[0:00]I was asked to counsel with the CEO of a major grocery chain, and I had to use Mapquest to go find him. And when I got to his home, it was in a trailer park. And his question to me was, can we give away more money? It was a whole different question than the other one. So, I developed a plan for them to give away a million dollars. And his widow sent a message to me a couple of years ago after her husband died, she said, we didn't think we could give away a million, less let alone the multiple millions that we gave away. And I think, I think Satan if he can't convert you, he can push you over the edge. He can give you all of this. And you're deceived because you think that is the answer. God's Word speaks to everything that we think money will give us. And that's why Jesus said, it's not hard to serve God and mammon. It's impossible. Welcome to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. One of the things we've been talking about a lot as a team is that God has been stacking really seasons upon seasons upon seasons. It's one of the things we've taken a look at and maybe you'll find it on the website or on social media. Probably talked about these mega trends of like how God started something really 40, 50, 60 years ago. A conversations of stewardship and he planted those seeds and watered it and it came to mean one thing from our finances. It grew into something of understanding the platform, the business that we've been entrusted to using both of those in the conversation and how God has now mobilizing us into a moment to think more deeply about the how both inside the walls and outside the walls. And when I think about ways and people that God has used mightily in this moment, there's no person I think more of than Ron Blue. I think of Ron is the author, the teacher, but I also think of him as the faithful entrepreneur. That's selflessly steward, started, been faithful to start so many different pieces of this conversation in this ecosystem. And he's intentionally passed that baton to the next generation. And so today is one of those fun conversations where we get to connect decades of what God has been doing. And what he's bringing together in this moment. So let's get started with today's episode. Unless somebody is transformed in their thinking, they'll never maximize their giving. And they'll never understand stewardship. So, we said, you need to think of money not as a program and a product, but as a ministry. And you've got a diversity sitting out there in the audience. You've got stages of life is a diversity. Um unseen economic events like death or divorce or illness or something. That's requires something different. And then you've got 60% of your people sitting in the congregation who are just making it pay check to pay check. But can you think of this ministry to everybody in the church? Because we know what they need and we know what answers there are. But it needs to be on the spiritual side of the church and not on the operations, and it needs to be about discipleship and transformation and not about money. But money is an entree. I think we've often confused that, right? What's upstream, what's downstream? What's getting up upstream on it? And I think that the money word has so interchangeably been used, but really it's a downstream position of stewardship. And it's only a part of stewardship. Yeah. But we've made money is stewardship. So one of the things that God gave me as an opportunity. I was talking to Tom Mullins, who's a pastor of Christ Fellowship. And I I said to Tom, I said, I know this after 40 some years in working with people and money, that God's Word speaks to every financial decision that anybody would make at any time under any set of circumstances. And he said immediately, well then why isn't the church perceived as the center of financial wisdom? Because if it were, it would be a beacon to people, but nobody would think of the church when it comes to money. They would think of it in emotional or illnesses or a lot of things, but they would never think of it as a place of wisdom on ongoing money thinking and management.
[5:28]And so that started me thinking, well, how do we do that? And then I was uh speaking to uh another pastor and he said, how do I speak to an audience on generosity when it's so diverse? He's I know I've got millionaires sitting out there and I've got uh students deeply in debt. And I I stand on the lawn there and I prayed. I said, Lord, what do I say? And God gave me a question to asking. Uh, I said, well, Steve, when you give a series on marriage, you're really talking to a diverse audience. Do you change it? And I think that's so important because when you look at the church, it's a one to many messaging platform. At a time when the world has gotten very segmented, targeted, and certainly let's not take away from the fact there's complexities of stewardship when you start getting into the how. Yeah. Like when you get into the nitty gritty and the house, things are different. One is not better than the other, it's just different. Uh-huh. But I think what we're saying is is like, man, there's the upstream, the upstream in the heart. And some of those things, the battles that we face, they might have different looks and feels or faces to them. But it's really an inner decision of who's Lord. And who's in control of that? And I think we often miss that. Well, and see, that's the issue. Yeah. Because and that's that's upstream. Yeah. Uh, the downstream the the outcomes of that and um So I think that's a powerful thought. And I want to I want to jump in because I want to come back to that later. Okay. But I want to start off with this kind of conversation is so many people know about the work of what you've done through books, through writing. And if I were to ask most people, they'd say, oh Ron Blue, the author. I've come to know it as Ron Blue, the serial entrepreneur. Give people a perspective, God's had you in several different things, being a part of it with teams, with partners. But give people a quick fly over of how many places God's had you, what they've looked like in starting things? Well, you know, I didn't I didn't realize kind of who I was in terms of giftedness for a long time. Uh, I had already started three things when I realized I was an entrepreneur. Okay. And the giftedness I think I have that led me down the path that I went was uh I tend to take the complex and make it simple.
[8:21]So like the first book I wrote, Master your Money, uh that could be a textbook on money management, but it's all built on concepts, uh as opposed to uh transactions. Okay. So it's principle-based and conceptually uh put together. So uh and everything that I started, somebody asked me this, why did I start these things? It was in many cases it was I had a I'll call it a vision of something. Uh I started an accounting firm in 1970 after working three years with one of the uh largest firms in the world. And the reason I did was because I thought what I knew at that big firm could be applied to Main Street. The entrepreneur, the professional person, but it was not available through the big firm. So my vision was helping people uh and I call Main Street, uh think through their finances and make good financial decisions. And um and that worked. Um and we built from that firm's now the 50th largest firm in the country. Built on some principles. Now, I'll say this somewhat kiddingly, but I finished uh second on the CPA exam in Indiana, uh while I was still in school. And uh so the first thing I did was I hired the guy that finished first. That's a great move. Way to one up it. Well, what I saw in the big firm was transferable. I'm not sure anybody's has necessarily thought about it.
[10:17]But uh what they were hiring, we were hiring in our firm 2,000 accountants a year.
