July 13, 2023 • 51 mins
Pastor Adam Mesa (from Abundant Living Family Church) is a mover and a shaker, and on this podcast episode with Zoe and Vance, Adam shares his fresh insights on: Kingdom Investing (yes, the church literally investing into portfolios and businesses), how to speak to Millennials and Gen Z about giving, why his church plants in urban environments, the importance of practicality in the faith space, and so much more!
This podcast is presented by Overflow, the most powerful giving platform on the planet. Giving cash, stock, or crypto to your church or non-profit has never been easier. Visit overflow.co to experience and step into future of giving.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
We call it now Kingdom investing is making investments
(00:03):
that are rewarded in thekingdom. We are saying how can
we find companies that are earlyonset where 100,000 200,000 is a
game changer for them, but thatgives us more skin in the game
so that we can leave a legacyand pay off our debt as much as
possible and passed down to thegeneration of churches and
(00:23):
leaders and businessentrepreneurs. A pastor turn
tech leader and a millennialchurchgoer, exploring the
intersection of technology,culture and faith, equipping you
with innovative strategies tosupport you as you live out your
calling leader churches withconfidence to step into the
future together. This is thegive it up podcast. Welcome back
(00:44):
to another give it up podcastepisode. And we're coming at you
from virtual room number. Howmany is this? I don't know
advance because we're just soexcited bringing all of our
friends onto the show. Becausewhat I love answer is how many
friends we have that haveunique, innovative perspectives
on so many different thingswithin the faith space. And our
(01:06):
friend Adam Mesa certainly hasfaced for us today. So
good. I'm so excited. Adam,thank you so much for joining
us. If people don't know, Adamis a pastor at an incredible
church in Rancho Cucamonga. Iactually have my Rancho shirt
on. I think this is myCalifornia, the lead pastor
(01:33):
taken from his dad, who y'allplanted this church with 30
years ago, just about29 years this year. So next year
will be 30 years. Yeah,29 years, had 1000s and 1000s of
people this past Easter, andeven just on a regular basis,
for decades have been making anincredible community impact. And
now starting to become anational impact always been
(01:56):
nationally recognized. But justthe models that you guys are
setting up with neighborhoodchurch and things like that,
that I'm following that I'mlearning from, and things like
that. Also, if you don't know,Adam is a prolific investor, not
just on the basic apps likeRobin Hood and stuff like that
this man is investing intotechnology at the earliest
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stages. And that's one of thereasons why we met we met at a
random conference at a randomranch Bob Gough may or may have
not been involved. Nice shoesmay or may not have been
involved a Lakers Jersey Anna,and a Lakers cat may or may not
have been involved. But weconnected ever since then, maybe
a couple years ago. Now, AdamYeah, two
(02:43):
years now at this point. AndI'll
self proclaim it besties eversince so yeah, I so good. to
have you on the pod. You want tosay a quick Hi, and then we'll
get into some of the topics.
Yeah.
Hey, thank you so much. I'm I'mbig fan of overflow user of
overflow listener of thepodcast. And so I appreciate
that so much. I believe he's atrailblazer. The moment I met
(03:05):
him, I was like, This guy is myguide. I'm actually a really
quiet guy. No, really. So wejust kind of when we met at this
gathering, we'd be lying to eachother. And I was like, Man is
this this guy really is going tochange the world. You hear
people say it and you go okay,okay, you know, you got it. Did
you mean bad to you? Yeah, no,he's really going to impact the
(03:25):
world. And so and the wholeoverflow team, I mean, it just
absolutely most impressivepeople I've ever met. So I'm
excited excited to pastor I'mexcited that you know, I'm in
business and everything likethat, but I love the people I
get to work with more thananything. I think that's the
biggest blessing period, bothboth in the secular industry,
(03:45):
business industry, but also inthe church. So I love it. So
good. Well, we're gonna get intotech, we're gonna get into
investing. But before that, Iwant you to give just our
listeners just an insight intoeverything that God is doing
through your church throughabundant everything that's
happening in Rancho and beyondmaybe give a quick synopsis
because you all have had such anincredible impact in the
(04:09):
community. Yeah,I mean, some some of the things
that so like Matt said, We'regoing up 30 years next year as a
church, we just shared with our,with our church that at the end
of this year 2023, my dad willofficially step into a new role
and a new season. So you know,I've been doing this transition
for six years. And it's been agreat transition. And, you know,
(04:31):
he was he's transitioning one ofthe largest churches in America,
just like many of the otherchurches that we're seeing today
that are transitioning to, youknow, mostly millennials. Now,
nowadays, and so, we've beendoing this for six years. It was
supposed to be a 10 year plan.
We decided to do seven COVID waskind of for us a healthy force
(04:53):
multiplier. I know for others,it wasn't, but for us it was a
healthy force multiplier for formy leadership. For me in our
church, and so it also gave us achance to launch a lot of vision
that we had kind of laid dormantthat we were hoping to release.
And so some of those things werelike a network of churches,
which is more like a family thatdoes like discipleship and
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community with other pastors.
And so we're gonna probablywatch this at the end of the
year, called abundant network,but we call it the actual like,
namesake of it is neighborhoodchurch. And so we believe
churches that impact theneighborhood, I would always
grow up with people saying thatwe're going to change the world,
but they can't even change theirblock. And so we didn't really
want to name a church after theworld, we wanted to change the
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name, name of church movementafter the neighborhood. And so
we believe in in zip codes, youknow, and so it's like, impact
your zip code, and then let Goddo the rest from that point. And
so we believe that kind of aneighborhood church movement can
happen within our sphere, thatreaches, blocks, reaches
streets, reaches neighborhoods,and then the impact can be
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global. Should we all jointogether, you know, to do this
together, it's not on anyindividual. And so we really
want to mobilize, I want tomobilize the next generation to
be church planters. We have morechurches closing than ever, we
have more vacant churcheswithout pastors than ever. And
so that's kind of I guess, youtalk about entrepreneur
endeavor, kind of change,looking in my eyes more in the
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church sphere, because I spentthe last decade in the business
world and marketing andinvestment, all that stuff. And
we're gonna continue to do thatstuff. But I really got my eyes
set on, I want communities tohave churches that labor with
their community. And so we alsohave a generosity center. So
each of our campuses, one of ourmain points is we believe every
church that becomes aneighborhood church should have
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some type of center where theymeet the physical needs of the
community, hands and feet ofJesus. And so our general, we
have two campuses right now ofour own. And both have what
we've called, we named themgenerosity centers. And so last
year, we gave out 1.5 millionpounds of food to 291,000 people
last year alone. So that's ourheart. That's what we what we
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hope to continue to do. We hopeto teach other churches how to
do that. And so we have greatrelationships with Costco, Sam's
Club, stater brothers,Albertsons, you name it, a lot
of them are our main financialdonors, the financial equivalent
of how much stuff we get donatedannually is two to $3 million
worth of food and produce. Soyou know, that's something we
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continue to hope to broaden ourrelationships with, to allow
other churches to partner. So wesupport about 100 other churches
that come to our locations, pickup food, and pass it out to
their community, whether they'rein you know, within three hours
of us, we help support and getfood out. So yeah, those are
just some of the things that wedo in our local church setting,
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the abundant networkneighborhood model. And when I
was following this on Instagram,even before you had posted about
a year, you told me about itwhen we were on a trip in Vegas
together at another churchconference, and from hearing
your vision about it to nowseeing it being implemented.
What's been interesting is tosee that you're implementing it
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actually in urban environments.
Is that specific? Is thatstrategic? Is that is that going
to be the model? Because itseemed like it was like in an
urban environment more like aStarbucks would be on that
corner? But now you see a churchon that corner? Is that Is that
intentional? Yeah, definitely.
So, you know, for me, I'm alwayslooking on like, how do we solve
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problems? I know, in thebusiness sphere, that's like the
first thing that they're alwaystalking about. But in the church
sphere, it's not that it's kindof like, it's like, again, you
know, the church is always kindof behind the eight ball and
stuff. And so, like, I've beenin many business settings, like,
hey, how do we solve a problemfor X, Y, and Z? And they go in
the church spirit, it's notreally like, how do we solve a
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problem? It's just like, how dowe just keep doing what we've
done for the past 60 years, youknow, it just, it's not working,
you know, a lot of times, andyou got this new generation Gen
Z, and that was like totallydoing stuff totally different.
So, for us, one of the problemsI see is a lot of church church
planning is happening in what Icall sexy cities, which are
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fine. Every city needs a church.
You know, sexy cities areHollywood, Miami, and those are
important, it should happen.
Churches, we just don't feel ledto go to those kinds of kinds of
spaces. And maybe it would havebeen one day, what we really
feel led to is going to placesthat have a majority of
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minorities, people of color inthose communities, because those
tend to be where church planninggoes. The least or the last and
resources go the least and lastin that way. And so for us, we
have a desire to look atanalytics and go to places that
need help that need improvement.
that we want the mayor of thatcity to see us as a blessing
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coming in that city, not themayor going like, Oh, here's
another one come in. Here'sanother church. You know, I'm
more like, you know, we need youguys in this city, we have a
crime issue, we have a povertyissue, you know, we have a
mental health issue. And webelieve that's kind of where our
church has been been graced byGod. And so there are other
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churches that that are doinggreat works when they go to
Hollywood and, and all the inNew York and stuff like that.
And those are great places.
That's just not, that's not,that's not really our thing that
we feel led to. And so we wantto be able to equip the minority
church, Hispanics, AfricanAmericans, Asian Pacific
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Polynesians, where there's a lotof those in a bunch of cities
that don't always get reached,you know, the best way because
they are culturally different.
And so not not saying I evenunderstand all those cultures,
but we want to make an effort toreach those cultures and reach
those people. And a lot oftimes, it comes by being a
resource to those individuals.
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And so we really emphasizecounseling in our church, we
really emphasize something wecall forward, which helps people
even though you're saying youmay need to be deliberate of
certain addictions and habits, alot of stuff that comes with
more minority communities thatcome with like alcohol
addiction, drug addiction,domestic violence, our church
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really tries to come in and likehow do we seek healing for that?
How do we pursue the Lord inthat? How do we, you know, how
do we allow God through variousclasses that we have counseling
sessions we do. So we want to beable to help other churches that
come, hey, I want to be aneighborhood church, I want to
do this and say, How can weequip you to do these things
like we have seen, and we seegreat health in our church for
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right now.
So let's get real. Yep. One ofthe reasons why this model has
not been pursued historically atscale, is because, you know, the
surface level analysis is thatthe business model doesn't work.
Okay. All right. So let's, let'stake the business model, the
business model of a church,quote, unquote, largely is
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driven by tithes and offerings.
So you plant a church inScottsdale, you plant a church
in New York, you plant a churchin, you know, some of these
areas, it makes a lot of sense,right. But yeah, demographic,
right, you know, you can evenjust plant a smaller church and
still be a really viablecommunity, going into more of an
urban setting, maybe a settingthat socio economically, is
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middle lower. How do you makethat business model? Let's get
to the brass tacks. How do youmake that work?
I think it's a few things that Ican tell you, you can look up
the, you know, statistics, wehave a campus in Pomona, the
city of Pomona you can you canpull up the crime rate at Pomona
easily you could pull up thefinancial it's every it's it's
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not a safe city, whole avenue isone of the highest forms of
prostitution in all of SouthernCalifornia, you got a whole
street on a Friday night,there's literally hundreds of
prostitutes. At our church atPomona, we bought a building a
Salvation Army that was about 80years old. So all that to say,
first of all, it takes aninvestment. So you need a church
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kind of our size, who who'sgoing to actually be able to
found a couple years, that'sgoing to be able to for a couple
years, absolve part of thatnegative, that's going to happen
for that church. So for us, ithas taken extraordinarily a
short time, thank God, but it'staken us three years to actually
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not recoup all the money we putin but for it to be financially
completely sustained. And so thecampus we have in Pomona, there
is even though we're paying amortgage and other things like
that, that campus completelytakes care of all of its bills,
three full time employees, allsalaries, everything like that.
And so it's it's it's not aworry of ours, our church from
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our Rancho campus, which is aminority churches well gave, we
raised money on the front end,we sowed the seeds into it, and
then from there, we launched itwith about a half a million
dollars. And then now itcompletely takes care of itself
three years later. And here'show we do it with those type of
communities. Number one ispeople who have retained a large
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amount of debt, do not give,they don't tie, they definitely
don't tie more than anythingthey may tip you during a
season. And then outside of thatit's not going to be regular
giving. So some of the firstthings you're going to have to
do is you're going to have toenable courses and classes that
teach people how to bettermanage their finances. So things
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like Financial Peace University,and those sorts. The next one I
think they do is called legacyor something like that. And so
you want to be able toimmediately start talking about
a Financial Responsibility. Wetalk about giving every single
week. Some churches,particularly I know those
churches in the south, theydon't talk about money at all,
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it's just we know that you'regonna give there's a pocket at
the back, or people just theydon't talk about it, they don't
teach about it. Every week, wehave caveat, five minutes in our
service, where we talk aboutfinances. Now we got we don't
talk about guilt give oranything like that. And we don't
talk about false promises. Wedon't say that, you know, if you
give God's gonna give you it 100fold. And if you give $100 by
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next month, God, I'll give you$1,000 By no means do we do any
of that stuff. We just talkedabout biblical financial
responsibilities, we talkedabout how we have to be stewards
of our money, and how yourdollar is a seed where you
planted, it will grow. If Iplant my money every week into
the liquor store, then what willgrow of it, alcohol addiction
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and everything else that followsit. If I plant my dollar in the
church, then I will see you'llsee fruit of it, you will you'll
see it in our programs. And sothose that's just number one,
we're talking about money, we'rejust we're being unabashed about
it, we're talking about theimportance of giving. And we're
seeing people delivered thatmoney and that love of money, we
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call it you know, in our churchthing, we call it that love of
Mammon, right. And so we talkedabout how we got, we got to
release that in generosity. Theother thing we talked about is
we use language that's relevantto today. So we talked about
subscription at your church,like if you have a Netflix
subscription, gym membership,and all these other things like
that. How much do you givemonthly to your church per the
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value that your church is givingyou? Now for us, we do a lot of
programs for our members. Sothey equate that really easily.
We do forward we talk aboutdeliverance, we do counseling in
our church, we do familyprograms, we do a financial, you
know, we do a food distributioncenter. So our people in that
community, they see that reallyfast. And we don't have to have
anyone that gives a lot, we justneed enough of us doing our
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part. That's what we tell thechurch all the time. Like we're
not looking for anyone rich tocome in here and give what we
are is looking for everybody whoconsiders this home to do their
part. That's what so it's theconversations we're having in
that face that you have to dodifferent than when you're in
like you said, ScottsdalePhoenix, you know, much more
places that our upper uppermiddle class to upper class
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where where they get it, theyjust go I'm going to start
giving or all these things likethat we have to we have to
educate, but also our ministrymatches what we're educating
they, the people are receiving,and every dollar that we asked
to give, we show them where itgoes. So if we're raising money
for for, you know, to improvethe Youth Center, that thing's
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gotta be done in the next 90days to six months. Because a
lot of people in the minoritycommunities have gone to
churches that have raised money,and then let it go pastor has
gotten a bigger car, or it'sgone towards something. And so
we go, Hey, you could you couldyou could bet us to it, you give
this money towards this project,we have it already set up in the
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next 90 days to six months, it'sgoing to be done. Where this
isn't going to prolong overthree to five years. And then
they trust you with that, youknow, so we've seen it happen at
our campus being 90% minoritychurch in Rancho and then our
other campus in Pomona, which isactually an impoverished city.
Both have been financially inthe positive for years now. In
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that sense?
That's brilliant. I just lovehow you took what many see as an
obstacle as an opportunity forgreater intentionality. Right?
And you saw this opportunity ofcool, this is a situation, how
do we actually up our game? Howdo we up our resources? How do
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we up our education? How do weup our Bible literacy of what it
means to be financiallyresponsible? And what the Bible
informs us of how we can be asGod's children? Financially
flourishing? Right? Yeah. Andand I love what you said, that
model works. It works. Becausethere's a couple things that
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needed to happen. Number one,you needed a sending house that
did a seed investment. Right? Sothat was critical to get it
started to give it enoughrunway, so that you could
mobilize the masses, right? Andso you don't need you know, a
few multimillion dollars evenstanding it up to be
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sustainable. No, you just givethe church 1218 months worth of
runway to do the education to dothe hard work to do the
financial freedom courses sothat it can become viable, just
through its own community that'scontextual to that urban city. I
love that man. I love it.
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Yeah. Because don't get mewrong. I mean, my my natural
flesh. I mean, I want to go toIrvine, I want to go into San
Diego, you know, like, but Butfor us, we're like that, that
that's that's not our call and Iremember that historic Rick
saying that, you know, theyasked Rick Warren Hey, why did
you plan to you know, plantSaddleback in Lake Forest in, in
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Irvine. And they thought it wasgonna be this, you know, cloud
of smoke came down, the Lordtold me, he said, I got a
magazine article that Irvinewill be the next populated
financial city, you know, in allof America, and all families
will be moving there by 2000, orwhatever. And so he's like, Oh,
go there, you know, where itseems like everyone's going,
(20:29):
where the economy is going.
Right. And I there's no shame inthat those those individuals
needs pastoring just like anyoneelse. And Rick Warren has built
a legacy that is planted morechurch, I think, than anyone in
history from what I understand.
So you know, like, and to me,he's, he had to go to Urbani, to
be able to plant as manychurches that he did and send
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off because Irvine, like yousaid, acted as that hub, you
know, and that's always whatwe're trying to get our Rancho
campus to understand is thiscampus is a hub to future
campuses. And the only way thosewill thrive is if we succeed
here. And if we continuallyinvest in the kingdom, by
planning other churches, we wehave to have that model is only
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successful as far as people arewilling to buy in to that vision
and believe that we are solvinga problem, which is a kingdom
problem for us. You know,I love that Adam, you know, I
wanted to hit on this becauseCarrie Neuhoff, recently on his
show, discussed this statisticthat most church plants when
they go live, per se, it's 98%of people that are already
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churchgoers, and only 2% ofpeople are actually brought in
the doors. Now I am assumingthat what you're seeing in a non
quote, sexy city, thesestatistics look a lot different.
What does that look like forsomeone in Pomona? For instance?
What what are you seeing withpeople that have gone to church
before just bounced two yearsversus never entering the
(22:01):
building at all?
Yeah, I mean, you know, I thinkpart of it is, so we're
definitely and again, I wouldn'tknow the exact statistic but but
for at least for our promotercampus, but but from what I
know, going over there andseeing and hearing the salvation
stories, is there are there areand have been some people that
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have have come from from otherchurches, especially early on,
we've been we've been doing thisnow for about four and a half
years. COVID, kind of, becausewe were meeting in a junior
high. So then when COVID hit, wehad like a year and a half, two
years of like no church at thatcampus. And we relaunched 2021
of Easter. So we've been openagain now for two years. So that
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being said, majority of thepeople because of what we have
to do to evangelize and breachthat community, and yes, there
are a lot of churches in thecity of Pomona. And if they are
they're extremely segregated. Somost churches, you'll get in
that in that city are eithergoing to be all black churches,
or all white churches. And sofor us, it's and you go to our
(23:08):
campus, it's completely diverseAsians, Polynesians, Hispanics,
African Americans. And so forus, what that comes down to is a
place where we are reaching thecommunity. So every Saturday,
we're having that generositycenter open, you could come and
meet with your campus pastor forcounseling any time. And so we
do two sessions of free biblicalcounseling you and you kind of
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get on a schedule, we doforward. So friends are inviting
their friends in the community,to the to these programs that we
have. And through being thehands and feet of Jesus, they're
being exposed to our church. Andthen they're being exposed to
our neighborhood model, whichour neighborhood model is we
have a saying in our campuses,that says we do life in circles,
not in rows. So every everyweek, when we're on stage, we
(23:54):
say Hey guys, today you're in arow, but this week, you should
be in a circle. And so thatcontinues to emphasize that idea
of I'm inviting new friends. Andwe do we do salvation calls
every single Sunday. So that'sgetting people really in the
community to come in. So by nomeans ours definitely wouldn't
be the one Carrie had, you know,had done but but but I'd be
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happy to go and check the actualstatistic as far as I can tell.
You know, if they were achurchgoer, they were a
churchgoer. 15 years ago, youknow, it's it was their day they
didn't come like exactly churchhop from from that church to
this. And for us, we actually dovideo sermon. So right away if
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you came from a church likeyesterday, who had live
preaching, it is a bit of aculture shock because we
actually I'm the main teachingpastor, so I film every Saturday
for our campuses. So immediatelyat church, just another person
that's leaving another churchjust looking for the next cool
thing. We're actually not thenext cool thing, because there
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is a bit Have a, there's a bitof a change and shift in your
model of how you're receivingchurch. So you actually have to
find value in how we're doingchurch and discipleship, and how
we're doing community in orderto go past the hurdle of the
teaching pastor. But we have amodel that says if you receive
the teaching pastor, that meansyou get your campus pastor full
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time. So that's kind of why wehave chosen to go towards that
model, because we understand inthe minority community, how much
work that past campus pastor hasto do, to minister to that
community. Now, if we were in acommunity where we didn't have
to do all the programs, we did,then like preaching could work.
But for us, if I expect mycampus pastor to spend 25 hours
(25:41):
preparing a sermon, and thenspend 60 hours doing counseling,
and generosity center, andeverything else that we have
doing, not only what I ended,ruin his marriage, I would make
his kids hate him at the sametime. And so I refuse to do that
stuff, you know, yeah, put thatpressure on it. I
love the intentionality of evenhow you craft in I'm gonna use
business terms, because part ofour podcast is bridging business
(26:04):
technology innovation with withthe church. How you define your
product, so to speak, right. Andso there is a an elevation of
being the hands and feet ofJesus, that's part of what
you're going to find when you goto your church, right. And so
even the way that you craft theroles and responsibilities for a
(26:26):
campus pastor, and lessening theload on even preparing 25 hours
for teaching frees them up toactually deliver on the product
that you want to deliver.
There's this great book calledCrossing the Chasm. And I find
it so interesting, it talksabout early adopters, and that
transition of early adopters toearly majority. And I think
(26:48):
there is sometimes this stigmawith church planners of like,
oh, you know what, like, we haveto go into the halls of
Stanford, we have to go to allthe atheists, and we have to go
into the streets of SanFrancisco, and we have to
convert everybody to start thechurch. And the reality is like,
we're trying to go for the highfruit to start. Yeah, there's so
(27:09):
much low hanging fruit. And so Iactually think that a lot of
times, what you'll find is thatthe early adopters are going to
be displaced Christians thatdon't already have a home.
Right. And then once you get theearly adopters to create that
stability in that foundation,then you can progress to the
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early majority, and then the therest, right. And so yeah, I
think that's just generallyprobably permission for anybody
that's listening to this. That'searly on in the church planning
phase, that hey, that's not awrong strategy. Actually, a lot
of times, that's how you startgetting inertia and momentum.
One thing that Yeah,I mean, yeah, if you release a
(27:54):
new product, the first thing youwant to do is you want people
who are not plugged in withthat, who are loose on another
product. You know, like youtalked about like that, that
private airplane company JSX.
Like, yes, like they're tryingto solve a problem for people
who are sick of TSA security.
So, so like they they're allright, they didn't create
(28:14):
something new out of thin air,like they're just trying to,
like, slightly solve a problem.
And so for me, I just wantpeople to be plugged into their
church. So sometimes I'll meetpeople in the street, who used
to go to my church. And I'mlike, Hey, I've seen you a long
time. And they're like, Oh, Istarted going to the church down
the street. And I'll be like,Oh, tell me why. And they're
like, oh, because because thisis really what I needed in this
(28:37):
season. Now, no one really wantsto hear that. But the, the
biggest part of me says, but ifit makes you more plugged in
than you were in my church, ifit makes you more committed to
your relationship with God, thenI'm going to be okay with that.
But if you're straggler justlike you were at my church, then
that's probably a problem. Butif this makes you more committed
than that, I want that tohappen. So our church is a very
(29:00):
large church. If someone goes toa church, planters church, and
they say, I like it, becauseit's really, really small, and
everybody knows each other.
There's nothing I can do to fixthat, you know, like, and so
what I'm gonna say is, man, I'mso I'm happy for you. And I'm
happy for that. Pastor. I'm notall of a sudden looking at that
pastors Instagram sideways oranything like that, you know,
I'm just like, Man, I'm happyfor you. That's great. I'm glad
(29:21):
you found a place that you feelconnected to.
I love that. I love that. Wewanted to also ask you, Adam
Zhou and I were really impactedwhen you spoke at our company
Summit. Really about yourmindset in investing? Not even
just from the church standpoint,but you personally, you were
(29:43):
really early on one of the firstchecks into a technology company
called pray.com, which now has10s of millions of users, really
around the world. And you got inwhen there were like a couple of
users. I think you were like thefirst user. Oh, I
really was I was maybe like,besides the staff, the first
human user.
(30:04):
So I think this is just gonna,this is gonna break people's
mental models on so manydifferent wavelengths right here
of like, talk to us about yourmentality around investing, but
not just investing, super earlystage investing, while also
being a pastor, and a shepherd,and a church leader, because not
(30:28):
only, you know, were youinvolved in investing, but also
the church rallied behind it aswell, like, talk to us about
this, because this is gonna blowpeople's mind. I feel like
Yeah, I mean, I think part ofthat comes from, you know, my
dad grew up in East LA. And sohe was he was a Mexican from
Montebello, and my grandpa was aplumber, My great grandpa was a
(30:49):
mechanic. And so, you know,when, when you're never taught
about financial responsibility,and it's never really been
exhibited to you in any way, Ithink, really, you know, part of
that credit had originally comedown to my dad who, as you're
pastoring, the minoritycommunity, and you're trying to
teach people around finance, andbut you're burying people, and
(31:12):
they can't even afford theirfuneral. Siblings are fighting
over the gold ring that dad had,because that was the most, you
know, financially, you know,worth thing that they he had
was, you know, a $4,000 goldring or a $6,000, bracelet type
of thing. And so, for us, wewhat I had seen, what was
(31:34):
popular in more of the whiteEvangelical Church was this idea
of leaving a legacy andfinancially paying things off
and for them, a lot of them hadit in stocks, bonds, Roth IRAs,
and stuff like that. Well, forus, we could do that. But then
we thought to ourselves, Well,if everyone else in tech right
(31:58):
now is investing in these kindof, of these companies that are
rising, Why could we not do thaton a kingdom sense as believers?
And why can Why could we not doactually receive more with our
little, because we're kind ofbehind the eight ball, we're
teaching financial literacy andall these things like that. And
(32:19):
so we actually have to be ableto do a lot with a little rather
than having a lot and doing alittle bit at a time. And so for
us, what we found was early oncompanies in their infancy that
we would evaluate were the bestrisk versus reward for us. And
when I talked about little inour little fence, it was
(32:41):
100,000 200,000, you know,250,000. And so we were saying,
how could we find companies thatare early onset, where
100,000 200,000 is a gamechanger for them. But that gives
us more skin in the game, sothat we can so that we can leave
a legacy and pay off our debt asmuch as possible, and passed
(33:01):
down to the generation ofchurches and leaders and
business entrepreneurs. And sowe have coined it, we call it
now Kingdom investing is makinginvestments that are rewarded in
the kingdom. Now, that doesn'thave to be necessarily a faith
based company, it just has to bein the way that that what's
(33:21):
going to continue to happen iswe're going to continue to
create a savings for our churchthat the next generation is
going to be able to pull fromparticularly for us for church
planning, that's our end goal isthat we're going to be able to
set up these funds that havereturning dividends that we can
actually pull from or pull loansagainst to plant future
(33:42):
churches, without putting weighton people to continually do
fundraisers and say, hey, couldwe raise half a million dollars?
Can we raise a million dollars?
Well, well, what would happen ifwe had a fund that had $10
million in it, that every singleyear, we can pull a few $100,000
or pull loans against that willallow us to do that new campus
or renovate that new spacewithout the risk of well, what
(34:05):
happens if the economy turns inthis way, in that sense, because
we have value already set up inthose accounts from the
investments we were we made? Sosome of them are faith based
companies. Some of them are nonfaith based companies, some of
them are put into funds. And sowhat that does is is number one,
look for me, how do I legallyleave a legacy for for my
(34:25):
children and my children'schildren? And then also how do I
ensure for our church that we'rehere because I think what a lot
of people don't realize is formost minority churches, they
will close down after onegeneration. Well, after after
that Hispanic pastor, that blackpastor becomes 7080 years old
and he retires. They did not setup their church for for success.
(34:50):
More so it's more so in minoritychurches than it is in a white
evangelical church that existsto but it's rare. really heavy
in the minority church. So forus, we just didn't want to be
another statistic. And my dadwould always talk about that.
It's like, we're not going to beanother statistic, we're not
going to be that next statisticthat closes our doors, we're not
going to be that next statisticsof African Americans, Hispanics,
(35:12):
who didn't know how to run theirfinances, who couldn't keep
something for more than onegeneration, we're not going to
be those people. And so withhim, it started from him leading
with the vision. And then Ithink with now his son being me,
he led with the vision. And thenI came in with more of that
solution, being his son thatalso had a background in
(35:32):
marketing and in tech already.
And so what had happened wasbefore I met the guys that
pray.com, two weeks prior, I hada meeting at Facebook, where I
basically pitch to them pray.comas a feature in Facebook, and I
didn't even know the pray guysat that time. I said, Hey, what
would happen if you guys startto allow us to stream church
(35:54):
services on Facebook, theyweren't doing streaming at the
time, I said, What would happenif you created these kinds of
rooms, where churches could goand gather and it could be like
a digital small group, Facebookpages as like the little page
where you can communicate, thatdidn't exist at that time, they
created that as a result ofpre.com becoming successful. And
(36:17):
so when I so I was already inthe sense of like, my head was
set towards finding solutionsthat I met the prey guys, they
had a better model than I had inmy head. And I said, Hey, can we
can we invest in this? I believethis is gonna go somewhere,
because I truly believe that itwas a solution that was needed,
as in the even the first daythat I met you, Vance. And I
(36:39):
believed that giving stock andcrypto was the future. And I
remember a pivotal conversationI had with with an African
American pastor who said, Hey, Isigned up for overflow. And in
six months, no, no, no, what noone has given stock. And I said,
here's what you have torecognize, is in our minority
communities. The average person,you know, I think it's 60. Or
(37:03):
you may know, it's been themean, 60 to 65% of all stock in
America is owned by whiteCaucasians. So only only 30 to
40% of stock is shared amongstall other cultures. But we know
majority of wealth is held instock. So you know, what I was
telling that pastor was, if webelieve that financial
(37:26):
stability, for the nextgeneration comes in the form of
stocks, and crypto and otherthings like that, well, then you
have to be innovative enough toalso view overflow as you being
a person building a foundationin your church to teach your
young people, oh, you've neverheard of stock you never knew
that you could give it you know,you don't even know what it is,
(37:47):
let us help you teach what itis. Because most of the white
people in America hold it. Andthey're totally aware of it. And
they're passing all these thingsdown to their next generation.
Why are we not doing the same?
And then as churches? Why are wenot enabling these features, so
that in a generation or two,we've already had these
features, we understand it sothat we can prepare them for
(38:10):
success. So part part of leadinga minority community is also
taking those steps of faith ineducation, you know,
that is so mind blowing, like I,you just blew so many people's
preconception out of the waterwith that, and what I am really
(38:31):
loving and being encouraged byhearing you say, Adam, is how
seriously you take investing anddiscipleship, and not just
financial investing, like youare investing literal resources
into these communities. So thatit's a, so that success looks
different. It's not just Yeah, Iaccepted Christ. It's no, my
entire life. And familygenerational lineage is now
(38:54):
different, because of the actualtools I've learned, as well as
the spiritual tools that I haveas well. And and, you know,
there's a statistic, thatfidelity, charitable revealed
last year, and it's that 67% ofmillennials, consider themselves
philanthropists, I would love tohear because you seem like this
(39:15):
exact type of person, thearchetype of this person, right
here, but what are you seeing inyour church communities about
that statistic? Well,I think what you're like what
you're saying is, I think Ithink millennials, from what I'm
seeing is millennials and Gen Z.
They understand philanthropy ina greater sense, but But here's
(39:36):
what has to happen is is whatI've seen from the boomers in
the silent generation, even someof the Gen Xers is the way
they've understood the model ofmaybe philanthropy or church is
they would just in a sense,blindly gift so okay, this is my
church. So therefore, I get it10% of my income or whatever you
(39:58):
want to say right? This is WhatI give or Okay, the girls and
boys club, yeah, I'll give$1,000 I'll give whatever,
millennials and Gen Z areactually moreso doing their
homework as to where thesethings go, and what's being done
with it. And so you actuallyhave to bring a lot more
clarity. And that's what we'vedone in our church is we are
(40:20):
seeing the generosity ofmillennials increase. But we
actually what I call, you haveto peel back the curtain. Yeah,
you can't, you can't have astage where you just give like a
really good speech, or you just,you know, give this like, to me
these innuendos of like, we'regoing to change the world,
right? That's what you wouldhear. It's like, what changed
the world? And they're like,yeah, yeah, $10,000, you know,
(40:44):
like, look at this, you know,look at this person, you know,
this step, right. So for us,like, we just, we just actually
did a fundraiser at our churchwith our vision Sunday, and we
actually flew our missionaryfrom Brazil, had her show
pictures, had her architect,draw, draw, do images of what
our renovation is going to looklike, because and then we taught
(41:06):
and then we gave our church atimeline, in 90 days to six
months, you will get a progressreport from her with a video of
these renovations beingcomplete, boom that people
started giving towards that.
Because with millennials, you,you have to, you have to show
them and be much more clear.
This is what it's going to thisis. So yeah, they're totally
(41:27):
open to philanthropy, but notphilanthropy of the previous
generation that just puts youknow that you just have a Santa
outside of a target ringing abell saying, Hey, give something
to Salvation Army. They'rejaded. Off of that. They're
saying, Where did this dollargo? And whose life is it
changing? And I want to knowthat it's going to do that. Is
(41:48):
that right? Wrong? orindifferent? Oh, no, it's just a
new generation. So I can eitherI can either keep doing the same
model of what what is done inthe past, or I can do that
little bit of extra work to say,No, we're gonna, we're gonna
peel back this curtain. Andwe're gonna make it abundantly
clear to them about where thesegiving increments are going, how
it's changing lives, how it'simpacting people. So I think any
(42:10):
philanthropist or anyone willingto give him philanthropy is
looking for those type ofthings. Ladies
and gentlemen, my friend, PastorAdam, Mesa is just dropping
wisdom bombs. On the given apodcast, so much insight, you
know, maybe we title itsomething like this. So pastors
solving problems, because thisis a theme that I hear from my
(42:33):
friend, Adam here. And that'swhat it is, like, you know, I
sit in the seat of executivepastor. And in the last decade,
that we've been doing thisimplanting, and building and
growing the church, I'verealized that theologically,
there's like three to four hotquestions, you know, where more
of the questions come from ispracticality. Like, I got this
(42:56):
financial crisis, you know,these kids are driving me nuts,
my marriage, you know, all thesedays, it's, you know, the modern
day pastor has to understand howto pastor people practically,
and how to point people to beable to solve real problems in
their day to day, that's why Ilove preaching, that doesn't
(43:19):
just preach to your Sunday, butcan that that can change your
Monday, right? That's what wesay at our church at vibe
church. And you know, everythingthat you're saying, even, you
know, breaking down your guys'smentality around investing, I
found it so practical, right,you and your legendary dad,
Pastor Diego, your whole familyhad this understanding that,
(43:40):
hey, as minority based church,we don't start with maybe as
much as others, we're not goingto use it as a crutch, though,
we're going to change the game,we are going to look from a
different perspective, we mighthave to increase risk a bit
more, but we're going to totallyincrease potential reward. But
(44:00):
to de risk that model. You'renot just spraying and praying
and throwing investment dollarsinto whatever, you're actually
aligning it to problems youactually see in the market. And
so it's not that you thoughtthat oh, cool, these pray.com
guys are awesome. I'm gonna getto invest. It was like, no, no,
I've been thinking about thisproblem. I pitched this to
(44:21):
Facebook. This is needed in theworld. This is needed for the
local church, we will becustomers ourselves. And from
that place, you made a strategicinvestment. You made a smart
investment. This was aninvestment based on wisdom, and
not every investment is going towork out. But if you're doing it
from a place of solving aproblem, if you're doing it from
(44:43):
a place of personal experience,Warren Buffett says don't invest
outside of your core competency.
And every one is going to workout but if you continue to do
that it compounds over time intodisproportionate returns for
yourself and for yourorganization. question and I
just love that it all is withthe mission of building the
kingdom. I love how you positionwhat do you say Kingdom
(45:06):
investing? Kingdominvesting. Yeah, yeah. Kingdom
investments that I mean, that'sjust what we talk about in our,
you know, in our meetings inwater cooler talk, but that to
us that that's what it is. It'sit's Kingdom investment. So we
look at things that wouldinvestment that may not be faith
based, but for us, the faithbased ones are, how will this
(45:28):
impact the kingdom? How will itgrow the kingdom? And how is
this person maybe not beingseen? By the by the secular
industry or the second secularworld, we saw that with film,
right? Like when war room cameout that movie of the
grandmother who prays after thatalmost every major studio in
(45:48):
Hollywood opened up a faithbased division. And so you know,
when you recognize that peopleof faith have a lot of potential
to impact the world, you know,Hollywood in the rest of the
world around it is only going tocome when they can make $1. And
and then that's always going tobe their intention is to make
the dollar, it's not impact.
(46:11):
That's not That's not theirgoal. And so for us, we said, we
did that recently, with acompany that we held, it was it
was Christian ownership. Andthey said, We have board members
that are not Christians, weactually want an investor who's
Christian, because we'reChristian, because we don't want
the investors to turn our corebelief system, just off of the
(46:33):
Prophet, if we have an investor,that's also Christian, you will
always be able to have a voiceto keep our mission and our
mandate on laying because youhave just as much skin in the
game. And so it was individualsthat are doing really well. But
we came alongside so that we canbe an active Christian voice.
And I think that that's what youneed more of is you need more
(46:55):
believers, who are comingalongside people of faith that
aren't just and I would alwaystell pastors this, like, if you
have someone in your church,starting a business, don't tell
them, you'll pray for them. Andthen wait until they become
millionaires to then starttalking to them about tithing,
right? Like, if you believe inthem, then start walking that
(47:16):
process with them right now. Andif there's something that you
can do not, not not, and it maynot be financial, but it may be
in relationships, it may just bein doing a weekly Bible study
for them while they're buildingthis company, and they're too
busy and stuff like that, likeyou start if you're a pastor
start sacrificing for theentrepreneurs in your church
now, instead of just knocking ontheir door when you need a
(47:38):
donation, because they needtheir pastor and they need a
pastor. So they they're gonnaneed you. You may need them when
it's donation season or buildingcampaign season, but but they
need you all other days of theyear. And so go be there for
them in those times. And that'skind of what we've tried to do
with Kingdom investment is to bea friend and pastor to those
(48:01):
entrepreneurs who have a heartfor the kingdom, but are out
there, you know, really, reallybuilding something that they
feel led to build, whetherthey're, they're in real estate,
whether they're in tech, orwhatever it may be, we want to
come alongside of them.
Yeah, and I love what you'resaying, because you're taking
something that is typically, youknow, and can be in the church
based transactional torelational, right, you're
(48:24):
investing in that person andkingdom investing. I'll say
this, let me maybe reduce thegap. For some people mentally,
this has been happening in thelocal church for centuries, it's
just that the predominantinvestment that the church has
made is in real estate,physical, real estate. And
that's something that I knowabundant does in a prolific
(48:45):
basis as well. You guys haveranches, you guys have estates,
you guys have a lot of business,real estate business complex.
Yeah, business complexes andthings like that. So that is one
part of your portfolio. But whatI want to encourage people in is
in the time and place that welive in today in our society,
it's not just about physicalreal estate, how are you
(49:07):
deploying resources into digitalreal estate? And it doesn't just
mean starting an Instagramprofile. Okay. Yeah, do that.
Get some distribution. But howare you investing into
innovation? How are youinvesting in the digital
landscape? How are you this isthe new real estate. And so it's
not either or? It's both and mygoodness, Zo. This was one of
(49:31):
the best combos we've had yet. Ilove it.
Yeah, I'm feeling so encouragedout. Um, so thank you for
sharing all this with us. And,you know, here's what I want to
challenge if you're a faithleader, and you've listened to
this, and you're feeling thatconviction of like, oh, I don't
need to just continue on withthe flywheel just because we
know that it works. What if wejust made our prayer? God please
(49:54):
open my eyes to find the uniqueproblems in my community. Give
me the divine insight. To createthe solutions for it as well,
because that's how we impact theworld by first impacting our zip
codes. Thank you so much. Giveit up for out of Mesa.
Appreciate it. Thank you guys somuch. Thank you. Love you guys.
(50:19):
Thanks so much for listening tothe give it up podcast if you
want to receive even moreinsights on church innovation,
culture and giving now you cansign up for free to be an
overflow insider where you'llreceive exclusive content
discounts direct access to VanceRoush to get your questions
answered, and also invite onlyaccess to our monthly
(50:40):
fundraising leadership forums,head to overflow.co backslash
insider, or just click the linkin our bio to sign up for free
today. In order to get thispodcast in the ears of even more
church leaders. Could you pleasesubscribe and leave a review for
the show? This tells the podcastplayers what people are enjoying
and want to hear more of and weare adamant about providing
(51:02):
maximum value to even morechurch leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
We call it now Kingdom investing is making investments
(00:03):
that are rewarded in thekingdom. We are saying how can
we find companies that are earlyonset where 100,000 200,000 is a
game changer for them, but thatgives us more skin in the game
so that we can leave a legacyand pay off our debt as much as
possible and passed down to thegeneration of churches and
(00:23):
leaders and businessentrepreneurs. A pastor turn
tech leader and a millennialchurchgoer, exploring the
intersection of technology,culture and faith, equipping you
with innovative strategies tosupport you as you live out your
calling leader churches withconfidence to step into the
future together. This is thegive it up podcast. Welcome back
(00:44):
to another give it up podcastepisode. And we're coming at you
from virtual room number. Howmany is this? I don't know
advance because we're just soexcited bringing all of our
friends onto the show. Becausewhat I love answer is how many
friends we have that haveunique, innovative perspectives
on so many different thingswithin the faith space. And our
(01:06):
friend Adam Mesa certainly hasfaced for us today. So
good. I'm so excited. Adam,thank you so much for joining
us. If people don't know, Adamis a pastor at an incredible
church in Rancho Cucamonga. Iactually have my Rancho shirt
on. I think this is myCalifornia, the lead pastor
(01:33):
taken from his dad, who y'allplanted this church with 30
years ago, just about29 years this year. So next year
will be 30 years. Yeah,29 years, had 1000s and 1000s of
people this past Easter, andeven just on a regular basis,
for decades have been making anincredible community impact. And
now starting to become anational impact always been
(01:56):
nationally recognized. But justthe models that you guys are
setting up with neighborhoodchurch and things like that,
that I'm following that I'mlearning from, and things like
that. Also, if you don't know,Adam is a prolific investor, not
just on the basic apps likeRobin Hood and stuff like that
this man is investing intotechnology at the earliest
(02:20):
stages. And that's one of thereasons why we met we met at a
random conference at a randomranch Bob Gough may or may have
not been involved. Nice shoesmay or may not have been
involved a Lakers Jersey Anna,and a Lakers cat may or may not
have been involved. But weconnected ever since then, maybe
a couple years ago. Now, AdamYeah, two
(02:43):
years now at this point. AndI'll
self proclaim it besties eversince so yeah, I so good. to
have you on the pod. You want tosay a quick Hi, and then we'll
get into some of the topics.
Yeah.
Hey, thank you so much. I'm I'mbig fan of overflow user of
overflow listener of thepodcast. And so I appreciate
that so much. I believe he's atrailblazer. The moment I met
(03:05):
him, I was like, This guy is myguide. I'm actually a really
quiet guy. No, really. So wejust kind of when we met at this
gathering, we'd be lying to eachother. And I was like, Man is
this this guy really is going tochange the world. You hear
people say it and you go okay,okay, you know, you got it. Did
you mean bad to you? Yeah, no,he's really going to impact the
(03:25):
world. And so and the wholeoverflow team, I mean, it just
absolutely most impressivepeople I've ever met. So I'm
excited excited to pastor I'mexcited that you know, I'm in
business and everything likethat, but I love the people I
get to work with more thananything. I think that's the
biggest blessing period, bothboth in the secular industry,
(03:45):
business industry, but also inthe church. So I love it. So
good. Well, we're gonna get intotech, we're gonna get into
investing. But before that, Iwant you to give just our
listeners just an insight intoeverything that God is doing
through your church throughabundant everything that's
happening in Rancho and beyondmaybe give a quick synopsis
because you all have had such anincredible impact in the
(04:09):
community. Yeah,I mean, some some of the things
that so like Matt said, We'regoing up 30 years next year as a
church, we just shared with our,with our church that at the end
of this year 2023, my dad willofficially step into a new role
and a new season. So you know,I've been doing this transition
for six years. And it's been agreat transition. And, you know,
(04:31):
he was he's transitioning one ofthe largest churches in America,
just like many of the otherchurches that we're seeing today
that are transitioning to, youknow, mostly millennials. Now,
nowadays, and so, we've beendoing this for six years. It was
supposed to be a 10 year plan.
We decided to do seven COVID waskind of for us a healthy force
(04:53):
multiplier. I know for others,it wasn't, but for us it was a
healthy force multiplier for formy leadership. For me in our
church, and so it also gave us achance to launch a lot of vision
that we had kind of laid dormantthat we were hoping to release.
And so some of those things werelike a network of churches,
which is more like a family thatdoes like discipleship and
(05:16):
community with other pastors.
And so we're gonna probablywatch this at the end of the
year, called abundant network,but we call it the actual like,
namesake of it is neighborhoodchurch. And so we believe
churches that impact theneighborhood, I would always
grow up with people saying thatwe're going to change the world,
but they can't even change theirblock. And so we didn't really
want to name a church after theworld, we wanted to change the
(05:37):
name, name of church movementafter the neighborhood. And so
we believe in in zip codes, youknow, and so it's like, impact
your zip code, and then let Goddo the rest from that point. And
so we believe that kind of aneighborhood church movement can
happen within our sphere, thatreaches, blocks, reaches
streets, reaches neighborhoods,and then the impact can be
(05:58):
global. Should we all jointogether, you know, to do this
together, it's not on anyindividual. And so we really
want to mobilize, I want tomobilize the next generation to
be church planters. We have morechurches closing than ever, we
have more vacant churcheswithout pastors than ever. And
so that's kind of I guess, youtalk about entrepreneur
endeavor, kind of change,looking in my eyes more in the
(06:19):
church sphere, because I spentthe last decade in the business
world and marketing andinvestment, all that stuff. And
we're gonna continue to do thatstuff. But I really got my eyes
set on, I want communities tohave churches that labor with
their community. And so we alsohave a generosity center. So
each of our campuses, one of ourmain points is we believe every
church that becomes aneighborhood church should have
(06:41):
some type of center where theymeet the physical needs of the
community, hands and feet ofJesus. And so our general, we
have two campuses right now ofour own. And both have what
we've called, we named themgenerosity centers. And so last
year, we gave out 1.5 millionpounds of food to 291,000 people
last year alone. So that's ourheart. That's what we what we
(07:06):
hope to continue to do. We hopeto teach other churches how to
do that. And so we have greatrelationships with Costco, Sam's
Club, stater brothers,Albertsons, you name it, a lot
of them are our main financialdonors, the financial equivalent
of how much stuff we get donatedannually is two to $3 million
worth of food and produce. Soyou know, that's something we
(07:29):
continue to hope to broaden ourrelationships with, to allow
other churches to partner. So wesupport about 100 other churches
that come to our locations, pickup food, and pass it out to
their community, whether they'rein you know, within three hours
of us, we help support and getfood out. So yeah, those are
just some of the things that wedo in our local church setting,
(07:52):
the abundant networkneighborhood model. And when I
was following this on Instagram,even before you had posted about
a year, you told me about itwhen we were on a trip in Vegas
together at another churchconference, and from hearing
your vision about it to nowseeing it being implemented.
What's been interesting is tosee that you're implementing it
(08:14):
actually in urban environments.
Is that specific? Is thatstrategic? Is that is that going
to be the model? Because itseemed like it was like in an
urban environment more like aStarbucks would be on that
corner? But now you see a churchon that corner? Is that Is that
intentional? Yeah, definitely.
So, you know, for me, I'm alwayslooking on like, how do we solve
(08:36):
problems? I know, in thebusiness sphere, that's like the
first thing that they're alwaystalking about. But in the church
sphere, it's not that it's kindof like, it's like, again, you
know, the church is always kindof behind the eight ball and
stuff. And so, like, I've beenin many business settings, like,
hey, how do we solve a problemfor X, Y, and Z? And they go in
the church spirit, it's notreally like, how do we solve a
(08:57):
problem? It's just like, how dowe just keep doing what we've
done for the past 60 years, youknow, it just, it's not working,
you know, a lot of times, andyou got this new generation Gen
Z, and that was like totallydoing stuff totally different.
So, for us, one of the problemsI see is a lot of church church
planning is happening in what Icall sexy cities, which are
(09:19):
fine. Every city needs a church.
You know, sexy cities areHollywood, Miami, and those are
important, it should happen.
Churches, we just don't feel ledto go to those kinds of kinds of
spaces. And maybe it would havebeen one day, what we really
feel led to is going to placesthat have a majority of
(09:40):
minorities, people of color inthose communities, because those
tend to be where church planninggoes. The least or the last and
resources go the least and lastin that way. And so for us, we
have a desire to look atanalytics and go to places that
need help that need improvement.
that we want the mayor of thatcity to see us as a blessing
(10:02):
coming in that city, not themayor going like, Oh, here's
another one come in. Here'sanother church. You know, I'm
more like, you know, we need youguys in this city, we have a
crime issue, we have a povertyissue, you know, we have a
mental health issue. And webelieve that's kind of where our
church has been been graced byGod. And so there are other
(10:22):
churches that that are doinggreat works when they go to
Hollywood and, and all the inNew York and stuff like that.
And those are great places.
That's just not, that's not,that's not really our thing that
we feel led to. And so we wantto be able to equip the minority
church, Hispanics, AfricanAmericans, Asian Pacific
(10:47):
Polynesians, where there's a lotof those in a bunch of cities
that don't always get reached,you know, the best way because
they are culturally different.
And so not not saying I evenunderstand all those cultures,
but we want to make an effort toreach those cultures and reach
those people. And a lot oftimes, it comes by being a
resource to those individuals.
(11:09):
And so we really emphasizecounseling in our church, we
really emphasize something wecall forward, which helps people
even though you're saying youmay need to be deliberate of
certain addictions and habits, alot of stuff that comes with
more minority communities thatcome with like alcohol
addiction, drug addiction,domestic violence, our church
(11:29):
really tries to come in and likehow do we seek healing for that?
How do we pursue the Lord inthat? How do we, you know, how
do we allow God through variousclasses that we have counseling
sessions we do. So we want to beable to help other churches that
come, hey, I want to be aneighborhood church, I want to
do this and say, How can weequip you to do these things
like we have seen, and we seegreat health in our church for
(11:51):
right now.
So let's get real. Yep. One ofthe reasons why this model has
not been pursued historically atscale, is because, you know, the
surface level analysis is thatthe business model doesn't work.
Okay. All right. So let's, let'stake the business model, the
business model of a church,quote, unquote, largely is
(12:13):
driven by tithes and offerings.
So you plant a church inScottsdale, you plant a church
in New York, you plant a churchin, you know, some of these
areas, it makes a lot of sense,right. But yeah, demographic,
right, you know, you can evenjust plant a smaller church and
still be a really viablecommunity, going into more of an
urban setting, maybe a settingthat socio economically, is
(12:37):
middle lower. How do you makethat business model? Let's get
to the brass tacks. How do youmake that work?
I think it's a few things that Ican tell you, you can look up
the, you know, statistics, wehave a campus in Pomona, the
city of Pomona you can you canpull up the crime rate at Pomona
easily you could pull up thefinancial it's every it's it's
(13:01):
not a safe city, whole avenue isone of the highest forms of
prostitution in all of SouthernCalifornia, you got a whole
street on a Friday night,there's literally hundreds of
prostitutes. At our church atPomona, we bought a building a
Salvation Army that was about 80years old. So all that to say,
first of all, it takes aninvestment. So you need a church
(13:22):
kind of our size, who who'sgoing to actually be able to
found a couple years, that'sgoing to be able to for a couple
years, absolve part of thatnegative, that's going to happen
for that church. So for us, ithas taken extraordinarily a
short time, thank God, but it'staken us three years to actually
(13:43):
not recoup all the money we putin but for it to be financially
completely sustained. And so thecampus we have in Pomona, there
is even though we're paying amortgage and other things like
that, that campus completelytakes care of all of its bills,
three full time employees, allsalaries, everything like that.
And so it's it's it's not aworry of ours, our church from
(14:07):
our Rancho campus, which is aminority churches well gave, we
raised money on the front end,we sowed the seeds into it, and
then from there, we launched itwith about a half a million
dollars. And then now itcompletely takes care of itself
three years later. And here'show we do it with those type of
communities. Number one ispeople who have retained a large
(14:28):
amount of debt, do not give,they don't tie, they definitely
don't tie more than anythingthey may tip you during a
season. And then outside of thatit's not going to be regular
giving. So some of the firstthings you're going to have to
do is you're going to have toenable courses and classes that
teach people how to bettermanage their finances. So things
(14:49):
like Financial Peace University,and those sorts. The next one I
think they do is called legacyor something like that. And so
you want to be able toimmediately start talking about
a Financial Responsibility. Wetalk about giving every single
week. Some churches,particularly I know those
churches in the south, theydon't talk about money at all,
(15:09):
it's just we know that you'regonna give there's a pocket at
the back, or people just theydon't talk about it, they don't
teach about it. Every week, wehave caveat, five minutes in our
service, where we talk aboutfinances. Now we got we don't
talk about guilt give oranything like that. And we don't
talk about false promises. Wedon't say that, you know, if you
give God's gonna give you it 100fold. And if you give $100 by
(15:32):
next month, God, I'll give you$1,000 By no means do we do any
of that stuff. We just talkedabout biblical financial
responsibilities, we talkedabout how we have to be stewards
of our money, and how yourdollar is a seed where you
planted, it will grow. If Iplant my money every week into
the liquor store, then what willgrow of it, alcohol addiction
(15:54):
and everything else that followsit. If I plant my dollar in the
church, then I will see you'llsee fruit of it, you will you'll
see it in our programs. And sothose that's just number one,
we're talking about money, we'rejust we're being unabashed about
it, we're talking about theimportance of giving. And we're
seeing people delivered thatmoney and that love of money, we
(16:14):
call it you know, in our churchthing, we call it that love of
Mammon, right. And so we talkedabout how we got, we got to
release that in generosity. Theother thing we talked about is
we use language that's relevantto today. So we talked about
subscription at your church,like if you have a Netflix
subscription, gym membership,and all these other things like
that. How much do you givemonthly to your church per the
(16:36):
value that your church is givingyou? Now for us, we do a lot of
programs for our members. Sothey equate that really easily.
We do forward we talk aboutdeliverance, we do counseling in
our church, we do familyprograms, we do a financial, you
know, we do a food distributioncenter. So our people in that
community, they see that reallyfast. And we don't have to have
anyone that gives a lot, we justneed enough of us doing our
(16:59):
part. That's what we tell thechurch all the time. Like we're
not looking for anyone rich tocome in here and give what we
are is looking for everybody whoconsiders this home to do their
part. That's what so it's theconversations we're having in
that face that you have to dodifferent than when you're in
like you said, ScottsdalePhoenix, you know, much more
places that our upper uppermiddle class to upper class
(17:21):
where where they get it, theyjust go I'm going to start
giving or all these things likethat we have to we have to
educate, but also our ministrymatches what we're educating
they, the people are receiving,and every dollar that we asked
to give, we show them where itgoes. So if we're raising money
for for, you know, to improvethe Youth Center, that thing's
(17:41):
gotta be done in the next 90days to six months. Because a
lot of people in the minoritycommunities have gone to
churches that have raised money,and then let it go pastor has
gotten a bigger car, or it'sgone towards something. And so
we go, Hey, you could you couldyou could bet us to it, you give
this money towards this project,we have it already set up in the
(18:02):
next 90 days to six months, it'sgoing to be done. Where this
isn't going to prolong overthree to five years. And then
they trust you with that, youknow, so we've seen it happen at
our campus being 90% minoritychurch in Rancho and then our
other campus in Pomona, which isactually an impoverished city.
Both have been financially inthe positive for years now. In
(18:25):
that sense?
That's brilliant. I just lovehow you took what many see as an
obstacle as an opportunity forgreater intentionality. Right?
And you saw this opportunity ofcool, this is a situation, how
do we actually up our game? Howdo we up our resources? How do
(18:45):
we up our education? How do weup our Bible literacy of what it
means to be financiallyresponsible? And what the Bible
informs us of how we can be asGod's children? Financially
flourishing? Right? Yeah. Andand I love what you said, that
model works. It works. Becausethere's a couple things that
(19:06):
needed to happen. Number one,you needed a sending house that
did a seed investment. Right? Sothat was critical to get it
started to give it enoughrunway, so that you could
mobilize the masses, right? Andso you don't need you know, a
few multimillion dollars evenstanding it up to be
(19:27):
sustainable. No, you just givethe church 1218 months worth of
runway to do the education to dothe hard work to do the
financial freedom courses sothat it can become viable, just
through its own community that'scontextual to that urban city. I
love that man. I love it.
(19:47):
Yeah. Because don't get mewrong. I mean, my my natural
flesh. I mean, I want to go toIrvine, I want to go into San
Diego, you know, like, but Butfor us, we're like that, that
that's that's not our call and Iremember that historic Rick
saying that, you know, theyasked Rick Warren Hey, why did
you plan to you know, plantSaddleback in Lake Forest in, in
(20:08):
Irvine. And they thought it wasgonna be this, you know, cloud
of smoke came down, the Lordtold me, he said, I got a
magazine article that Irvinewill be the next populated
financial city, you know, in allof America, and all families
will be moving there by 2000, orwhatever. And so he's like, Oh,
go there, you know, where itseems like everyone's going,
(20:29):
where the economy is going.
Right. And I there's no shame inthat those those individuals
needs pastoring just like anyoneelse. And Rick Warren has built
a legacy that is planted morechurch, I think, than anyone in
history from what I understand.
So you know, like, and to me,he's, he had to go to Urbani, to
be able to plant as manychurches that he did and send
(20:51):
off because Irvine, like yousaid, acted as that hub, you
know, and that's always whatwe're trying to get our Rancho
campus to understand is thiscampus is a hub to future
campuses. And the only way thosewill thrive is if we succeed
here. And if we continuallyinvest in the kingdom, by
planning other churches, we wehave to have that model is only
(21:14):
successful as far as people arewilling to buy in to that vision
and believe that we are solvinga problem, which is a kingdom
problem for us. You know,I love that Adam, you know, I
wanted to hit on this becauseCarrie Neuhoff, recently on his
show, discussed this statisticthat most church plants when
they go live, per se, it's 98%of people that are already
(21:40):
churchgoers, and only 2% ofpeople are actually brought in
the doors. Now I am assumingthat what you're seeing in a non
quote, sexy city, thesestatistics look a lot different.
What does that look like forsomeone in Pomona? For instance?
What what are you seeing withpeople that have gone to church
before just bounced two yearsversus never entering the
(22:01):
building at all?
Yeah, I mean, you know, I thinkpart of it is, so we're
definitely and again, I wouldn'tknow the exact statistic but but
for at least for our promotercampus, but but from what I
know, going over there andseeing and hearing the salvation
stories, is there are there areand have been some people that
(22:22):
have have come from from otherchurches, especially early on,
we've been we've been doing thisnow for about four and a half
years. COVID, kind of, becausewe were meeting in a junior
high. So then when COVID hit, wehad like a year and a half, two
years of like no church at thatcampus. And we relaunched 2021
of Easter. So we've been openagain now for two years. So that
(22:45):
being said, majority of thepeople because of what we have
to do to evangelize and breachthat community, and yes, there
are a lot of churches in thecity of Pomona. And if they are
they're extremely segregated. Somost churches, you'll get in
that in that city are eithergoing to be all black churches,
or all white churches. And sofor us, it's and you go to our
(23:08):
campus, it's completely diverseAsians, Polynesians, Hispanics,
African Americans. And so forus, what that comes down to is a
place where we are reaching thecommunity. So every Saturday,
we're having that generositycenter open, you could come and
meet with your campus pastor forcounseling any time. And so we
do two sessions of free biblicalcounseling you and you kind of
(23:30):
get on a schedule, we doforward. So friends are inviting
their friends in the community,to the to these programs that we
have. And through being thehands and feet of Jesus, they're
being exposed to our church. Andthen they're being exposed to
our neighborhood model, whichour neighborhood model is we
have a saying in our campuses,that says we do life in circles,
not in rows. So every everyweek, when we're on stage, we
(23:54):
say Hey guys, today you're in arow, but this week, you should
be in a circle. And so thatcontinues to emphasize that idea
of I'm inviting new friends. Andwe do we do salvation calls
every single Sunday. So that'sgetting people really in the
community to come in. So by nomeans ours definitely wouldn't
be the one Carrie had, you know,had done but but but I'd be
(24:18):
happy to go and check the actualstatistic as far as I can tell.
You know, if they were achurchgoer, they were a
churchgoer. 15 years ago, youknow, it's it was their day they
didn't come like exactly churchhop from from that church to
this. And for us, we actually dovideo sermon. So right away if
(24:38):
you came from a church likeyesterday, who had live
preaching, it is a bit of aculture shock because we
actually I'm the main teachingpastor, so I film every Saturday
for our campuses. So immediatelyat church, just another person
that's leaving another churchjust looking for the next cool
thing. We're actually not thenext cool thing, because there
(24:59):
is a bit Have a, there's a bitof a change and shift in your
model of how you're receivingchurch. So you actually have to
find value in how we're doingchurch and discipleship, and how
we're doing community in orderto go past the hurdle of the
teaching pastor. But we have amodel that says if you receive
the teaching pastor, that meansyou get your campus pastor full
(25:19):
time. So that's kind of why wehave chosen to go towards that
model, because we understand inthe minority community, how much
work that past campus pastor hasto do, to minister to that
community. Now, if we were in acommunity where we didn't have
to do all the programs, we did,then like preaching could work.
But for us, if I expect mycampus pastor to spend 25 hours
(25:41):
preparing a sermon, and thenspend 60 hours doing counseling,
and generosity center, andeverything else that we have
doing, not only what I ended,ruin his marriage, I would make
his kids hate him at the sametime. And so I refuse to do that
stuff, you know, yeah, put thatpressure on it. I
love the intentionality of evenhow you craft in I'm gonna use
business terms, because part ofour podcast is bridging business
(26:04):
technology innovation with withthe church. How you define your
product, so to speak, right. Andso there is a an elevation of
being the hands and feet ofJesus, that's part of what
you're going to find when you goto your church, right. And so
even the way that you craft theroles and responsibilities for a
(26:26):
campus pastor, and lessening theload on even preparing 25 hours
for teaching frees them up toactually deliver on the product
that you want to deliver.
There's this great book calledCrossing the Chasm. And I find
it so interesting, it talksabout early adopters, and that
transition of early adopters toearly majority. And I think
(26:48):
there is sometimes this stigmawith church planners of like,
oh, you know what, like, we haveto go into the halls of
Stanford, we have to go to allthe atheists, and we have to go
into the streets of SanFrancisco, and we have to
convert everybody to start thechurch. And the reality is like,
we're trying to go for the highfruit to start. Yeah, there's so
(27:09):
much low hanging fruit. And so Iactually think that a lot of
times, what you'll find is thatthe early adopters are going to
be displaced Christians thatdon't already have a home.
Right. And then once you get theearly adopters to create that
stability in that foundation,then you can progress to the
(27:31):
early majority, and then the therest, right. And so yeah, I
think that's just generallyprobably permission for anybody
that's listening to this. That'searly on in the church planning
phase, that hey, that's not awrong strategy. Actually, a lot
of times, that's how you startgetting inertia and momentum.
One thing that Yeah,I mean, yeah, if you release a
(27:54):
new product, the first thing youwant to do is you want people
who are not plugged in withthat, who are loose on another
product. You know, like youtalked about like that, that
private airplane company JSX.
Like, yes, like they're tryingto solve a problem for people
who are sick of TSA security.
So, so like they they're allright, they didn't create
(28:14):
something new out of thin air,like they're just trying to,
like, slightly solve a problem.
And so for me, I just wantpeople to be plugged into their
church. So sometimes I'll meetpeople in the street, who used
to go to my church. And I'mlike, Hey, I've seen you a long
time. And they're like, Oh, Istarted going to the church down
the street. And I'll be like,Oh, tell me why. And they're
like, oh, because because thisis really what I needed in this
(28:37):
season. Now, no one really wantsto hear that. But the, the
biggest part of me says, but ifit makes you more plugged in
than you were in my church, ifit makes you more committed to
your relationship with God, thenI'm going to be okay with that.
But if you're straggler justlike you were at my church, then
that's probably a problem. Butif this makes you more committed
than that, I want that tohappen. So our church is a very
(29:00):
large church. If someone goes toa church, planters church, and
they say, I like it, becauseit's really, really small, and
everybody knows each other.
There's nothing I can do to fixthat, you know, like, and so
what I'm gonna say is, man, I'mso I'm happy for you. And I'm
happy for that. Pastor. I'm notall of a sudden looking at that
pastors Instagram sideways oranything like that, you know,
I'm just like, Man, I'm happyfor you. That's great. I'm glad
(29:21):
you found a place that you feelconnected to.
I love that. I love that. Wewanted to also ask you, Adam
Zhou and I were really impactedwhen you spoke at our company
Summit. Really about yourmindset in investing? Not even
just from the church standpoint,but you personally, you were
(29:43):
really early on one of the firstchecks into a technology company
called pray.com, which now has10s of millions of users, really
around the world. And you got inwhen there were like a couple of
users. I think you were like thefirst user. Oh, I
really was I was maybe like,besides the staff, the first
human user.
(30:04):
So I think this is just gonna,this is gonna break people's
mental models on so manydifferent wavelengths right here
of like, talk to us about yourmentality around investing, but
not just investing, super earlystage investing, while also
being a pastor, and a shepherd,and a church leader, because not
(30:28):
only, you know, were youinvolved in investing, but also
the church rallied behind it aswell, like, talk to us about
this, because this is gonna blowpeople's mind. I feel like
Yeah, I mean, I think part ofthat comes from, you know, my
dad grew up in East LA. And sohe was he was a Mexican from
Montebello, and my grandpa was aplumber, My great grandpa was a
(30:49):
mechanic. And so, you know,when, when you're never taught
about financial responsibility,and it's never really been
exhibited to you in any way, Ithink, really, you know, part of
that credit had originally comedown to my dad who, as you're
pastoring, the minoritycommunity, and you're trying to
teach people around finance, andbut you're burying people, and
(31:12):
they can't even afford theirfuneral. Siblings are fighting
over the gold ring that dad had,because that was the most, you
know, financially, you know,worth thing that they he had
was, you know, a $4,000 goldring or a $6,000, bracelet type
of thing. And so, for us, wewhat I had seen, what was
(31:34):
popular in more of the whiteEvangelical Church was this idea
of leaving a legacy andfinancially paying things off
and for them, a lot of them hadit in stocks, bonds, Roth IRAs,
and stuff like that. Well, forus, we could do that. But then
we thought to ourselves, Well,if everyone else in tech right
(31:58):
now is investing in these kindof, of these companies that are
rising, Why could we not do thaton a kingdom sense as believers?
And why can Why could we not doactually receive more with our
little, because we're kind ofbehind the eight ball, we're
teaching financial literacy andall these things like that. And
(32:19):
so we actually have to be ableto do a lot with a little rather
than having a lot and doing alittle bit at a time. And so for
us, what we found was early oncompanies in their infancy that
we would evaluate were the bestrisk versus reward for us. And
when I talked about little inour little fence, it was
(32:41):
100,000 200,000, you know,250,000. And so we were saying,
how could we find companies thatare early onset, where
100,000 200,000 is a gamechanger for them. But that gives
us more skin in the game, sothat we can so that we can leave
a legacy and pay off our debt asmuch as possible, and passed
(33:01):
down to the generation ofchurches and leaders and
business entrepreneurs. And sowe have coined it, we call it
now Kingdom investing is makinginvestments that are rewarded in
the kingdom. Now, that doesn'thave to be necessarily a faith
based company, it just has to bein the way that that what's
(33:21):
going to continue to happen iswe're going to continue to
create a savings for our churchthat the next generation is
going to be able to pull fromparticularly for us for church
planning, that's our end goal isthat we're going to be able to
set up these funds that havereturning dividends that we can
actually pull from or pull loansagainst to plant future
(33:42):
churches, without putting weighton people to continually do
fundraisers and say, hey, couldwe raise half a million dollars?
Can we raise a million dollars?
Well, well, what would happen ifwe had a fund that had $10
million in it, that every singleyear, we can pull a few $100,000
or pull loans against that willallow us to do that new campus
or renovate that new spacewithout the risk of well, what
(34:05):
happens if the economy turns inthis way, in that sense, because
we have value already set up inthose accounts from the
investments we were we made? Sosome of them are faith based
companies. Some of them are nonfaith based companies, some of
them are put into funds. And sowhat that does is is number one,
look for me, how do I legallyleave a legacy for for my
(34:25):
children and my children'schildren? And then also how do I
ensure for our church that we'rehere because I think what a lot
of people don't realize is formost minority churches, they
will close down after onegeneration. Well, after after
that Hispanic pastor, that blackpastor becomes 7080 years old
and he retires. They did not setup their church for for success.
(34:50):
More so it's more so in minoritychurches than it is in a white
evangelical church that existsto but it's rare. really heavy
in the minority church. So forus, we just didn't want to be
another statistic. And my dadwould always talk about that.
It's like, we're not going to beanother statistic, we're not
going to be that next statisticthat closes our doors, we're not
going to be that next statisticsof African Americans, Hispanics,
(35:12):
who didn't know how to run theirfinances, who couldn't keep
something for more than onegeneration, we're not going to
be those people. And so withhim, it started from him leading
with the vision. And then Ithink with now his son being me,
he led with the vision. And thenI came in with more of that
solution, being his son thatalso had a background in
(35:32):
marketing and in tech already.
And so what had happened wasbefore I met the guys that
pray.com, two weeks prior, I hada meeting at Facebook, where I
basically pitch to them pray.comas a feature in Facebook, and I
didn't even know the pray guysat that time. I said, Hey, what
would happen if you guys startto allow us to stream church
(35:54):
services on Facebook, theyweren't doing streaming at the
time, I said, What would happenif you created these kinds of
rooms, where churches could goand gather and it could be like
a digital small group, Facebookpages as like the little page
where you can communicate, thatdidn't exist at that time, they
created that as a result ofpre.com becoming successful. And
(36:17):
so when I so I was already inthe sense of like, my head was
set towards finding solutionsthat I met the prey guys, they
had a better model than I had inmy head. And I said, Hey, can we
can we invest in this? I believethis is gonna go somewhere,
because I truly believe that itwas a solution that was needed,
as in the even the first daythat I met you, Vance. And I
(36:39):
believed that giving stock andcrypto was the future. And I
remember a pivotal conversationI had with with an African
American pastor who said, Hey, Isigned up for overflow. And in
six months, no, no, no, what noone has given stock. And I said,
here's what you have torecognize, is in our minority
communities. The average person,you know, I think it's 60. Or
(37:03):
you may know, it's been themean, 60 to 65% of all stock in
America is owned by whiteCaucasians. So only only 30 to
40% of stock is shared amongstall other cultures. But we know
majority of wealth is held instock. So you know, what I was
telling that pastor was, if webelieve that financial
(37:26):
stability, for the nextgeneration comes in the form of
stocks, and crypto and otherthings like that, well, then you
have to be innovative enough toalso view overflow as you being
a person building a foundationin your church to teach your
young people, oh, you've neverheard of stock you never knew
that you could give it you know,you don't even know what it is,
(37:47):
let us help you teach what itis. Because most of the white
people in America hold it. Andthey're totally aware of it. And
they're passing all these thingsdown to their next generation.
Why are we not doing the same?
And then as churches? Why are wenot enabling these features, so
that in a generation or two,we've already had these
features, we understand it sothat we can prepare them for
(38:10):
success. So part part of leadinga minority community is also
taking those steps of faith ineducation, you know,
that is so mind blowing, like I,you just blew so many people's
preconception out of the waterwith that, and what I am really
(38:31):
loving and being encouraged byhearing you say, Adam, is how
seriously you take investing anddiscipleship, and not just
financial investing, like youare investing literal resources
into these communities. So thatit's a, so that success looks
different. It's not just Yeah, Iaccepted Christ. It's no, my
entire life. And familygenerational lineage is now
(38:54):
different, because of the actualtools I've learned, as well as
the spiritual tools that I haveas well. And and, you know,
there's a statistic, thatfidelity, charitable revealed
last year, and it's that 67% ofmillennials, consider themselves
philanthropists, I would love tohear because you seem like this
(39:15):
exact type of person, thearchetype of this person, right
here, but what are you seeing inyour church communities about
that statistic? Well,I think what you're like what
you're saying is, I think Ithink millennials, from what I'm
seeing is millennials and Gen Z.
They understand philanthropy ina greater sense, but But here's
(39:36):
what has to happen is is whatI've seen from the boomers in
the silent generation, even someof the Gen Xers is the way
they've understood the model ofmaybe philanthropy or church is
they would just in a sense,blindly gift so okay, this is my
church. So therefore, I get it10% of my income or whatever you
(39:58):
want to say right? This is WhatI give or Okay, the girls and
boys club, yeah, I'll give$1,000 I'll give whatever,
millennials and Gen Z areactually moreso doing their
homework as to where thesethings go, and what's being done
with it. And so you actuallyhave to bring a lot more
clarity. And that's what we'vedone in our church is we are
(40:20):
seeing the generosity ofmillennials increase. But we
actually what I call, you haveto peel back the curtain. Yeah,
you can't, you can't have astage where you just give like a
really good speech, or you just,you know, give this like, to me
these innuendos of like, we'regoing to change the world,
right? That's what you wouldhear. It's like, what changed
the world? And they're like,yeah, yeah, $10,000, you know,
(40:44):
like, look at this, you know,look at this person, you know,
this step, right. So for us,like, we just, we just actually
did a fundraiser at our churchwith our vision Sunday, and we
actually flew our missionaryfrom Brazil, had her show
pictures, had her architect,draw, draw, do images of what
our renovation is going to looklike, because and then we taught
(41:06):
and then we gave our church atimeline, in 90 days to six
months, you will get a progressreport from her with a video of
these renovations beingcomplete, boom that people
started giving towards that.
Because with millennials, you,you have to, you have to show
them and be much more clear.
This is what it's going to thisis. So yeah, they're totally
(41:27):
open to philanthropy, but notphilanthropy of the previous
generation that just puts youknow that you just have a Santa
outside of a target ringing abell saying, Hey, give something
to Salvation Army. They'rejaded. Off of that. They're
saying, Where did this dollargo? And whose life is it
changing? And I want to knowthat it's going to do that. Is
(41:48):
that right? Wrong? orindifferent? Oh, no, it's just a
new generation. So I can eitherI can either keep doing the same
model of what what is done inthe past, or I can do that
little bit of extra work to say,No, we're gonna, we're gonna
peel back this curtain. Andwe're gonna make it abundantly
clear to them about where thesegiving increments are going, how
it's changing lives, how it'simpacting people. So I think any
(42:10):
philanthropist or anyone willingto give him philanthropy is
looking for those type ofthings. Ladies
and gentlemen, my friend, PastorAdam, Mesa is just dropping
wisdom bombs. On the given apodcast, so much insight, you
know, maybe we title itsomething like this. So pastors
solving problems, because thisis a theme that I hear from my
(42:33):
friend, Adam here. And that'swhat it is, like, you know, I
sit in the seat of executivepastor. And in the last decade,
that we've been doing thisimplanting, and building and
growing the church, I'verealized that theologically,
there's like three to four hotquestions, you know, where more
of the questions come from ispracticality. Like, I got this
(42:56):
financial crisis, you know,these kids are driving me nuts,
my marriage, you know, all thesedays, it's, you know, the modern
day pastor has to understand howto pastor people practically,
and how to point people to beable to solve real problems in
their day to day, that's why Ilove preaching, that doesn't
(43:19):
just preach to your Sunday, butcan that that can change your
Monday, right? That's what wesay at our church at vibe
church. And you know, everythingthat you're saying, even, you
know, breaking down your guys'smentality around investing, I
found it so practical, right,you and your legendary dad,
Pastor Diego, your whole familyhad this understanding that,
(43:40):
hey, as minority based church,we don't start with maybe as
much as others, we're not goingto use it as a crutch, though,
we're going to change the game,we are going to look from a
different perspective, we mighthave to increase risk a bit
more, but we're going to totallyincrease potential reward. But
(44:00):
to de risk that model. You'renot just spraying and praying
and throwing investment dollarsinto whatever, you're actually
aligning it to problems youactually see in the market. And
so it's not that you thoughtthat oh, cool, these pray.com
guys are awesome. I'm gonna getto invest. It was like, no, no,
I've been thinking about thisproblem. I pitched this to
(44:21):
Facebook. This is needed in theworld. This is needed for the
local church, we will becustomers ourselves. And from
that place, you made a strategicinvestment. You made a smart
investment. This was aninvestment based on wisdom, and
not every investment is going towork out. But if you're doing it
from a place of solving aproblem, if you're doing it from
(44:43):
a place of personal experience,Warren Buffett says don't invest
outside of your core competency.
And every one is going to workout but if you continue to do
that it compounds over time intodisproportionate returns for
yourself and for yourorganization. question and I
just love that it all is withthe mission of building the
kingdom. I love how you positionwhat do you say Kingdom
(45:06):
investing? Kingdominvesting. Yeah, yeah. Kingdom
investments that I mean, that'sjust what we talk about in our,
you know, in our meetings inwater cooler talk, but that to
us that that's what it is. It'sit's Kingdom investment. So we
look at things that wouldinvestment that may not be faith
based, but for us, the faithbased ones are, how will this
(45:28):
impact the kingdom? How will itgrow the kingdom? And how is
this person maybe not beingseen? By the by the secular
industry or the second secularworld, we saw that with film,
right? Like when war room cameout that movie of the
grandmother who prays after thatalmost every major studio in
(45:48):
Hollywood opened up a faithbased division. And so you know,
when you recognize that peopleof faith have a lot of potential
to impact the world, you know,Hollywood in the rest of the
world around it is only going tocome when they can make $1. And
and then that's always going tobe their intention is to make
the dollar, it's not impact.
(46:11):
That's not That's not theirgoal. And so for us, we said, we
did that recently, with acompany that we held, it was it
was Christian ownership. Andthey said, We have board members
that are not Christians, weactually want an investor who's
Christian, because we'reChristian, because we don't want
the investors to turn our corebelief system, just off of the
(46:33):
Prophet, if we have an investor,that's also Christian, you will
always be able to have a voiceto keep our mission and our
mandate on laying because youhave just as much skin in the
game. And so it was individualsthat are doing really well. But
we came alongside so that we canbe an active Christian voice.
And I think that that's what youneed more of is you need more
(46:55):
believers, who are comingalongside people of faith that
aren't just and I would alwaystell pastors this, like, if you
have someone in your church,starting a business, don't tell
them, you'll pray for them. Andthen wait until they become
millionaires to then starttalking to them about tithing,
right? Like, if you believe inthem, then start walking that
(47:16):
process with them right now. Andif there's something that you
can do not, not not, and it maynot be financial, but it may be
in relationships, it may just bein doing a weekly Bible study
for them while they're buildingthis company, and they're too
busy and stuff like that, likeyou start if you're a pastor
start sacrificing for theentrepreneurs in your church
now, instead of just knocking ontheir door when you need a
(47:38):
donation, because they needtheir pastor and they need a
pastor. So they they're gonnaneed you. You may need them when
it's donation season or buildingcampaign season, but but they
need you all other days of theyear. And so go be there for
them in those times. And that'skind of what we've tried to do
with Kingdom investment is to bea friend and pastor to those
(48:01):
entrepreneurs who have a heartfor the kingdom, but are out
there, you know, really, reallybuilding something that they
feel led to build, whetherthey're, they're in real estate,
whether they're in tech, orwhatever it may be, we want to
come alongside of them.
Yeah, and I love what you'resaying, because you're taking
something that is typically, youknow, and can be in the church
based transactional torelational, right, you're
(48:24):
investing in that person andkingdom investing. I'll say
this, let me maybe reduce thegap. For some people mentally,
this has been happening in thelocal church for centuries, it's
just that the predominantinvestment that the church has
made is in real estate,physical, real estate. And
that's something that I knowabundant does in a prolific
(48:45):
basis as well. You guys haveranches, you guys have estates,
you guys have a lot of business,real estate business complex.
Yeah, business complexes andthings like that. So that is one
part of your portfolio. But whatI want to encourage people in is
in the time and place that welive in today in our society,
it's not just about physicalreal estate, how are you
(49:07):
deploying resources into digitalreal estate? And it doesn't just
mean starting an Instagramprofile. Okay. Yeah, do that.
Get some distribution. But howare you investing into
innovation? How are youinvesting in the digital
landscape? How are you this isthe new real estate. And so it's
not either or? It's both and mygoodness, Zo. This was one of
(49:31):
the best combos we've had yet. Ilove it.
Yeah, I'm feeling so encouragedout. Um, so thank you for
sharing all this with us. And,you know, here's what I want to
challenge if you're a faithleader, and you've listened to
this, and you're feeling thatconviction of like, oh, I don't
need to just continue on withthe flywheel just because we
know that it works. What if wejust made our prayer? God please
(49:54):
open my eyes to find the uniqueproblems in my community. Give
me the divine insight. To createthe solutions for it as well,
because that's how we impact theworld by first impacting our zip
codes. Thank you so much. Giveit up for out of Mesa.
Appreciate it. Thank you guys somuch. Thank you. Love you guys.
(50:19):
Thanks so much for listening tothe give it up podcast if you
want to receive even moreinsights on church innovation,
culture and giving now you cansign up for free to be an
overflow insider where you'llreceive exclusive content
discounts direct access to VanceRoush to get your questions
answered, and also invite onlyaccess to our monthly
(50:40):
fundraising leadership forums,head to overflow.co backslash
insider, or just click the linkin our bio to sign up for free
today. In order to get thispodcast in the ears of even more
church leaders. Could you pleasesubscribe and leave a review for
the show? This tells the podcastplayers what people are enjoying
and want to hear more of and weare adamant about providing
(51:02):
maximum value to even morechurch leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
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