Most entrepreneurs dream of a successful exit. For many of us, it’s the reward for a job well done.

But is there a way that Faith Driven Entrepreneurs should think differently about exits than our secular counterparts? How do we exit well? Are there ever times where God calls us not to exit and to continue our work instead?

In this episode, we wrestle through these questions and more with 1 Flourish Capital’s Neil Ahlsten.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey there. And welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We’re glad that you’ve joined us once again this week. Most entrepreneurs dream of a successful exit. For many of us, it’s the reward for a job well done. But is there a way that faith driven entrepreneurs should think differently about exits than our secular counterparts? How do we exit well? Are there ever times where God calls us not to exit and to continue our work instead? In this episode, we wrestle through these questions and more with one flourish capitals. Neil Ahlsten and I even jump in for some of the fun. Let’s dive in.

Rusty Rueff: So, William, what’s your what’s your favorite go to app for when you want to just sort of calm yourself, get into a contemplative state.

William Norvell: Twitter easily. It just brings the tension down. It brings the noise down, you know, And you can just kind of rest rest in the goodness of, you know, just people pouring blessings on top of you.

Rusty Rueff: You’re so good.

William Norvell: Yeah. Yeah. No, you know, it’s funny. I probably don’t have one, honestly. I probably go to a favorite song or two. That’s probably my, like, go to like, I need to calm a minute is I got a few tracks that I just kind of always go back to and just kind of rest for a minute and just I know the lyric is no work. It’s just like, I know it’s, you know, it’s there and it’s goodness. And so, yeah, I’ve never got the haters cause I know our guest today. I’ve used some of these. I just my personality has never been hooked by one of them.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I similar and then I got involved with our guests company, which was the Abide Prayer app. And I really found some useful time, I mean, really useful time just by letting my mind clear, letting someone sort of guide me through getting to a state where not only could I calm myself down, but also open my mind up to listen and to hear what God was trying to say to me. Because I think you’re exactly right. You know, think about Twitter and everything else is just yeah, clutter, clutter, clutter of our minds. But it’s interesting because his app was called the Abide Prayer app, which, you know, abide means to sort of stay where kind of where you are and to be there and sort of discern what that should look like. But today, we’re going to talk about something totally different. We’re going to talk about exit, which is like getting far away from abiding. And so with that, I want to welcome in Neil Ahlsten. Neil, welcome to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. You’ve been a phenomenal founder of Carpenter’s Code that you created the Abide Prayer app. You sold that to Guideposts. Now you’re with Guidepost as a senior executive working with them, but also doing venture capital work with, you know, a new firm. And so I can’t think of anybody better to have on the podcast to talk about this topic of exits, you know, what’s it mean? When should we do it? What are we pursuing? What’s a good exit, What’s a bad exit? Are we ever forced into having an exit? So, Neil, welcome. And we want to get your perspective and really kind of wrestle with this topic. So why don’t you start us off with an overview of what you think about the topic of exiting and why it’s so important for entrepreneurs to not only understand but also to try to consider.

Neil Ahlsten: Well, thanks, Rusty and William. It’s a pleasure and honor to be on the show. And I do think this was something I did not take enough consideration of when I launched the business, I model that all sorts of exits you go to people, you raising capital and you’re trying to say what it could look like. But I didn’t think of it personally enough about what would that mean to me, why would I do it, and what could actually make it a good exit for myself. One consideration to give to this is that on some time horizon, you’re always going to have to exit, like you will not be around forever. And so it is inevitable, like death and taxes that you will exit. And part of the big question for me is how do you build the legacy that God wants you to build out of the organization that you are making, such that when that time comes, the organization is ready to exit in a good way? And that was what I gave a lot of thought to when I finally decided to sell the business. And the main driver for me, honestly, was that I felt like I had used my gifts and talents to the best of my ability to get it there. And I actually thought other people were going to be better suited to continue moving it forward. I’m a starter like a 0 to 1 guy who likes to make things come from concept to exist. I’m not so good at scaling things. I get bored after a while and I was starting to find ways of getting bored with the product. Like I was just going to talk about this problem again. We’ve already done this problem five times, and at that point I realized other people were actually probably better positioned to shepherd it going forward who are gifted in that area and passionate about that area. And so that was a really interesting realization for me.

William Norvell: Hmm. That’s good. I want to welcome everybody in a little bit. This may be a little bit of a different episode. I’d say. We all sometimes know some of our guests, but in this case, like we all kind of really know our guests have a set. The stage Rusty was actually on the board of Abide. Neil is a longtime friend, and we went to the same church for a long time and we got all know each other relatively well. And actually the intricacies of the business actually, in this case, two of the people most prominent in the room about whether to exit and when to exit are both here. And so it’s a bit of an odd situation that leads to an incredible conversation. So this may feel more roundtable ish than usual. And just for the listeners, William here is going to kind of pull in because I kind of know some of the intricacies of the stories, too, so I’m gonna try to pull some threads from each of their experiences through this process. But I want to continue going down your track for a little bit, Niel, before we get into that and just say, you know, you’ve spoken about like different ways to think about this and there’s this big discussion right now about faith driven entrepreneurs and investors, right? To bring in both podcast, right? I mean, I have heard very strong views on all sides, basically. Right. You know, whether or why you build a company and I’ve heard you talk about like, well, from God’s perspective, what is the goal? Is it to continue to bet the farm and go over and over again and just, you know, roll over whatever he gave you in blessing? So I want to let you have the stage here for your view on that and talk us through how you think through it.

Neil Ahlsten: Yeah, there’s a lot to unpack in that. That is one thing that I think a lot of founders don’t necessarily know going into this is you’re going to have different seasons and even when the world looks at you and thinks that you’re crushing it, you’re going to be worried about things knowing that you’re making decisions and taking risks that are really, really, really hard. And so one thing that we talked about a previous discussion, William, around this was that every time you take on capital, you’re basically making a whole new bet, right? Like you’re diluting your share of it. There’s probably a liquidity preference that somebody else is going to get the cash before you. So you’re like, Hey, if I take this much more cash, that means I need to raise the bar for where I can even exit the future before I get anything, because these other people are going to get first cut at it. And so it is something to just really keep in mind, whenever you take somebody’s money, it’s like, are you going to be in a situation to give it back to them in a good way and have a piece left over for yourself as an enterprise, right? Like a nonprofit, it’s a different thing. But if you’re an enterprise and you’re taking on capital, you want to do believing that you can return to those people and return a good amount of money. And so part of this for me, I did abide, not because I thought it was the best business in the world. God told me to go do it. I was at Google, I had a good job, a good salary, and God was basically like, You got to go build this thing. And I mapped out the total addressable market, how big I thought it could be. I did scenario analysis from the very beginning of what I thought this thing could look like, and I didn’t think it was $1,000,000,000 business. It was not going to be a unicorn. I looked at and said, This can be a good cash flow business and I see better business, but it’s not going to be that. And so I didn’t sell it to investors like that either. I sold it as, I’m going to give you some good money back on this, but it’s not going to be 30 x return on capital. So I’m not going out to the venture capitalists and raising money for them. I raised money from a lot of Christians, but the first check I got was from the McClellan’s. I was in their office and they literally David Denmark wrote me the first check for $40,000. And I have to tell you, one of the crowning moments of running this business was when I finished and I exited. The first check I wrote was back to them and I wrote I handwrote a big old check because they said they didn’t want a wire transfer. And I put it with a card and I sent it in the mail to Tablo and those guys over there and I was like, You have walked with me through this. I know that you are going to use this money for good. Here’s a bunch of money. Go do something good with it. And I have to tell you, that was one of the most satisfying feelings that ever had in my life. They prayed for me, they cared for me. They invested twice in the business. And to have that kind of relationship to be like, okay, we went through this together. Here’s a bunch of money. Go do something else. And with it was like I was honestly one of the happiest days of my life to have that kind of fellowship with people who I trust that much and really appreciate that much.

William Norvell: That’s awesome. I have a dream one day if I can make that because I’m in the middle is because our seed round last week. So I feel some of these things you’re talking about right.

Neil Ahlsten: Congrats.

William Norvell: And so in my vision we send like Happy Gilmore sized checks to everyone, just like I’m thinking like comically large checks would be the best use of our resources at that point, and I’m happy fund that. But so as you thought about building that, I’m going take a small detour from exits because you lived this for how long were you in the business?

Neil Ahlsten: Seven years.

William Norvell: Seven year? Seven years. And you took a lot of capital from believers, fellow people, people you knew, but people that wanted to return. I’m going to take a small detour because my co-founder, I’ve been deep in this conversation lately. How do you think about stewarding other people’s capital and how that impacts your view of faith at work? Right, Because I feel like it can be taken so many different directions and I’m not I don’t think there’s a right answer. I’m just curious how God led you. You have children yet? I sometimes go, gosh all these people who trusted me with their heart and I need to work all the time to return their capital. But then you pair that with Scripture and I need a loving husband. I need to be a father. But. But I’ve taken the step. I’ve taken their money. Right? Like I told them a thing. And then there’s God doing cool God things and blessing you in the midst of your work and in the midst of your rest on a Sabbath. I just want to give you a little bit of like, how did you steward that and how do you encourage other founders to steward that through your journey?

Neil Ahlsten: That is a good one, and I think each founder probably has to answer it for themself a bit. But the way I answered it. I basically had only two priorities. I think simplifying and focus is really important to be successful in anything but especially a startup. And one is my family. I was not going to sacrifice my family for this business. I would come home at 6:00, cooked dinner, sit down, eat dinner, hang out, read the kids bedtime stories, and then go back and work at night. right, like. And so I worked really, really hard. But my number one priority is family. Number two is the business. And that was pretty much it. You know, that was all I did for five years until the business was cash flow positive and doing really well. And I could take a breather and I would counsel people similarly, is that if you want to win in a startup, you have to focus and cut out everything and just be honest with yourself. I know a lot of founders, some founders who have tried to say, Hey, let’s have a lifestyle startup. You can do it. It’s not a hypergrowth business. If you’re going to do that, you can build businesses like that, but it’s not VC funded high growth startup. That’s a different kind of a business. That’s a great business is just call it what it is. If that’s how you want to live, that is going to be a slower growth, more long term, and this this is great businesses, but part of it. Decide what you want. But if you want to build a hypergrowth startup and you want to build something that doesn’t exist from scratch and find customers for it and pivot into it, man, you got to put gas in that fire. I was constantly working 50, 60 hour weeks, but a part of my time that way. Monday I would work from 7 a.m. until about 10 p.m.. Every Monday I was like, Honey, you don’t see me on monday for dinners. We had an after hours work where you invite in bunch of friends from Google and stuff who volunteered at abide. But I put in basically like a 13 or 14 hours day on Monday because I’m like, if I do that the rest of my week, I can take the gas pedal off a little bit and spend some time that evening with my kids. And then weekends I tried to, you know, I’d probably work one or two Saturdays a month, but, you know, that was my schedule, but it was pedal to the metal for a lot of hours. And then I would just hit the brakes and hang out with my family for two or 3 hours and pass out and get up and do it again.

William Norvell: Yeah, Yeah, that’s good. Thanks for sharing. And so let’s go back to exit. So you had a chance to do this. Walk us through the process. How did it come about? When did it come about it in the business? There are so many things to consider. You know, I think we mentioned those most faith driven entrepreneurs, I am not going to say everyone has some sense that God’s called them into this, and you probably have a little less of a sense when someone calls to buy your business that that’s time to go. Because, I mean, at least I’ll speak for myself like, gosh, like letting go of that seemed so hard. It was so hard to take the leap in the first place, right. To all of a sudden say, Oh, yes, like it’s obvious time to move on to something else there. Spiritual effects. You’ve hired people, you’ve got customers. Now. It’s not going to be under your leadership anymore. But, you know, step one, I would love to hear how did the exit possibility even come and how did you figure that you were ready for that? And then how did you discern Actually, yes, this is the clear time and this is the clear person to even buy the company. Right.

Neil Ahlsten: Well, one good thing is it wasn’t my first rodeo. I’ve had other people walk in and make offers before, like faith based and non faith based people. So that was helpful because I had set expectations for myself around what I wanted to see out of an exit by that point in time. And one of my big requirements was that I wanted them to see it as a strategic fit for their organization. I didn’t just want somebody who wanted to cash flow from the business and just squeeze it and get whatever they could out of it. I wanted them to see it as something that would help their whole organization function better because we have such a talented team of great people, great process, great customers, and they really checked the box on that one when they came in to buy because they wanted us to help transform their organization. Make no mistake, I was expecting that to be a challenge and it has been hard on some levels, but they were very open and loving about that. So I think that was a really nice one and they really honestly want a buy to exist very long term and grow in that space and actually have a similar mission. So I think all those things helped me. There were other weird idiosyncrasies that helped too. After running abide for three or four years, I realized they would actually probably function better as a nonprofit because it just gives you another revenue source. You can ask people for donations and give the stuff away. It’s like, why would you not want that as a way to operate that, Hey, I can get people to donate money and then I’ll just give it away for free to people who can’t afford it anyway. So that was actually a really cool additional bonus to it. So when they came asking, I think that one interesting enough I was ready and two, I had a baseline for what the offer needed to be and it was above that in terms of a lot of different elements and the space is different. One thing I would say about the Christian space versus the other ones, I didn’t actually go take it to shop it around because I was afraid that could kill the deal. Right? Like a lot of times at this point you’re like, okay, well, now, well, let’s get a bidding war going, right? That was not the tone that was going to get the best deal out of this, which is I would advise a lot of founders say like, hey, if you are selling, go make a bidding war, get more than one offer and whatever. Unfortunately, I already had other offers. I could compare it to say like, Yeah, this is reasonable. But I also wanted the relationship to be one that felt very mutually looking out for each other. But that was just the nature of how I wanted to exit. So, no, that’s great.

William Norvell: And Rusty, bring us into the boardroom. So I think you were one of the first few calls that Neil made. How did you react?

Rusty Rueff: Well, I was getting ready to ask. I wanted to ask Neil a question. So, Neil, what did you do with a board member who was sitting there going, well, wait a minute. Like, the tailwinds for us are really good. Headspace is growing, calm is growing. Mental health concerns are there, man. You know, we could be the company that, you know, just sort of breaks all this open in the faith based space. And are you sure we shouldn’t go raise more capital? How do you deal with the board member who was asking you those questions?

Neil Ahlsten: Well, you know, Rusty, I actually have some personal experience with that. First off, I listen because I had wise board members, so I really listen to Skip. I listened to Rusty as to where they thought things could go and how I could think about it playing out. And I always love Rusty as a board member because he would ask those really challenging questions to make you think about the problem differently. And so I did that. But then you have to make your own assessment because you’re the CEO. And I think part of what I looked at in the market was, yes, those things might be possible, but how likely are we in the situation we’re in to make those be true and what would need to be true in order to get there? And I think looking at that, what Rusty’s saying is true is in order to make that happen, we needed to go out and raise ten or $20 million and swing for the fences and hope maybe there’s a 5050 chance you hit a homerun. And if not you, hopefully you get far enough that you can sell it. And I think that the other thing in that calculation is like you as a person, do you have the commitment right now to go put in 3 to 5 more years to make that happen? Like, are you ready to go in at 50, 60 hours a week and crush it with that capital? And honestly, when I looked at it, I was like, I’m not at a position to put that level of effort into the business for another 3 to 5 years to get there. And that was part of my assessment. It’s like, am I as a founder ready to do that, knowing probably the effort that it would take? And part of the answer for me was, I don’t think so. I think that I had burned from both ends on this project for long enough that there wasn’t that much wax left. And I was like, Actually, I think it’s going to be better to sell.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that’s the part that struck me so much during the decision on what to do. And I think this is a lesson for anybody who sits on a board or works with any entrepreneurs. At the end of the day, the person who’s steering the ship. You have to listen to them. You have to understand where they’re coming from and also understand that, you know, this is an arc. I think the entrepreneurial journey is not always up and to the right with our level of commitment, our level of energy, our sustainable, you know, work patterns like what you’re talking about, Niel. And while people will talk about, oh, I’m a serial entrepreneur, I’m a serial entrepreneur, I believe that. And there are some really phenomenal serial entrepreneurs. But I think we also get wiser and we figure out that, you know, there’s just certain hills that we may not want to climb or if we are going to climb and we’re going to climb of differently than we did last time. And it’s important that if you’re an investor or a board member or even a co-founder, you know that you’re finally attuned to that about the founder or the person who’s helming the ship. And in this case, you know, as we struggled through because I did see the upside, I saw the you know, there was enough family office money out there. I mean, we were hitting on all cylinders. There was really not big competition. I mean, you were even Niel at that time, you know, starting to partner with the other app there was out there in the Catholic space with Halo and started to do things with them. And it was like, wow, man. Now it’s going. But yet the founder, the CEO is going, Yeah, but this is kind of how I feel. And that, in my estimation, always is the most important factor. And, you know, you could be callous and you could say, well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The shareholders are the most important factor. And if the founder is at that point, then you replace the founder. You know, go get somebody else. And that’s to Neil’s point about the type of capital you bring in. Know, you were fortunate because you had patient capital, right? You had patient capital because you raised on that premise. You didn’t raise under 30 X. But, you know, those of us who’ve been there done that right, who have people who are sitting there going, no, no, no, no, in my portfolio, I need you to be a 30 X. Otherwise, I don’t hit my goals. You know, they won’t be so patient and they may not be as finely attuned to what the founder wants to do. So I think that was the big thing for me. And you were honest and authentic about it and that, you know, made the difference.

Neil Ahlsten: Yeah, it’s still a good question, though. Like, should I have rolled the dice and gone out and gotten more capital into it? And the short answer is you can’t. No, No, you.

Rusty Rueff: Can’t. No, you can’t. Hey, if ifs and buts were fruits and nuts. Oh, what a feast we’d have, right? You can’t look over your shoulder. You know, you close that door behind you. And I think that’s a lesson that everybody should also remember about exits. Like, if you’re going to question yourself in the future and say, what did I leave on the table? Or, you know, did I give up too early? You know, then you’re probably not in the right headspace yet.

William Norvell: I want to everybody because, you know, Rusty, you’ve been a CEO that’s exits as well. I mean, it’s just so difficult, right? I mean, and you turned down other offers, Niel. Right. So, like, I mean, you you were at a different stage, you know, at various times as well. And we don’t get too much into mechanics. But I think it’s always interesting. Like, I’m curious, was it actually your decision? Did you control your company at that point? Like, was it your decision, Neil, or did you have to convince the board?

Neil Ahlsten: The only person I needed to convince was my co-founder. Given the equity stakes in the voting we didn’t really have. I wanted other people’s opinions, but no, we kept it very closely held.

William Norvell: Yeah, it’s just an interesting part of this discussion because there are probably many people listening here that don’t actually control the voting shares of their company. And so when this comes, this might actually not be their decision, right? They have a lot of input in the decision, but it’s not their decision. And so when you wrap all of that together in a spiritual lens, right. I mean, it’s really difficult. And so I want to go one layer deeper to the employee base. How did they take it? These are people that you sold a dream to, I assume you sold a big vision to. How did that go at the organization level? And were there disappointments where their excitement was there, everything in between? Because, you know, so often the founder conversation could leave out all the people that did so much work for so many years to be alongside you. And I’m curious how that conversation went.

Neil Ahlsten: Sure. The quick summary is that every conversation with every employee was different depending on their point of view, because they brought in a lot of their own feelings about it. I think most of them were probably accepting but not excited about it would be the short answer because of a lot of them love the feel of working in a startup. The branding of that, the fast moving this of it, the kind of just trying to go out and change the world every day and make the world a different place than it was yesterday. And that was very the mindset that that’s why you work for us. And if you’re working for us and you’re not thinking about that, you’re work at the wrong place. You should go somewhere else. It was very much of how we ran it. And so I think that people were like, So we’re going to quit doing that. And my challenge then was they know we need to do that in this new environment and helped transform an organization to be more thinking like this. So most of them did come along. They were one or two of the younger people, like one actually decided she was going to go off to med school afterwards. She was like, you know, just chose life changes and career changes. But the vast majority of them were fine with it and they went along with it. And, you know, we’re still friends today, and most of them are still working with guideposts.

William Norvell: And for both of you, that’s really interesting. Is there a way you learned, just as I’m like it went okay. Right. So no disasters, but like, is there a way if a founder’s looking at the show and they’re thinking, you know what, I’m I’m kind of at that stage that Neil’s talking about, Right. And I’m going to start making some overtures to maybe exit the business. Is there some things you tell a founder just started preparing their employee base or is that like, now you keep that really close to the vest until it happens. You don’t do anything. Like, how would you all counsel someone to think about the people that have worked so hard for them? As you know, you’re going that direction, right? You’ve made the decision. You’re heading that way. How do you steward those people? Well.

Rusty Rueff: Well, I’ll jump in first. I mean, I’m always of the mind that once you’ve made that decision, right, that’s when you open up the door. Right. But when you’re just thinking about a decision, you’re contemplating a decision. There are those that you talk to about it, but you don’t necessarily open up the door because you open up the door. There’s always a draft from that point on. Right. You know, and what if you change your mind or what if you do that? But when you’ve made a decision in most things in business, I think it’s wise to move, you know, to the next step quickly and begin to bring people in and explain what you’re doing. But I also tell you this William, that, you know, there’s another type of exit that none of us like. And I mean, the one I went through with snowcapped was not one that, you know, I wanted to do. I mean, the market had proven that now was the time and none of us were really ready to give it up. But it was a conclusion we came to. I had a conversation this week with two founders who likely might listen to this podcast. They’re both believers and I invested in their company and advise them, and they called me this week and said, We’ve reached the end of the road. And both of them had put a significant amount of money into the business themselves and not taking a salary, you know, for over a year plus. And that was really hard for them. Right. That’s an exit. That’s the last thing they wanted. It’s a negative exit. It’s not the positive exit, you know, So there’s every one of them have a different set of dynamics, I guess would be a way of looking at it. I don’t know. We started the conversation with positive exits and exit, meaning, you know, somebody bought us. But I think it’s important we talk about that, too, as a part of the process.

Neil Ahlsten: Absolutely. And if you’re not ready for that possibility that you might exit under negative circumstances, don’t found a company.

Rusty Rueff: Right.

Neil Ahlsten: You’re just being naive if you don’t think that that’s a possibility. Typically going in to find a company that’s going to be some sort of a growth startup.

Rusty Rueff: I think you should talk about the relationship and the conversation you have with your co-founder, Eric. You know, without, you know, breaking any trust that the two of you had, but, you know, be as open as you can about those conversations and how those went, because I know that was really something that was very important to you. And for anybody who’s a responsible co-founder, it’s going to be important to them.

Neil Ahlsten: Yeah. You know, and that conversation goes all the way back to how we started working together. I think the tone and the trust that we had with each other was always very, very strong and very in it for the collective to win. And so even in thinking through from founding the company and how we divided up equity and what vesting would look like all the way through to how we got treated and when people got salary, who got salary all the way through to exit, I think we had very open and clear communication. And that’s just if I could say one thing about the founder relationship, I was extremely blessed because my co-founder was always 110% in and we always were able to share with each other directly the things that we needed out of the company in the arrangement for to work for us. And so when we got to that point, it wasn’t really like he didn’t know it was a surprise. I think that he was, you know, my closest confidants through the whole thing in terms of sharing. And that made it great. I think it made a great because we felt like we went through it together and we exit together. So it wasn’t actually that hard of a conversation was much more of a we did this knowing that this could be the kind of outcome and this is a good outcome. You talk about Rusty that we were able to sit down and say like, this is not a bad outcome. Everybody’s going to get a really nice check out of this and our legacy should continue into this organization in the future. And that can be a really good thing and a good home for the product that we built. And so our conversation fortunately was great going into that. As far as I recall. Now, if you asked Eric, you might say other things, but.

William Norvell: Also a friend later and you know, see what we get. Okay, let’s switch the discussion a little bit. I’m going to bring both up again here. So, Niel, you’ve flip the table now, right? So you’re on the other side and actually looking for the 30 X investment. So my guess is you would not have invested in your own company, from what I can tell from that.

Neil Ahlsten: That’s correct. So isn’t that funny?

William Norvell: It is. That’s why it’s a fun conversation. And so this next topic, I know, Rusty, you’ve been investing a long time and actually taking money. And Neil you’ve taken money. Now you’re on the VC side looking for 30 exits. Both of you. I want to give you both a chance to talk about capital business fit, right. We know our listeners, not everyone here is building a venture backed startup that is not the majority of the audience. Some are right, but a lot of people are looking for a lifestyle business. There’s a lot of people are looking for five xs. A lot of people are looking for 30 xs. A lot of people are looking for, Hey, I’m just still trying to make this thing. Don’t even know what it could be. But I do need some money to buy some equipment or I need some money to buy this or to buy that. How important is and how do you counsel people to think about capital business fit?

Neil Ahlsten: I mean, I honestly can’t think of that many more important decisions. People say it’s better for you’re getting married when people are putting money into your business. And I would say that that it feels that way. So part of the biggest challenge that I see with founders is not enough self-reflection or understanding of what kind of business they’re actually making to know what kind of capital they should court. Because it’s hard, especially to your first time founder, and you don’t know the different types of capital that are out there, the different types of businesses. I think even understanding that can be hard, but I would hugely counsel people to consider that. And I try to counsel startup companies that are raising from us about where they fit in the spectrum of like super high returns market or above market rate returns all the way to your donation. And you look like a business, but it’s really donation because you’re probably going to go broke and people invest. You aren’t going to make any money. And I think that it’s important to understand where you are in that spectrum to the extent that you can be honest and seek counsel in that.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I would say different philosophies for different times. Like, you know, if I rolled back 12 years ago when I was angel investing or doing things like that, it was just a different time. Right. You roll the dice, you covered a lot of numbers and you know, guess what? It would all work itself out because companies would quickly get to a point where they exit. And, you know, it was all good. It was very, very frothy times. You know, I would say post 2008, after the Great Recession, you know, the world of investing, especially as an angel investor, is totally changed. You know, it’s not two years to an exit. It’s minimum 5 to 7 years. A lot of capital going into companies. The early guys, you know, have a good chance unless you pro-rata all the way through of getting washed out and so different philosophies different times and and I think you know you change as an investor. So my philosophy has always been you know I bet on jockeys, right? I mean, if it’s a great co-founder, I believe in her or him. And I think that they’re the kind of people who can persevere. And I align my values and my principles with them. You know, I’m open to talking about an investment and I’ve always invested on jockeys. Now, that’s being said, the horse has to have at least four legs, right? I mean, it can’t be a three legged horse. It just doesn’t work that way. But, you know, whenever I’ve gone into those situations where I’m investing in the founder and the co-founders in the team, I’ve never really been disappointed because I’ve been fortunate enough that each one of those people have been people that, you know, on the back side, even if it didn’t work out, I would consider investing again with them because of their integrity and the way they treated their employees and their customers and how they ran their businesses. And then along the way, you know, some of those actually worked out really great. So I think, you know, you have to go in eyes wide open into any situation. And I always think about, you know, I’m not going to invest money that at the end of the day I’m going to regret that I invested like I’m not taking that much money out of my pocket and making that investment because, you know, I might well be disappointed because how many actually work and how many don’t if the odds are stacked against us. But I love it. I mean, I love it because there’s no greater form of affirmation validation to a founder that you’re working with than to say, I’m writing you a check. Right? I mean, we’re in now, we’re in this together now. And I behind you, you know, and sometimes it doesn’t take many of those checks to be the thing that just ignites the fire.

William Norvell: Yeah. Words of affirmation are great. Moving the banks a little better on the fundraising trail. Niel, you said, hey, is the most important thing a founder potentially can do. Prepare some founders listening. What are the right questions to ask when they’re raising capital? Who do they ask them to? Where’s that line? What is reasonable to ask? What is unreasonable ask? What should an investor tell them? Right. And of course, you know, a lot of people are saying, I’ve been there, gosh, how much can I ask? And I still want the money. I don’t want to upset up, you know, how does that relationship work? How quickly can you get to that? How quickly should you get to that? And what’s reasonable to expect an investor to answer back? You know, in that conversation.

Neil Ahlsten: Well, there’s a wide range there, depending on who you’re talking to about how they’re going to respond and what questions they’re going to ask. If you’re a founder coming into this and you’re wondering, like, what should I be putting myself up for, to go into these investor meetings and have good discussions about, you know, obviously try to repay yourself with a lot of great books on there about how to talk to VCs or whatnot. But I think number one is actually comes back to something that Rusty said that I love is if you look across the table from the person who’s going to write you a check and they look at you as a human being who is valuable, whether or not that check ever gets returned or gets returned with a 30 X or five X or whatever, those are the kind of people you want sitting around the table with you, because those are the kind of people who, when you hit Valleys, every founder is going to hit valleys in their founding experience. I think having people around who aren’t going to be the ones who are like, Hey, now you’re down in the valley, I’m going to take shots at you, but hey, you’re in the valley. Like, how can we help get you out of that or counsel you through it? Those are better people to have a lot of investors. And just keep this in mind, the founder, right? When you double down on the winners, you triple down on the winners. You spend your time with the winners and not with the losers. And I was just talking with a renowned venture capitalist who Rusty, you know, out of London and he was saying that the most valuable week he ever spent was with one of his winners, and he spent a week with them and helped them win even five X. More than they already had that led to this huge multibillion dollar exit. And he’s like, out of all the 50 weeks I spent that year, that was the only one that actually I did anything really valuable. But it’s a hard perspective as a founder, because what winds up happening with the investors who invests in your companies is that they tend to feed the winners and starve the losers. A lot of them do. And so just be a little mindful of that. Try to have people around you who won’t starve you off if you’re the one who’s in the valley for a while because you might have otherwise made it. But they won’t help you get through like you want the people who are at least going to be there who shoulder you can cry on and who are going to say give you at least words of encouragement, even if they don’t write you another check and some words of wisdom and refer you to some other people other than being like, Sorry, you’re just roadkill, but just sweeping you off the road. I’m going to keep going forward. I think you want a few of those people on your cap table as you can have.

William Norvell: Yeah, that’s good. You know, as we come near close here, how do you. So once again, you had a very significant path. We heard. Right. You know, Christian investors sold to a Christian led company. The legacy was able to continue. And so and you and you were actually quite confident in that, right? I’m sure it’s different. And after an acquisition, it always is. Right. It’s different than you actually thought it was going to be. But it sounds like directionally all those things held true. Now you’re investing in companies. And, you know, I’ll go Neil first and then Rusty and but that may not be true. Google may come to buy them right now. I think Google’s a bad company. That’s not what I’m trying to say. But just like you might not be as clear that it’s going to go just like I thought it was. And they are going to hold my vision just like I thought. And so what I’m getting to is how much the spiritual legacy and impact. Impact an exit decision when there isn’t that. I think yours is a rarity. I think on average there isn’t a lot of confidence that it’s going to go great and this is going to be a perfect marriage and they’re going to grow the business more without me. It’s like now you’re probably thinking they may shelve my company in two years, they may fire all my employees, but it’s still the right decision to all the stakeholders. But I’m worried about it, and so is that 5% of the calculus? Do I say no because of that? Just how does spiritual legacy and impact what God’s called you to do? What you’ve been building the business for way into this type of decision?

Neil Ahlsten: For me. I think, though, I have to give myself an air of humility and all this. One of the most common exits I see in the Christian space is the founder led church that dies when the founder goes away. There is just I can’t even tell you how many thousands of churches out there that just died after the founder of a founder led church never handed it off. And so I think that the opposite is often more true is that as the founder you hold on to long past the point when you’re youthful and you don’t build up the people to take it over after you because you think you’re the only one who can do it. And if you think that you’re the only one that God can raise up to do something, you are wrong. God can rise up all sort of people. So that’s actually a little bit of a personal, philosophical thing that I have is if I do not believe God can raise up the next generation to keep moving forward. Boy, somehow God has done that for a lot of generations. So I think that that was just my own perspective. Everybody has their own perspective on it, but so I didn’t feel some weight and talking about spiritual legacy and now I can be on the proud side of it. I’m pretty sure that a lot of companies out there, like Pray.com and Hello, were able to raise the capital they were because we were a top 40 grossing health and fitness app and other venture capitalist said, Shoot, that’s actually a thing that you can be a top 40 grossing health and fitness app as a religious app. Why aren’t there more? And so Party wants to say maybe we helped inspire also other people to write checks to our collabors in Christ so that they could build great businesses, too. So part of me looks at it and says, Yeah. Some of that capital they raised. Maybe we helped inspire it because we’re the first ones to prove that you could actually make money and cash flow really well being a Christian app, to my knowledge. And so I don’t know all the spiritual legacy that I brought, but a part of me takes a little bit of pride in that to be like, Hey, Alex did Hello, Maybe you got a check because the guys looked over and said, Hey, you know, this can work. And maybe Steve could tell you that the same thing. But he got a check because people whatever. So that can work. I don’t know for sure, but it’s hard to know what your spiritual legacy is because you don’t know how many people you touch. And the other thing is these reviews, like, I mean, every single day I’m still get all the reviews coming in and it just blows my mind. The reviews that people give where they’re like, Man, you know, I came to Jesus through your app. My husband died listening to your app convalescing in a home somewhere, and the last thing you heard was Abide Meditations before going to meet Jesus. I mean, there’s just so many different versions of these testimonials that I’m like, I don’t know, Lord. Hopefully I did something good running his company. Time 105 is probably not going to be what you need from me. I’m going to do so. But you know, each founder has to deal with that in their own way with that product and that team and answer that question for themself. Honestly. It’s a very, very personal question.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I’ll come in really quickly. I think it comes back to something we explored in one of our earlier podcasts with one of our guests. I can’t remember exactly who it was, William But you know, what do we really own? Right. What are we really own? I mean, if we are believers that are, you know, faithfully surrendering our lives, our vocations, our skills and talents to Christ, we don’t own it. Right. We’re just renting this company that we founded, you know, for this time frame that God’s given it to us. And if it’s taken from us or it’s His will for it to go someplace else. And you really believe that, then you let it go. Because it wasn’t really yours from the beginning. And so I think that that’s one of those faithful, willful decisions we take, too. Now, if you’re not a believer and you don’t have faith and you know, I understand why people get really disappointed when they hang on so tightly. And then if it goes someplace else and then it gets shut down and then their own self-esteem, their own ego, like it didn’t live and what did I do wrong? And I should have stayed there longer. But, you know, we don’t have to be that way. It’s our choice not to be that way, because, you know, God’s will supersedes all of that.

William Norvell: Yeah. Reminds me of two episodes. I think that might have been Alan Barnhart, where, you know, he effectively gave away his company but still runs his company. A rather large one. Right. But he effectively has given away all of it to charity. And then also reminds me of a really amazing episode with Randy Alcorn talking about the treasure principle. And yeah, what do we actually own? I hear the echoes of that, Niel, and what you said, like, well, we actually own is actually like, what, what God makes these things on earth into in heaven. Right. And so actually, like, this is just a small foretaste of what he’s going to do with our skills and gifts and abilities. And in some, my reading of Revelation, which I see if William was right there one day, probably not. But my reading of it is like there’s some supernatural way in the new city, the new heavens in new Earth that, like what we produced here, will still echo there and we have no idea what that will look like or well, it would be. And remind me also, it got so many good episodes. I remember we had Victor on. He talked about going through a layoff and said, you know, this may have been the reason. This may be the only thing that’s remembered about my company is how I treated these people during this layoff. Right. Right. That may be all that in matter. And he’s not saying that definitive. And that may end up being all that mattered. And we can’t know that here. Right. On this side. And so thank you for sharing that. I think that was such a great way to end. As we go to the final end, what we do love, I’m guessing you have no shortage of biblical reflections, so I’m just going to let you go. But we love to end with the word of God. And one place that God may be taking you maybe today in your abide reflection. And and of course, feel free to at the end of that, please tell everybody where they can get a abide, how they can get a abide and all of those things as well, because we know it personally helps so many people. I know and I hope we can obviously do that too.

Neil Ahlsten: Very cool. I’ll give you a biblical reflection. One came partly to revelation from God, but also is very much back to the Scripture is that I truly think a prayer that you pray exists through all time and space forever. We talk about the prayers of the Saints being incense before God in heaven. So pray a lot would be the short answer and pray scripture. But it just had this very clear understanding from God that when we recorded this little podcast prayers that were on abide and then prayed in faith by somebody recording it and other people out listening to it, that prayer is still being affected and the Holy Spirit is still working through that, even though it’s being played on a digital podcast somewhere. And so just know that those little spiritual moments that you do to cry out to God, to ask for God to move, etc. they may seem temporal and they pass away, but those songs that David wrote almost 3000 years ago are still active and working in people’s lives today. So that’s just one of those Don’t underestimate the importance and the power of going where God is going and praying in the way God is praying because it will continue. And one of the counsel is that I think the peace of Christ is an actual spiritual tool that you need to use as a founder through hardship, that the the piece of Christ protects you, it surrounds you. It’s it’s inside of you. And having run hundreds of experiments on people with content, trying to understand what happens when you bring people into the space of the peace of Christ and what that does in their life. It’s a thing. And so don’t think of the piece of Christ is something that you accomplish or you get to one day that you just feel at peace. But it actually is like part of God’s armor surrounding you, protecting you, helping you walk through those valleys that you’re going to have as a founder and know that God has a plan of purpose for you through those seasons. Like Victor said, laying people off. Love that dude like that, that you could have the peace of Christ giving people a reduction in force, not a threat like that. You know that This is what I need to do in this season and I can still be okay with it. So treating people right as founders and as leaders of companies walk into every day knowing that you can do that and you can lead to the peace of Christ even through the hard times.

Rusty Rueff: Amen.

Neil Ahlsten: And how you get abide, go download it. You can go to the App Store or Google Play Buy.com. Use it. The things that people do with it that we tested into, they love the most. The meditations are a great way to reflect with Scripture on your own life. We actually have pauses in there. This is you’re not supposed to do audio files, right? You don’t have a podcast. And second, positive guys, but we ask questions and ask you to reflect on your life using Scripture. And I do it and it works. And the short answer is it helps me understand what God is doing in my life. We invite the Holy Spirit in and then sleep is the other one. I can’t even tell you how powerful it is to fall asleep to Scripture and have that Scripture through your brain at night. It rewires the neurons in your head to align with what God is thinking and why in your life or what is true, as opposed to what’s false and wrong and broken in the world. So I encourage you do that. If you need a scholarship, just email, help it abide.com and we’ll give it to you for free. If you can’t afford it. If you’re not taking a salary and you’re found out there today and you need it, go get it. We’ll give it to you for free.

Rusty Rueff: Awesome.

William Norvell: Pretty good pitch.

Rusty Rueff: Niel It’s been great to do this. William, Thanks for moderating. Is through what I think is a really important conversation. Hopefully we can have more conversations like this about different points in the journey for an entrepreneur in that entrepreneurial journey. But Niel, in the meantime, man, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And, you know, you’ve been a real inspiration to me, the way you’ve handled yourself as a CEO, a founder, all the way through. It was an honor to be on your board. And, you know, I only wish the best for you and all that you’ve got going. Blessings over you and your family.

Neil Ahlsten: Thanks Rusty. Thanks, William.

Recent Episodes

One of the core marks of Faith Driven Entrepreneurs is to be active in the local church. But many entrepreneurs struggle to know what that could look like. Unfortunately, the gap between businesses and churches have often felt insurmountable.

But something powerful can happen when these worlds come together.

Matt Parfitt has started and is scaling multiple businesses in the UK in partnership with his church community and has seen God move in incredible ways. He joins us today to talk about the value of this partnership and to share how other entrepreneurs could work alongside their churches for God’s glory and for the good of their communities.

Relevant Links:

https://www.graceenterprises.co.uk/

https://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/church-stories

To connect with Matt directly, learn more about Grace Enterprises and its social enterprises, or discover how you can be involved in the ongoing journey click here: https://linktr.ee/gradients

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey there. And welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Thanks once again for joining us. One of the core marks of faith driven entrepreneurs is to be active in the local church. But many entrepreneurs struggle to know what that could look like. Unfortunately, the gap between businesses and churches have often felt insurmountable. But something powerful can happen when these worlds come together. Matt Parfitt has started and is scaling multiple businesses in the UK in partnership with his church community and has seen God move in incredible ways. He joins us today to talk about the value of this partnership and to share how other entrepreneurs could work alongside their churches for God’s glory and for the good of their communities. If you’d like to learn more about how faith driven entrepreneurs can help you partner with your church, visit faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/church. We’ll put the link in the show notes, and there will also be a video story of Matt’s work with Grace Enterprises premiering very soon. But for now, let’s jump into our conversation with Matt Parfitt.

Rusty Rueff: So, William, I was reading the other day that 2000. Yeah, I know, I know. I was reading.

William Norvell: You’re. You’re already winning. You’re already winning.

Rusty Rueff: I am winning because I’m reading. So I was reading that 2023 might end up being the highest air travel mileage in the history of air travel, which is I don’t know. I don’t know how much you’re traveling this year. I mean, we traveled. We’ve done a bunch it maybe it’s revenge travel. I don’t know.

William Norvell: I thought you were going to attribute it all to Henry Kaestner.

Rusty Rueff: Well, that’s where I was going to go.

William Norvell: A singular spike.

Rusty Rueff: That’s where I was going to go. You read my mind, you know, because we’re missing our third amigo today because once again, he’s on a plane, I think this time to London, right?

William Norvell: I think that’s right. That’s right. You know, I’m wondering when the budget extends to the other host. I just, you know, I mean, I’m fine in Menlo Park, Rusty. I’m fine. I’m fine. You’re fine. London sounds fun.

Rusty Rueff: That sounds pretty good right now. In fact, we’re going to we’re going to kind of go there today because we were going to welcome in our guest, Matt Parfitt, who is in London and just saw Henry yesterday. Is that right, Matt?

Matt Parfitt: I was in London yesterday, but I’m actually from Nottingham.

Rusty Rueff: Oh, well.

William Norvell: Then you got you got to you know, you got to help his brother. You know.

Matt Parfitt: It’s pretty close by relative to where you guys are.

Rusty Rueff: Matt, Remember, we’re Americans. Sort of everything looks like just one big thing.

William Norvell: I live in California, now Matt, but I grew up in Alabama. You know, the states, like long way away. And so every time I meet somebody out here and they find out I’m from Alabama, you just see them grasping for the closest thing they can come up with. And typically it’s like, I have a friend in Arkansas. Do you know him? Like, I mean, it’s three states over, like there’s a chance, but it’s unlikely. It’s actually quite a long distance from where I live.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, It was great to meet Henry yesterday in London, but yeah, now I’m back home in Nottingham. Say, famous for Robin Hood and not so famous for my sports team. Nottingham Forest.

Rusty Rueff: Uh, well, we welcome your on to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. It’s great to have you. We’re going to talk a lot about your background and great experiences that you’ve had, but we want to jump right into the heart of this episode and what we want to focus on is why do you think the church, from your experiences, should be involved in businesses and be partnering with entrepreneurs? Because this it’s a big topic that our entrepreneurs kind of look at between the relationship, between, you know, what they do and the church, and you’ve got a unique perspective on that. So just jump in and tell us why you think that That’s a great idea.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, I look at what the church used to do, so hundreds of years ago, set in the UK where it was really instrumental when it was relevant in society, it was employing people, it was building schools, it was hospitals, it was clearly was relevant. And now I think most of the population in the UK would say the church is irrelevant. And I’ve seen it where there is an example of a church we talk about in a minute where they are doing so much more and it is just inspiring to see more than a food parcel. Jesus’s promised life and life in all its fullness. And I think that goes beyond doing the relief work that churches typically do. Say that would be just a few to kick us off.

Rusty Rueff: All right. Well, so you come at this because you had a discovery, right, with your own situation. And as we’re going to learn here, it revolves around a trip you took to Kenya, of all places, which I’m actually wearing my Maasai warrior [….] that yeah, that I got when I was in Kenya last year. What a phenomenal country. But talk about this discovery that you had and what you saw in a church there and then most importantly, how it inspired you.

Matt Parfitt: Yes, we were over there. I went over there with my wife. It was her medical elective. So we had three months. And towards the end of that time, we went to see a local church there. And it was so inspiring. So I think instead of an area where probably on a map, it would look like it should need loads of aid and relief and money and resources going into it. Actually, it was creating a school with a hospital. It was employing people. It was delivering aid out to the area around it. So it was resources were coming out of it. And I was just hugely inspired by this to see a church that was doing so much more in its community. It was great to see. And so that fired me up when I came back to the UK.

Rusty Rueff: And describe the church for us. Give us a sense of what that kind of looks like, because I think people have never been to Kenya or even if some people who have actually been to other parts of Africa and to Kenya, I’ve seen different things. So just give us a little description of what it all looked like.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, it was in a small town, so it was quite a long drive to get there. You can imagine the roads were not great, but we were young and up for the adventure and went there for the weekend. And yeah, there are probably a couple of hundred people there, maybe more. And one of the things that caught the eye was when it came to the offering, people bringing their tide’s and offerings like normal, but also people were bringing fruit and vegetables and other produce that they had made or had produced during the week. And so it was great to see a church that was clearly relevant and not just after the money, but it was more the person who was driving us around the taxi driver. He was actually he’d been saved and added and then employed in a taxi firm that was started with the church, that the church had a printing press, a coffee plantation. It built various things in the town, and that was only because the leader was a businessman before he got saved. And then, unlike in the UK, where he probably would then say, right now I’m safe, I will a full time job leading a church. That’s not really an option there. So he carried on running his businesses, except they were pouring their profits and resources into the church. So it was amazing to see.

Rusty Rueff: I am like William and pick up on the experience that you had. But you know what that kind of reminds me a little bit of is that, you know, at one time here in the United States, churches were the center right. They were the center of a town, center of a city. And people came from their farms and from their homes into the church. And the church became really the epicenter of a community. And in somewhere along the way, we started to say, well, let’s move those churches out. Let’s put them in suburbs. And I wonder if, you know, some of that movement has made our churches here in the United States less of the center of community, you know, for serving the community. Like I think what you saw in Kenya. Would that be a true statement for what you saw in Kenya, that the church was the epicenter?

Matt Parfitt: Absolutely. Say, yeah, the center of community life and people were coming to it. It was relevant, whether you believed or not, because they were building the hospital. So everyone was going to be involved there at some point in their life.

William Norvell: Now, it’s really interesting that and, you know, as great entrepreneurs do, you know, we often see things out in the world that are working in one sphere and say, hey, here’s a sphere where it’s not working. Maybe we can bring that kind of concept over to this world. So you tried to do that. You brought it back to your church. You said, Hey, seeing this incredible thing, I think it could work here. How did that conversation go when you got back?

Matt Parfitt: Yeah. When I got back, it was a conversation about there some amazing things and it was more of a I’m not sure that could work over here. And it was a fairly short conversation, but I was sort of stewing on it, brooding over it for a while and thinking. And I was a primary school teacher at this point. So teaching five, six year olds in a rough part of town in Nottingham. But actually I was also involved in discipling some people at church and they’d come to know Jesus their life had changed. But the fact that they’d been in prison, the fact that they’d had all kinds of other issues meant that they were very hard to employ. And what happened was I was getting more and more frustrated because however much time I could spend, whether it was on a Saturday, Sunday, midweek evening home group, it just wasn’t enough time. So we had people that needed a job and I was full of a church that was middle class people like me. They were all very well-intentioned and wanted to help, but actually we are not employers couldn’t practically help. So that’s where I was. And yeah, it led to a Saturday in May 2007, where I was getting really frustrated with God, saying, Look, someone needs to do something about this, and you can probably guess what happened next.

William Norvell: I’m grateful that I don’t have to. I, I want to pause. I want to hear that. But also, you said it so quickly. You said a Saturday in 2007. It just harkened back to the Old Testament. And I feel like sometimes I forget to memorialize the times that God has spoken to me, the things that he has done, where I see that beautiful rainbow in the sky at the exact moment. You clearly remember that so vividly. So I want to know what happened next. But I also want to know why do you remember it? So, I mean, 2007, 16 years ago and you referenced a Saturday in 2007. Walk us through that and how you remember that, how you memorialize that in your mind.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, well, arguably, one of the most significant days of my life, along with getting married, three children. But actually this was the point where….

William Norvell: But I can barely remember that sometimes, you know, let’s be honest. So, you know, the very significant moment in my life, too was my marriage. But it was eight years ago, and it’s a little iffy sometimes. I know it was in March, but like, sometimes.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, I mean, this was a very important, significant one in that we were at a Christian conference, social action conference over in Birmingham in England, and actually just that feeling of God has just spoken. I was sitting there with my wife and it was as clear as I was saying, I’m getting frustrated with God. That sense just absolute clarity of God saying, Right, will you do it then? And I, being personality, I am and relatively confident that I are. And. All right I will then and that was it. And I would speak to my wife afterwards about it. But this is Saturday afternoon. On Monday morning, I’m handing in my notice to the head teacher to resign from my career to say it’s like he was surprised to say the least, because on Friday afternoon. So we’ll have a nice weekend. See you on Monday. Monday morning comes around. I’m handing my notice in. So naturally he asks what’s happened and what are you going to do next with the two questions? So after trying to answer about what had happened and trying to relate that to someone that doesn’t believe in God, I’ve had a voice from God, but actually like, what are you going to do? Whereas I’m going to be an employer, I don’t know how, but I’m going to be an employer. And that was it. And that’s crucial to the rest of the story, really, that it’s all about employing people with major barriers to work. So people who are struggling to get a job. But actually I’m really believing that God’s spoken, that God loves the poor, that God wants to see people have more than a food parcel. As I said, how can we give people hope, purpose and dignity while actually employing them and employing them? Well, and so that was the heart then. And I always wanted to do it with the church having the year before seeing the church in Kenya doing it. And so that was when I then came to the church and said, Look, God’s spoken. I’m absolutely convinced I’ve already hand them my notice in, and how about we do this together? Say, that was 2007.

William Norvell: I want to hear what you did. But I also want to hear that moment because that’s the very entrepreneurial moment. Did the church say, you clearly heard from God, we are champions alongside you, This makes perfect sense to us. Or was there a little bit you still had to wrestle through like, you know, Hey, you sure? You sure that was the plan? Because I feel like that’s a moment right where we all I mean, I feel like every entrepreneur, if you have one idea, you’ve got 100 ideas in choosing that one to say that one is quitting my job on Monday for because God is moving me towards it. How do you wrestle through that.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah. But if you mean specific, I could start. This business is worth quiting my job. That wasn’t the case in my story. It was genuinely I’m going to quit my job to employ people. Don’t know how, but it loads the ways of employing people say that’s not really the issue. The vehicle to employ people. But what we do is employ people and change their lives through jobs. How we do it, that’s obviously dances. The business, but then going to the church to answer your first question. No, it wasn’t that. Yeah, let’s go for that. It was it was very much. We don’t think this is what God’s calling us to as a church at this time. You’re a teacher. This is for a bow. What if it doesn’t work? What about the money? How will. It’s just not like a very bold step. And the world is clearly a very different place than it was in 2007. We’ve had a credit crunch and a recession and a pandemic and all kinds of things since then. But it was a no. But the church were very supportive in terms of I did lots of gardening was the vehicle I ended up going with. I ran a gardening business for ten years time and I’ve done a lot of gardens of people who go to the church because there’s no reason not to use us and they like what we’re doing. But it wasn’t a church round thing, and so that was hard for me. I had to live with that tension for ten years.

William Norvell: A long time. That’s a long time. And I don’t want to skip over that. I mean, that’s a long obedience in the same direction. And, you know, I feel like in the stage of newspaper clippings and funding announcements and things like that, so often it feels like these should be overnight successes. And I know Henry’s co-founder, I’ve heard David Morgan say many times, you know, yeah, you know how you end up in public, it was a 20 year overnight success. Yeah. You know, and I just I think that’s so admirable that, you know, ten years of a business, right? And that bought you the credibility to then go do more things right. But you had to literally put your hand on the plow in this situation for a decade. So what happened next? So the garden business is going well. You’re employing people, you are pursuing the mission God gave you for a decade and then growth.

Matt Parfitt: So it’s not as if I hadn’t talked to the church. In the meantime, I have had some great conversations with a friend of mine who then became the church leader, but actually talking about business and all the wrestling with it. But I feel like the second time God spoke to me directionally and obviously in a podcast, it sounds like, Oh God spoke all the time. So we’re talking ten years later, 2017, where I feel like God’s have a really clear vision of how we could do it with the church. But what is now called Grace Enterprises, and I go to Grace Church saying, Grace Enterprise is a vision for our church, running multiple businesses that are transforming lives through supports of employment. But this time I was going back to the elder is saying I am not quitting my job. This is what I genuinely believe. It will just be on a completely different level rather than massive, nice ish guy who do your garden well, you can trust him. That’s one thing. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. But actually if we, the church suddenly were actually active in society, we weren’t just praying for people on a Sunday and saying, Come in and hear the answer. The answer to your problem that you don’t know you have is Jesus. But actually to be able to be out there in society, employing people, earning the right to talk to them about Jesus in the future as and when conversations come up. But actually so we went to them with a proposal and said the only way we can do this is if you want to do it as a church. Otherwise I’ll just carry on gardening and I can carry on doing that. There’s no reason to stop apart from if you see, this is from God as well. So it took a long time the rest of that year to actually make that decision. But it was a tumultuous year and I would forever be grateful to all the elders for saying, actually, we believe this is from God. And so they backed me. And so I started in September 2017, started Grace Enterprises with the church.

William Norvell: And tell us, let’s go one layer into the details. And you say, I started with like seed money from the church, people pouring into the business. What did start with the church mean?

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, so we are not an especially rich church. And I had a plan A which was actually for a removals company and the church came back saying we love the idea, we think it’s from God, we don’t have that much money. So I think I’d asked for £40,000 and they were saying, Look, we haven’t got that. You can have £4,000. So already I was having to ditch that vehicle, as it were, for a different one. But believing in the bigger vision of where we’re going to run multiple businesses anyway. So it doesn’t really matter which one we start with. And the church backed me by giving me six months salary and they said, Look, here’s six months salary, here’s some seed funding. And then the real litmus test would be if God’s in it and if there are green shoots and if it’s starting to work, and then we’ll go to the congregation, we’ll tell them all about it, and we’ll have an offering, and then you’ll find out what people really think, because everyone’s going to like the idea. There’s nothing not to like about. We’re going to help people who are hard to help, but actually will they really believe in it where they really want to commit? Will they give? But with those odds, I was delighted. Six months and £4,000 out and offering what entrepreneur I wouldn’t go for that.

William Norvell: And that’s a big. Rusty we live in Silicon Valley. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Like you were like an EIR in a church, basically, like an entrepreneur and residents at a church. They gave you a salary. Seed Funding. Yes, I know you said it wasn’t a huge number, but it was a number. I mean, I. Ever heard of a church? I mean, honestly, a dollar to a for profit business, typically. I mean, I could be wrong. I’m sure I’m wrong. I use hyperbole to make a point. Sometimes it’s usually wrong, but I’ve never heard of such a thing. Rusty, have you heard of that?

Rusty Rueff: No. Sort of hear around.

William Norvell: It is so Inspiring.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, around the corners, maybe. You know, like, Oh, we do this and, you know, we sell these books or these CDs or we do that, and there’ll be a little, you know, business inside. But it is unique. And, you know, I’m wondering also, Matt, I mean, there are those who say, whoa, whoa, whoa. church No, no, no, no, no, no. Church shouldn’t touch anything for profit. I mean, did you hear some of that inside or have you heard that from the outside?

Matt Parfitt: Yeah. I think it was swing both ways. Like what if you seem to be making a profit and exploiting people that would bring God’s name into disrepute and going the other way around? What if you mess it all up and actually someone suing you, then that would bring God’s name into disrepute. So I think if a church is is far easier to keep away from money or just to say make your money outside the church, then give it to the church and trust us to spend it. But actually, I believe that if we can do things that are helping people in a way that is actually replicable and is creating a surplus, then the world and business, there’s so much that we as Christians need to help to do differently, not to run an exploitative business, but actually business that is best would be such an exciting thing. I mean, Jesus was a carpenter. He would have had a great time making chairs and tables. I think he could have sold them for a millions of pounds because they were made by the Son of God. They would be worth it in the future. Or he could have given them away because he didn’t need the money. But actually, I believe he would have made great tables, great chairs. He would have sold them at a fair price that gave value to the customer. And if he had any employees, he would have treated them well and paid them properly, and then he would have made a bit of a profit. And then the interesting thing would be what does the Son of God do with a bad profit? But there you go. Well, I can discuss that another time.

William Norvell: Yeah, there’s Dorothy Sayers says no wobbly chairs came out of Nazareth, you know. Okay, so last question I have. I’m just thinking through. There’s going to be someone listening to this podcast is inspired by this. That is like sending a doc send over to their church leadership at the end of the program here. Right. So walk us through a little bit of the pros and cons. This is a unique partnership, as we just talked about, I’d never heard of before. I’m sure there are challenges, pros and cons, maybe a shorthand. I’m sure there are huge wins and some realistic challenges in this kind of partnership. Could you walk our listeners through what you’ve experienced there?

Matt Parfitt: Yeah. And can I clarify in a moment that the profit, which is definitely trace that we’ve set up a parent, so umbrella charity, Grace Enterprises, So therefore you are quite right the business to be run the cleaning business, the events business, the biscuit business are all for profit, but their profits would end up being given to the parent charity, which is the shareholder then reinvested. So in some ways we get the best of both worlds being a charity. So if you give your money, brilliant, we’ll spend it wisely. On mentoring, coaching, supporting our employees, going above and beyond what a normal business would do. But actually each business is operating business to business, selling to other customers, making a profit, and then reinvesting, as I said. And the challenge with the church and the advantage, well, I think it, so Ben our church leader would say it really engages people in the church. So more than just bringing a little bit of extra some tins of soup or some shopping to give us a free parcel So it’s so necessary. Foodbanks over here is any huge thing. But how can we do more than that? In some ways it’s a bit easy. We can just give something back, actually. What about mentoring someone who has never worked before? Standing in that gap between the employer and just getting alongside and having a coffee and doing life together has been one of the ways where people get involved. I think that people are encouraged in their own faith and maybe even some people start coming to our church because it’s so active in the way that it lives out, its vision and values. And we’ve employed various different people within our team. So some of the employees of to give a bit more stability and maybe we can say, look, we can guarantee these things can get done. We would employed say, some of the interns who work part time, the church part time for us as well over the years. So they used to be some of the positives, some of the downsides would be, yeah, it’s not going to be as simple as someone who set up their own business and they just make their own decisions. I spend time I’m not legally accountable to the church but actually want to submit myself to them and talk to them. And I talk to our church leader every couple of weeks. I see him every day and I talk to him about how is it going and what we’re doing. And we see it as we’re trying to do things together. The sign outside the church door clearly says, This is where you’ll find Grace Church. It lists all the businesses that are here as well. So we’re definitely doing it all as one. But I mean, maybe it’s a personality thing as well. I guess churches are never known for quick decision making and the average entrepreneur, which probably is more likely to be impulsive than slow off the mark. So that’s one of the challenges.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. And I want to dig into that a little bit because you waited ten years, right, for the church to really become active. And those were probably ten years that I’m sure you had conversations with yourself and your wife and lots of other people going, you know, what do I got to do to get them to wake up? You know, this is what I feel called to do. And I think, you know, you hit on something there at the end of what you said, which I’d like you just to. Go into a little more. As entrepreneurs, so many times, like, we’re supposed to disrupt it, we’re supposed to break it, right, and put it back together or come up with some new way to do it. And, you know, I’ve found in my own life with my own church, sometimes that could be frustrating because I’m like, you just don’t move fast enough or you just don’t get it. And yet, at the same time, I have to stop and remind myself. That, you know, God works in his own time. And so I’d like you just to maybe share some of those emotions you had during that time of waiting and then impart some wisdom and guidance to those who might also be in that same situation. They love their church, they love their pastor. They love what they’re doing. They’re trying to get them to move in a direction, but they need some encouragement.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, I think it revolves around the certainty of the call in the first place. So, I’m handing my notice in on Monday morning because the day before Saturday, the day before, been actually God speaking. And I was obviously convinced. So I can’t prove it to you or to anyone else. But I was convinced I didn’t need to buy all the fleeces. I didn’t need to do any testing way. It’s either God’s really or is not. And either God speaks or he doesn’t. And I believe he is reall and he does speak and he’s just spoken. So the level of faith involved in that was relatively easy because it’s like actually he would take a lot of faith to hear from God and then do the opposite. So from my point of view is, if you’re calling me to do it, I’ll do it. Which I suppose then follows into the timing element of it, because it certainly never crossed my mind that the church probably never crossed my mind. they’d say no, but it didn’t cross my mind. They’d take ten years to change their mind. But I always still believe that God called me to do something and gave a vision for something specific. And I am hopefully humble enough to know that I might actually be wrong and might have been wrong and might be wrong. So therefore I can’t tell them it’s the priority for the church and that it is from God. I can just say I’m following you, following God while at the same time this is what God’s called me to do. So I’m going to do it. And when we can do it together, I really believe in the local church as this is plan A for the world. So I never intended to do it outside of church. Honestly, it made it hard coming to church for those years because there was a disconnect. Whereas now is a joint. I’m actually here same church, and doing it together is just a completely different way. And also the profile of what we do is what I was saying all along, of if the church gets involved and does stuff, people are going to set up and take notice.

Rusty Rueff: Do you consider going to another church?

Matt Parfitt: No, I didn’t actually. Which maybe is one of the biggest surprises in it, because I’m not sure that I would have rocked up at any church to be there and they would have just said yes. But actually, and if you’re saying on the one hand, maybe this is a bit unique or at least very rare, then I can’t really criticize the church for not going with it straight away is like me saying I’ve had from God. But if they haven’t, then why should they go with that? They got enough on their plate to worry about. But that’s why I was so grateful ten years later when it was more of a collaborative decision of Here’s a proposal, you way see what you think. And if you are fully behind this, then let’s go for it together.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, it’s a great story. I mean, it’s it’s just reinforcing to me, you know, if God’s in it, God’s in it, you know, And sometimes we just have to wait and be patient. And even though every fiber of our being is saying, I don’t want to be patient, I shouldn’t have to wait, I should be able to, you know, knock this down. You know, God has his own timing. And what a blessing for you and for your church. Right. You know, at the right time. Now, you didn’t go on this journey alone, right? You had a wife. How’d that all work out?

Matt Parfitt: And I think is looking back on it is so crucial that we were in Kenya together. And then that Saturday, I’m referring June 2007, we were there together. So all the key moments, she’s been there. But yeah, the first one was almost easy. As in I’m going to give up teaching fine, we’ve still got a stable income because she’s a family doctor, so she’s getting paid more than me anyway. And there aren’t many men in primary school, so I could always go back to it, let’s be honest. But actually it was when she gave up her career. Then all of a sudden this is a whole new level of like you were all in before. You are definitely well out of this both right now. And I really living out your faith. But she would say to you that was more of a whereas I was excited to let it go and say look God’s call me to anything. It was more of an obedience thing for her. She wanted to make medicine work and it just wasn’t working and God was going back to. I said before that God’s real and he speaks or isn’t. And he was saying things to her that she didn’t want to hear, to be quite honest about medicine and identity. So she was amazing in terms of she, yeah, cut those ties with medicine, but it did mean that we were fully committed to what we’re doing and trusting God. And that is the story all the way through. Because I’m a teacher who starts a business who then runs multiple businesses. But actually so we’ve been out about that all along. But she has been wonderfully supportive through the years and there’s been some tough times. But yeah, she’s been in it with me.

Rusty Rueff: So awesome. Awesome. All right. So tell us about the businesses. Like you chose a bunch of them and you know, what are they accomplishing and how do you define success for these businesses?

Matt Parfitt: Yeah. For us it’s all about employing people with major barriers to it. So we’re talking about people being homeless, struggling with addiction. Maybe they’ve been in prison. We’re now employing quite a lot of refugees, Ukrainian refugees in particular at the moment. So actually it’s about employing people, well, in businesses. And so for me, the question of what business shall we start is do we have the right person to start it and do we have the money and will actually be sustainable? But crucially, does it create different jobs to what we already do? But the first one we started was a commercial cleaning company called Radiant Cleaners. And actually, on day one, it had a more diverse workforce than the gardening business ever did, because I was always wrestling with the how do I employ the single parent? How do I employ the person who’s been addicted all the way through their forties, fifties, and now can’t do a hard day’s landscaping? Because it was never about the gardening. It was always about the people. So I laid that down to start a cleaning company where I think I went from doing the gardening to managing a cleaning company and making network. So we had a more diverse workforce that’s employed 100 people and people with all barriers that you can possibly think of, say, survivors of modern slavery. So the current team is just over 30 in that cleaning business. Then in 2022, we started our second business and events business. So doing marquee hire, say weddings and corporate events, putting them up, which employs different people. And so one of the reasons for doing it and then just recently in 2023, we started a biscuit business, which is a social enterprise. Biscuits go alongside something like a fair trade coffee or ethical product. There isn’t anything in in the UK at least. And so people, if they’re hearing What do you mean you went from gardening to cleaning marquees and biscuits. Sounds like an absolutely crazy journey all over the place. That makes no sense. But if I was saying actually it’s not about that. It’s about transforming lives through supportive employment. That’s what we do. How do you do it? Oh, how we do that is through cleaning, through marquees, through biscuits. But it’s almost irrelevant. It’s like we have to do it really well. We have to be excellent. We want to be the best cleaning company, the best marquee company, the best biscuits. But it’s not about the biscuit, it’s about the people who’ve made it. And that’s the way that we’ve approached the businesses.

Rusty Rueff: And that’s cool. And so when somebody applies for one of your businesses, take us through the explanation that you give them about, you know, why we do this and what it means for them.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, depending on their faith background and whether they’re interested in that side of it or not, because I would want to stress that we employ people of all faiths and none in our businesses. So there’s absolutely no obligation to believe what I believe. But at the same time, if someone says, Why aren’t you teaching, then I will be saying to them, Oh, this is where my faith led me and these are the actions they’ve taken and this is what we do. So firstly, our offices are inside the church and so people would be coming to a church that looks nothing like people’s stereotypical view of a church. So there’s already a question at that point. And then it’s why would a church run a business? Okay, here’s some sort of explanation for that. But then if a church did run a business, why wouldn’t you just employ your own people? Why would you employ me? Because I don’t believe what you believe. I don’t even go to your church. And I think there’s an opportunity there to talk about that. You are inherently valuable as a person, but you are made in the image of God, whether you believe in him or not. And we think you’re worth a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance, whatever it might be, which is one of the reasons, for example, we pay the real living wage rather than the minimum wage. So we’re saying, look, you are loved, you are valuable. We want to give you this job. We want to do life with you. So actually, it’s a job that gives hope and purpose and dignity to people who don’t have those things, to be quite honest at that point, who are people who are often at their lowest ebb, wondering how they’ll ever get into employment ever again, and us coming alongside them saying, we’re going to support you to achieve what you want to achieve. And we just see ourselves as a stepping stone for most people work with us for a few months and then move on to something else, and that’s a real win. We have a few people that stay with us, maybe forever, and that’s a win as well, because they can hold job down for six months that have now been working for six years. That’s a huge win that most people are with us for a while, then move on to something else.

Rusty Rueff: And how about marketing to your customers? What do they see? The transparency is these are businesses run by a church.

Matt Parfitt: So they would see it’s a so yeah, it’s a charity sitting inside and alongside the church. So they might lose that bit of differentiation. But like if I’m selling a cleaning contract, for example, they’re cleaning. There are lots of big companies in Nottingham, then they would see us as we are the social ethical alternative to any old cleaning company. Down the road like we’ll do a great job. But isn’t it great that it’s a social enterprise? So they deliberately create these spaces for people, and if they do make a profit, then the profit is asset locked anyway. It will just be reinvested for good. So what’s not to like? And also the business need that we’re solving for them is actually the social value is a huge thing here to win any kind of government contract. So there’s a how are you making a difference? Because let’s be honest, there are loads of building companies that could put up a building. But like, what’s the difference between you, you and you? And so being able to say we work with this local company to employ people or is a way of fulfilling the obligations that are put on them either way, then we are the answer because we’re giving them a service they need. I’m not convincing them. They need cleaning. They know they need cleaning. But actually us being able to do it, providing amazing PR for them if they want it was just doing it because it’s the right thing to do. Either way, we work some huge companies because of those reasons, and that same thing applies across to, say, weddings. Everybody knows it’s an expensive day. But wouldn’t it be brilliant if you could get married in an amazing marquee? That is fantastic. And it’s been put up by some people maybe who have a criminal record. Maybe they’ve struggled for employment because they’ve put it up two days before your Saturday. They take it down two days afterwards. And we’re giving people a really easy option. You don’t even need to engage with our workforce. And so that’s one reason I think people get behind the ethics of that business. And with the biscuits, I mean, who doesn’t like biscuits? Maybe you call them cookies. But it’d be something where that’s the really exciting one for us right now, because our service based business is number one and number two are very much they’re geographically limited to what they can do. Like we are local, but all of a sudden having a product. Then people have heard our story over the last few years and can’t buy from us. Well, now they like what we do and now they can buy from us. And that’s just on a stratospheric growth curve right now.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I think it’s great because what you’re saying there, Matt, is, is that any business can have a set of values and principles and purpose and mission that if you share those and you operate by those and are not ashamed of them, right. You put them right out there in front that there are customer bases who will look at that and say, You’re unique. I’m looking for something that is unique and different that I can relate to. And you’re doing social good. You’re doing good purposes. Yeah, I admire that. And you may well win business that you wouldn’t win otherwise.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, I think the fact that we treat people well, that we pay them properly. But ultimately, I’m not trying to convince someone to get married or have a cookie or have cleaning. We’re choosing to do things that people are already going to buy, but we’re just saying, why wouldn’t you use this alternative? Why wouldn’t you use us? Because not only will you get the best, but the profit made in doing it. People will be well paid and then the profit will be reinvested in a secular way so that we can do more good. So at that point, the question would be whether we could do it, because if it was out like that, then why wouldn’t you get involved?

Rusty Rueff: Right. Right. I know someone who has a landscaping business in New Jersey here in the United States, And and for years she’s been using what’s called the H-2B visas, where she can bring workers for six months up from Mexico. They come and then they go home and it’s all legal. And, you know, and it costs her a lot of money because she has to send an agent down there to recruit and then she has to fly everybody up. She has to find housing, that she has to fly that back. And it adds significant cost into what typically people would look at and say, whoa, I got to be the lowest cost provider here. Yeah, but she’s never lost a customer because of cost. Because when she explains what she does, people go, That’s amazing. Nobody else does that. And then at the same time, she provides amazing quality in their work. So I think there’s a really good lesson in here for all of us from what you’re talking about. I want to shift gears and then we’ll let William come back. So all along this journey, great things for the church, great things for your workers, great things for these businesses. Take us through your faith journey as you’ve gone on this from the time you were called to go employ people to where you are today. Walk us through how your faith has grown. And also maybe how your faith has been challenged during that time. But, you know, what’s it done to your faith journey?

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, it’s certainly tested it and grown it. So, as I said, fairly dramatic start, say, fully believing God’s in this and we’re going to do great things. And that most of the years that has been the case, things have gone really well. And I think that would be the tests with waiting for church for us to do it together. And that was definitely a test of, yeah, is that the right way of doing it? But I think in terms of like I’ve been saying all along, we’re going to run multiple businesses that will employ people and people would therefore ask me, what’s the next business going to be and how are you going to fund that? To which my answers will pretty much always be, I don’t know. And I don’t know, but I don’t know where the money’s coming from. I don’t know what the idea is or who’s going to run it or whether it will be me. But actually, I don’t need to know about business. Four, five, six, seven, because trusting God for his provision. And as I said before, I was out of my depth so long ago that in some ways it almost doesn’t matter that God has come through in his timing, which is almost always later than we’d like it to be. It’s almost always slower and it’s often seems to be fairly last minute, but actually God provided people in the right timing, the right people in the right timing, and it’s been amazing. But that doesn’t mean it’s not difficult because, say, running into like COVID, for example, that was on the back of a tough year in 2019 for us, possibly not externally, But I think for me in my heart, where I’d probably started to become a bit more willful than faithful to use. Talk about a favorite chapter in the fde book. But I think that actually what I was doing was I was always saying, look at this stuff we’re doing and we’re doing it for God. Brilliant. And there’s nothing not to like there. But actually I think I was starting to believe I’m alright on this and I’m doing quite well and I’ve been quite faithful and I will be doing it all in God’s name and then he can have the credit at the end, which is a very different heart position to actually this is all God’s idea. Only God can do this because we’re talking about something borderline impossible and then actually taking a teacher and then making it happen. So actually it was never about me doing it. It’s always, always God doing it. And I just have the joy of being involved for the ride and getting to run and to actually make it happen. So I think that has been a real test because at those points, I have been thinking I can’t do this anymore, particularly as we lost 95% of our work when COVID struck. So and bear in mind, nearly everyone told me, you won’t make this work anyway before that. So I think that was the point where I finally realized I couldn’t make it work and probably a real moment of relief because actually realizing it, I could never make it work in the first place was a real blessing. And that’s always something I think. I’m not saying I have now solved that one is going to come back for any entrepreneur in that way, particularly if they are getting attention and praise from anyone, if you’re doing quite well at that. But actually to remember what it is you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and ultimately who’s doing the heavy lifting and just remembering your place in that relationship.

William Norvell: It is the good, we come to a close. We love to end with just, you know, an encouragement of where you are in the Bible today and where God may be leading you, could be something you read this morning. It could be something you’ve meditated for a long time. It helped you build your business. We just love to refer back to the Word of God and see how it could be inspiring you and maybe how it can inspire our listeners.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah. Thanks for that. I mean, for me, I love the bit in Genesis where Joseph is being approached by people when he’s in prison and they’ve had dreams that know what they mean and they’ve had it, you can interpret that. He’s very clear in saying, Look, only God can interpret dreams. Now go ahead and tell me your dreams and that sense of only God can do this amazing thing. But us and Joseph in this case, or us in our case, being able to be part of that journey so it’s not go away. God can interpret your dreams on your own, which he could do, but actually doing that actively together with that God using people, but making sure that the glory is going to the right place for us, not just absenting ourselves, but really being relevant and current and wanting to talk to people, say, Yeah, doing life with them. That’s what I found recently, where is trying to make sure that God’s getting the glory, but also being bold enough to say there’s an extraordinary God who uses ordinary people, Let’s go do something extraordinary.

Rusty Rueff: That’s great. That’s great. Matt, it’s been such a pleasure having you, man. And I can’t wait to see what Grace Enterprises does next. I know you got you know, you don’t know what it’s going to be, but we’re going to be watching. And that’s phenomenal. And I got to say, one thing I really love about this conversation is going all the way back to the beginning. You know, in Kenya was a church just doing their thing. They had no idea that you and your wife were going to show up that day and that what they did would inspire you and look what you’ve done through the lives of others and what God is doing through the lives of others, because just humble servants were doing their thing in Kenya. So, you know, what a what a great story. And so thank you so much for being on the episode with us. I wish Henry was here. He would have loved this as well. He’ll he’ll listen on one of his runs and probably reach out to you again to tell you how great this was. But thanks so much and we really appreciate it. And God bless you.

Matt Parfitt: Yeah, well, thanks for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

Recent Episodes

We had over 5,000 entrepreneurs gather in more than 300 cities around the world for Faith Driven Entrepreneur Live.

It was an incredible event filled with talks and stories that helped us understand what it means to surrender our businesses over to God.

One impactful talk came from David Platt, and it was just too good not to share with others. So sit back, take it in, and send it to another entrepreneur who might benefit from it.

More from David, Nicky Gumbel, Mark Batterson, Chip Ingram, and other pastoral leaders.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey there. And welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Last week we had over 5000 entrepreneurs gather in more than 300 cities around the world for faith driven entrepreneur live. It was incredible. It was filled with talks and stories that helped us understand what it means to surrender our businesses over to God. One impactful moment in a talk that came from David Platt. Well, it was just too good not to share with others. So sit back, take it in and send it to another entrepreneur who might benefit from it. And if you’re looking for more empowering messages from David and other pastors, watch and share the Dear Entrepreneur video that’s linked in the show notes. David, take it away.

David Platt: As a pastor, I have struggled with how to provide entrepreneurs with the guidance you need as you pursue God and his good plans for your life amidst the pull of an American dream. That’s because so often I see confusion set in when this worldly pursuit of success and prosperity takes precedence over God’s true desire for us and good design for us. God calls us to radical obedience to a full surrender of our lives to Him. But if we’re not careful, at least in my country, we can let an American dream consume our lives. And even more dangerous, we can let an American gospel hijack our hearts. You see, this world tells us to prioritize comfort and to get comfort by collecting and consuming. And if we’re not careful, we can create a customized Christian version of this dream. We can call ourselves Christians or go to church while we live and lead in business. Like most everybody else around us focused on the things of this world the nice house, cars, money, college funds for our kids, a comfortable retirement to come. And I’m not saying any of those things are bad in and of themselves. But do we realize how so much stuff in this world can keep us from truly following the one who said, What is it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul and do not love the world or the things in the world? You see, the gospel actually turns our world upside down in a way that we live really different. Instead of an American gospel that’s focused on ourselves and this world. The Biblical gospel beckons us to die to ourselves and live for a totally other world in a way that affects not just our lives, but the lives of those we lead. I think about the gospel that’s being passed down to the next generation, including the kids in my home and yours. We tell our kids to study, to practice sports, to learn instruments, and we’re overseeing hours upon hours of their days in front of screens. We prioritize taking them all over the place for all kinds of activities, telling them you need a good education so you can get a good job and have a good degree and make good money and have a good family with a good retirement. And those are unworthy concerns. But in the middle of it all, we need to ask a more significant question How are we training the next generation to know God, to love his Word more than this world, and to lay down their lives in this world for the glory of God? This is the great commandment, right? Are we teaching our kids to love God wholeheartedly and to love others selflessly? And are we showing them what that looks like in action? Which leads to the Great Commission. Jesus’s clear command for all of us in this world. Are we showing the next generation what a life looks like that is abandoned to making disciples of all nations because this is what it means to follow Jesus according to the Bible. And unfortunately, it’s totally different from the vision of Christianity that’s being cast in our country. Bottom line is God, the all consuming passion of your life and his his glory in the world, the greatest ambition of your life. Because this is Christianity. This is the biblical gospel. God loves you so much that He has sent his son to die on a cross for you so that you can have new, full, abundant life through faith in him. Faith. Trust with all that you are and all that you have. Which means entrepreneur that is a follower of Jesus. It’s his business, not yours. It’s his reputation that drives you, not yours. It’s his mission that consumes you, not yours. From the moment you wake up in the morning, it’s him you want. In the moments when things are going sideways, it’s him to whom you turn in the highs. It’s him you praise in the lows. It’s him you trust. If we’re going to ever tell the world how significant a relationship with God truly is, that message will only ring true when it comes from a place where we’re experiencing it for ourselves that are put from a place where we’re experiencing him for ourselves. Otherwise we’re just going to give the world a false gospel that consists of an American dream with Jesus tacked on the side. As entrepreneurs, you have a special calling from God to create businesses that shape culture, that provide meaningful, dignifying work, that creates solutions to some of the most pressing questions of our world today. But let us not forget that all of these things are ultimately part of the grand purpose of your life, and that is to enjoy and exalt God in all of His glory among all of the nations. Which means it is right for you to praise God for the gifts He’s given you, like your freedom, your business growth, your home, the education of your kids, and on and on. These are gifts that are good and important, and we want to steward them well. But that’s just it. To what end? To the end that we know and love God with all we have. And we love others in such a way that they come to know the love of God for them. It’s time for us as the people of God, to recalibrate our priorities and realize our ultimate purpose. At this point. I’m now 45. I’m the father of six kids, four of whom are adopted. I’ve run an organization with 5000 employees, which operates in over 100 different countries. I’ve had to navigate through organizational and leadership challenges. By God’s grace, I’ve written some books that have done pretty well. I’ve led a church in the heart of Washington, D.C., amidst some of the deepest political and cultural tensions of the United States, including contentious elections and pandemic era divisions and conversations on racial injustice. I’ve been through some pretty intense and difficult seasons, and particularly in the last few years, and in all of the above, I have discovered one thing that God is the goal not organizational health, not being on a bestseller list and not my comfort, my reputation, or even the fulfillment of my plans. No, God is the goal. He’s the one I need. He’s the one I want. And when he is leading my life, he takes it in directions I never would or could according to his wisdom and not the wisdom of this world. That’s why I wrote a book recently entitled Don’t Hold Back, because ten years after writing a book called Radical, I realized that I am still tempted every day to hold back from Surrender to God and all of that he has for my life, I’m convinced we are holding back in significant ways today as followers of Jesus from who He is and all he’s calling us to and what he’s calling us to is so much better than anything an American dream or American gospel could ever give us. And this is where I want to encourage you as an entrepreneur, at the heart of that dream, surrounded by that gospel, that gospel that says believe in yourself, trust yourself, advance yourself and see what all you can accomplish. And I want to urge you, don’t do it. Instead, do what Jesus says every follower of his will do. Die to yourself and trust in him, advance him and see what he can and will accomplish in and through your life, with your gifts, with your resources, and with dreams that can only come from him. And don’t do this alone. Do this as part of a local church and alongside other like minded entrepreneurs. In the words of Hebrews ten, let’s consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. It’s Hebrews 10:23 through 25 and it leads to my closing encouragement for you as you grow your business, care for your employees, serve your customers, improve your bottom line, make sure at the bottom of it all that God is the goal in your life and in others. Lives lead in such a way that you reflect the love of God and lead others to see and know Him right around you and to the ends of the earth. It’s another topic for another day. But you have opportunities literally to change a world in which over 3 billion people right now have little to no knowledge of God’s love in Jesus. If only you’ll live with Him as the goal. Captivated by the Biblical Gospel, the revolutionary call to die to yourself and to live the life your Creator has designed you to live, and not just to flourish now in this world, but to flourish forever in the world to come and to bring as many people to that world with you as possible. This is the dream that you are made for.

Recent Episodes

Today’s guest is thought-leading writer and recognized champion of the Multiethnic Church Movement, Mark DeYmaz. He’s the author of several books and is on the show today to talk to us about his latest, The Coming Revolution in Church Economics.

Mark shared how churches can respond to the steady decrease in tithes and donations happening around the world—especially in light of recent events. He has some radical and creative ideas on how church leaders and business leaders can work together, and we think you’ll be interested in what he shared.

At the end of the episode, Henry and Rusty go back and forth on this topic, and we invite you to join in on this conversation as well. Feel free to comment, contact us, or reply to the newsletter. As always, we love hearing from you and making this show your show.

Episode Transcript

*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDE movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast special edition. Today we have Mark Deymaz with us in the house, really excited about our conversation. We’re talking to a guy who is a pastor, knows God, endeavors to know him more fully every day and help others to know him as well and also really cares about entrepreneurship and economics and bringing them all together. We had a neat conversation right before we got started about just a bunch of folks kind of aligning themselves in this movement, circling around and trying to figure how do we bring this together in a way that allows them to be in formation in away that’s really an encouragement to the communities that we’re within. So, Mark, we can get in all that, of course. But let’s start off actually at the beginning, of course. Tell us about your personal story. Who are you? Where do you come from?

Mark Deymaz: Yeah. Well, great to be with you and appreciate your podcasts so much. Thanks for having me today. You know, I was born out of wedlock 1961, my mother’s single parent home. No brothers and sisters, no father. Only six percent of kids at the time were born in America without fathers. That was me. And really, the reason I share that is because in a sense, I’ve been gigging all my life. I learned it from my mother. My mother had a full time job with the federal government as a secretary. We lived in California. She worked in San Francisco. We lived in Alameda about an hour away. So every morning she got up. She’s gone by seven across the bay and back late that night. And then at nighttime, from the time I was seven years old, we’d go on the street, knock on doors and sell Avon. You know, I was an Avon boy at seven years old and taking the products, bagging it all up, you know, sweeping parking lots at like the local 7-Eleven type store in sixth grade, working at the Phenix Playboy Club as a dishwasher at 13 and worked my way through Jesuit education over six years, white working in rectories. We were in the lower income category, so we received the work scholarship. And I was really able to get a wonderful Catholic and Jesuit education, but I had to work for it. Right, six years in the rectory. So essentially, I’ve been blue collar gigging all my life, you know, and I learned that hustle from my mom. Not only was she working full time with the government as well as selling Avon. But I remember back in the day when I was in junior high, she’d buy broken pianos and then she’d bring somebody in to repair them and then she’d sell them. I mean, she was eBay before eBay was cool and she was gigging before the term was even coined. And so I think that obviously is all part of my past that brought me here. I became a follower of Christ at 19 in college.

I played college baseball, but was too slow to get drafted after four years of college baseball. I was asked to be a high school pastor, didn’t even know what that was, did that for a couple of years, then off to seminary 10 years later. Then I’d been a youth pastor, had a masters in exegetical theology, and I was brought here to Little Rock, Arkansas, by a large mega suburban church called Fellowship Bible Church. In 1993 it was 2000 people. By 2000, 2001, it was 5000 people. My youth group went from 150 to 600 but in the late 90s and towards the end of that journey, ninety seven. Ninety eight, ninety nine. One day I looked around that church and realized the only people of color in this otherwise amazing church were janitors. And that began to bother me. And I didn’t know why at the time. It bothered me, but it did. And that took me on into a journey of the New Testament and exegetical theology concerning the nature of a local church in the New Testament, where I came to recognize that every church in the New Testament was what we would say today, multiethnic and economically diverse. Men and women, rich, poor, Jew and gentile, walking, working, worshiping God together as one. And this, the demonstration of the power of the Gospel of Christ to be lifted up and draw all people into himself as much, if not more, than the proclamation of the Gospel is what brought the world to its knees when three centuries and certainly in the first century there. So by 2001, I was no longer content to basically remain in a systemically segregated church, realized it wasn’t just our church. I came to realize that 92% of all churches at that time throughout the United States were segregated by race, class and culture. And so I wanted to move into the community in terms of establishing or building a church where diverse men and women could walk work, worship God together as one. We did that in Little Rock. So I planted the Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas in the urban center of Little Rock and summer of 2001. And I can’t even believe it. That was 19 years ago.

Henry Kaestner: So I’m fascinated. You’re an entrepreneur. You’re a grower. You come up and you’ve got this conviction about multi-ethnic churches instead of bringing people of different color into where, say, white people are, you went and did something very unconventional, and that is that you took your church planning strategy to under-resourced areas, which is a lot different. Tell us about that and how your team chose that strategy.

Mark Deymaz: Yeah, well, as I said, I was in a wonderful church, an amazing church, just so much good about it. But again, I grew discontent by the lack of diversity in our church at that time and the fact that most of our local service projects, if you will, our ministry, the community, our service was always at arm’s length. In fact, the book was written by the pastor of the church at that time, and the metaphor was building a bridge to the community. And that works for the first year of the second year. But it can feel like here comes the great white hope once a year to go into the inner city, into the community and clean it all up and paint the classrooms of local schools and all that do a blood drive. But then the community doesn’t see you for another 364 days and something over two or three years became… it was good hearts. I’m not saying people didn’t have the right heart or the right spirit. But from a systemic level, I realized there was a dichotomy and I was no longer content to build bridges to the community. I actually wanted our church to be the community to reflect the community. This is what happened at Antioch. I mean, think about it. Jerusalem was actually a segregated church. It was filled with Jewish believers who had become Christians. Of course, there were a few proselyte, but by and large, Jerusalem was a segregated church. The first church that is intentionally integrated in the New Testament is the Church of Antioch. It’s multi-ethnic, it’s missional, it’s multi-site, it’s mega. It’s everything any church wants to be. Which church sends missionaries to the world? Not Jerusalem, Antioch, Paul and Barnabas. So the first missionaries to be sent intentionally by a church and they come out of a healthy, multiethnic church. And you ask yourself, why is that? Well, because Antioch was a church that reflected its community. And when your church reflects the community, mission isn’t a program, it’s who you are. And I wanted that to be true for me and my life and my family and for the church I serve, let alone the under-resourced community of 66 percent of kids without dads in the community, 30 percent poverty, highest violent crime in the city. And I wanted Matthew 5:16 not to be a slogan, but to be actualized so that people could actually see the good work of a church in a community and ultimately so Christ would get the glory.

Henry Kaestner: Matthew 5:16. Tell us.

Mark Deymaz: Yeah. Matthew 5:16. You know, let your light so shine, you know, that they see your good works and anything more by your father in heaven. So notice that Jesus didn’t say let him hear your good words. You know, by and large, we’re pretty good in the American church at words. Right. We have a lot of good words, a lot of good preaching and a lot of good stuff online. But we kind of don’t always have the good works to back up those words, particularly when it comes to cross-cultural engagement, ministry, relationships, competence, intelligence.

And because of the systemic segregation of the church, you know, our credibility is injured. I mean, our ability to advance a credible gospel on an increasingly diverse society is actually hurt by systemically segregated churches. I’d rather have one hundred people in a church who are walking, working, worshiping God together as one beyond the distinctions of this world than 5000, all white, all black, all Asian or Hispanic church in the same church. I’d actually have more influence in the community because it’s not about size. It’s about influence. And the greater your diversity, the greater your influence in the community.

Henry Kaestner: I follow that. I follow that. Part of the premise for your newest book, which I want to start us talking about, is the idea of the churches in North America today have over one trillion dollars in assets that are significantly underutilized. The subtitle for your book is Why Tithes and Offerings are No Longer Enough. So I want ask you point-blank, why aren’t tithes and offerings enough?

Mark Deymaz: Well, first, let me correct the one trillion dollars. I said that early on. There’s a man named Dan Cook who’s done some research. He’s a friend of mine. No one really knows exactly how much of unused or underutilized assets the American church has. But clearly, it’s in the tens of billions of dollars, if not in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Dan Cook, Building God’s Way. He founded that. He’s written about it. He’s an architect. He’s done the deep dove. So no one knows for sure. It may not be one trillion, but it’s definitely in the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars of unused assets. On that note, that is there. Why are tithes and offerings no longer enough? Well, I just wrote sixty thousand words of why that is. But in a nutshell, tithes and offerings are no longer enough due to the growing needs and demands of local churches, both in terms of their internal structure as well as the needs in the community. So, you know, just something as simple as health insurance for staff, right? The rising costs of health insurance or bringing additional people on the cost of maintenance of your facility and all that’s just related to the internal church, let alone people are hungry in the community or without jobs or immigration and all the different issues that plague communities that we are to engage ourselves in. Those needs are going up and they require money. Right. So we have the largest food distribution in the city of Little Rock. How do you serve twenty thousand people in a thirty two thousand person zip code like we do every year? So in our community, we have the largest food distribution in Little Rock. 67% of our entire zip code depends on our church for three to four days and groceries every single month.

I guarantee you there is no way we could have done that if our mentality was restricted by tithes and offerings alone. We had to create multiple streams of income to meet the rising and growing demands of the community. So not only in terms of your own internal the cost of doing business, you guys know that, right? The cost of doing business, if you think about that, the cost of doing business as a church, both to sustain your own operation internally, staff salaries, the maintenance of a facility, health insurance, bringing on additional staff as well as to provide goods and services to the community. All of that just continues to go up every year. All the while, in fact, tithes and offerings by and large are not only stagnant, they’re actually in decline around this country.

And so that’s not even to mention the current covid pandemic and what that’s going to do in terms of wreaking havoc or the fact that government could someday take away Tax-Exempt status for a local church, or tax a local church property, or the fact that, according to Oxford University, 12-22%percent of jobs will be displaced by 2030 due to automation. So these are just some of the factors that increasingly, even from a sociological perspective, say there is no way tithes and offerings alone are going to be able to fund or sustain the impact your local church and its ministry have in the future.

William Norvell: Mark, William here, thanks for joining us. And it’s a great place to pivot a little bit. I want to talk a little about church economics, but you were just leaning into you and your co-author Harry, lay out a number of facts that argue why churches specifically are going to have to pretty much fundamentally change the way they do business. I’d love for you to share with our audience a little bit of what’s happened in the past couple of years that’s creating this situation. And why are you projecting that to happen here in the near future?

Mark Deymaz: Yeah, well, it’s a great question. Just like the last one and really flows out of the last one. We talked about automation. We talked about rising costs of goods and services, both internal and external, in terms of sustaining your ministry, talked about potential change in government, in terms of law, taxation laws, these things in some sense, they’re real and also speculative also. But what is real and concrete are just a few things that we can add to that question or in answering and add to the conversation. For instance, there is generational. This is sociology. This is statistical. So this isn’t speculation, generational differences in terms of attitudes and understanding towards giving.

So right now, 78.8% Of all giving in a local church is done by people born before 1964. So nearly 80% of all giving comes from people born before 1964r. If you’re born after 1964, money is just a way to change the world. It’s not the way to change the world. If you’re born before 1964, you believe money is the key and primary way to change the world. And you also tend to trust institutions. So if you’re born after 1964, you don’t think money’s that way and also that it’s the primary way to change the world. And you don’t trust institutions. Equal to giving money if you’re born after 1964 is product endorsement and volunteerism. So if you’re born after 1964 and you volunteer in your mind, that’s equal to giving money.

And of course, we need volunteers. Right? Or if I get on Instagram or Twitter or somehow I endorse products, I say, hey, buy Tom shoes for every shoe you buy, they’re gonna give another one away. They equate that equal to giving money. And that’s fine. We need to volunteer. We should endorse, you know, good products that advance the common good. But at the end of the day, that doesn’t put money, pure greenbacks in the plate to pay the electric bill, to pay the salaries, to pay the health insurance and to meet the needs of the community.

So there’s a shift in generational attitudes towards giving. There are population and demographic shifts. For instance, you know, right now 1 in 2 people under the age of 20 are nonwhite. 43% of millennials are nonwhite. By 2042, one or two people in this country will not be white. You say, why does that matter in terms of church and church economics? Because of wealth gaps and income inequality. Right. So there’s wealth gaps and income inequality between people groups in this country. What an average white person has in terms of wealth and or income that they’re generating is different from blacks, different to Asians, different to Hispanics. Speaking of broad categories.

So the thought that a pastor can get four people, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, into a church and expect in general, on average, the same giving from each of them is erroneous due to historic wealth gaps in income inequality in this country between people groups. So what that means tied to the first thing in terms of generational attitudes towards giving. Let me ask you a question. If you are a pastor of a church and somebody is 65 years old and they go to your church and they die, or they move, somehow their money goes away, they’re giving, how many millennials will it take to replace that person’s given? Right. And what’s the cost of acquisition?

William Norvell: I’m going to say 7.8?

Mark Deymaz: Any other takers?

Henry Kaestner: 7.9?

William Norvell: Ah. Price is right.

Mark Deymaz: That’s the way to do it. Wherever I ask that question. The general answer is 10. Now, nobody has statistically studied it yet. To my knowledge. But virtually everyone says 10. And it’s not just it’ll take you 10 more people have to be in the church to replace or nine more people to replace the one. But then you have to think, what’s the customer acquisition cost? If you want to think about in terms of business to get a millennial, to get young people to attend your church, you’ve got to spend a lot of money on children. You got to spend a lot of money on the band and the stage and the technology to get a 65 year old to come to your church. You say, man, we preach the Bible. We got a Sunday school class on there, you know.

So this is another fact. I’m really into the weeds now. Rise of dual income households. Almost 75 percent of households in America are two income households. And that’s not because they’re getting wealthy. That’s just the lower middle class life. So very little discretionary income rises to income households and religious giving overall is down compared to giving to animal rights and to other things. When you look at the way people give to charitable organizations each year, religion still gets a hefty share. But at different years it’s been going down. More money is being given to other charitable causes than just to mere religion. And that number has gone down over time as well. Not to mention middle class wealth is the lowest it’s been in this country since 1947. So, I mean, I’m just rattling off a ton of reasons why tithes and offerings are no longer enough. And what we’re going to have to do is create multiple streams of income to fund and sustain ministry long term in the local church where you may not be here in 10 months.

William Norvell: Mark, thanks for walking us through that. I think you’re right on the edge of something that I know I’ve heard you argue before that churches really are their own sort of economic system. Could you maybe break that into some parts for us and walk us through how you think about that?

Mark Deymaz: Yeah. I mean, if you take off your ministry hat and just think about the church as a business for a moment, we provide goods and services just like a restaurant. A restaurant is a system. Right? I go to a restaurant. I pay for a meal. But I didn’t cook. I’m enjoying it in an environment I didn’t create. I didn’t buy the groceries for that meal. So I received goods and services. And at the end of the meal, I get a bill. And the bill not only pays for my food, but it also pays for portions of the expenses, the electricity and the salaries of people involved in the rent and the mortgage of a building. And on top of that, it also pays for profit because the owner has to make a profit.

So that’s a system, right? Goods and services being provided. In part, I’m paying the bill or paying a portion of the bill. If you think about a church like that, it, too, is an economic system. Right. So what are the goods and services of a church? Well, if you’re sick, we’ll visit you in the hospital. We’ll provide children’s programs, teaching and worship. We organize people into small groups. You know, you’re pregnant or you give birth to a child. We bring meals for a while. So there’s these goods and services that a church provides. And in return, people are expected to pay a portion of the bill. We call it tithes and offerings. But that’s how it works, right? So for these goods and services, somebody has got to pay the bill, the salaries of the pastors and the staff, for the building, et cetera. Somebody has got to pay that bill. And the bill we give people, if you will, is the encouragement to be generous through tithes and offerings. So we don’t actually give a direct bill, of course. But if you think about it like that, it’s no different than any other economic system. We provide goods and services and the people to whom and on whose behalf we provide those services are expected to pay a portion of the bill. We just call it tithes and offerings.

Rusty Rueff: What’s fascinating about that is I think and I want to get to know how pastors have responded to your book because, you know, churches are basically startups that start up all over again every week. Right. I mean, there’s no sass business here, you know? So it’s basically thinking about, as you said, products and services. But that demands an entrepreneurial mindset. And not all pastors, I think, probably have that. So, you know, you wrote this book for them. How are they taking this?

Mark Deymaz: Yeah, it’s a great question, a very fair one. The first thing I’d say is if you’re a pastor listening to me and you’re not entrepreneurial by nature, in terms of business, business savvy marketing, be encouraged. You don’t have to be the person that pulls all this stuff together. You don’t have to be the person that starts new businesses or monetizes existing services or even figure out how to leverage your church in terms of facilities and creating rent rolls. That’s why God has given you faith based marketplace leaders, entrepreneurs who know how to do this in their sleep. But what we have in the American church is a compartmentalization. So no one says this, but I’ve been a pastor now 34 years. OK. And I’m telling you, this is an unspoken, deep-seeded part of the ethos of ministry across the country. And pastors don’t even know it. But this is the truth. Pastors see the role of the marketplace leader is to make money and then you give me the pastor, the money, and I spend it on spiritual things, and that’s how this whole thing works. And they’re compartmentalized. But what we need to do is bring them together, not enmesh those worlds, but bring them together. And so if you’re a pastor listening and you’re not entrepreneurial, that’s why God has brought other people, men and women, who are marketplace leaders, entrepreneurs, business leaders, that you empower them to think about these things on your behalf and on behalf of the church. Right. No different than we hire youth pastors, worship pastors. We advocate in the book churches hiring a business leader to leverage the facility to monetize services and ultimately to start new businesses on behalf of the church. But let’s just say so. Don’t get overwhelmed. If you’re a pastor listening.

The other thing I’ve got to tell you real quick and maybe we’ll get into this in a moment, but this is not so much about making money as it is about good stewardship. When we think about good stewardship in the American church and this is what we have to do, if you’re a pastor listening or even a marketplace leader, we’ve got to free our mind because we have some erroneous understandings when it comes to money and the church’s role related to money based on the Bible. So, for instance, I’ll just give you one and we can talk more about it if you want. But people will say, you know what, Pastor? Just preach the gospel. Just trust Jesus. Just be the church. And God will take care of the church. Right. And so that’s an appeal to faith. Well, let’s say you said that to me and I’d say let me ask you a question.

Have you ever been to a doctor? Have you ever taken prescription medicine? Have you ever cosigned for a loan on a car that you couldn’t otherwise afford? Have you ever cosigned on a loan for your kid to go to college? Where’s your faith? Where’s your faith? Just trust God, He’ll heal you. Just trust God and somehow, magically, your kid will go to college or you can afford that car. Just read your Bible and pray all day and then go check your mailbox for checks and money. Right. Individuals in the church don’t live like this. Why would you expect that the church would look like this? So in other words, we have erroneous understanding when it comes to what faith is. It’s always about our partnership with God in terms of being intentional and wise and good stewards with our resources.

Rusty Rueff: So what are the some of the things that you’ve done in your church that could be very practical here for pastors who are listening? Because I think there’s a part of me, if I was a pastor and I’m taking the message, I’d go. “But I’m trying to do my thing.” You know, and balance faith and being entrepreneurial. But maybe I don’t have anybody to teach me. Maybe I don’t have any place to go.

Mark Deymaz: Yeah, well, that’s a good plug. Come our way because we help you. We got coaching and cohorts and economic accelerators and all that. But let me just break this down and answer that question by starting with a definition. What is a definition of church economics? It’s really three parts. And it answers a question. How do you leverage the assets of your church, which are people, money and buildings? Right. So how do you leverage the assets of your church to bless the community, which is to advance the gospel and the common good? Matthew 5:16. But at the same time generate some measure of sustainable income or in the business world, you know, you call it, ROI, right? If you keep giving everything away for free under the guise of ministry, you won’t be here in five years. You won’t be here in eight years. We’ve got to make a long term play.

So church economics is ultimately about understanding how to leverage your assets, people, money and buildings to advance your mission. But at the same time generate some measure of sustainable income. Now, with that as a backdrop in terms of the definition, there’s three big ways you can do this. And so the first is by renting your facility, we call it benevolent ownership. In other words, when we run our facility, which we do to the tune of about twelve thousand dollars a month currently just by renting our space to several businesses, we don’t rent that space at top dollar. I’m not in it for profit. Right. I’m not in it for top dollar profit. But at the same time, I’m not just going to say, oh yeah, come use my space. Because even at a micro level, who pays for the toilet paper? Who pays for the electricity? Who pays the water bill? Right. So even at a micro level, there’s expense related to when I just say, oh, sure, come use my space. Right. Or come use the church. So I don’t want to charge top dollar. I’m not in it for top dollar, but I want to charge something. And like any good businessman, I don’t just want to charge what covers my expenses. I want to use or leverage this as an opportunity to get further ahead. So benevolent ownership is about creating rent rolls where it’s a win for small business, a win for the community, and ultimately a win for the church. So the first way to leverage the asset of your building is to rent it. Number two, then the second way to do this is to monetize existing services. There’s already a number of things that churches do that already they’re paying for and they’re doing that could be monetized.

So in the book. You know, I’m talking about like coffee, right? Most churches give away free coffee. Well, think about that. Like in our church, when I inquired about that a number of years ago, I said, how much does it cost us to give away free coffee? And they said about three thousand dollars a year. Well, where does that money come from? It comes from people putting money into an offering plate as unto the Lord to further the Lord’s work. And then some committee or an elder board decides we’re gonna take three thousand dollars of those tithes and offerings given to further the Lord’s work and give it away in the form of free coffee. And it walks out my front door every year. I could use that three thousand dollars for PBS, for youth scholarships to summer camp. There could be a better purpose. So what we did, like, you know, in our case, we just said, hey, what if we monetize that and take that space, you know? So we started selling Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits, making a dollar per biscuit along with the coffee. Eventually you sell 3000 biscuits, you pay for the three thousand dollars of free coffee and you return three thousand dollars, as it were, to your budget. Right. For real ministry purposes.

A janitor company, churches, they hire a janitor. Why don’t you take the money and start a janitor company? Put people to work, get contracts in the community that ultimately allow you, in a sense, that company to clean your church for free. The people still get paid, but they make it from the net profit they’re earning on contracts out in the community. So there’s so many things churches are already doing. As I said earlier, but when pastors use the word ministry in the context of money, it means a financial loss. We put tip jars out. Right. So we give away coffee and then we put a tip jar. And let’s just say it cost one hundred dollars a week to give that free copy away. And the tip jar brings in 60 dollars a week. Every single week. You’re losing 40 dollars. No business, as you know, gives anything away for free. Right. Even if they give something away for free, they’ve got a plan to recoup that money. Right. So if I’m a car dealer, I say, hey, come on down to my car shop. We’ll give you five hundred dollars off the sticker price if you come see me today. But that person doesn’t really give you five hundred off because when they get you in the insurance room, they sell it on the back end and they get their five hundred back. Pastors have no plan, right? We don’t spend one hour of one week of one month of one class in an entire degree program and seminary being taught or thinking about economics, not one. And that has got to change.

Henry Kaestner: So a fair amount of our listeners are probably listening now, maybe with two different types of concerns. The first one is at the outset. We’ve talked about this challenge with tithing and giving going down. What would you say to people, and I’ll tell you, I’m one of those people. I believe that with as much that the Bible says about money, that a newer generation doesn’t fully get that and that the biblical message of generosity is something that sets us free to worship God more fully and that we’re not giving as much as we could financially. And I hear what you’re saying about volunteering or endorsement become a new currency. But what role do you see churches playing in teaching about the biblical message of generosity? And the second one, I’d want you to comment on, as some number of people are also saying, gosh, I’m thinking about Jesus and money changers and Jimmy Dean Sausages making an extra dollar. So take those two objections and just riff on them each. First one addressing the problem. Churches don’t have enough money. Can we be talking to them about the biblical message of generosity in a way that they are indeed more generous? And it’s not just buying Tom shoes. And I check the box on my generosity. And then to how do you feel about the money changer argument?

Mark Deymaz: Yeah, great questions. I love to talk about this. All this, again, comes under the category of freeing your mind, particularly at a theological level. So to their first question, typically, how do we do that as church as well? We bring Dave Ramsey and teach Financial Peace University so and so. Why would I do that as a pastor? Well, I care. I’m a good shepherd. I want people to practice economic wisdom and biblical principles in terms of money management. So we’ll have Dave Ramsey. We’ll bring that FPU course and we’ll teach it. And our church has done that. And I believe in that. Hey, that’s great. Do that. And then, like you mentioned, the second thing is we teach generosity. Now, I believe generosity is not only a biblical concept, but I got to be honest with you, it’s an industry in the entire American church. People are making a lot of money off of pushing generosity. It’s an industry in the American church. And how did it arise? Because if we bring you up to the church and I help you get out of debt and practice economic wisdom, and somehow through that you have more discretionary income, just because you have more discretionary income does not mean you’re going to give it to the church.

Right. So we have to teach you generosity. So think about this like a three legged stool. If FPU was one leg of the stool and I’m just using that as an approach and generosity is the second leg again. Yes. Yes. FPU. Yes to encouraging generosity, in fact. Yes to tithes and offerings. I’m saying there is a missing leg. Right. And the missing leg is church economics. So it’s not to displace tithes and offerings or strategies like FPU or even encouraging generosity from a biblical mandate, as you’re talking about. It’s saying there’s something also we must do and add a third leg to that stool, and that’s church economics. Which takes you then to the second part of your question, which it is biblical, right to do this. So I’ll just give you two things on the thing about the money changers or in terms of that passage. Again, just like with faith, we have an erroneous, shallow understanding of that passage. Jesus did not overturn the money changers because, you know, he’s against fair profit. What was going on is two things biblically and energetically speaking. First of all, you had to convert Roman coinage to a half shekel, right, to get into the temple. You had to take Roman coinage and convert it to a half shekel. I’m sure you’ve been to an airport before and forgot to exchange your money at a bank in country and then you’re stuck with exchanging it in the airport. And what happens? They charge you higher interest rate because you’re a captive audience. And so this was happening. This is where the money changers were coming in. They were charging exorbitant interest to convert Roman coinage to the half shekel temple tax. And who does that hurt? It doesn’t hurt those with money and means it hurts the poor. Right. Because you’re exploiting the poor. In that case, and not only the money changers are making money, but the pastors of the church were making money off this. Right. So that’s one thing that was going on.

But the second thing is it’s also the seller of the animals. And in the same way, the animals, because they go into the temple, you have to offer a turtle dove. You have to offer that bull, whatever. And people are coming from 20 miles away, which was a long way back in the day. And you can’t honestly bring your animals. So you show up at the temple, you pay the half shekel and you purchase an animal for your sacrifice. Well, likewise, they’re charging exorbitant prices for these animals. No different than when you go to a stadium and you’ve got to pay eight bucks for a hotdog. Like, why does it cost you eight dollars for a hotdog at a football stadium? Because you’re a captive audience. And they’re going to jack the price up. And so it wasn’t fair profit that drove Jesus to overturn the many changes. It was economic injustice. It was economic injustice on both those fronts on which both the business people and the temple leaders were taking advantage of people. And again, if you have means, no problem. The problem was with the poor. So we have to understand and think deeply and correctly about what was actually going on in the temple. Not fair profit. Jesus was against economic injustice. But there’s an even bigger reason biblically for this. This is about good stewardship.

So what is stewardship in the American church right now? Good stewardship. And by the way, I believe in what I’m about to say, good stewardship is defined generally as this. Number one, we take care of those things that God has given us. So God gave us this facility. Hey, there’s a hole in the wall. We got to fix the hole in the wall because God gave us this facility. We got to make sure that the yard is taken care of. There’s no potholes in the parking lot. We’ve got to make sure the air conditioning works. God gave us this facility and we’ve got to be good stewards of what God’s given us. I believe in that. Another way is we have to accurately account for money that we’ve been given. Right. So we practice good accounting principles and we want to do that. And then thirdly, we also have to clearly communicate to those who donate where that money is being spent. So good stewardship in the American church, typically as defined by those three things. And again, I believe in all those three things. We practice all those three things. And yes, that’s good stewardship. But Exegetically speaking, biblically speaking, that’s not good stewardship. You know what good stewardship is. You gave me five. Here’s your five. And I made you five. Here’s you gave me two. Here’s your two. And I made you two. Well done. Good and faithful steward. One guy sat on his asset. Think about it. One guy sat on his asset in fear, he buried the asset, the talent, and he’s called what? A wicked lazy slave. As we said at the top of this podcast, the American church is literally sitting on buried assets to the tens to the hundreds of billions of dollars of buried assets.

If you have land and it’s sitting there. Hey, man, at least rent it or give it to a commercial developer and make some type of profit on it. You don’t have a sanctuary to put on it. Let some commercial developer develop it and get some type of profit going. At least you could have done that. Right. And what happens at the end of that story? Take the one talent. Take the one asset away from the guy who didn’t know what to do with it and give it to somebody who knows what to do.

Henry Kaestner: Is there a point in time along the way that something feels right, but other things don’t feel right? Is there a logical extension of that? Because I’ve been on a church elder board and I know how expensive it is to put in parking lots. Do you go ahead and to encourage people to carpool together? Do you charge for parking?

Mark Deymaz: I wouldn’t advocate that. But it’s like they always say in politics, there’s nothing off the table if it makes sense, right? Now, I don’t want, it’s not like charging. Again, we’re talking about benevolent ownership and wise stewardship. But we have to move away from the mindset that, first of all, just instantly shuts any thought of this down. We have to look at the Bible and understand what actually is happening in the exchange with the money changers or in terms of good stewardship or what really is faith. It’s always partnership and intentionality with Jesus. We have to help people think deeply and biblically, sociologically. And yes, then we have these options on the table. And by the way, as I answer that question, I’ve talked about you’re renting your facility and monetizing existing services. But the third practical way back to the question is starting new businesses. Right. And most pastors and churches do not understand that nonprofits can, in fact, start businesses for profit, businesses as long as the net profit is returned to support the nonprofit. And you pay taxes on that business just like any other business. What if you start a coffee shop? You’ve got to pay taxes just like a coffee shop. So this is a another way you can do it. So would I charge for parking places? Probably not. But there’s other things that are innovative and creative and entrepreneurial. And again, it doesn’t have to come from the pastor. Enlist others who understand this around you to think broad and deep and wide about what might work. And as you all know and anyone listening to this podcast, every idea doesn’t work. Right. And so I’m going to encourage people because we failed at different things. Right. But you keep leaning in and it’s not failure unless you fail to learn from that experience. But if some church sets out and say, oh, we tried to monetize our coffee shop and that doesn’t work, and then they throw out any other idea just based on that one experience, man, don’t do that right. Just learn and lean into it, but keep going because eventually something clicks. I’ll just say this one last thing. Just on our building alone, as I mentioned, prior to this current pandemic, we generate twelve thousand dollars a month in rental income. Our mortgage is sixteen thousand dollars a month. Now, I want you to think about that. So not only is that one hundred and forty four thousand dollars more of tithes and offerings every year that we can spend on direct ministry and not pay down a mortgage, but it’s 75 percent of our entire mortgage. I’ve also got another eighteen thousand square feet still to build up. So we’re on track where someday I want to look our people in the eye and say, not one penny that you give into the offering to ascend to the Lord pays debt on this building because we practice smart economics and wisdom. And I tell you, in our church, people love that because that encourages them to give more, because they know we’re conservative, we’re frugal and we’re hustling. Right. We’re not just sitting back and getting fat and happy as pastors saying give, give, give, give, give to me man. We’re out there hustling and working. Right. And we do this to buy so much more of this, but creating a nonprofit whereby you can generate grants and donations. Right. So this is also part of the tithes and offerings, grants and donations through a separate nonprofit serving the community. You move your justice, compassionate work into it.

And then also the for profit side. So there’s so much to this, but it is the future. Yeah. And it it does take disruptive thinking. This isn’t about sustaining innovation. This is disruptive innovation. And if you and your church and you don’t get people around you, I’m telling you, if you’re around in 10 years, you’re not going to be relevant or effective. You’ve got to move into the space. And the sooner you do it, the more viable you’re going to be. Let me just end with one thing that we didn’t say that I think is an important take away on all this. Just to wrap it all up. Think about an American football team. Churches have to learn to play football. What do I mean? An American football team is actually one team made up of three teams. Offense, defense and special teams. The games, all three of those are separate games played by separate players who are never on the field at the same time. And to win the big game, all three of those teams offense, defense, special teams have to be performing at a high level all at the same time. The American church really has a one legged game. It’s called the spiritual game. We evangelize disciple, all the things that would come under. We baptize people, teach the word. That’s our spiritual team, led by a senior pastor. We’re also going to have to develop a second team, a nonprofit team, a second nonprofit led by an executive director, and move your justice and compassionate work, as I just said, out from under the budget of the church into the nonprofit, whereby you can open up funding streams of grants and donations and do more community good than you could otherwise do if it was tied to your own budget or your limited budget. The third leg is the for profit leg, like we’ve been talking about, led by marketplace leaders who start businesses, monetize existing services and facilities to generate income. And the three teams play separate games. Right. This us how the church wins in the future. One coach is the senior pastor, the executive, and the marketplace leader playing those three separate games to tithes and offerings, grants and donations, for-profit business income. That’s how the church is not only to be sustained in the future, it’s how it’s going to win in the future in terms of community impact and incredible gospel advance.

All right. Thanks so much for walking us through that. We are running low on time for a good reason. We really appreciate your time and running through a whole host of topics with us. And if you would be so kind to maybe share with us a potential scripture that God has been working in your life, in your heart, potentially today, potentially during this time. Just that’s fun to see how God connects our listeners with our guests. So that’d be great. Thank you.

Mark Deymaz: Well, you bet. You know, again, it’s such a big topic. The verse that I would share with you is 2 Timothy 1:7. Right. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. That has been a verse that sustained me certainly over the past 40 plus days in this current pandemic, because I love the interplay of that verse. Right. God has not given us the spirit of fear. Right.

We have a spirit of faith. We have the Holy Spirit with us. We have a spirit of faith. But it goes on to say that that spirit of faith, power, love. And it says of sound judgment or of self-discipline. Right. And I love that verse both in terms of this time of pandemic and others, because it says, yes, we have faith, but we also exercise self-discipline, sound judgment. Right. And that’s how God always works. I mean, how do people get saved? God just doesn’t, you know write John 3:16 on the Rocky Mountains. He says you go Mark and tell people about me. So God in his sovereignty has set up the partnership. Yes, it’s him, but it’s also us on all of these things, from salvation to these money matters of the church. So, yes, we proceed by faith. But we also do it with sound judgment, wisdom, a sound mind, if you will. And together with God’s faith and a sound mind is what gets us power and love and helps us advance a credible gospel in an increasingly diverse, painfully polarized, and cynical society.

Henry Kaestner: So Rusty. That was really interesting. My brain is swirling a little bit. There’s some things that I found really interesting about the conversation. Other things. To be frank, were unsettling for me. And I’ll start off with some of the things that were unsettling for me. I think that some amount of listeners and know I’ll say that myself as a listener, wrestle with what is the role of the church? Should the church indeed be thinking about how do we market merchandise, coffee or any one of a number of different things that the church theoretically could do in business? Or should we be spending our time focusing on what I think of the role of the church traditionally in evangelization and discipleship in visiting people in the hospital and taking care of the widow and the orphan. And I just also wondered that when people come in. Do we take advantage of the fact they’re coming for a sermon? And with this, like, how do we merchandise, how we monetize the traffic that we have in our doors? Does that make people feel uncomfortable? Is that an obstacle to the gospel or what do you think?

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I share some of the unease that you do Henry, but maybe because of where I grew up and how things were. I mean, I grew up in a big Southern Baptist church in southern Indiana where, let me tell you, it was the best bookstore of any place in southern Indiana. Right. I mean, it was amazing. And the money from that paid for the bookstore paid for the staff and then was put back into ministry. You know, and so I can also think about it, you know, like the coffee idea there, you know. Yeah. Should I get free coffee or should I pay a dollar for the coffee? It’s well below market. Probably for sure would be. And then that pays for that, which is actually a bit of a ministry because I get to have really good coffee when I go to church. And then that means my tithes, my offerings can go back to the more pure work of the church, if you will, that you just described.

So, look, I think there’s a line in everything. You know, I remember growing up also, you know, going into the Kentucky Derby and there were churches that were right there outside of Churchill Downs with their parking. And it was the worst thing. Right. It was. No, no, no, no. Those churches, they couldn’t, they would never do that. You go there now. You want the best parking spot. Churchill Downs, you pay thirty dollars to the Baptist Church around the corner. Right. So I think there’s something in there. But I do believe that there’s a line and I think he was trying to get at that. And I would like your perspective on it. When he was talking about the temple. Right. You know, when Jesus cleared out the temple, did he clear out the temple because they were merchants, or did He clear out the temple because they were taking advantage of people who were trying to go to the temple?

Henry Kaestner: Well, I don’t know. That was an interesting perspective. And I had never looked at scripture from the lens that he had. And he may be right. I tend to think that the lesson there was that there is a place to worship God, and that’s not a place for commerce. It’s not a place for merchandizing to find the right price point. And he said well, they were profiteering. And so how do you wade into that space about whether that’s the fair price for a product or service that allows you to serve a great cup of coffee or to give up a good dove or what does it all look like? And that was definitely his interpretation and maybe the right one. So I think that really this is one of those subjects and topics for each one of our listeners to think about. Is there a role for a church to be a Faith Driven Entrepreneur or is that a great opportunity for sustainable ministry to, as you had suggested, allow more of the time to go back into real ministry in the community instead of just paying for the lights that should have been paid for by that latte? Or is this just a place to just stay away from? I bet you that they’re going to be some number of our listeners that are going to go on both sides. And for that, I’m grateful. Great topic to wrestle with. I’m glad that Mark was on the program. Rusty, as always, I’m very, very grateful and blessed to be able to process this with you. And I’m looking forward to our next guest.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. I’ve found, you know, that that’s one of the best things about what we’re doing here, is we’re allowing people to hear the things that Faith driven entrepreneurs and pastors are thinking and what’s on their mind. And then just like we do so much in our faith journey. You know, we wrestle with things and God gave us great minds to be able to do that. And it’s fun to be able to do it together here.