September 7, 2023 • 34 mins
Pastor Mike Kai of Inspire Church in Oahu, HI sits down with Vance and Zoe to discuss pastors who are also entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders in their communities. They cover topics including: how to know if you should pursue an entrepreneurial path, how to collide your passions and Kingdom calling collide, and the importance of local civic engagment as well!
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
One of the hardest things for me to do is actually
(00:02):
put the restraints on. And youknow, vision has restraints when
you have vision. It's kind oflike you can't just do anything.
You have the restraints and soyou know where you want to go.
You know what you want to do Ihave to take stock in, what is
God called me to do? And whatcan my family and what can I
personally handle emotionally,physically, spiritually, and all
the above? A pastorturn tech leader and a
(00:23):
millennial churchgoer, exploringthe intersection of technology,
culture and faith, equipping youwith innovative strategies to
support you as you live out yourcalling leader churches with
confidence to step into thefuture together? This is the
give it up podcast. What's upguys and welcome back to another
give it up podcast episode, orshould we say aloha? Because
(00:44):
today our guest is coming livefrom the islands of Hawaii to
us. And Vance, this is yourfriend. So I want you to give
the formal introduction here.
Oh my goodness, it's an honor tobe able to call him friend
Pastor Mike chi. I've actuallylooked up to Pastor Mike from
(01:04):
afar for years, just being oneof the innovators. One of the
what I would callentrepreneurial pastors of our
day, which we're going to talk alittle bit about that but
obviously the incredible pastorI call them Bishop of Hawaii,
but lead pastor of Inspirechurch along with Pastor Lisa
(01:25):
and just their family leading sowell on the island and really
beyond because Pastor Mike isnot only just a pastor, but a
podcaster. He is also a worldrenowned author, a church
planter. It's really inspiredchurches, a movement of
churches, as well asbusinessmen. And maybe some
people don't know that aboutPastor Mike, but he is a
(01:47):
prolific business person aswell. And we're going to talk
about all the things But PastorMike, thank you for being on
give it a podcast.
Vance's Oh, it is such aprivilege and an honor to be
with you guys. I love thispodcast and listen to a few
shows already. And it's alreadysubscribed to it and I really
love it. So thank you so muchfor having me. It's such a such
an honor to be in such rarefiedair with you guys.
(02:10):
I love rarefied air. Let's talkabout some rare topics that I
don't think oftentime getairtime when people are talking
about church building. And Iwant to dive in with you on it
because I consider you one ofthe pioneers in our modern day
of what this looks like. Butthis is not unbiblical. I mean,
(02:31):
we know that Paul was atentmaker, he was actually a
business person. He wasentrepreneurial. And you know,
I've seen you be what I wouldconsider, like I said, an
entrepreneurial pastor, andhaving so many different streams
and organizations and evenphilanthropic initiatives. How
do you balance it all? What'syour even just mindset of why
(02:53):
you even approached ministryfrom this lens?
Great question Vance. I wouldsay that the way that I balance
it all is I have an incredibleteam. I have, I have so much
ideas, so many ideas, so muchvision. And and it's sometimes
it's hard to keep up with that.
And you know, you don't want tokeep adding new things, new
(03:15):
plates to spin and doing allthat different, those kinds of
things. But I believe that theParable of the Talents kind of
drives a lot of it. You wereeither born with it, or you
learn it. And so I believe thatI was born with maybe a bit and
for the church world, those guyswho are church leaders who are
listening to this I was probablyborn into a one a two talent
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situation with five talentpotential. So two talents, know
average average kid averageathlete got to become more than
that you got to you got tohustle, you got to go to
clinics, you got to practiceevery single day outside in your
garage, shooting hoops or tryingto catch a football or whatever,
to talent not tall to talent,five talent potential story of
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my life. I've been in a onetalent situation, doing
basically by means of my ownmistakes. But then also God
always turns it around and takestwo makes it four takes four
makes it eight. And so I believethe capacity that me and my team
have grown into is not somethingthat I believe I could have
(04:19):
accepted. If someone said here,Mike, now, you will take over
this multimillion dollarorganization that someone else
built. I don't know if I coulddo that because we had to grow
into it. I'm looking at mycamera guys and all these guys
in the studio and we all had togrow into it. And so it's
growing into it. How do webalance it? Well, you go on a
wilderness hike for four days,like I told you earlier, you you
(04:41):
get off the grid, there's nophone reception, and then you
just it's just you alone withyour thoughts on a hike and it's
crazy, but it was it was brutalbut beautiful. At the same time.
My goodness. I mean, you knowwhat's so interesting about this
is you're highlighting and howimportant it is to honor the
(05:01):
current season that you're in.
So if you're going to grow inyour capacity, how are you
stewarding? What you have rightnow. So if you started with to
stop looking at for honor thetwo, and watch how God grows
that, but let's even go deeperthan that or even a prerequisite
to that. How does the pastorknow? How does it even a church
leader or senior church leaderknow if they should even go on
(05:22):
that entrepreneurial path? Isthat for everybody? Or is that
only for certain people? What'syour take?
That's a great question. I wouldsay it could be for everybody.
But not everybody is like this.
They can be though, for example,I would think that pastors
number one, have some of thebest content out there, out
there period, because everysingle week, we have to come up
(05:46):
with one, maybe two messages,minimum, every so you're always
studying always gathering you'reyou're you're collecting
information, you're, you'recategorizing them, you're
cataloging them, you're doingwhat Solomon did in the book of
Ecclesiastes, he categorizedthem he he catalogued them, and
he put them on the side when hetalked about the great teacher.
(06:06):
So we have the best content. ButI also think, even though we
might have the best content, wedon't necessarily know how to
package it. Because we're notnecessarily self promoters. So
we have a difficult time. Mostguys have a difficult time with
that, because they just don'tknow how to package it. So we
learned from other people. Butwhen it comes to the question
about is, can everybody do this,I would say, a good sign of
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someone that is an entrepreneur,I would like to call it maybe in
the church world apostolic.
You're always startingsomething, you're always
starting something. And if youhave, you've gone from one
campus to two, if you've gonefrom two to five, if you started
a preschool if you started, youknow some kind of business,
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chances are that that pastor hasan entrepreneurial gift in them
that the church world would callapostolic. And so I think some
people can, most can, I thinkthey can, I think it's also
cultivated, and for me, it camefrom my upbringing from my dad.
So I just watched him and kindof took my cues from that.
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I love that, you know, as you'respeaking, and you're talking
about all these ideas that arein your head all the time. And I
would love to know, because Iknow that there's a lot of
people listening who feel thisexact same way. How do you know
which ideas to actually pursueversus put in the pocket? Maybe
say for letter later or abandonaltogether?
(07:30):
That's a That's a greatquestion. Because I asked myself
that question all the time. Likeadvances sometimes feeding me
stuff, hey, you need to do this.
And you got all these differentfriends? And I want if I could
do them all I would. But I thinkone of the in fact, I probably
will probably do them all,because they're all great ideas.
It's all about what season Am Iin? What capacity? Can my team
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handle? What can Lisa and I do,you know, I've got three girls,
three daughters, two of them aremarried, got one more left in
the house. And so it's a seasonwhere I want to do as much as I
can do. However, I want to spendas much time with her that I can
before she graduates next yearand goes off to college. And so
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those are the things that we'reweighing now later, or maybe
someone else on the team canpick that up. Maybe they can do
it. And sometimes one of thehardest things for me to do is
actually say, put the restraintson. And you know, vision has
restraints. So when you havethere's restraints to a vision,
so when you have vision, it'skind of like you can't just do
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anything, you have therestraints, and so you know
where you want to go, you knowwhat you want to do. And so if
I'm doing too many things, andI'm muddying my vision, and I'm
really at the end of the day, Ihave to take stock in what is
God called me to do? And whatcan my family and what can I
personally handle emotionally,physically, spiritually, and all
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the above? So, I would say that,Zoe, I'd love to do it all,
because all good things comeacross the desk. But it has to
be forgive the expression. It'sgot to be like a heck yeah,
eventually, you know what Imean? And
I, and I think you have thatHekia? I mean, we say this your
(09:15):
No, it actually empowers yourYes. Or, you know, for the
purposes of this conversation,you're no empowers your yet.
Heck yeah. And, you know, Ithink that's powerful. One thing
I've really admired about you,Pastor Mike is and you said it,
you are a leader first. And soyou entrust a lot to your team.
(09:35):
And I've seen situations whereyou've wanted to do something or
even know you're going to dosomething, but you really
empower your team. What is thatbalance? What's the balance of
when you make an executivedecision and say, Hey, team,
this is what we're doing, versusHey, I'm gonna run it through
the process because I know thatthe speed of the vision is also
(09:58):
determined by the speed of theteam. You
know, great question vents.
Because when you're great atthis, I mean, you must, as a
venture capitalist, you must getso many people with a pitch
deck, I got a pitch deck forthat. Yeah. And you have to look
to that pitch deck, but then youcan't look through them all,
they have to kind of go througha filtering system. And which
one say events, you really needto look at this one, okay, I'll
look at that. It's kind of thesame way. It's the same concept
(10:20):
that I have to go through whereI have to train my team to be
able to make some decisions, andrun them through me if I really
need to know what's going on.
But there is a risk to thatthere's a risk of them making
the wrong decision, there is arisk of, maybe I missed an
(10:41):
opportunity. There's, there'sall kinds of risks involved. But
if I become as we know, JohnMaxwell, we love Him, we we've
spent time with him, it's thelaw of the lid. And what could
happen is not only is there alid on someone else's potential,
but it's a lid, I could be thelid, can I leave the lid?
Because if everything's got topass through Mike eventually, or
(11:03):
Lisa, I could be the lid. And sosometimes, to remove the lid, I
have to empower them, to forgivethe expression but to maybe
think like me, the think the waythat I would think of course
think like Jesus, but think theway that I would think and how I
would process and how I wouldmake a decision. And then we
debrief that and make sure thatwhat were you thinking sometimes
(11:24):
what were you doing? What wereyou thinking? Sometimes? It was
like, Were you even thinking andthen the other times it's like,
man, that's good thinking? I'mglad you thought that way. So
powerful. Don't Don't tell mewhat to do teach me how to think
you're right. Even Paul said,Imitate me as I imitate Christ.
But he he said, Imitate me for areason. But actually Philippians
(11:44):
317 goes on to say, Imitate meand others, who are also
following the example of us. Andso it's so interesting is that
it seems that by design, theBible teaches us that yes, we
need to fix our eyes on Jesus.
But he offers up examples, notfor greater authority, but for
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maybe greater inspiration.
Because Paul knew that, youknow, he wasn't going to live in
Palo Alto, Paul knew he wasn'tgoing to live in Honolulu.
Right. So it's not just followme. But it's follow, you know,
and that's what you're saying islike, Okay, I am training a
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team. Tonight, just do what Isay. To think how I think so
that we can start lifting lids.
That's perfect.
Yeah, you know, most of us,including myself, we were
probably not first round draftpicks. You know, we Wow, we were
seventh Rounders, eighth, round,eighth and eighth round. We have
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a team full of Mr. irrelevance.
One of the highest compliments aconsultant paid me. He said this
to me. He says, Mike, I cannotbelieve the church that you and
Lisa have grown. I can't believethat you've led this. I can't
believe it. And I was going tofinish his sentence because I
knew where he was going. He saidwithout any other preaching
guns. Here's what he told me.
(13:10):
And I said, You know what? Iknow where you're coming from. I
know exactly what you're saying.
And you know what? I pridedmyself. It's kind of like the
Miami Heat right now. I got ajersey. I bought it in Miami
Vance. I should wear it. Miami.
There. What are those guys anundrafted? Those guys are on
drafted and all of those guys.
They're gonna play in the NBAFinals. They just got buckets.
(13:30):
Jimmy buckets, Davey. I mean, sosorry about Bob Meyers. So sorry
about the mic. That's my team.
My team is the Golden StateWarriors. Even before Steph
Curry was on that team. I'mtalking about Baron Davis.
You're talking about BaronDavis.
I'm talking Baron Davis. I'mtalking about Run, Run TMC Run
DMC scoop, right. Somebody who'srun teams, he says it he's got
(13:55):
it wrong. It's Run DMC. No, no,no. It was it was it was Timmy.
It was Mitch hard. Mitch. Mitchand it was what's his name? The
lefty who was a lefty Chris,Chris Marlin, rollin T MC. That
was the team.
Oh, so your old school your yourbefore the bandwagon? Oh,
um, you know, I might lookyoung, but I'm older. Just
kidding. I used to Filipinoblood fans. Hey,
(14:18):
it's in there. It's in there. Isee. It's
there. It's it's a quarter this1/4 And
that's all you need. That's allyou need.
I love it. So people can pay forpeople listening on your
podcast. Like these are twoFilipino boys. Yes, we are. Yes,
weare here. We're leading. We're
leading. Come on. Yes. And soif I look at the Miami Heat, and
(14:38):
if you look at you probably haveonly one you really got one star
player. And that's Jimmy Butler.
And then you have greatteammates and a great coach and
a great system. When you havethat man. I tell you what, you
don't have to be a first firstround draft pick. You can be a
seventh round third round. Itdoesn't matter, it's teamwork. I
(15:01):
heard one of the one of thegreatest books John Maxwell. By
the way, before you say thatbefore you say that Pastor Mike,
I need to emphasize this point,the coach of the heat is
Filipino, right? Yes, he is.
Okay. Let's just, yeah, let'sjust, let's just agree on that.
Janet Filipino podcast. onchanging the name. unchanged.
We're getting new neon lights.
(15:22):
We're getting new down lights.
Pinoy power. Let's go. Yeah.
But John Maxwell, you'resaying? Yeah, John Maxwell, one
of the first books that I read.
Okay. John Maxwell had like the21 Irrefutable Laws of
Leadership, you know, 17,indispensable. I mean,
incredible, right? Developingthe leader within you developing
the leader around you developingthe leaders above whatever
developing every single leader,the greatest book I ever read
(15:44):
from John Maxwell was when Istarted the church in 2001. And
a friend gave me this book, andit was called Partners in
prayer. And I said, Oh, dude,this guy's gonna ask me to be my
prayer partner. I don't know. Idon't know if I'll be my prayer
partner, you know. And so hegave me a book called Partners
in prayer, John Maxwell, andthen began to read the book. And
(16:08):
one of the greatest principle Igot out of that book was this
was not only the power ofprayer, that's important. But
Unity, that unity was socritical. And I tie that book by
John Maxwell and the partners inprayer about unity and how
critical that is, with PatrickLencioni. His book, The Five
Dysfunctions of a Team. And whenyou look at Yeah, one of the
(16:30):
dysfunctions was disunity. Heremember he said, I put, I put
in a room, all these HarvardMBAs against these other guys
that, you know, that just hadregular degrees and put them
together, the MBAs for somereason could not get it done.
But the ones nothing wrong withan MBA, you got to get one if
you need one. But the other guyswho are of average talent, but
they had unity, and the otherteam didn't, and the one that
(16:52):
had the unity, the teamwork wentfurther than the guys with the
MBAs. I think that's a I thinkthat's a lot of us. A lot of
businesses are like that. Ithink a lot of churches are like
that. And so yeah, that's what Iwas thinking. For the moment
when we got off on the Filipinothing.
So good. You know,one of the things that you're
talking about his has made merealize that you are an investor
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and not just financiallyinvesting in companies, you
invest in people. And I knowthat a lot of that has to do
with because of so many peopleinvesting in you growing up, but
you don't thinking about howyou're an investor. And then
also you're getting this book onprayer. And I also know that
you're an early investor inprayer.com. Right? Yeah. So I'd
(17:34):
love to hear about how youdecided to invest in this
company, and how prayer actuallybecame a very important thing
for you in just outside of yourprayer life.
Yeah. And I want to couple thatwith Pastor Mike, as you
answered that should tell usabout that situation. But then
(17:54):
zoom out to how do youunderwrite these opportunities?
How do you evaluate and assessthese deals, these opportunities
that you pursue, whether it'sfinancial or with your time and
resources, I think this is goingto help a lot of our listeners.
Okay, yeah,um, so pre.com came along. You
know, if you look at the banksnot getting a lot of money,
(18:15):
you're not getting a greatinterest rate, you have a stock
market, you can get into that.
And stock markets can bechallenging as well with the
market, you can never predictthe market. And so what happened
was, Matt Potter, the founder ofpray.com, got in contact with
me, came to Hawaii and spoke atour conference and talked about
the app. I love the concept ofthe app. And one thing that I
(18:39):
knew was we needed to galvanizeour church around prayer, if we
could get them all togetheraround prayer, I think we're
going to be okay. And so when heoffered up this opportunity to
invest six figures in kind of amid level six figure range, we
brought it to our council, webrought it to our board and
said, Guys, listen, we got moneysitting in the bank, it's
actually losing interest becauseof inflation, or whatever the
(19:00):
rate of inflation it is. It'ssitting idle, doing nothing, it
is not earning anything. We evenneed to find a harder asset like
land, but we need it to besomewhat liquid if we need it in
case we build a new building, webuy a new building. And so when
Matt from pray.com, approachedus and flew us up to LA and come
(19:21):
see the operation, because yeah,we had to have eyes on it before
we put all that kind of moneyinto it. It actually opened up a
whole new opportunity for us tolook at an investment portfolio
for the church. That was also,you know, in in line with the F
the Federal Trade Commission tomake sure they had an investment
committee. So it wasn't just memaking deals with, you know,
(19:44):
with good opportunities with newfriends. It was me having an
investment committee. Thank you.
It was an investment committee,that would make the
recommendation to the board andthen the vote, the final vote
would be with the board and sothat means you have many eyes on
this. It's not Just one personhaving a passion or a whim on
something that they believe isgoing to be a winner. And so
that's how we did it. That's howwe vetted through it. So our
(20:06):
investment portfolio hasincludes does include crypto,
stocks, bonds, property, and aswell as shares in different
companies. It'sincredible. And I think that's
so helpful, insightful andwisdom, the way that you all had
structured it, right? It'sprobably biblical to I mean,
(20:28):
isn't there a passage PastorMike around even with the
prophetic, right? You know,certain prophetic words need to
be confirmed? Right, right. Andso in the same way, you take
these biblical principles, youapply it to business, and
there's wisdom in that. It'sstill Matthew chapter 25. Vance,
it still goes back to theparable of the talents.
(20:50):
Remember, the guy that buriedhis talent? Yep, he buried it.
And Jesus told him, you know,you could have at least put it
in the bank where it could haveearned interest. At the very
least, you could earn someinterest. And so it's taking
multiplying what God gave you,and then having a level of
liquidity and when you need it,then you pull it out. And then
(21:11):
you end up, you know, buying theasset or paying off the asset.
And so, I think grew up likethis. I was kind of trained like
this, and I picked it up alongthe way. So yeah, good stuff.
Brilliant.
So I want to go off script alittle bit, because you're
sparking so many ideas for me.
And this is a podcast that aimsto bridge the gap between
(21:31):
technology and the local church.
What are you excited about rightnow? Pastor Mike, because I
consider you an innovativePastor, I consider you somebody
that's always pioneering, alwayswanting to be on the cutting
edge early into things earlyadopting, things like that. Are
you reading stuff on AI rightnow? Or are you thinking about
(21:52):
the applications for that in thechurch? Are you still focused on
blockchain? And crypto? Like,what? What are you reading
about? What are you on theforefront of right now, as it
relates to applying innovativethings to the church space?
Yeah, great question. I owe itto some degree, I've always felt
like I'm not ahead of the curve,but a little bit behind the
curve. Definitely not at thebottom of the bell curve, or the
(22:14):
sigmoid. I'm definitely not atthe bottom. What I think is Ai i
what I've gathered enoughinformation to have a decent
opinion on artificialintelligence. And this is what I
want to say, man, now anybodycan write a sermon on AI. Chat,
GPT, you just put in give youand that's like, I'm gonna have
(22:36):
to question everybody from thismoment on. Did you come up with
that? Or did chat GPT give thatto you? That's, I mean, I see
this technology as being I mean,light, like, just like, like
landing on the moon. But I'm notreally excited about it, to be
honest with you. I am, I'm kindof I'm concerned that it could
(23:00):
create jobs. Number one, butprobably remove more jobs and
create Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'mnot an economist, but just by
reading what I've read. Theother part is there's going to
be a lack of originality. Ithink it's going to remove a
heart from a piece of paper. Ibelieve that there's it is
artificial, and it's going tosound beautiful. I think people
(23:24):
are going to be writing books tocheck GPT I don't think it's
going to be as authentic as itcould be. So even though I'm a
little concerned about it, howdo you how do you maximize it?
Rather than calling it evil ornot good, or at the worst evil
or the other part disingenuous?
You know, how do you do that?
I'm not sure that I would liketo leverage it. At the same time
(23:48):
to be able to do what we need todo. But But I want to be very,
very careful in that space.
Until I get some good counsel onthat Vance, you'd probably have
good counsel for me offline aswell. And I would love to know
what you guys think about AI.
Because you guys, this is yourthis is your area. This is your
my, my my insight, from what youjust said is this. I think
there's a lot of wisdom inidentifying, hey, I'm not an
(24:11):
early adopter, but I'mdefinitely not the at the end of
the bell curve. I allow otherindustry experts to maybe forge
a way and to make the mistakesand I learned from that
mistakes. And then and then Imove forward and strength for my
context. I think there's a lotof wisdom in that. Oh, you know,
our take in AI, we actually talkabout it probably every other
episode Hunza to give it apodcast because it's just, you
(24:33):
know, it's kind of like, youknow, 10 years ago, Andreessen
Horowitz, one of the most famousinvestors wrote this article,
software's eating the world. Itseems like we're at another
inflection point where AI iseating the world, just in terms
of like the watercooler talk andthings like that. I do believe
what you just said is true thatit's going to displace a ton of
(24:55):
jobs. I think it's going todisplace a lot of knowledge work
that can just be done. Then byAI, you just think about
accountants, you think aboutpeople that do financial models
even just think about remediallegal steps and incorporation
documents. And all of that canbe learned through a corpus of
data, and just be done in a 10thof the time, and probably more
(25:17):
accurate through AI. So a lot ofknowledge work is going to be
displaced. My optimistic view isthis is that, because we're
going to be able to do a lot ofthe lower level tasks
automatically and easily, it'sgoing to free up humanity to
solve bigger problems, right.
And so I actually think thatthose people that are going to
(25:38):
be displaced, they have achoice, they either can go into
areas where jobs are not beingdisplaced. So for example, a
landscaper, for example, youknow, there's certain service
industry jobs that can't bereplaced by AI today until we
get to the Terminator stage ofrobots, but we're not there yet.
And so there's a choice, you caneither go that route, or you can
(26:02):
actually go the entrepreneurialroute. And you can leverage this
baseline. So think of all theapp ideas that you have in your
brain, Pastor Mike, but you'relimited, because you don't have
enough coders to be able tobuild the app that you want to
build in your brain. AI can justcut it for you now. And so I
think what it's going to do isgoing to unleash a new stage of
(26:23):
creativity and entrepreneurshipto actually allow more and more
It's kind of like what Instagramdid with democratizing
photography. Now, everybody'slike a decent photographer.
Right? Everybody's a model,everybody.
Everybody's a model. Okay, sofasten my truly passers Gen Z.
(26:44):
And so and so that's what it is.
Right? So it's democratized thatI mean, YouTube has democratized
creation. So now everybody canhave some level of an audience.
Right? And so now, if AI cancode for you, everybody is going
to be on some level, an appdeveloper that can solve certain
problems that maybe theycouldn't solve without it.
(27:05):
Because they didn't know anycoders. They didn't know any
engineers. They didn't know howto learn engineering themselves.
What's your take, though?
Yeah, I mean, Vance, and Irecorded an episode strictly on
this. And I basically opened upthe episode by saying, I'm
terrified that robots are goingto eat me. And by the end of the
episode, he had my mind fullychanged to now having an
(27:27):
optimistic view and finding waysto integrate AI as a supplement,
and making sure that we haveguardrails in place, so that
it's only as a supplement, notas the main driver, because
that's where it gets dangerous,is Vance, you obviously say it a
lot better than I am. Butwhenever you ask it, how to make
(27:51):
it better moving forward, that'swhen you give it the scary level
of autonomy to then become amonster that will eat you.
It's called, it's calledsingularity. I think we're a
little bit for further away fromthat than people think we are.
There are there is caution tothe wind on it. I'm not fully
(28:11):
bullish on it. But this is whereI think the importance of the
local churches, right, the localchurch, I believe, should be the
central point of society. We'veseen it in history, where when
that's happened, a lot of timesSociety continues to move
forward morally, definitely.
Society flourishes, right in alot of different aspects.
(28:36):
Because the Bible is undefeated,the Bible has the best trues The
Bible has first principles. Andso what I'm excited about and
why we have started this podcastis we want to have these
conversations so that we canbreak off fear and intimidation,
off of the church, the localchurch to be able to embrace
these technologies. Yeah,because God help us if the
(28:57):
church is not embracing theseand leading the way. Like, I
really don't, I really don'twant others to be doing that.
And, and Pastor Mike, somethingthat's been inspiring and we can
close with this, to me is yourincredible mixture of spiritual
development and leadership,alongside business we've talked
(29:17):
a lot about in this podcastalready, but also even just
civic engagement and findingyour voice there, obviously,
between governments, localgovernments and national
governments, understanding ourhistory, to inform where we're
going, and combining all thetalents that God has given you.
Why do you think it's importantto have a voice to engage your
community civically as well?
(29:42):
If we don't, someone else isgoing to fill that void, and we
can see where the country isheading. I think, you know,
Vance, I don't know if you knowthis, but I did a podcast
interview of eight mayoralcandidates for the City and
County of Honolulu.
I didn't see it yet. I need tocatch up while you Yeah,
let's uh, well, it was a whileback and okay, I wanted to
(30:03):
inform my church about who'srunning and what. And here's the
standard five questions. I'masking everybody, Republican or
Democrat, it didn't matter. Ieven did that this past year
with the governor's race, that Ihit up all the governor's
candidate gubernatorialcandidates, and I asked them,
would they be willing to come onmy podcast, and be able to put
that on YouTube. And that way,our church would know what each
person stood for. I think thatit's important for us to know
(30:26):
church history, we need to knowAmerican history, and in
addition to biblical excuse me,just got hit by my microphone.
Biblical history, we need toknow world history. I think
history is such a great teacherfor all of us. And so this is
where we know that if we can wewe've been called to be in every
(30:47):
sphere of society, every singlesphere, from education, to
health care to you. Arts andEntertainment. Now you got to
add athletics is maybe aseparate mountain, because now
athletes are very empoweredtoday to speak their minds. And
that's what they're doing. Somaybe if there's seven
mountains, gates, fears,streams, rivers, whatever,
calling them, but they're legit,I think the most important one
(31:10):
is the church sphere. Andeverything else should be
revolving around that. So peoplewho are believers in Christ who
are watching this podcast, weare called to be into every
single sphere of society andmake a difference. The challenge
is, because politics is such adirty work, it can be dirty
work, that a lot of Christianssaid, I'm not gonna go into
that, because that's dangerous,and I don't want to lose my
integrity. And so it's gettingfilled with people who have
(31:33):
different intentions. And so weshould go into every single one,
we should be in there from thetech space to government.
Do not let fear rule if you'regoing to go into that space or
not. Let's be led by the HolySpirit, and ladies and
gentlemen. Hmm, such an honor toeven say this, my friend, but
also what I would consider oneof my mentors, and one of the
(31:56):
most incredible pastors that Iknow, Pastor Mike, we are so
thankful for your nuggets ofwisdom. We're so thankful for
showing up in theseconversations. And for whatever
space that we're in that thisreaches, we hope that you've
just been so blessed, PastorMike, what are ways you would
want people to connect with youor anything that you would want
(32:17):
to highlight? We want to makesure we'll put it in the show
notes as well. But anything thatyou want to highlight?
Yeah, I would, first of allevents. I want to highlight you,
bro. Your gas man. Look at you.
You're you and Kim are amazingwhat you guys are doing with
vive what you do with withoverflow and everything else
that you've got going on. Andyour beautiful kids. Lisa and I
would just want to we wish welived closer together. We wish
(32:38):
we lived. There was no PacificOcean.
That's okay. We'll come overthere. That's okay.
Yeah, you need to come over, wecome over we even remember we're
gonna do an Innovate conference.
We Hey, do one. That's right, weneed to do a try. We need to do
one. So we're gonna do that.
Okay, I think the best place youcan find me is Mike chi.tv.
That's the best place. It'llpoint you to whatever I do. And
(33:02):
It'd be an honor just to say hito anybody that wants to show up
on that. And I'm grateful to bewith you guys. Oh, you're you're
such a great podcast friend. SheYeah, I listened to you. So it's
a great site. I don't wanna callyour sidekick, but such a great.
No, it's true. I'm Robin. He'sBatman.
Yes. And you are really good atthat. You're really good at
that. And, and I really highlyrecommend this podcast. I can't
(33:25):
I can't tell you enough. Thankyou so much. Thank you.
Thank you, Mike. Thanks so muchfor listening to the give it up
podcast if you want to receiveeven more insights on church
innovation, culture, and giving.
Now you can sign up for free tobe an overflow insider, where
you'll receive exclusive contentdiscounts direct access to Vance
Roush to get your questionsanswered. And also invite only
(33:47):
access to our monthlyfundraising leadership forums,
head to overflow.co backslashinsider, or just click the link
in our bio to sign up for freetoday. In order to get this
podcast in the ears of even morechurch leaders. Could you please
subscribe and leave a review forthe show. This tells the podcast
players what people are enjoyingand want to hear more of and we
(34:10):
are adamant about providingmaximum value to even more
church leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
One of the hardest things for me to do is actually
(00:02):
put the restraints on. And youknow, vision has restraints when
you have vision. It's kind oflike you can't just do anything.
You have the restraints and soyou know where you want to go.
You know what you want to do Ihave to take stock in, what is
God called me to do? And whatcan my family and what can I
personally handle emotionally,physically, spiritually, and all
the above? A pastorturn tech leader and a
(00:23):
millennial churchgoer, exploringthe intersection of technology,
culture and faith, equipping youwith innovative strategies to
support you as you live out yourcalling leader churches with
confidence to step into thefuture together? This is the
give it up podcast. What's upguys and welcome back to another
give it up podcast episode, orshould we say aloha? Because
(00:44):
today our guest is coming livefrom the islands of Hawaii to
us. And Vance, this is yourfriend. So I want you to give
the formal introduction here.
Oh my goodness, it's an honor tobe able to call him friend
Pastor Mike chi. I've actuallylooked up to Pastor Mike from
(01:04):
afar for years, just being oneof the innovators. One of the
what I would callentrepreneurial pastors of our
day, which we're going to talk alittle bit about that but
obviously the incredible pastorI call them Bishop of Hawaii,
but lead pastor of Inspirechurch along with Pastor Lisa
(01:25):
and just their family leading sowell on the island and really
beyond because Pastor Mike isnot only just a pastor, but a
podcaster. He is also a worldrenowned author, a church
planter. It's really inspiredchurches, a movement of
churches, as well asbusinessmen. And maybe some
people don't know that aboutPastor Mike, but he is a
(01:47):
prolific business person aswell. And we're going to talk
about all the things But PastorMike, thank you for being on
give it a podcast.
Vance's Oh, it is such aprivilege and an honor to be
with you guys. I love thispodcast and listen to a few
shows already. And it's alreadysubscribed to it and I really
love it. So thank you so muchfor having me. It's such a such
an honor to be in such rarefiedair with you guys.
(02:10):
I love rarefied air. Let's talkabout some rare topics that I
don't think oftentime getairtime when people are talking
about church building. And Iwant to dive in with you on it
because I consider you one ofthe pioneers in our modern day
of what this looks like. Butthis is not unbiblical. I mean,
(02:31):
we know that Paul was atentmaker, he was actually a
business person. He wasentrepreneurial. And you know,
I've seen you be what I wouldconsider, like I said, an
entrepreneurial pastor, andhaving so many different streams
and organizations and evenphilanthropic initiatives. How
do you balance it all? What'syour even just mindset of why
(02:53):
you even approached ministryfrom this lens?
Great question Vance. I wouldsay that the way that I balance
it all is I have an incredibleteam. I have, I have so much
ideas, so many ideas, so muchvision. And and it's sometimes
it's hard to keep up with that.
And you know, you don't want tokeep adding new things, new
(03:15):
plates to spin and doing allthat different, those kinds of
things. But I believe that theParable of the Talents kind of
drives a lot of it. You wereeither born with it, or you
learn it. And so I believe thatI was born with maybe a bit and
for the church world, those guyswho are church leaders who are
listening to this I was probablyborn into a one a two talent
(03:35):
situation with five talentpotential. So two talents, know
average average kid averageathlete got to become more than
that you got to you got tohustle, you got to go to
clinics, you got to practiceevery single day outside in your
garage, shooting hoops or tryingto catch a football or whatever,
to talent not tall to talent,five talent potential story of
(03:58):
my life. I've been in a onetalent situation, doing
basically by means of my ownmistakes. But then also God
always turns it around and takestwo makes it four takes four
makes it eight. And so I believethe capacity that me and my team
have grown into is not somethingthat I believe I could have
(04:19):
accepted. If someone said here,Mike, now, you will take over
this multimillion dollarorganization that someone else
built. I don't know if I coulddo that because we had to grow
into it. I'm looking at mycamera guys and all these guys
in the studio and we all had togrow into it. And so it's
growing into it. How do webalance it? Well, you go on a
wilderness hike for four days,like I told you earlier, you you
(04:41):
get off the grid, there's nophone reception, and then you
just it's just you alone withyour thoughts on a hike and it's
crazy, but it was it was brutalbut beautiful. At the same time.
My goodness. I mean, you knowwhat's so interesting about this
is you're highlighting and howimportant it is to honor the
(05:01):
current season that you're in.
So if you're going to grow inyour capacity, how are you
stewarding? What you have rightnow. So if you started with to
stop looking at for honor thetwo, and watch how God grows
that, but let's even go deeperthan that or even a prerequisite
to that. How does the pastorknow? How does it even a church
leader or senior church leaderknow if they should even go on
(05:22):
that entrepreneurial path? Isthat for everybody? Or is that
only for certain people? What'syour take?
That's a great question. I wouldsay it could be for everybody.
But not everybody is like this.
They can be though, for example,I would think that pastors
number one, have some of thebest content out there, out
there period, because everysingle week, we have to come up
(05:46):
with one, maybe two messages,minimum, every so you're always
studying always gathering you'reyou're you're collecting
information, you're, you'recategorizing them, you're
cataloging them, you're doingwhat Solomon did in the book of
Ecclesiastes, he categorizedthem he he catalogued them, and
he put them on the side when hetalked about the great teacher.
(06:06):
So we have the best content. ButI also think, even though we
might have the best content, wedon't necessarily know how to
package it. Because we're notnecessarily self promoters. So
we have a difficult time. Mostguys have a difficult time with
that, because they just don'tknow how to package it. So we
learned from other people. Butwhen it comes to the question
about is, can everybody do this,I would say, a good sign of
(06:29):
someone that is an entrepreneur,I would like to call it maybe in
the church world apostolic.
You're always startingsomething, you're always
starting something. And if youhave, you've gone from one
campus to two, if you've gonefrom two to five, if you started
a preschool if you started, youknow some kind of business,
(06:49):
chances are that that pastor hasan entrepreneurial gift in them
that the church world would callapostolic. And so I think some
people can, most can, I thinkthey can, I think it's also
cultivated, and for me, it camefrom my upbringing from my dad.
So I just watched him and kindof took my cues from that.
(07:10):
I love that, you know, as you'respeaking, and you're talking
about all these ideas that arein your head all the time. And I
would love to know, because Iknow that there's a lot of
people listening who feel thisexact same way. How do you know
which ideas to actually pursueversus put in the pocket? Maybe
say for letter later or abandonaltogether?
(07:30):
That's a That's a greatquestion. Because I asked myself
that question all the time. Likeadvances sometimes feeding me
stuff, hey, you need to do this.
And you got all these differentfriends? And I want if I could
do them all I would. But I thinkone of the in fact, I probably
will probably do them all,because they're all great ideas.
It's all about what season Am Iin? What capacity? Can my team
(07:52):
handle? What can Lisa and I do,you know, I've got three girls,
three daughters, two of them aremarried, got one more left in
the house. And so it's a seasonwhere I want to do as much as I
can do. However, I want to spendas much time with her that I can
before she graduates next yearand goes off to college. And so
(08:12):
those are the things that we'reweighing now later, or maybe
someone else on the team canpick that up. Maybe they can do
it. And sometimes one of thehardest things for me to do is
actually say, put the restraintson. And you know, vision has
restraints. So when you havethere's restraints to a vision,
so when you have vision, it'skind of like you can't just do
(08:33):
anything, you have therestraints, and so you know
where you want to go, you knowwhat you want to do. And so if
I'm doing too many things, andI'm muddying my vision, and I'm
really at the end of the day, Ihave to take stock in what is
God called me to do? And whatcan my family and what can I
personally handle emotionally,physically, spiritually, and all
(08:54):
the above? So, I would say that,Zoe, I'd love to do it all,
because all good things comeacross the desk. But it has to
be forgive the expression. It'sgot to be like a heck yeah,
eventually, you know what Imean? And
I, and I think you have thatHekia? I mean, we say this your
(09:15):
No, it actually empowers yourYes. Or, you know, for the
purposes of this conversation,you're no empowers your yet.
Heck yeah. And, you know, Ithink that's powerful. One thing
I've really admired about you,Pastor Mike is and you said it,
you are a leader first. And soyou entrust a lot to your team.
(09:35):
And I've seen situations whereyou've wanted to do something or
even know you're going to dosomething, but you really
empower your team. What is thatbalance? What's the balance of
when you make an executivedecision and say, Hey, team,
this is what we're doing, versusHey, I'm gonna run it through
the process because I know thatthe speed of the vision is also
(09:58):
determined by the speed of theteam. You
know, great question vents.
Because when you're great atthis, I mean, you must, as a
venture capitalist, you must getso many people with a pitch
deck, I got a pitch deck forthat. Yeah. And you have to look
to that pitch deck, but then youcan't look through them all,
they have to kind of go througha filtering system. And which
one say events, you really needto look at this one, okay, I'll
look at that. It's kind of thesame way. It's the same concept
(10:20):
that I have to go through whereI have to train my team to be
able to make some decisions, andrun them through me if I really
need to know what's going on.
But there is a risk to thatthere's a risk of them making
the wrong decision, there is arisk of, maybe I missed an
(10:41):
opportunity. There's, there'sall kinds of risks involved. But
if I become as we know, JohnMaxwell, we love Him, we we've
spent time with him, it's thelaw of the lid. And what could
happen is not only is there alid on someone else's potential,
but it's a lid, I could be thelid, can I leave the lid?
Because if everything's got topass through Mike eventually, or
(11:03):
Lisa, I could be the lid. And sosometimes, to remove the lid, I
have to empower them, to forgivethe expression but to maybe
think like me, the think the waythat I would think of course
think like Jesus, but think theway that I would think and how I
would process and how I wouldmake a decision. And then we
debrief that and make sure thatwhat were you thinking sometimes
(11:24):
what were you doing? What wereyou thinking? Sometimes? It was
like, Were you even thinking andthen the other times it's like,
man, that's good thinking? I'mglad you thought that way. So
powerful. Don't Don't tell mewhat to do teach me how to think
you're right. Even Paul said,Imitate me as I imitate Christ.
But he he said, Imitate me for areason. But actually Philippians
(11:44):
317 goes on to say, Imitate meand others, who are also
following the example of us. Andso it's so interesting is that
it seems that by design, theBible teaches us that yes, we
need to fix our eyes on Jesus.
But he offers up examples, notfor greater authority, but for
(12:05):
maybe greater inspiration.
Because Paul knew that, youknow, he wasn't going to live in
Palo Alto, Paul knew he wasn'tgoing to live in Honolulu.
Right. So it's not just followme. But it's follow, you know,
and that's what you're saying islike, Okay, I am training a
(12:26):
team. Tonight, just do what Isay. To think how I think so
that we can start lifting lids.
That's perfect.
Yeah, you know, most of us,including myself, we were
probably not first round draftpicks. You know, we Wow, we were
seventh Rounders, eighth, round,eighth and eighth round. We have
(12:47):
a team full of Mr. irrelevance.
One of the highest compliments aconsultant paid me. He said this
to me. He says, Mike, I cannotbelieve the church that you and
Lisa have grown. I can't believethat you've led this. I can't
believe it. And I was going tofinish his sentence because I
knew where he was going. He saidwithout any other preaching
guns. Here's what he told me.
(13:10):
And I said, You know what? Iknow where you're coming from. I
know exactly what you're saying.
And you know what? I pridedmyself. It's kind of like the
Miami Heat right now. I got ajersey. I bought it in Miami
Vance. I should wear it. Miami.
There. What are those guys anundrafted? Those guys are on
drafted and all of those guys.
They're gonna play in the NBAFinals. They just got buckets.
(13:30):
Jimmy buckets, Davey. I mean, sosorry about Bob Meyers. So sorry
about the mic. That's my team.
My team is the Golden StateWarriors. Even before Steph
Curry was on that team. I'mtalking about Baron Davis.
You're talking about BaronDavis.
I'm talking Baron Davis. I'mtalking about Run, Run TMC Run
DMC scoop, right. Somebody who'srun teams, he says it he's got
(13:55):
it wrong. It's Run DMC. No, no,no. It was it was it was Timmy.
It was Mitch hard. Mitch. Mitchand it was what's his name? The
lefty who was a lefty Chris,Chris Marlin, rollin T MC. That
was the team.
Oh, so your old school your yourbefore the bandwagon? Oh,
um, you know, I might lookyoung, but I'm older. Just
kidding. I used to Filipinoblood fans. Hey,
(14:18):
it's in there. It's in there. Isee. It's
there. It's it's a quarter this1/4 And
that's all you need. That's allyou need.
I love it. So people can pay forpeople listening on your
podcast. Like these are twoFilipino boys. Yes, we are. Yes,
weare here. We're leading. We're
leading. Come on. Yes. And soif I look at the Miami Heat, and
(14:38):
if you look at you probably haveonly one you really got one star
player. And that's Jimmy Butler.
And then you have greatteammates and a great coach and
a great system. When you havethat man. I tell you what, you
don't have to be a first firstround draft pick. You can be a
seventh round third round. Itdoesn't matter, it's teamwork. I
(15:01):
heard one of the one of thegreatest books John Maxwell. By
the way, before you say thatbefore you say that Pastor Mike,
I need to emphasize this point,the coach of the heat is
Filipino, right? Yes, he is.
Okay. Let's just, yeah, let'sjust, let's just agree on that.
Janet Filipino podcast. onchanging the name. unchanged.
We're getting new neon lights.
(15:22):
We're getting new down lights.
Pinoy power. Let's go. Yeah.
But John Maxwell, you'resaying? Yeah, John Maxwell, one
of the first books that I read.
Okay. John Maxwell had like the21 Irrefutable Laws of
Leadership, you know, 17,indispensable. I mean,
incredible, right? Developingthe leader within you developing
the leader around you developingthe leaders above whatever
developing every single leader,the greatest book I ever read
(15:44):
from John Maxwell was when Istarted the church in 2001. And
a friend gave me this book, andit was called Partners in
prayer. And I said, Oh, dude,this guy's gonna ask me to be my
prayer partner. I don't know. Idon't know if I'll be my prayer
partner, you know. And so hegave me a book called Partners
in prayer, John Maxwell, andthen began to read the book. And
(16:08):
one of the greatest principle Igot out of that book was this
was not only the power ofprayer, that's important. But
Unity, that unity was socritical. And I tie that book by
John Maxwell and the partners inprayer about unity and how
critical that is, with PatrickLencioni. His book, The Five
Dysfunctions of a Team. And whenyou look at Yeah, one of the
(16:30):
dysfunctions was disunity. Heremember he said, I put, I put
in a room, all these HarvardMBAs against these other guys
that, you know, that just hadregular degrees and put them
together, the MBAs for somereason could not get it done.
But the ones nothing wrong withan MBA, you got to get one if
you need one. But the other guyswho are of average talent, but
they had unity, and the otherteam didn't, and the one that
(16:52):
had the unity, the teamwork wentfurther than the guys with the
MBAs. I think that's a I thinkthat's a lot of us. A lot of
businesses are like that. Ithink a lot of churches are like
that. And so yeah, that's what Iwas thinking. For the moment
when we got off on the Filipinothing.
So good. You know,one of the things that you're
talking about his has made merealize that you are an investor
(17:14):
and not just financiallyinvesting in companies, you
invest in people. And I knowthat a lot of that has to do
with because of so many peopleinvesting in you growing up, but
you don't thinking about howyou're an investor. And then
also you're getting this book onprayer. And I also know that
you're an early investor inprayer.com. Right? Yeah. So I'd
(17:34):
love to hear about how youdecided to invest in this
company, and how prayer actuallybecame a very important thing
for you in just outside of yourprayer life.
Yeah. And I want to couple thatwith Pastor Mike, as you
answered that should tell usabout that situation. But then
(17:54):
zoom out to how do youunderwrite these opportunities?
How do you evaluate and assessthese deals, these opportunities
that you pursue, whether it'sfinancial or with your time and
resources, I think this is goingto help a lot of our listeners.
Okay, yeah,um, so pre.com came along. You
know, if you look at the banksnot getting a lot of money,
(18:15):
you're not getting a greatinterest rate, you have a stock
market, you can get into that.
And stock markets can bechallenging as well with the
market, you can never predictthe market. And so what happened
was, Matt Potter, the founder ofpray.com, got in contact with
me, came to Hawaii and spoke atour conference and talked about
the app. I love the concept ofthe app. And one thing that I
(18:39):
knew was we needed to galvanizeour church around prayer, if we
could get them all togetheraround prayer, I think we're
going to be okay. And so when heoffered up this opportunity to
invest six figures in kind of amid level six figure range, we
brought it to our council, webrought it to our board and
said, Guys, listen, we got moneysitting in the bank, it's
actually losing interest becauseof inflation, or whatever the
(19:00):
rate of inflation it is. It'ssitting idle, doing nothing, it
is not earning anything. We evenneed to find a harder asset like
land, but we need it to besomewhat liquid if we need it in
case we build a new building, webuy a new building. And so when
Matt from pray.com, approachedus and flew us up to LA and come
(19:21):
see the operation, because yeah,we had to have eyes on it before
we put all that kind of moneyinto it. It actually opened up a
whole new opportunity for us tolook at an investment portfolio
for the church. That was also,you know, in in line with the F
the Federal Trade Commission tomake sure they had an investment
committee. So it wasn't just memaking deals with, you know,
(19:44):
with good opportunities with newfriends. It was me having an
investment committee. Thank you.
It was an investment committee,that would make the
recommendation to the board andthen the vote, the final vote
would be with the board and sothat means you have many eyes on
this. It's not Just one personhaving a passion or a whim on
something that they believe isgoing to be a winner. And so
that's how we did it. That's howwe vetted through it. So our
(20:06):
investment portfolio hasincludes does include crypto,
stocks, bonds, property, and aswell as shares in different
companies. It'sincredible. And I think that's
so helpful, insightful andwisdom, the way that you all had
structured it, right? It'sprobably biblical to I mean,
(20:28):
isn't there a passage PastorMike around even with the
prophetic, right? You know,certain prophetic words need to
be confirmed? Right, right. Andso in the same way, you take
these biblical principles, youapply it to business, and
there's wisdom in that. It'sstill Matthew chapter 25. Vance,
it still goes back to theparable of the talents.
(20:50):
Remember, the guy that buriedhis talent? Yep, he buried it.
And Jesus told him, you know,you could have at least put it
in the bank where it could haveearned interest. At the very
least, you could earn someinterest. And so it's taking
multiplying what God gave you,and then having a level of
liquidity and when you need it,then you pull it out. And then
(21:11):
you end up, you know, buying theasset or paying off the asset.
And so, I think grew up likethis. I was kind of trained like
this, and I picked it up alongthe way. So yeah, good stuff.
Brilliant.
So I want to go off script alittle bit, because you're
sparking so many ideas for me.
And this is a podcast that aimsto bridge the gap between
(21:31):
technology and the local church.
What are you excited about rightnow? Pastor Mike, because I
consider you an innovativePastor, I consider you somebody
that's always pioneering, alwayswanting to be on the cutting
edge early into things earlyadopting, things like that. Are
you reading stuff on AI rightnow? Or are you thinking about
(21:52):
the applications for that in thechurch? Are you still focused on
blockchain? And crypto? Like,what? What are you reading
about? What are you on theforefront of right now, as it
relates to applying innovativethings to the church space?
Yeah, great question. I owe itto some degree, I've always felt
like I'm not ahead of the curve,but a little bit behind the
curve. Definitely not at thebottom of the bell curve, or the
(22:14):
sigmoid. I'm definitely not atthe bottom. What I think is Ai i
what I've gathered enoughinformation to have a decent
opinion on artificialintelligence. And this is what I
want to say, man, now anybodycan write a sermon on AI. Chat,
GPT, you just put in give youand that's like, I'm gonna have
(22:36):
to question everybody from thismoment on. Did you come up with
that? Or did chat GPT give thatto you? That's, I mean, I see
this technology as being I mean,light, like, just like, like
landing on the moon. But I'm notreally excited about it, to be
honest with you. I am, I'm kindof I'm concerned that it could
(23:00):
create jobs. Number one, butprobably remove more jobs and
create Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'mnot an economist, but just by
reading what I've read. Theother part is there's going to
be a lack of originality. Ithink it's going to remove a
heart from a piece of paper. Ibelieve that there's it is
artificial, and it's going tosound beautiful. I think people
(23:24):
are going to be writing books tocheck GPT I don't think it's
going to be as authentic as itcould be. So even though I'm a
little concerned about it, howdo you how do you maximize it?
Rather than calling it evil ornot good, or at the worst evil
or the other part disingenuous?
You know, how do you do that?
I'm not sure that I would liketo leverage it. At the same time
(23:48):
to be able to do what we need todo. But But I want to be very,
very careful in that space.
Until I get some good counsel onthat Vance, you'd probably have
good counsel for me offline aswell. And I would love to know
what you guys think about AI.
Because you guys, this is yourthis is your area. This is your
my, my my insight, from what youjust said is this. I think
there's a lot of wisdom inidentifying, hey, I'm not an
(24:11):
early adopter, but I'mdefinitely not the at the end of
the bell curve. I allow otherindustry experts to maybe forge
a way and to make the mistakesand I learned from that
mistakes. And then and then Imove forward and strength for my
context. I think there's a lotof wisdom in that. Oh, you know,
our take in AI, we actually talkabout it probably every other
episode Hunza to give it apodcast because it's just, you
(24:33):
know, it's kind of like, youknow, 10 years ago, Andreessen
Horowitz, one of the most famousinvestors wrote this article,
software's eating the world. Itseems like we're at another
inflection point where AI iseating the world, just in terms
of like the watercooler talk andthings like that. I do believe
what you just said is true thatit's going to displace a ton of
(24:55):
jobs. I think it's going todisplace a lot of knowledge work
that can just be done. Then byAI, you just think about
accountants, you think aboutpeople that do financial models
even just think about remediallegal steps and incorporation
documents. And all of that canbe learned through a corpus of
data, and just be done in a 10thof the time, and probably more
(25:17):
accurate through AI. So a lot ofknowledge work is going to be
displaced. My optimistic view isthis is that, because we're
going to be able to do a lot ofthe lower level tasks
automatically and easily, it'sgoing to free up humanity to
solve bigger problems, right.
And so I actually think thatthose people that are going to
(25:38):
be displaced, they have achoice, they either can go into
areas where jobs are not beingdisplaced. So for example, a
landscaper, for example, youknow, there's certain service
industry jobs that can't bereplaced by AI today until we
get to the Terminator stage ofrobots, but we're not there yet.
And so there's a choice, you caneither go that route, or you can
(26:02):
actually go the entrepreneurialroute. And you can leverage this
baseline. So think of all theapp ideas that you have in your
brain, Pastor Mike, but you'relimited, because you don't have
enough coders to be able tobuild the app that you want to
build in your brain. AI can justcut it for you now. And so I
think what it's going to do isgoing to unleash a new stage of
(26:23):
creativity and entrepreneurshipto actually allow more and more
It's kind of like what Instagramdid with democratizing
photography. Now, everybody'slike a decent photographer.
Right? Everybody's a model,everybody.
Everybody's a model. Okay, sofasten my truly passers Gen Z.
(26:44):
And so and so that's what it is.
Right? So it's democratized thatI mean, YouTube has democratized
creation. So now everybody canhave some level of an audience.
Right? And so now, if AI cancode for you, everybody is going
to be on some level, an appdeveloper that can solve certain
problems that maybe theycouldn't solve without it.
(27:05):
Because they didn't know anycoders. They didn't know any
engineers. They didn't know howto learn engineering themselves.
What's your take, though?
Yeah, I mean, Vance, and Irecorded an episode strictly on
this. And I basically opened upthe episode by saying, I'm
terrified that robots are goingto eat me. And by the end of the
episode, he had my mind fullychanged to now having an
(27:27):
optimistic view and finding waysto integrate AI as a supplement,
and making sure that we haveguardrails in place, so that
it's only as a supplement, notas the main driver, because
that's where it gets dangerous,is Vance, you obviously say it a
lot better than I am. Butwhenever you ask it, how to make
(27:51):
it better moving forward, that'swhen you give it the scary level
of autonomy to then become amonster that will eat you.
It's called, it's calledsingularity. I think we're a
little bit for further away fromthat than people think we are.
There are there is caution tothe wind on it. I'm not fully
(28:11):
bullish on it. But this is whereI think the importance of the
local churches, right, the localchurch, I believe, should be the
central point of society. We'veseen it in history, where when
that's happened, a lot of timesSociety continues to move
forward morally, definitely.
Society flourishes, right in alot of different aspects.
(28:36):
Because the Bible is undefeated,the Bible has the best trues The
Bible has first principles. Andso what I'm excited about and
why we have started this podcastis we want to have these
conversations so that we canbreak off fear and intimidation,
off of the church, the localchurch to be able to embrace
these technologies. Yeah,because God help us if the
(28:57):
church is not embracing theseand leading the way. Like, I
really don't, I really don'twant others to be doing that.
And, and Pastor Mike, somethingthat's been inspiring and we can
close with this, to me is yourincredible mixture of spiritual
development and leadership,alongside business we've talked
(29:17):
a lot about in this podcastalready, but also even just
civic engagement and findingyour voice there, obviously,
between governments, localgovernments and national
governments, understanding ourhistory, to inform where we're
going, and combining all thetalents that God has given you.
Why do you think it's importantto have a voice to engage your
community civically as well?
(29:42):
If we don't, someone else isgoing to fill that void, and we
can see where the country isheading. I think, you know,
Vance, I don't know if you knowthis, but I did a podcast
interview of eight mayoralcandidates for the City and
County of Honolulu.
I didn't see it yet. I need tocatch up while you Yeah,
let's uh, well, it was a whileback and okay, I wanted to
(30:03):
inform my church about who'srunning and what. And here's the
standard five questions. I'masking everybody, Republican or
Democrat, it didn't matter. Ieven did that this past year
with the governor's race, that Ihit up all the governor's
candidate gubernatorialcandidates, and I asked them,
would they be willing to come onmy podcast, and be able to put
that on YouTube. And that way,our church would know what each
person stood for. I think thatit's important for us to know
(30:26):
church history, we need to knowAmerican history, and in
addition to biblical excuse me,just got hit by my microphone.
Biblical history, we need toknow world history. I think
history is such a great teacherfor all of us. And so this is
where we know that if we can wewe've been called to be in every
(30:47):
sphere of society, every singlesphere, from education, to
health care to you. Arts andEntertainment. Now you got to
add athletics is maybe aseparate mountain, because now
athletes are very empoweredtoday to speak their minds. And
that's what they're doing. Somaybe if there's seven
mountains, gates, fears,streams, rivers, whatever,
calling them, but they're legit,I think the most important one
(31:10):
is the church sphere. Andeverything else should be
revolving around that. So peoplewho are believers in Christ who
are watching this podcast, weare called to be into every
single sphere of society andmake a difference. The challenge
is, because politics is such adirty work, it can be dirty
work, that a lot of Christianssaid, I'm not gonna go into
that, because that's dangerous,and I don't want to lose my
integrity. And so it's gettingfilled with people who have
(31:33):
different intentions. And so weshould go into every single one,
we should be in there from thetech space to government.
Do not let fear rule if you'regoing to go into that space or
not. Let's be led by the HolySpirit, and ladies and
gentlemen. Hmm, such an honor toeven say this, my friend, but
also what I would consider oneof my mentors, and one of the
(31:56):
most incredible pastors that Iknow, Pastor Mike, we are so
thankful for your nuggets ofwisdom. We're so thankful for
showing up in theseconversations. And for whatever
space that we're in that thisreaches, we hope that you've
just been so blessed, PastorMike, what are ways you would
want people to connect with youor anything that you would want
(32:17):
to highlight? We want to makesure we'll put it in the show
notes as well. But anything thatyou want to highlight?
Yeah, I would, first of allevents. I want to highlight you,
bro. Your gas man. Look at you.
You're you and Kim are amazingwhat you guys are doing with
vive what you do with withoverflow and everything else
that you've got going on. Andyour beautiful kids. Lisa and I
would just want to we wish welived closer together. We wish
(32:38):
we lived. There was no PacificOcean.
That's okay. We'll come overthere. That's okay.
Yeah, you need to come over, wecome over we even remember we're
gonna do an Innovate conference.
We Hey, do one. That's right, weneed to do a try. We need to do
one. So we're gonna do that.
Okay, I think the best place youcan find me is Mike chi.tv.
That's the best place. It'llpoint you to whatever I do. And
(33:02):
It'd be an honor just to say hito anybody that wants to show up
on that. And I'm grateful to bewith you guys. Oh, you're you're
such a great podcast friend. SheYeah, I listened to you. So it's
a great site. I don't wanna callyour sidekick, but such a great.
No, it's true. I'm Robin. He'sBatman.
Yes. And you are really good atthat. You're really good at
that. And, and I really highlyrecommend this podcast. I can't
(33:25):
I can't tell you enough. Thankyou so much. Thank you.
Thank you, Mike. Thanks so muchfor listening to the give it up
podcast if you want to receiveeven more insights on church
innovation, culture, and giving.
Now you can sign up for free tobe an overflow insider, where
you'll receive exclusive contentdiscounts direct access to Vance
Roush to get your questionsanswered. And also invite only
(33:47):
access to our monthlyfundraising leadership forums,
head to overflow.co backslashinsider, or just click the link
in our bio to sign up for freetoday. In order to get this
podcast in the ears of even morechurch leaders. Could you please
subscribe and leave a review forthe show. This tells the podcast
players what people are enjoyingand want to hear more of and we
(34:10):
are adamant about providingmaximum value to even more
church leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
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