and God can make you a millionaire. Well, the recession took care of all that because church folks got hit just as hard as everybody else.

38:01They lost their houses. They got, you know, they got foreclosed on. They had to short sell it. So I don't think it's as prevalent as it used to be, but it is still a problem. When you talked about looking inside of the accounts and seeing wealth, but being inside their homes and realizing that a lot of times in shambles, you think there was a point of confusion with who the master was, right? Was money now the master, not the tool? Was there a mixture there? And how, what are the signs that somebody should be looking for when it's like, okay, maybe I'm going down the same path of who is leading this?

38:39Yeah. Money makes a great servant, but a terrible master. And money will test us like nothing else will. It's easy to live a certain life of integrity when you don't have a lot of choices. When you're broke and struggling, you don't have the temptations that people have who have money. Because when you have money, you have choices. You have options. So when you have options, you can live out what's really in your heart. So I like to say money doesn't change people. What money does is magnifies what's already in our heart. It gives us a chance to live it out because when you're broke, you can't live it out.

39:29So I say all that to say that when you get money, you got to look at it as a tool to do something good with instead of something to use to be selfish or to indulge in things that you really shouldn't be doing. So it's a perspective. It will test your values and it will really determine what your values are. So money is powerful. When I was in the NFL, a lot of the guys, their rookie year, they had been dating their college sweetheart. Then they get drafted, they get a big bonus check, and they have all this money and all of a sudden they're messing around. Whatever, you know, anything that has a dress on.

40:27So the question is, did money change them? Well, I tell you what money did. It gave them opportunities. OK, and they took advantage of some of those opportunities. Is that money's fault? Or was something already in their heart that they just didn't have an opportunity to live out when they were broke? So my point is money is a powerful tool. It can be used for good. it could be used for bad. And you got to know that going in. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month-end close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on and that's not what you're building toward.

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44:17Just to follow up, because you're saying it, I'm like, that's a message that a lot of people need to hear. Is there, or what is the balance between being spiritually grounded and financially disciplined? Like, do they have to be equal? I feel like both things are needed, but how do we get to the point of balancing it? Well, they're really equal. But I think what you have to do is to integrate your spiritual values with your financial strategy or how you see money. You got to start seeing money as as again, as a tool, a tool to be used for good. OK, there is a verse in the Bible said, what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and loses soul?

45:02OK, now losing your soul, that could mean various things. But I'm going to say losing your soul could mean losing your values, losing what's important to you, losing, you know, the things that really matter in life. That's certainly one way to interpret that. So the way you manage both of them is you incorporate it like the way I look at money. And one of the things I teach, and I believe the Bible teaches this, is that everything we have belongs to God. That means we are a steward. That's why that word stewardship, it means management. You're managing somebody else's assets. That's what I did as a stockbroker.

45:45It wasn't my money. It was their money. And if I didn't manage my client's money well, they would fire me. I look at what I earn, what I have responsibility for, the assets I have as God's money. And if I don't manage it well, he'll take it from me. And that's a mindset. We call it God owns it all. OK, and that way you don't personalize what you have. You take care of it because you realize it could be taken away from you. So I think the first thing is to look at your money not as being yours. It is yours physically, but it is God's money. It's God's blessings. God bless you with the house, with the car, with the job.

46:35And when you look at it that way, it changes everything. Also, just because you have money doesn't mean you're always supposed to buy stuff. One of the greatest uses of money is generosity, giving a large portion of it away. So if you want to kill self selfishness. One of the ways to kill that thing, which we all have in us, but one of the ways to stop loving money so much is to make sure that you're giving some of it away. Let's talk about that. The ties aspect. Because that's something that's a very hot conversation on social media. You know, people think that a lot of people get taken advantage of by the church or different pastors when they like, you know, they'll say, OK, if you don't do this, then, you know, these are the consequences.

47:36You have to do it. And it's like you're giving away money that you might not necessarily have to the church. and my whole thing has always been like charity I feel like should be a variety of different aspects not just one thing so it's like yes you should give to the building to help that because there are administrative costs stuff like that but if that's the only form of charity that you're giving or is that really charity because who is it really helping? like are you really giving money to the poor to the sick to the needy to the orphans. Like, I don't know if the ecosystem is really designed for that money to be distributed to those type of people, or is it just staying inside of a building and helping?

48:24Like I said, there's nothing wrong with it because every charity, like the Red Cross, they have administrative costs that you have to pay. But if 100 % of the money in the Red Cross is going to administrative, then what is the purpose of having the Red Cross? Yeah. That's how I look at it. What's your thoughts on that? every church is different. Every pastor is different. I think there are two issues going on when you talk about the church and money. I'll talk about the bad one first. The first one would be manipulation. Okay. There are different caricatures out there of pastors, especially black pastors that I think are very unfair, but a lot of it strikes a nerve because a lot of it is true the way we talk about money how we're able uh or how we aren't able to really talk about it in a way that is um um positive i mean it's it's almost like uh manipulating or scaring people into giving uh that's the bad part like the one he said lock the doors yeah that's right tonight close the door that's right yeah that's not a fair representation yeah that was crazy yeah well a lot of pastors got to realize man now what you say and what you do the whole world can see oh yeah it lives yeah it's all forever that's right and some of that language is um it's proprietary it's internal meaning that the people in that church in that congregation understand that vernacular because maybe they have been in a capital campaign or they're doing a particular project.

50:04And so, when the pastor talks, he's talking to his flock. They understand that. But you're not just talking to your flock anymore. You're talking to the whole world now because the whole world can see it. So, I'm very careful about what I say. I don't use that kind of language anyway. I'll tell you the kind of language I use. So, the number one thing is yes most pastors aren't trained in business they don't teach them about money in seminary or through their denominations therefore they don't know how to talk about it or how to manage a business or how to manage a business it's it's it's the idea of i'm just saying this because like growing up in church you know you go in there it's the building fund yeah it's the thermometer that never moves every year even though you're giving every sunday yeah and people are just like for what's happening yeah right that's where you get those ideas from yeah most of that we we see the negative and i'm gonna digress one second there are negatives in every industry stockbrokers when i was in the business for 25 years every month somebody was getting arrested on wall street for misappropriation of funds uh doctors get put in jail for malpractice lawyers get disbarred we don't stop seeking legal advice because of what lord bad lawyers do we don't stop going to the hospital because of what bad doctors do we don't stop investing because of what bad financial advisors do but when a preacher or pastor does something bad says something bad we we look at the whole landscape of religion and church as being bad and i think that's wrong Well, you brought up a good point, not to cut you off, but I never really thought about it like that as far as like management skills.

51:52And because if you look at the Catholic Church, they're one of the largest, if not the largest landholder in the world. Yeah. They, they're a very efficient business. Yes. Who the business is helping, I don't know. That could be debated, but they, they are, they're building, they're buying real estate. They have, they have a lot of holdings. The Mormon Church, they have a venture capital fund. Yeah. Over a billion dollars where they're deploying money into different businesses and they. Black church, not so much, but the difference is that there's a hierarchy in the Mormon and the Catholic church.

52:25The black churches, you know, it's every every church is its own leadership. Right. And if you if you're running a church, but you're not trained in business yourself and you're not trained in management yourself, you don't know really how to manage the money, deploy the capital. That's a whole arm within itself. Right. So would it be more beneficial to have kind of a unified front? I don't think that's ever going to happen. But like theoretically, right, if everybody's under one umbrella and now the black church can deploy a hundred million dollars. Because the black church is the is the biggest black business in America.

53:06Exactly right. The biggest black. They own the most real estate. They have the most funds coming in. And like, if you really think about it, they're the biggest black owned business in America. If you aggregate all the churches. So if there was a united front, that's an economic engine to actually help in a variety of different things. And it doesn't even necessarily have to be just charity. It could be a functioning business model, but that's millions of dollars that can be deployed into black community on real estate and business level. But it has to be some level of organization, obviously, to do that.

53:37So how do you feel about that? All right. Well, there are a couple of things you just brought up. Number one, the mission of the church, the number one mission is to save souls. I mean, it's people's spiritual life. And I think sometimes we look at the church as, oh, we ought to be doing this, ought to be doing that. And some of that is true, but we can't get away from the number one mission, and that is transforming people's lives spiritually. OK, now there are some other things we can be doing. The economic empowerment piece. Well, in order to do that effectively, the pastor and or some of the leaders and or the board need to have some financial acumen.

54:18And many of them don't. Some churches do. It depends on a lot. It depends on what city you're in. It depends on, you know, who you're seeking advice from. But they don't teach it. I'm just saying. So to put that on a pastor and a board, that might be too much. So what needs to happen is we need to have people like me and others to teach churches how to handle the business side of the church. because you're right. The black church collectively is a huge economic powerhouse and we can train people and we can buy land and we can do real estate and we can do a whole lot and we're not doing that. But some of that is because we're so divided by denomination and by theology and all that.

55:13So I don't think it's ever going to, everybody's going to be together. But let me say this, there are a lot of things that are manipulative that aren't done right, but then there's a lot of misunderstanding. And I'm going to say most of how people look at the church is misunderstanding. For instance, we look at a church as just being a church. We go there and we hear a nice song and we hear a nice message and people don't even think about the microphone that that person is preaching on, that's just that little thing you're holding that I hold on Sundays, costs$2 ,000. Now, a lot of that depends on how many people you're speaking to.

56:02You can't speak to 2 ,000 people with a cheap microphone. You can't have seven or eight singers, okay, up on a stage, okay, or a choir, okay, with cheap microphones and a cheap infrastructure. You can't have quality musicians on a guitar, a bass guitar, a drum and a keyboard. OK, who don't know what they're doing and they're going to charge you for it because that's how they make their living. I think what you're saying is important because I didn't realize it going. I guess the thing is, like, for a clear understanding, like, what is the business of church? Like, what are those costs? Obviously, equipment, obviously for the talent that's going to be on stage.

56:43Some people may say the building, the electricity building, break down all those things so people know. Oh, my God. It's so much. And it's different for every church. Yeah. But let's start with what you experience right away. And that is going to a building or land that costs a lot. The banks don't give a church a special deal. You don't get a special interest rate when you purchase land and you get a loan. You got to do what everybody else does. You have a mortgage until you pay it off. Okay. Well, the money to pay for that has to come from the charitable giving of people. We don't make a product per se as a pastor, as a church.

57:23So people have to give. OK. All right. So, number one, it's a pretty risky venture when you think about seating a church. Yeah. I tell people, if you are in traditional business, okay, walk with me on this. You're in traditional business and you mess around on your wife. You're the CEO and somebody catches you out with another woman. I'm not saying that could not affect your business. It might and it might not. But depending on how quality the quality of that product is, it probably won't. If you get a divorce and you're CEO of a major business, if you're a pastor and they catch you out with another woman and that whatever you were doing leads to a divorce, half of the people leave your church.

58:22And when half of them leave, half of that income goes down. So it's risky because there are things that can affect a church that won't affect the business. And when they get affected, it affects the money. So back to your question, you got real estate, you have staffing, the people who work behind the scenes, they have to spend a lot of time. And by the way, the bigger that the church gets, the more staffing you need. And they have to get paid, too. They have families. They could be out working in the regular marketplace. So to get them to come and work in the church, you know, most churches don't pay a market rate, but you've got to get close to it.

59:05So you've got staffing, you've got real estate, you have music, you have infrastructure, you have audio, visual, lighting. You got to take care of children, which you have to follow all the rules that a basic nursery or commercial nursery would have to have in terms of ratios of teachers. Some of those people have to be paid. It's a lot of stuff. OK, it's just like running a regular business from an expense standpoint. only is riskier because you're depending on the charitable giving of people. Congregation. Yeah, the congregation. So I'm saying my point is, is it's a major financial undertaking.

59:53And the bigger you get, we started, I started the church 14 years ago with 20 people. We're 4 ,000 members now. and a lot more people are coming and a lot more money comes in. But the expenses, it blows my mind sometimes how much it takes. If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts, or spending time on month-end close, it's time to get Brex AF, a gentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. Innovation is what gets your business to market. And Wasabi is designed to give every business a shot at competition. How? Break free from skyrocketing storage costs and unpredictable egress fees from old and top-heavy legacy providers.

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1:03:04So what are some biblical principles when it comes to finance? I know you said, well, a good man leaves an inheritance. So that's like estate planning, life insurance. You can kind of talk about a will of trust. What are some biblical principles that can be directly related to now teaching about finance? Okay. I'll start with spending. There's a scripture in Luke. It's anyone who goes to build a house, you must first count the cost to see whether or not you have enough money to do it. Okay. Then there's another scripture in Proverbs. It says a wise person doesn't spend everything they have. Foolish people do that.

1:03:53So the first thing is the Bible talks a lot about how you need to make sure that you have some financial discipline and that you count the cost. You don't go build a tower. That's what it says in the word. They call it a tower, but it's also you could call it a house or whatever the project is. You don't build a tower without first counting the cost to see whether or not you have enough money. That's budgeting. OK, then you move from budgeting to debt. Proverbs 22, 7 says the rich rule over the poor and a borrower is a slave or servant to the lender. So the Bible calls debt slavery. Now, it doesn't say it's wrong.

1:04:36It just says when you are in debt, okay, you are obligated to somebody else. You don't own all the money that you have because some of that money belongs to the mortgage company or whatever. I'm not saying anything's wrong with that. It's just tantamount to slavery. There are aspects of it. Until you pay it off, that's when you're free. So the Bible does warn us against debt. against debt. Now, all debt is not bad, but you got to be very careful. Okay. There is a such thing as strategic debt. Then the Bible talks about saving. Okay. The Bible talks about estate planning. Good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

1:05:20It talks about really every financial aspect there is. There is a verse in the Bible or a principle that we can follow. So let's talk about something that you're a veteran in, obviously finance for sure, entertainment for sure. Marriage. Yeah. Finance. Spirituality. Yeah. I've been married for 38 years to an incredible woman. And we do a lot of teaching on how to manage money within marriage. I'm writing my notes now. Man, it's no joke. Because statistics say that one of the primary causes of divorce is money. How couples have a difficult time coming into agreement or how it just causes some major issues within marriage and couples can't get on the same page.

1:06:15So what I tell people and what my wife and I teach is, number one, you got to be a team. You don't bring in two single mindsets into a marriage covenant. All of a sudden, it's not my money. It's our money. And that's the mindset. Now, should a married couple have some financial autonomy? Absolutely. And everybody's marriage will be a little different. But overall, your team. And one of the primary ways to determine whether you're really a team is whether you share your money, whether you work with money together instead of individually. So we teach couples how to integrate their finances with some autonomy, but how to do that together.

1:07:11And two are better than one. When couples get on the same page, man, they can make more money. They can build wealth faster. But a lot of them never get on the same page. So how do you get on the same page? If you have somebody that might not fully, like there's a lot of times, because I used to be a financial advisor. And a lot of times the wife might come in and the husband would just send the wife because they and the wife would be like, well, he's not really into finances. He doesn't really or even vice versa sometimes. But a lot of times it was the woman that was more like on it. And the husband was.

1:07:50So if somebody is not financially aligned, can that relationship even work? Absolutely. How can you get them aligned? Well, first of all, when I believe when God brings two people together, he brings them together to complement each other. And when you complement, just like the two of you all, you all are very similar as business partners, as friends. But you all are very different, too. And but your differences complement each other. That's the beauty of a great partnership. So usually in a marriage, you'll have one spender and one saver. You have a person that might lean more toward risk and a person that's a little bit more conservative.

1:08:27And when you blend those two together, you really help each other. My wife was more of a spender. I was the saver. I had to learn how to loosen up. She had to learn how to tighten up. So what I'm saying is when you come in being a team doesn't mean you think the same doesn't mean you have the same talents. It just means you appreciate what each other bring to the table. However, on the day to day basis, the best person who has the most time and expertise needs to be the primary manager of the money. And sometimes that's the wife. Sometimes that's the husband. In my marriage, over 38 years, it's been me some seasons.

1:09:09It's been my wife some seasons. It depends on how busy we were. But now she handles the day-to-day stuff. Of course, a lot of our stuff is done online. You know, it's automatic, so it's a lot easier. So I guess what I want to say, man, is you don't have to be the same to make it work. And those differences, you know, they say differences, what do you say, attract? Sometimes, you know, opposites. Opposites attract. Opposites attract when it comes to love. But opposites attack when it comes to money. But I'm saying opposites really should attract when it comes to money because those skills that you have that are different can work together.

1:10:00But it's tough. Amen. It's tough. You said you went from 20 to 4 ,000. Yeah. I think the message that you have, obviously, around spirituality and finance is vitally important. How are we getting more people, right? Because you've figured out how to scale. How are we getting more people to get back in the church to hear messages like this? Yeah. Well, the thing about teaching and preaching the word of God, which I believe is the Bible. And of course, you know, for the Christian faith, it is. You got to make it real to people. People ought to be able to come to church and learn about the Bible.

1:10:38But that's not all. You got to learn how to apply what you learn, how to take it home, how to take it to your job, how to take it to whatever your career is and be able to apply it. So one of the things that I think helped me, and this is just the grace of God, because I did not know that my business career was going to be a huge advantage for me as a pastor. In fact, when I felt the call out of the traditional business world to start a church, It was the first time in my life where I felt very insecure. And here's the deal. I say, Lord, if I had known I was going to end up pastoring, I would have gone and got my doctorate in theology.

1:11:27I would have gone and got my master's in this and that. You know, I played football and I was a stockbroker for 25 years. And now I'm going to be a pastor. I did not think that my background had anything to do with what God was calling me to do. And it had everything to do with it. So I have a gift of being able to look at the Bible and people tell me I have this gift and be able to explain it in a way where people can, number one, understand it. and people number two can apply it. And I'm not a very deep thinker, but I'm a very practical thinker. And I think that's because I came from the business world.

1:12:15You can't be deep talking to somebody about stocks and bonds. You got to break that thing down where they can understand it because they're getting ready to invest their money. So I was used to talking about things and helping people understand it. Number two, a person asked me a question And they said, how in the world do you go from being a stockbroker to being a preacher? Those two are opposites. I said, not really. From a skill standpoint. First of all, in business I was in, I had to market. Well, we market as a church, whether it's through social media, whether it's we can call it evangelism.

1:13:01We can call it outreach. You can call it whatever you want to call it. It's marketing. Okay. Then I'm in sales because when I'm behind the pulpit, we have to sell people on following Jesus or whoever, whatever religion you in. We don't want to call it sales. But if you don't make a great presentation, then you're not going to convince and be able to lead people. That's sales. When you share your conviction with somebody else and hope they will follow that and agree with it, that's sales. I came from the sales background. So that helped me. Fundraising. You can't do ministry without raising money.

1:13:45I was very accustomed to asking people to invest. And that's the kind of language I use at our church. We have a lot of high-level business people. And so I don't use a lot of spiritual language. I call it investing. When you give, you're investing in people's lives. You're investing for eternity, things that can impact people or, you know, for for throughout eternity. And then you have operations. You know, when I was an investment advisor, we there was a whole system like, you know, that you have to have a team. Well, I have a staff. I have to have different departments that I'm over. And then customer service.

1:14:30When I was a stockbroker, I had to check in with my clients, make sure they're all right. The market goes down. I have to call them and explain to them, make sure I'm pastoring them. That's all that was. I was a pastor for my clients and didn't even know it. Okay. So when I became a pastor, I drew on those skills that I have from business. and it helped me tremendously. So that's how I believe God blessed us is number one, it was just the grace of God. You can have all the skills in the world and if God doesn't breathe on that thing, it ain't going anywhere. But I believe God breathed on it, he blessed it.

1:15:15And then I was able to use skills that I had from the business world. And I believe that's one of the reasons we were able to scale pretty quickly. If you had to give people a three-step blueprint to build wealth today, what would it be? Number one is control your spending. Everything starts with lifestyle and spending. And that is the biggest mistake people make. The more they make, the more they spend. And with Instagram and TikTok and all of that, I think it is more of a temptation to keep up with the Joneses, is what we used to call it back in the day. but basically to compare yourself to others and that can kill your finances.

1:15:56So I don't care where you are, you gotta start with spending. Number two, you gotta control and or eliminate debt. And if you use debt, you need to use it strategically. And then number three, you gotta save and invest. That means you gotta have an eye toward the future. You can't consume everything you have. You have to think generationally. And historically, because black people couldn't build wealth, we didn't have the opportunities that everybody else had 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 years ago. But we do now in many respects. We still do get shut out of some industries, but it is imperative now that we think generationally.

1:16:43And that is a biblical principle. So I would say spending, debt management, investing. And if I had to throw one more in there, I would say generosity. I would say giving because it's something about giving that helps you from being keeps you rather from being selfish. When you make a million dollars, you make five hundred thousand, you make a hundred, you make fifty thousand a year. And, you know, there is a portion of that and you could spend all of it if you wanted to. and you could save all of it for your future. And nothing is wrong with spending and saving, but you take a portion of that.

1:17:24And what I have done for my God, almost 40 years, is I have given at least 10 % of my income to God's work, mostly through the church, but even through other organizations, either through the church, through other ministries, through other nonprofits, or to just help people who need my help. And I believe that has kept me from, can I say it like this? I believe that has kept greed from taking over my life because I'm like everybody else. I like money and I could have a lot of ways to spend money. And it's something about giving a large portion of it away that keeps me grounded. So those are the four things.

1:18:19Spending, debt, saving, and giving. I wonder now, well, amen to that. Thank you. I wonder now, do you still invest in the market? I do. I wonder, of this century, what has been the best investment you've made and one that was maybe a miss? $2 ,000 on. Man, that's a great question. I invest mostly now in ETFs, some mutual funds. I don't have the time now to pick a lot of individual stocks, but I have some individual stocks. So remember, I'm old enough to remember when the Internet came out. The Intranet. Yeah, it was the Intranet at first. Then it was the Internet. And I remember some stocks that came out and I didn't understand the Internet.

1:19:13And I put a little money in it and I made some money. And I mean, I wish I put everything I had in it. So I think what people have to do is look at what's going on in the world today. So I am heavily into technology, especially companies that will benefit from AI. OK, so those are some stocks that I have. But most of my individual stocks are just the blue chippers. OK, you know, if I had to name names, they're same names that most people talk about, you know, Apple Computer and Microsoft and Amazon. And and, you know, and then, of course, I do some of the other A.I. stocks. What's the big one in the video?

1:20:00Yeah. And so but I do mostly ETFs and in some mutual funds and I kind of sprinkle some individual holdings in that. But I'm heavy in the stock market. What's next for you? Like, what are you working on with the with the church and then your online presence? And like, what's what's next? Well, about a year and a half ago, I started on Instagram, the stewardship coach. and I wanted to see what the world be interested in learning about money, all the things that you all talk about. And I've learned a lot from you guys, but I wanted to see what the world be interested in learning about money from a biblical slash spiritual perspective.

1:20:42So I took a chance. I went on Instagram and I give these two to three minute vignettes in different financial subjects and I incorporate the Bible. And it took off between TikTok and Instagram. I have over 500000 followers who just come to my platform to hear me talk about that subject money from a biblical perspective. So I'm getting ready to launch some courses, some communities. But my biggest mission right now is to get the church at large to learn how to teach finances to their congregants. So I am getting ready to start a training program for pastors and church leaders to teach them, first of all, how to handle their own money and then and then to train them on how to do a better job of talking about money within a church context and to train people how to handle money from a biblical perspective.

1:21:44So that's what's next for me. It was football. it was the investment business, a little bit of the entertainment business is pastoring a church. And now it's teaching people how to manage money from God's perspective while I am pastoring. And one day, you know, next five, seven years or so, I will probably be passing the baton to another pastor at my church, but I will still be involved in ministry. Do you have, when you say, obviously we talked about the black church being the biggest business in our community, that mission that you're saying that is the future for you. Do you have the wealth gap in mind?

1:22:26Oh my God. When you, when you, you know, you're shooting for this, right? Cause it feels like if we get enough people from the largest business with that mindset, this is how we can potentially chip away a little bit. Yeah. So I want to go back to something you, you asked me. Well, you didn't really ask it, but kind of in a way, you know, when we talk about money in church and asking people to give, I've done some comparisons. And many of my white contemporaries who are pastors of large churches, their giving is huge. Okay. And when they do a capital campaign, they have people writing million dollar checks easily.

1:23:13Well, when a black church does that, and I'm generalizing here, and black people are very generous. In fact, there have been studies done that we are more generous, okay? But we don't have the wealth to pull from like many of our white siblings, okay? So, and again, I'm generalizing here, but this is real information. A lot of my white friends who are pastors, they tell me, Lee, we just did a capital campaign. We just had a guy to give us$5 million. And I said, well, what does he do? Well, he does this business, but his family had money and it was inherited and this and that. And so the bottom line, there's generational wealth there.

1:23:57There are not a lot of families like that sitting in churches that are black churches. There are some. And then many of the people who do have that kind of wealth who are sitting in black churches, their first generation wealth. Okay. So the wealth gap has not only affected black people, it's affected churches. Every aspect of the black community has been affected by the wealth gap because the median wealth of a white family is 10 times more than the median wealth of a black family. And that affects everything we do in the black culture. So we can't do anything about our history, but we can do something about our habits.

1:24:47So I'm trying to get people to change their habits so we can narrow the wealth gap. It won't ever be closed because they had hundreds of years head start. I mean, really, when you think about it, you all, the last major piece of legislation that affected black people collectively, the major, major piece was the 1968 Fair Housing Act. You had the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, 1968. What was that? 60 years ago, almost. Okay. That means you could live anywhere. You could buy real estate. You know, you can participate in home ownership and all that because we were relegated to black areas and those areas did not appreciate.

1:25:37OK, but after the Fair Housing Act, even though it took a long time because he had redlining and all of that. But the bottom line is, my point is, we didn't really get out of the starting blocks economically and be able to run freely to less, a little bit less than 60 years ago when other ethnic groups from a opportunity standpoint had 100, 200 year head start. So the wealth gap is huge. I'm doing my best to try to narrow it through teaching people through what I believe the greatest institution in black America is. And that is the black church. Well, appreciate it. My brother, tell him your social media handles and everything.

1:26:28It's at the stewardship coach at the stewardship coach on Instagram and tick tock. and or you could just Lee Allen Jenkins or Lee Jenkins on Facebook. You'll you'll find me there. All right. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. We'll see you guys next week. Peace. Peace. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month in close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds.

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