September 5, 2024 • 26 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey guys.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Frank here with another episode of Modern Church
Leader.
I am here today with Abel Pomar.
Abel, what's going on, brother?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hey, God bless you, Frank.
Good to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's good to see you and I mean this one's going to
be kind of fun because you'vespent a long time in like the
financial services world doing abunch of things and now you are
at AdelFi where you're helpingchurches and ministries with
things and you'll get into it.
But it's cool because obviously, tithely, we were born out of
wanting to help churches raisemoney and to do it online, as
(00:41):
the world was moving online.
So you know, we have a bit of ayou know, an overlapping kind
of mission and how we're helpingchurches.
So glad to have you on the showtoday.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, glad to be here .
Glad to you know partner orchat with a partner in the body
of Christ that's out therehelping ministries succeed.
So excited to be here, amen.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, why don't you start off by just kind of
telling the audience a littlebit about yourself and your
background in church and evenyour professional life, how
they've kind of come together?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Absolutely so.
I'll give you a quick synopsis.
I grew up in a Christian home,and so I think I was introduced
to the Lord, at least from myparents' walk with the Lord at a
very young age, active inchurch, you know all that usual
thing, but I think it wasn'tuntil I turned 19 that I think
God brought me to a place whereI had to kind of question do I
(01:33):
really believe in God, right?
And that was when my dad passedaway unexpectedly.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Oh man.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And it really rocked my world.
It was a very challenging time.
Long story short, I thinkthrough that period of time I
immersed myself in God's wordmore than I ever had before and
it matured me, I think, in myfaith quickly.
And then it's interestingAround that time I met who is my
current wife.
(01:59):
At that time she was just partof the church, younger than I
was, but she was so mature forher age and she just kind of
came alongside me than I was,but, but but she was so mature
for her age and she just kind ofcame alongside me, because I
think she saw what I was goingthrough and just constantly was
a positive voice pointing meback to the lord, and I think
through that channel as well,you know, I I leaned on the lord
(02:19):
more and more and so I deepenedmy faith there and, um, I
haven't let go since.
So God is good and I'm blessedfor that.
So I'm grateful.
On my professional side of mylife, I think the journey was
one where, you know, I alwaysfelt that I had kind of this
kind of I don't knowappreciation or affinity for
just all things, kind of numbers, you know, kind of more of an
(02:41):
analytical person by nature andI found myself in, you know, a
large national bank for a numberof years doing what I thought
was really good work and I'mproud of the work I did there.
I think it's a good institution, good bank.
But it was interesting to mebecause as time progressed and
this was right around 2013, 2014, the organization was going
(03:04):
through some changes around 2013, 2014,.
The organization was goingthrough some changes and I saw
the internal culture of theorganization was shifting in
such a way where it was pushingemployees to support causes and
maybe beliefs and lifestylesthat as a believer in Christ, as
a follower of Jesus, werereally at really at odds maybe
(03:24):
with my faith at times andchallenged that.
And I found myself really kindof questioning you know, wow,
you know, how do I, how do Ilean into my professional skills
and be who I am as a sincereChristian at the workplace.
So I did the best I could, right, in one-on-one settings with
teammates and others.
(03:44):
I could share my faith and itwas very openly received in that
sense.
But on a more formal level, itwas discouraged from anyone
doing that Right.
And right around that time,AdelFi at that time was called
Evangelical Christian CreditUnion and the credit union at
that time was looking for achief operating officer union
(04:05):
and the credit union at thattime was looking for a chief
operating officer.
I came to find out about theopportunity through a friend of
mine who saw a posting and saidhey, you know, that kind of
posting sounds a lot like whatyou do and what you like to do.
Have you ever thought aboutthis?
And that person knew how myfaith walked right.
And they saw the evangelicalChristian in the name and said
maybe it's a good fit.
So I kind of put it off becauseI thought I've never heard of
such a thing as a Christiancredit union.
(04:26):
What is this?
So I didn't really do much withit.
Talked to my friend a monthlater he said did you follow up?
I said no, I followed up.
Anyway, long story short, afterthe process of contacting a
recruiter, here I am.
I was hired on as COO, becamethe CEO in 2016, and been just
(04:46):
loving what we do at Adelphi.
We changed our name, by the way,in February of 2022.
The reason for that is, yeah,the reason for the change of
name is, first of all,evangelical Christian Credit
Union, big mouthful, right Froma marketing perspective.
Who can remember such a bigname?
So we used to kind of go byE-C-C-U.
And then you think about thatand you go well, what is Iku?
(05:09):
People would call us Iku orwhatever, and nobody knew what
that was.
So we changed our name toAdelphi, which is taken from the
word Adelphos, which appearsover 300 times in the New
Testament.
It means brother and sister inChrist.
We shortened Adelphos to Adeleand put FI at the end of it to
kind of signal that we're afinancial institution, kind of
digitally oriented.
(05:29):
And there you go.
It is who we are today, adelphiso that's the story.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
What do you guys do there?
Like give us the the you knowelevator pitch on what Adelphi
does for churches.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, so for churches we do many things.
We do banking primarily, right.
So all the treasury management,you know, basic checkings,
savings account, money movement.
We do a lot of money movementinternationally for missions
work.
There are a lot of ministriesthat use us for that purpose and
we do something unique in thatarea because a lot of
institutions, well, from asecular perspective, they look
(06:03):
at international money movementinto some kind of dark countries
, from dark meaning dark fromthe gospel perspective, and they
say, well, you know, could thisbe money laundering, could this
be terrorist activity?
We vet our ministries reallywell and we know where the funds
are going.
They're going to spread thegospel.
So we can kind of green lightactivities that a large national
(06:26):
secular bank might say no tobecause they just don't
understand the activity.
So that's part of the uniquevalue I think we bring there
from a money movementperspective.
We also do commercial realestate loans for churches as
well.
So if the church needs torefinance their building or
acquire a building, that's rightup our alleys, right, so right.
You know kind of bookend it withbanking and lending all the way
(06:48):
through.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Um, and how long has theorganization been around?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
We've been around since 1964.
So this year, as a matter offact, I turned 60 years old in
um October, um, so it is aunique anniversary for us.
Us, it's an exciting timebecause since I've been at the
Crite Union, we've beendiversifying it a bit.
We still help ministries andchurches, we also help small
business owners and we also helpconsumers right.
(07:16):
So we provide all theseservices amongst the full gamut
of the body of Christ.
I like to say yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, that's very cool.
Well, now that we kind ofunderstand your story a little
bit, you know you got a glimpseinto it and what you do.
I mean you guys have a uniquevantage point on churches and
ministries just from a likefinancial stewardship
perspective.
So I wanted to get into likewhat you're like in your
(07:44):
experience, you know, workingthere and working with churches.
Like what are you seeing thatreally helps churches improve
like financial stewardship?
Uh, you know, over time, likeyou guys have like just I don't
know an interesting, you sit atan interesting place where you
help churches with kind of alltheir finances and I'm sure
you've seen a lot of churches dogood things and maybe not so
good things and you know you'veyou've been able to kind of
(08:06):
figure out what works well there.
So I'd love to get your take onimproving financial stewardship
of churches.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, definitely, over the decade that I've been
involved at the credit union, Ican say I can see a number of
things that I've seen work andmaybe not work right.
And it really all starts withleadership.
Right, it really I guess I hateto kind of use that phrase it
starts at the top, but it reallydoes right.
(08:33):
It starts with the elder board,it starts with the senior
pastor.
There really has to be avisible commitment to good
stewardship.
Right, it can't be about egos,it can't be about agendas.
It really has to be about theLord and it has to be about
going back to biblicalprinciples, about you know.
Ultimately we make plans, asthe word says, but God
(08:56):
determines.
And I think if a leadershipbody embodies that and seriously
embraces that, um, it isn'tjust words on on a page of a
bible, but really lives that out, I think it could be very
powerful.
Because I think at times we'veseen leaders, um, and leadership
uh bodies get into trouble whenI think they think they're
(09:19):
doing things out of their ownstrength and they're doing
things out of their own.
maybe, um, you know skills andtalents and, uh, you know their
own ideas, are kind of puttingthings forth.
Right, it really comes back tothat leadership commitment, to
stewardship.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Um, another thing that I like just pause on that
for a second.
Like, what have you seen Like?
Or do you have any examples oflike, uh, and not necessarily
specific?
Oh, this seen Like?
Or do you have any examples oflike, and not necessarily
specific?
Oh, this church did this, butlike.
You know, what does it looklike for a leadership team to
really embrace good stewardshipat a church?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You know, I think a subtle way that you can see this
is typically by how many, howambitious a program that they
have in their church.
So it's great to have programs.
We all want to help everyaspect of the body of Christ and
I think most churches try tohelp as many people.
But I think, coming to termswith the reality that there's a
(10:23):
limit to the resources God hasgiven you today, and what should
be focused on today, versustrying to be everything,
including maybe what God hasn'tcalled you to, so it's kind of
seriously sitting down andunderstanding what has God
called this congregation to andstaying focused and not getting
(10:44):
too broad and too ambitious withthe aspirations, making sure
that it really is God leadingyou there, as opposed to just
some maybe whim or some ideathat a leader particularly has.
I think that's an important oneand one that I don't, you can't
it's hard to teach out of atextbook, right, but I think
it's a call to prayer, it's acall to humility, you know, and
(11:08):
it's a call to be honest withyourself as a congregation,
right, right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, I'm jotting down a few things as we're
chatting.
I love that.
Do you find that churches, whenit comes to good stewardship,
like the way that theycommunicate to the membership is
part of that?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Very much so.
I think that you know leadersset an example and they live out
an example.
And the communication ofstewardship.
I think most congregants I meanI'm a congregant, right, I sit
in my church pew and, as we allknow, there are the financial
(11:50):
appeals that go out if there's acampaign or a certain objective
that the church is trying toreach, and those are all
justifiable and make sense.
But it isn't just aboutstewardship, isn't about just
making an appeal, it's aboutteaching the body of Christ.
You know what place money has inthe life of an individual,
(12:13):
right?
And I think money is such atest for all of us, right,
because it can be a false senseof security and it can feel like
if I just hang on to more andmore of it, I'm going to be okay
or I'm going to be better off.
And it's a very deceiving thingto put your trust in money
because at some point you're notgoing to have enough to solve
(12:35):
all of the problems that lifebrings.
Right, only the Lord can helpus through those challenges.
Right, I think it's helping thebody understand the place money
plays, helping the body ofChrist understand the kind of
supremacy of Christ, not only inthe universe but in our hearts.
(12:56):
He has to have that place ofsupremacy in our hearts for us
to surrender.
And I think that's all you knowteaching.
And I don't know that enoughchurches spend enough time
talking about.
What does generosity reallylook like from a biblical
perspective?
You know God isn't exactlycalling us I don't see it in
(13:17):
Scripture to empty our bankaccounts and basically become
impoverished.
I don't see that in Scripture.
But he does call us to be acheerful giver.
But what does that mean?
How do we become a cheerfulgiver in a society where you see
inflation over the last fewyears, kind of wreaking havoc
right through congregations andcommunities?
I think we you know from thepulpit more needs to be taught
(13:40):
about what that looks like,definitely yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that.
Okay, definitely, yeah, yeah, Ilove that, I love that.
Um, okay, uh, like you hit kindof leadership, vision and
strategy uh and making that abig, big part of things.
Um, what, what's the?
What's the next thing on yourlist in terms of, like, just
good stewardship out of church?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
well, you know, I think.
Then it comes to the practicalthings.
So you know you could teach itfrom the pul, you could live it
out, but you have to holdyourself accountable and that's,
I think, where budgeting comesin.
You have to live within yourmeans, right, and this is
something that I've seen overthe decade.
You know, we have teams ofrelationship managers that work
(14:21):
with ministries and ourrelationship managers see a lot
right ministries and ourrelationship managers see a lot
right.
And what's difficult at times, Ithink, is some congregations,
some ministries, have a hardtime being honest with
themselves about, let's say,expenses.
And it's good to have bestpractices, certain performance
(14:43):
ratios that you know, maybe likesalary to total expenses or
other things like that, so thatyou can kind of keep an eye on
it.
It doesn't mean that everychurch has to be perfectly in
sync, but you should havecertain key metrics that you
watch and if they start going ina particular direction or a
trend starts to emerge thatdoesn't look good, have a
(15:05):
conversation within yourleadership body about it.
Don't let it fester, becausethe longer you let something
fester without at least lookingbehind the curtain, the bigger
problem you might be creating.
So that willingness to behonest, willingness to, in a
sense, recognize that you mighthave put a great structure in
(15:26):
place five, 10 years ago.
But that organizationalstructure or are those processes
or those controls you have inplace, they may need adjustment
over time because the factorsaround you and circumstances
around you are changing Right.
So you know, being willing toto, to adjust, um, to course
correct, I think is importantthat lead.
(15:47):
That points back to humility,you know, and having the
humility to do that right.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So, yeah, I think those things are are extremely
important what are some of thenumbers that you guys, uh,
encourage churches to look at,like some of those kind of key
metrics to help you payattention, not just, oh, this is
how much money is coming in andthis is how much we're spending
.
Hopefully they're payingattention to that.
But you know what are some ofthe other things that you help
(16:14):
churches kind of understand andthen make them part of their,
like, budgeting or theirfinancial process and yeah, and
it's a great question, it reallydepends a lot on the church
circumstances.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
But in general terms, we look at, like, debt service
ratio as a key metric.
We look at salary to expenseratio as a key metric.
We look at attendance andaverage giving per household and
things of that sense to reallygive an idea of what's going on
in the church.
You know things like debtcoverage, right, debt service
(16:50):
ratio that's important because,as you just said a moment ago,
you should have enough income tocover your expenses.
If you don't, you have aproblem, right?
Well, we encourage our membersto have, you know, well, above a
one-to-one on that ratio, right, in most cases, probably about
125, at least 25% more incomethan you have expenses, right.
(17:13):
It's hard, you know, because Iget it, churches are put in
place, put in a community tohelp and serve and there's so
much need around us thatsometimes it's hard to know when
to say no or where to stop.
And that's why I made thatpoint earlier in our
conversation.
That kind of knowing how manyprograms that you can take on
(17:34):
realistically is so critical tothe, I think, the long-term
health of a congregation,because I've seen it over the
last 10 years.
When a church takes on morethan it can do, it can find
itself in trouble, and then it'sit's sustainability, uh, comes
into question.
You know, possibly right, andthen more uncomfortable things
(17:56):
have to be done to to rectifythe situation right, yeah, no,
that totally makes sense.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Um, any examples of, uh, you know situations.
Again, you don't have to bespecific about who or where or
anything, but you know justwhere you've seen churches do a
really good job at.
You know, being financialstewards and like improving over
time, like getting better andbetter at this practice.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Oh yeah.
So one specific congregationcomes to mind in Las Vegas.
This is a congregation thatHispanic congregation growing
very significantly over the lastfew years.
This particular pastor kind ofadopted this philosophy of
(18:46):
wanting to be good stewardsright and wanting to teach his
congregation how to be betterstewards themselves so that they
could, you know, thrive in thiscountry, and so one of the
conversations I had with thispastor really was very
encouraging to me personallybecause he said that he had to
spend about five years.
(19:07):
This was not a one or two sermonexercise.
He said it took about five yearsfor him to help this
congregation move to a place.
Specifically, he was measuringdigital giving as a success
metric right, and it took fiveyears for him to move his
congregation from about 80 to90% cash to about 90% online
(19:32):
giving.
Yeah, um, like midweek uh biblestudies on stewardship and
giving and other things where hehelped the congregation
understand not only the, the,their responsibility from a
(19:54):
biblical perspective on giving,but how the church would benefit
from moving its giving toonline mechanisms where you know
you, you get um better securityfor their staff, because their
staff having to handle so muchcash was becoming actually a
security problem.
There was also kind of thelogistical problems of just
(20:16):
depositing things and movingthings around and how more
efficient their processing ofdonations became when you move
things online.
So that was a phenomenalexample.
But, as I said, it was acommitted leader who knew that
to help people understand a newconcept and to embrace new
(20:37):
practices it takes time, itdoesn't happen overnight and
you've got to have thatcommitment from the leadership
to see it through, and he's agreat example of that.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, that's cool and we hear you know stories like
that, obviously being in thedigital, giving kind of tech
space, it is a big deal forchurches to go from cash and
check moving to the digital andit doesn't surprise me it took
them five years, you know?
I mean we still have churchestoday that are don't have
digital giving and they're.
They're just coming and they'resaying, you know what?
(21:09):
We had some new members or someyounger members, or maybe some
people moved away and they stillwant to give, like all these
different little things thatmake them take the step into
digital right.
Um, and it's 2024 and churchesare still, uh, out there, you
know, passing the plate as theprimary means of of raising
money and allow people to give.
(21:29):
So, right, yeah, that's, that'sa great story that's a great
story.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
That's a great one.
There's other examples too,where we've had ministries that
have again committed to far more.
And again I don't blame thehearts of these organizations
for wanting to help theircommunities Because again
there's so much need around theworld and in our country, but
not knowing where those limitsare, which goes back to
(21:56):
budgeting and setting, you know,performance targets.
I mean it's interesting becauseyou know ministry is such a
hard thing but to executeministry you do need the
financial side of things to runwell to enable the heart, you
know work, to happen right.
(22:16):
So it's this interesting art ofbalancing those two things
which I think comes into play.
And I see a lot and I've seenthis where certain churches in
certain geographies that hadvery large amounts of land
around their church and, as theywere kind of challenged with
some budgeting situations, Iknow in conversations with some
(22:38):
of our relationship managerswe've been able to connect some
of those ministries with otherChristian partners and investors
who are able to go in, andchurches that have like a lot of
like just raw land, or havebeen able to redevelop some of
that land for low income housing.
All that helps the church withnew revenue streams where they
(23:03):
don't necessarily have to selloff the land but they could
partner with these otherinstitutions and kind of
co-share some of that revenue,In essence helping the ministry
kind of continue to fulfill itsmission.
So there's a lot of uniquesituations that we get involved
in.
It's all very case specific.
But you know, I'm always shockedand amazed at the body of
(23:24):
christ and how pervasive it is.
You know, sometimes if youwatch the news it feels like
where's the body of christ?
It feels like we're not thereanywhere, right.
But when you really get out inthe world, we we're, we are
everywhere.
God has his remnants everywhereand he pulls together the
resources to really help hiskingdom grow, um, as he
(23:44):
determines, right.
And it's pretty neat thing tosee it from from vantage point I
get to see it.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, yeah, I love it , abel.
I love what you guys are doing.
It's cool to spend some timejust talking through what you've
seen from your vantage point.
How do churches get a hold ofyou guys to learn more about
what you're doing?
Churches can bank all over theplace right, there's lots of
banks out there, but you guys,being focused on serving
(24:08):
churches and ministries, I thinkknow unique and special and,
like you said you, you can lookat a church's finances with a
different lens than maybe atraditional bank, because you
understand, you know the thework that churches are doing and
how what income looks like andall of that.
So, yeah, I'd love, just yeah.
Where can people go to learnmore about you guys?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Absolutely Easy to find us um adelfibankingcom.
Let me spell that becausepeople will always misspell
Adelphi, so it's A-D-E-L-F-IBanking, b-a-n-k-i-n-g dot com
and you can learn more about usthere.
We really serve the entireUnited States from a banking
perspective for ministries andnon-ministries and individuals.
(24:52):
We also it's kind of smalllittle known fact is we also
serve missionaries in about 125countries around the world as
well, who bank with us, becausewe can get them funds from the
US pretty easily too.
So it's kind of a neat thing wedo there as well.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
That's awesome.
Okay, adelfibankingcom Folks gocheck it out.
We serve lots of church leadersso hopefully you know we can
send some folks your way andthey can just learn more about
what you guys are doing.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Oh, thank you, Frank, appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Love it.
Well, abel, thanks for comingon Again.
Like with every podcast, Icould sit and keep asking
questions and talking aboutthese things, but I also want to
be respectful of people's time,as they're, you know, driving
to work or from work, or howeverthey listen to their podcasts.
So thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It was a pleasure, Frank.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
God bless you Appreciate it, guys.
Thanks for listening.
We appreciate you guys.
Follow If you're not, you know,subscribed on a podcast, if
you're on YouTube or seen it onsocial media.
We would love your support.
Give it a like.
Give it a like, give it acomment and we'll catch you next
week on another episode ofModern Church Leader.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Bye-bye.
Hey guys.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Frank here with another episode of Modern Church
Leader.
I am here today with Abel Pomar.
Abel, what's going on, brother?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hey, God bless you, Frank.
Good to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's good to see you and I mean this one's going to
be kind of fun because you'vespent a long time in like the
financial services world doing abunch of things and now you are
at AdelFi where you're helpingchurches and ministries with
things and you'll get into it.
But it's cool because obviously, tithely, we were born out of
wanting to help churches raisemoney and to do it online, as
(00:41):
the world was moving online.
So you know, we have a bit of ayou know, an overlapping kind
of mission and how we're helpingchurches.
So glad to have you on the showtoday.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, glad to be here .
Glad to you know partner orchat with a partner in the body
of Christ that's out therehelping ministries succeed.
So excited to be here, amen.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, why don't you start off by just kind of
telling the audience a littlebit about yourself and your
background in church and evenyour professional life, how
they've kind of come together?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Absolutely so.
I'll give you a quick synopsis.
I grew up in a Christian home,and so I think I was introduced
to the Lord, at least from myparents' walk with the Lord at a
very young age, active inchurch, you know all that usual
thing, but I think it wasn'tuntil I turned 19 that I think
God brought me to a place whereI had to kind of question do I
(01:33):
really believe in God, right?
And that was when my dad passedaway unexpectedly.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Oh man.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And it really rocked my world.
It was a very challenging time.
Long story short, I thinkthrough that period of time I
immersed myself in God's wordmore than I ever had before and
it matured me, I think, in myfaith quickly.
And then it's interestingAround that time I met who is my
current wife.
(01:59):
At that time she was just partof the church, younger than I
was, but she was so mature forher age and she just kind of
came alongside me than I was,but, but but she was so mature
for her age and she just kind ofcame alongside me, because I
think she saw what I was goingthrough and just constantly was
a positive voice pointing meback to the lord, and I think
through that channel as well,you know, I I leaned on the lord
(02:19):
more and more and so I deepenedmy faith there and, um, I
haven't let go since.
So God is good and I'm blessedfor that.
So I'm grateful.
On my professional side of mylife, I think the journey was
one where, you know, I alwaysfelt that I had kind of this
kind of I don't knowappreciation or affinity for
just all things, kind of numbers, you know, kind of more of an
(02:41):
analytical person by nature andI found myself in, you know, a
large national bank for a numberof years doing what I thought
was really good work and I'mproud of the work I did there.
I think it's a good institution, good bank.
But it was interesting to mebecause as time progressed and
this was right around 2013, 2014, the organization was going
(03:04):
through some changes around 2013, 2014,.
The organization was goingthrough some changes and I saw
the internal culture of theorganization was shifting in
such a way where it was pushingemployees to support causes and
maybe beliefs and lifestylesthat as a believer in Christ, as
a follower of Jesus, werereally at really at odds maybe
(03:24):
with my faith at times andchallenged that.
And I found myself really kindof questioning you know, wow,
you know, how do I, how do Ilean into my professional skills
and be who I am as a sincereChristian at the workplace.
So I did the best I could, right, in one-on-one settings with
teammates and others.
(03:44):
I could share my faith and itwas very openly received in that
sense.
But on a more formal level, itwas discouraged from anyone
doing that Right.
And right around that time,AdelFi at that time was called
Evangelical Christian CreditUnion and the credit union at
that time was looking for achief operating officer union
(04:05):
and the credit union at thattime was looking for a chief
operating officer.
I came to find out about theopportunity through a friend of
mine who saw a posting and saidhey, you know, that kind of
posting sounds a lot like whatyou do and what you like to do.
Have you ever thought aboutthis?
And that person knew how myfaith walked right.
And they saw the evangelicalChristian in the name and said
maybe it's a good fit.
So I kind of put it off becauseI thought I've never heard of
such a thing as a Christiancredit union.
(04:26):
What is this?
So I didn't really do much withit.
Talked to my friend a monthlater he said did you follow up?
I said no, I followed up.
Anyway, long story short, afterthe process of contacting a
recruiter, here I am.
I was hired on as COO, becamethe CEO in 2016, and been just
(04:46):
loving what we do at Adelphi.
We changed our name, by the way,in February of 2022.
The reason for that is, yeah,the reason for the change of
name is, first of all,evangelical Christian Credit
Union, big mouthful, right Froma marketing perspective.
Who can remember such a bigname?
So we used to kind of go byE-C-C-U.
And then you think about thatand you go well, what is Iku?
(05:09):
People would call us Iku orwhatever, and nobody knew what
that was.
So we changed our name toAdelphi, which is taken from the
word Adelphos, which appearsover 300 times in the New
Testament.
It means brother and sister inChrist.
We shortened Adelphos to Adeleand put FI at the end of it to
kind of signal that we're afinancial institution, kind of
digitally oriented.
(05:29):
And there you go.
It is who we are today, adelphiso that's the story.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
What do you guys do there?
Like give us the the you knowelevator pitch on what Adelphi
does for churches.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, so for churches we do many things.
We do banking primarily, right.
So all the treasury management,you know, basic checkings,
savings account, money movement.
We do a lot of money movementinternationally for missions
work.
There are a lot of ministriesthat use us for that purpose and
we do something unique in thatarea because a lot of
institutions, well, from asecular perspective, they look
(06:03):
at international money movementinto some kind of dark countries
, from dark meaning dark fromthe gospel perspective, and they
say, well, you know, could thisbe money laundering, could this
be terrorist activity?
We vet our ministries reallywell and we know where the funds
are going.
They're going to spread thegospel.
So we can kind of green lightactivities that a large national
(06:26):
secular bank might say no tobecause they just don't
understand the activity.
So that's part of the uniquevalue I think we bring there
from a money movementperspective.
We also do commercial realestate loans for churches as
well.
So if the church needs torefinance their building or
acquire a building, that's rightup our alleys, right, so right.
You know kind of bookend it withbanking and lending all the way
(06:48):
through.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Um, and how long has theorganization been around?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
We've been around since 1964.
So this year, as a matter offact, I turned 60 years old in
um October, um, so it is aunique anniversary for us.
Us, it's an exciting timebecause since I've been at the
Crite Union, we've beendiversifying it a bit.
We still help ministries andchurches, we also help small
business owners and we also helpconsumers right.
(07:16):
So we provide all theseservices amongst the full gamut
of the body of Christ.
I like to say yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, that's very cool.
Well, now that we kind ofunderstand your story a little
bit, you know you got a glimpseinto it and what you do.
I mean you guys have a uniquevantage point on churches and
ministries just from a likefinancial stewardship
perspective.
So I wanted to get into likewhat you're like in your
(07:44):
experience, you know, workingthere and working with churches.
Like what are you seeing thatreally helps churches improve
like financial stewardship?
Uh, you know, over time, likeyou guys have like just I don't
know an interesting, you sit atan interesting place where you
help churches with kind of alltheir finances and I'm sure
you've seen a lot of churches dogood things and maybe not so
good things and you know you'veyou've been able to kind of
(08:06):
figure out what works well there.
So I'd love to get your take onimproving financial stewardship
of churches.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, definitely, over the decade that I've been
involved at the credit union, Ican say I can see a number of
things that I've seen work andmaybe not work right.
And it really all starts withleadership.
Right, it really I guess I hateto kind of use that phrase it
starts at the top, but it reallydoes right.
(08:33):
It starts with the elder board,it starts with the senior
pastor.
There really has to be avisible commitment to good
stewardship.
Right, it can't be about egos,it can't be about agendas.
It really has to be about theLord and it has to be about
going back to biblicalprinciples, about you know.
Ultimately we make plans, asthe word says, but God
(08:56):
determines.
And I think if a leadershipbody embodies that and seriously
embraces that, um, it isn'tjust words on on a page of a
bible, but really lives that out, I think it could be very
powerful.
Because I think at times we'veseen leaders, um, and leadership
uh bodies get into trouble whenI think they think they're
(09:19):
doing things out of their ownstrength and they're doing
things out of their own.
maybe, um, you know skills andtalents and, uh, you know their
own ideas, are kind of puttingthings forth.
Right, it really comes back tothat leadership commitment, to
stewardship.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Um, another thing that I like just pause on that
for a second.
Like, what have you seen Like?
Or do you have any examples oflike, uh, and not necessarily
specific?
Oh, this seen Like?
Or do you have any examples oflike, and not necessarily
specific?
Oh, this church did this, butlike.
You know, what does it looklike for a leadership team to
really embrace good stewardshipat a church?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You know, I think a subtle way that you can see this
is typically by how many, howambitious a program that they
have in their church.
So it's great to have programs.
We all want to help everyaspect of the body of Christ and
I think most churches try tohelp as many people.
But I think, coming to termswith the reality that there's a
(10:23):
limit to the resources God hasgiven you today, and what should
be focused on today, versustrying to be everything,
including maybe what God hasn'tcalled you to, so it's kind of
seriously sitting down andunderstanding what has God
called this congregation to andstaying focused and not getting
(10:44):
too broad and too ambitious withthe aspirations, making sure
that it really is God leadingyou there, as opposed to just
some maybe whim or some ideathat a leader particularly has.
I think that's an important oneand one that I don't, you can't
it's hard to teach out of atextbook, right, but I think
it's a call to prayer, it's acall to humility, you know, and
(11:08):
it's a call to be honest withyourself as a congregation,
right, right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, I'm jotting down a few things as we're
chatting.
I love that.
Do you find that churches, whenit comes to good stewardship,
like the way that theycommunicate to the membership is
part of that?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Very much so.
I think that you know leadersset an example and they live out
an example.
And the communication ofstewardship.
I think most congregants I meanI'm a congregant, right, I sit
in my church pew and, as we allknow, there are the financial
(11:50):
appeals that go out if there's acampaign or a certain objective
that the church is trying toreach, and those are all
justifiable and make sense.
But it isn't just aboutstewardship, isn't about just
making an appeal, it's aboutteaching the body of Christ.
You know what place money has inthe life of an individual,
(12:13):
right?
And I think money is such atest for all of us, right,
because it can be a false senseof security and it can feel like
if I just hang on to more andmore of it, I'm going to be okay
or I'm going to be better off.
And it's a very deceiving thingto put your trust in money
because at some point you're notgoing to have enough to solve
(12:35):
all of the problems that lifebrings.
Right, only the Lord can helpus through those challenges.
Right, I think it's helping thebody understand the place money
plays, helping the body ofChrist understand the kind of
supremacy of Christ, not only inthe universe but in our hearts.
(12:56):
He has to have that place ofsupremacy in our hearts for us
to surrender.
And I think that's all you knowteaching.
And I don't know that enoughchurches spend enough time
talking about.
What does generosity reallylook like from a biblical
perspective?
You know God isn't exactlycalling us I don't see it in
(13:17):
Scripture to empty our bankaccounts and basically become
impoverished.
I don't see that in Scripture.
But he does call us to be acheerful giver.
But what does that mean?
How do we become a cheerfulgiver in a society where you see
inflation over the last fewyears, kind of wreaking havoc
right through congregations andcommunities?
I think we you know from thepulpit more needs to be taught
(13:40):
about what that looks like,definitely yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that.
Okay, definitely, yeah, yeah, Ilove that, I love that.
Um, okay, uh, like you hit kindof leadership, vision and
strategy uh and making that abig, big part of things.
Um, what, what's the?
What's the next thing on yourlist in terms of, like, just
good stewardship out of church?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
well, you know, I think.
Then it comes to the practicalthings.
So you know you could teach itfrom the pul, you could live it
out, but you have to holdyourself accountable and that's,
I think, where budgeting comesin.
You have to live within yourmeans, right, and this is
something that I've seen overthe decade.
You know, we have teams ofrelationship managers that work
(14:21):
with ministries and ourrelationship managers see a lot
right ministries and ourrelationship managers see a lot
right.
And what's difficult at times, Ithink, is some congregations,
some ministries, have a hardtime being honest with
themselves about, let's say,expenses.
And it's good to have bestpractices, certain performance
(14:43):
ratios that you know, maybe likesalary to total expenses or
other things like that, so thatyou can kind of keep an eye on
it.
It doesn't mean that everychurch has to be perfectly in
sync, but you should havecertain key metrics that you
watch and if they start going ina particular direction or a
trend starts to emerge thatdoesn't look good, have a
(15:05):
conversation within yourleadership body about it.
Don't let it fester, becausethe longer you let something
fester without at least lookingbehind the curtain, the bigger
problem you might be creating.
So that willingness to behonest, willingness to, in a
sense, recognize that you mighthave put a great structure in
(15:26):
place five, 10 years ago.
But that organizationalstructure or are those processes
or those controls you have inplace, they may need adjustment
over time because the factorsaround you and circumstances
around you are changing Right.
So you know, being willing toto, to adjust, um, to course
correct, I think is importantthat lead.
(15:47):
That points back to humility,you know, and having the
humility to do that right.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So, yeah, I think those things are are extremely
important what are some of thenumbers that you guys, uh,
encourage churches to look at,like some of those kind of key
metrics to help you payattention, not just, oh, this is
how much money is coming in andthis is how much we're spending
.
Hopefully they're payingattention to that.
But you know what are some ofthe other things that you help
(16:14):
churches kind of understand andthen make them part of their,
like, budgeting or theirfinancial process and yeah, and
it's a great question, it reallydepends a lot on the church
circumstances.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
But in general terms, we look at, like, debt service
ratio as a key metric.
We look at salary to expenseratio as a key metric.
We look at attendance andaverage giving per household and
things of that sense to reallygive an idea of what's going on
in the church.
You know things like debtcoverage, right, debt service
(16:50):
ratio that's important because,as you just said a moment ago,
you should have enough income tocover your expenses.
If you don't, you have aproblem, right?
Well, we encourage our membersto have, you know, well, above a
one-to-one on that ratio, right, in most cases, probably about
125, at least 25% more incomethan you have expenses, right.
(17:13):
It's hard, you know, because Iget it, churches are put in
place, put in a community tohelp and serve and there's so
much need around us thatsometimes it's hard to know when
to say no or where to stop.
And that's why I made thatpoint earlier in our
conversation.
That kind of knowing how manyprograms that you can take on
(17:34):
realistically is so critical tothe, I think, the long-term
health of a congregation,because I've seen it over the
last 10 years.
When a church takes on morethan it can do, it can find
itself in trouble, and then it'sit's sustainability, uh, comes
into question.
You know, possibly right, andthen more uncomfortable things
(17:56):
have to be done to to rectifythe situation right, yeah, no,
that totally makes sense.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Um, any examples of, uh, you know situations.
Again, you don't have to bespecific about who or where or
anything, but you know justwhere you've seen churches do a
really good job at.
You know, being financialstewards and like improving over
time, like getting better andbetter at this practice.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Oh yeah.
So one specific congregationcomes to mind in Las Vegas.
This is a congregation thatHispanic congregation growing
very significantly over the lastfew years.
This particular pastor kind ofadopted this philosophy of
(18:46):
wanting to be good stewardsright and wanting to teach his
congregation how to be betterstewards themselves so that they
could, you know, thrive in thiscountry, and so one of the
conversations I had with thispastor really was very
encouraging to me personallybecause he said that he had to
spend about five years.
(19:07):
This was not a one or two sermonexercise.
He said it took about five yearsfor him to help this
congregation move to a place.
Specifically, he was measuringdigital giving as a success
metric right, and it took fiveyears for him to move his
congregation from about 80 to90% cash to about 90% online
(19:32):
giving.
Yeah, um, like midweek uh biblestudies on stewardship and
giving and other things where hehelped the congregation
understand not only the, the,their responsibility from a
(19:54):
biblical perspective on giving,but how the church would benefit
from moving its giving toonline mechanisms where you know
you, you get um better securityfor their staff, because their
staff having to handle so muchcash was becoming actually a
security problem.
There was also kind of thelogistical problems of just
(20:16):
depositing things and movingthings around and how more
efficient their processing ofdonations became when you move
things online.
So that was a phenomenalexample.
But, as I said, it was acommitted leader who knew that
to help people understand a newconcept and to embrace new
(20:37):
practices it takes time, itdoesn't happen overnight and
you've got to have thatcommitment from the leadership
to see it through, and he's agreat example of that.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, that's cool and we hear you know stories like
that, obviously being in thedigital, giving kind of tech
space, it is a big deal forchurches to go from cash and
check moving to the digital andit doesn't surprise me it took
them five years, you know?
I mean we still have churchestoday that are don't have
digital giving and they're.
They're just coming and they'resaying, you know what?
(21:09):
We had some new members or someyounger members, or maybe some
people moved away and they stillwant to give, like all these
different little things thatmake them take the step into
digital right.
Um, and it's 2024 and churchesare still, uh, out there, you
know, passing the plate as theprimary means of of raising
money and allow people to give.
(21:29):
So, right, yeah, that's, that'sa great story that's a great
story.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
That's a great one.
There's other examples too,where we've had ministries that
have again committed to far more.
And again I don't blame thehearts of these organizations
for wanting to help theircommunities Because again
there's so much need around theworld and in our country, but
not knowing where those limitsare, which goes back to
(21:56):
budgeting and setting, you know,performance targets.
I mean it's interesting becauseyou know ministry is such a
hard thing but to executeministry you do need the
financial side of things to runwell to enable the heart, you
know work, to happen right.
(22:16):
So it's this interesting art ofbalancing those two things
which I think comes into play.
And I see a lot and I've seenthis where certain churches in
certain geographies that hadvery large amounts of land
around their church and, as theywere kind of challenged with
some budgeting situations, Iknow in conversations with some
(22:38):
of our relationship managerswe've been able to connect some
of those ministries with otherChristian partners and investors
who are able to go in, andchurches that have like a lot of
like just raw land, or havebeen able to redevelop some of
that land for low income housing.
All that helps the church withnew revenue streams where they
(23:03):
don't necessarily have to selloff the land but they could
partner with these otherinstitutions and kind of
co-share some of that revenue,In essence helping the ministry
kind of continue to fulfill itsmission.
So there's a lot of uniquesituations that we get involved
in.
It's all very case specific.
But you know, I'm always shockedand amazed at the body of
(23:24):
christ and how pervasive it is.
You know, sometimes if youwatch the news it feels like
where's the body of christ?
It feels like we're not thereanywhere, right.
But when you really get out inthe world, we we're, we are
everywhere.
God has his remnants everywhereand he pulls together the
resources to really help hiskingdom grow, um, as he
(23:44):
determines, right.
And it's pretty neat thing tosee it from from vantage point I
get to see it.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, yeah, I love it , abel.
I love what you guys are doing.
It's cool to spend some timejust talking through what you've
seen from your vantage point.
How do churches get a hold ofyou guys to learn more about
what you're doing?
Churches can bank all over theplace right, there's lots of
banks out there, but you guys,being focused on serving
(24:08):
churches and ministries, I thinkknow unique and special and,
like you said you, you can lookat a church's finances with a
different lens than maybe atraditional bank, because you
understand, you know the thework that churches are doing and
how what income looks like andall of that.
So, yeah, I'd love, just yeah.
Where can people go to learnmore about you guys?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Absolutely Easy to find us um adelfibankingcom.
Let me spell that becausepeople will always misspell
Adelphi, so it's A-D-E-L-F-IBanking, b-a-n-k-i-n-g dot com
and you can learn more about usthere.
We really serve the entireUnited States from a banking
perspective for ministries andnon-ministries and individuals.
(24:52):
We also it's kind of smalllittle known fact is we also
serve missionaries in about 125countries around the world as
well, who bank with us, becausewe can get them funds from the
US pretty easily too.
So it's kind of a neat thing wedo there as well.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
That's awesome.
Okay, adelfibankingcom Folks gocheck it out.
We serve lots of church leadersso hopefully you know we can
send some folks your way andthey can just learn more about
what you guys are doing.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Oh, thank you, Frank, appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Love it.
Well, abel, thanks for comingon Again.
Like with every podcast, Icould sit and keep asking
questions and talking aboutthese things, but I also want to
be respectful of people's time,as they're, you know, driving
to work or from work, or howeverthey listen to their podcasts.
So thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It was a pleasure, Frank.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
God bless you Appreciate it, guys.
Thanks for listening.
We appreciate you guys.
Follow If you're not, you know,subscribed on a podcast, if
you're on YouTube or seen it onsocial media.
We would love your support.
Give it a like.
Give it a like, give it acomment and we'll catch you next
week on another episode ofModern Church Leader.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Bye-bye.
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