EP 213 Is the Church Too Focused on Money & Success

Yo, yo, yo, what's up people? I am your host Jay Will, and I would like to welcome you to Inspire Guys People, where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. This is episode 213, is the church to focus on money and success. Yeah, that's a tough one, right?

We gonna answer that question anymore. So we gonna dive a little bit into this idea and looking at the modern church where we are today, and money and success, and where's the place for it? Are we so focused on it that we're losing sight of God? Are we steering people in the wrong direction?

Are we greedy and just blinded by the level money? We gonna unpack some of that, and it may not be what you think, you know what I'm saying? It might be exactly what you think. I don't know, but let's have the discussion.

If you're a person that listening today, comment, like, subscribe, share this episode. Hopefully you enjoy Inspire Guys People, you know what I'm saying? What we're here to do is a faith and business show. You know what I'm saying?

Sometimes it's faith, sometimes it's business, but it's always Jesus. You know what I'm saying? Always Christian. So I'm gonna dive right into this.

I'm gonna just keep it a honey with you. First things first, let me say this. Like we've been doing this podcast now for like five years. So one of the things that I like, you know, try to stress and let people know is like, the first four years, it was all audio.

I grew this show on Apple Podcast. So shout out to my people out there that can't even see me right now, because you just a listener, a loyal listener. That's what we grew this show at, audio show. And it wasn't until like episode 165 or something like that that we did our first YouTube episode last year in 2022.

And a year later, here we are at episode 213. Why do I say that? Because with this being a faith and business show, I really spent the first couple of years focusing heavy on building and laying out the foundation of this show. I used to always tell people, go back and listen from episode one.

You know, even if you check out the new episodes, because we laid a foundation, so I'll have to continue to remind people like, yo, I'm a Christian. This show is about faith and business. And because there's so much emphasis on business, business, a lot of times includes finances. And I do think there's a healthy way to talk about money.

I always talk about success. I work in corporate America. I've been growing a career and, you know, climbing the corporate ladder for some years. So I love to share the things that I've learned through that process.

But at the same time, I spent a couple of years laying out the foundation of the show on audio. So sometimes I got to kind of revisit it and remind myself like, yo, since you've been on YouTube, those people miss like 160 episodes of content where we were talking about the Bible and laying out all these biblical principles as it relates to business and stuff. So this is one of those shows where I thought it would be a great idea. Just the tackle, tackle, I can talk people.

I promise, I can talk. To tackle one of those topics that, you know, quite frankly, a lot of people struggle with it. A lot of people feel super triggered about either side. And let me say this too, one of the reasons that even brought this to my mind was because I dropped a couple of videos last week.

And, you know, one of the videos I talked about the Andre 3000 thing, a lot of times, y'all know, I don't always like to talk about trending topics and things like that, mostly because I like, you know, real dialogue. Like I'm in this to actually discuss things and not necessarily overreact to everything people say and to hear people and to disagree and to agree and to think. Like I love to think. That's, you know, that's why I'm here.

I'm not really here to try to say stuff to go viral or be super polarizing and like kind of fake or a character to get attention. It's just not who I am, but I can understand when you engage certain content or topics whether that, you know, you might get more people watching and talking and commenting than usual. So last week, I dropped a couple of videos. I had like a 15 second video about why I'm not listening to Andre 3000's new flu album and it got close to 10,000 views and a lot of nasty comments.

I posted another video about Andre 3000, which was like a, I think that was six, seven minutes, maybe 10 minutes or something like that. Just talking about like, yo, I really was just reading an article when my man was saying he turned into a panther and took the hallucinogen, hallucinogen. Hey, it's gonna, hey, people will be going crazy in my comments, man. They're gonna fry me for that.

But I can't talk. What's my point is like, that, I had only like a thousand views while I tell you like these people hate my goods. So anyway, I wanted to do an episode where I kind of get people grounded. Like if you want YouTube and you checking me off for the first time or you see this video, you gotta understand when you, you know, comment on a 10 second portion or whatever going off on me, educate me.

I heard it all, you gotta ignore that stuff. At the some point, whenever I get stuff to go semi viral or that's not viral, but like when I just get a whole bunch of comment and attention, whether it's positive or negative, at some point I just started ignoring it. So my point is, I'm a Christian. So I don't know, like, I kind of be feeling like are people, what are people on the internet for?

Cause I'm like, this is a Christian show. So what do I mean by that? Why is that important? What I'm about to talk about today is the church to focus on money and success.

It's from a Christian perspective. So I first want to lay the foundation on this topic that I think one of the things that make this topic interesting is that it's like, you know, somebody talking about somebody in your family. Like if you and my family and like we family members and we talking about somebody in our family, you know, crazy Johnny or whatever. And we all talking about crazy Johnny, that's just the made up name.

I'm trying to think like somebody named Johnny. Like we family, we could do that. But like when somebody outside of the family and come in and talk crazy, you kind of be looking like, bro, who like, like, you can't talk about Johnny. That's sometimes I like, I'm not saying people can't talk about the church when I'm trying to really express with that.

Sometimes when we talk about the church, you have people who are against the church and they like just hate church grew up in church, church hurt, let's call it the church hurt people. And this ain't no shot at you. If you like in that group, I'm just saying you, it is a thing where people who like used to go to church and something happened and they like, they hate church. So any of their opinion is kind of driven from this place of hate and to tear down and maybe even in their mind for justifiable reasons.

But that's one of the reasons people talk about church. And then you got the other side, which is people who grew up in church and they just wanna protect anything from church. It's like, bro, church can do no wrong. They're gonna always stand up for, you know, whatever, whatever happened in, you know, that's an interesting side as well.

Because I think a lot of times on that side, even if people are well intentioned, what happens is it's like, bro, you know, if we don't ever like actually discuss some of these things that the church itself ends up in a worse place because it's kind of like unwilling to like look yourself in the mirror and get better. So what am I saying after say, today's conversation is coming from a more balanced place. Coming from a place of like, I love the church. I wanna see the church grow, but I have some concerns about some of the activities and behaviors that we are kind of adopting as Christians.

And if there was one word that you would take away from today, I would say that that word would be balanced. Okay, so balance is a word that I really wanna explore because I think so many people are on one side or the other as it relates to topics around the church, especially once you bring down money, even more than success, just money. Some people hate the idea of a pastor or a church having money and all of their opinions are gonna be through that lens of like, yo, I just hate it and I think it's wrong. And some people, you know what I'm saying?

They want the money and they want the success. And a lot of times it's gonna be like the world. So for them, as long as that's happening, they ain't willing to admit anything wrong. So I just want to lay out kind of the perspective, the angle that I'm coming from today is a more balanced angle.

So let me say this, really, the first mistake I think we make when we talk about the church and money and success is if I'm being real, we ignore the Bible. So I believe that the Bible should be the foundation of how we talk about these conversations. Like, cause again, remember, I'm level setting this, they're like, I'm a Christian. The intention of this conversation.

It don't mean if you're not a Christian, you can't listen. I'm just telling you, if you listen into this, this is the perspective of a Christian. So I'm talking about this topic from that dynamic, right? You might be an atheist, you might be something else and you might be into some other religions and you got this whole perspective and I'm sure it'd be people in my comments later that want to give me the history of why I shouldn't read the Bible.

So I was like, bro, you're in the wrong conversation. Like, this isn't that conversation. I didn't ask you for that. So, but I do believe as Christians, if we want to have this conversation, honestly, that we should first be trying to understand this through the lens of the Bible and being like, yo, like the Bible is the foundation.

A Christian is a follower of Christ. It means of or from something. When you add that I-A-N, it means I'm of this or from this. So if I say I'm American, that means I am of or from America.

If I say I'm Canadian, like that I-A-N means something. And so when we call ourselves Christians, it means that we are of or from Christ. So I'm gonna say this as a sidebar. It's always hilarious to me when I see people online.

Like I've literally seen this topic online. Like, what's Jesus a Christian? I'm like, mm, mm, mm, okay, mm. That's like asking you are you at you.

Like he was himself. He didn't have to follow himself. Like it's the weirdest, anyway, that was super sidebar. But people do ask that question.

Like is Jesus a Christian? So I got a couple of things I want to make sure I say. All right, so heads, it's like heads or tails to me, right? Like when you flip a coin, people always say heads or tails, right?

Cause it lands on one other other. But if we took a quarter, you might call heads or tails and flip it one way. And then say, oh, there it is. It's tails because it landed on tails.

But the reality of it is that quarter is not heads or tails. That quarter is heads and tails. And as a matter of fact, if that quarter doesn't have both, it's fake. What is my point?

Success or money isn't good or bad. It's good and bad. So when we ask this question, is the church too focused on money and success? I think the first thing regardless of what side of this topic you stand on, like if you just on the side of that you ready to defend why it's okay and we should or you ready to defend why.

Oh, that's horrible. I'm not driving a nice car and this church is raising money. Then first you need to maybe be real with yourself about the fact of like, can we actually say that money is either good or bad? That success is either good or bad because a lot of people try to make the argument from either of those stances.

And it's almost like you're putting yourself in a position where if I want to make money good, I could throw out a bunch of scripture. If I want to make money bad, I could throw out a bunch of scripture. No different than what people do with the word of God with the new and the old Testament. But the word of God isn't the new or the old Testament.

It's the new and the old Testament and how they come together to work as one. So I believe when we look at money and success and ask ourselves this question of like, is the church too focused on it? First we have to understand that the things, the topics that we're engaging, these things aren't good or bad. They are good and bad.

So I have to think about money from the standpoint of like, yo, let me think of some of the good things about money. And then let me be real with myself and think about some of the negativity or downsides of money, right? Especially as we talk about through the lens, of the Bible of church, right? So let's see money.

Ooh. All right, now we're gonna get into the topic, right? I had a couple of notes because I want to make sure that I talked about this stuff. Maloy, what up, bro?

Interesting to hear about, okay, I got you. Yeah, let's do that, right? So we gonna start with the money part. You know, and some of what they go hand in hand, right?

But when you think about money, right, as an example, I think one of the things that we gotta be real about in the church is, and again, remember, this conversation is too further the church. Like I'm not attacking the church right now. This ain't about being messy. This ain't about being petty or talking bad about people.

I'm really trying to share some game with people. So that we can find ourselves in a position where we want to see each other grow. Appreciate you, Maloy. Bishop, thank you, sir.

Appreciate you, Sharon, man. All right, so the first thing about money when we ask ourselves is the church to focus on money and success. I wanna tell you something that I've always thought about sitting in church and observing, and I'm an observing person. So this isn't about me like sitting in church and judging everything.

I observe everywhere I go, I observe at work. I observe if I was on the bus, if I'm traveling, whatever, I'm always observing. So when I observe the whole concept of money in church, there's this one thing that I find very interesting, right? It's a very interesting dynamic, and it's the God factor.

So for me, when I see people in church talk about money, we marry it with God. And I think that's a little dangerous. I understand why people do it, but I think it's dangerous and I'm gonna tell you why. And again, I'm not even trying to say I'm right about this, so I'm opening here, like, share your comments, share your thoughts, right?

As long as you could be respectful, and I like these people custom me out on this Andre 3000 video. Like share your thoughts, I'm opening here and then talking through it, but I'm gonna share my thoughts on some of my opinions. The God factor is interesting to me because I believe it could be manipulative, and I'm gonna tell you why. If I connect only while you're in church, all of your financial decisions to God, and I'm telling you that there's a spiritual, and I gotta be careful how I say this, I'm not saying that there's not a spiritual impact on how you spend your money and not a God-led way, but in church specifically, in those four walls, we mystify it, and what do I mean by that?

Like we make it like this, like, ooh. And so what happens is when you get somebody in a room and you tell them as an example, if you do this, God is gonna do this. Now we're talking about with your money. We're not talking about what's your lifestyle, right?

We're talking specific to money right now. If you do this, so what makes it interesting is because you can have money and not have God. But if I make it that your money decision specifically are connected to your relationship with God, then what people do is they use their money in a way that is almost like I'm buying God, like I'm prostituting God. Like give me a little bit of God for $100.

Give me a little bit of God for $50, and we're minimizing God and putting Him in a box. When Jesus Himself said, give unto Caesar, what His Caesar is giving to me, what His mind. And I don't wanna throw scriptures around, because like I said earlier, you could throw different scriptures. And I don't like to argue with scripture in that way.

But I do think this is a very important thing. What's up, Crystal? How you doing, sister? It's been a while since I've seen you.

Hopefully everything is good. So I've seen this done in a way where there was this, was it fast and furious? I wanna say it was fast and furious. It was the whatever fast and furious had like, when they found a lady, this is maybe five or six.

Oh no, they got 10 of these movies. I don't know which one it is. One of the movies were down was driving fast. When they was going through the tunnels or something.

And I remember Braga, Braga was his name. Did they go back to Mexico for Braga, Braga, Braga. And there was this scene where Braga, the evil dude, the murderer and the drug dealer, he was in the church. And he was taking his money and basically giving it to the priest for a blessing.

Essentially saying, yo, I wanna buy a little bit of God. I wanna buy a little bit of protection right now. And there's this mentality that I can be out here living any type of way. I can be mistreating, I can be murdering people.

But I'm making money. So as long as I bring this money to the church, there's the God factor where the preacher has convinced me that this money is my connection with God. And as long as I'm giving God this, then now I'm blessed. Whoo, I'm about to lose some followers.

So when I think through that, I ask myself, like, is this dangerous? How dangerous is this to misuse or maybe haphazardly or in a laissez-faire way, connect God with money in a way where even if it's not on purpose for me, I'm putting people in a position where it's possible based on their limited understanding of what I'm presenting to them that they may not understand exactly how this thing works. So then we get situations in church where people come. And, you know, I've been in a thousand church services y'all.

So this isn't the broshade or anything to anyone. I promise you, but we do this thing. I'm gonna tell you one thing we always do, not always that I've seen done a hundred times though, is this thing where people during the offering time, right? It's you raising the money and you're telling these stories to people and like trying to play on a hard stream to get them to give some money.

And one of the things that I've seen done before is like, you know, you want that car? You gotta give your way to that car. You want that house like, God, I'm gonna bless you with a new house. I need, you know, X amount of people to stand up and give this amount of money and God's gonna do it.

Now, look, I promise I'm not throwing shade. That's not my intention. This is super important to talk about. Cause I wanna really think about that situation.

If I take a person that is financially illiterate, right? Like they are not educated as it relates to finances and money, they don't maybe have good credit. Again, this isn't the shading by y'all being in a situation. This is a real life example.

If I take this person and I simply tell them, hey, stand up in the church and give $100 and God is gonna bless you with some material thing. I'm really limiting and minimizing the real impact of this entire experience with God. That person isn't even prepared to receive the blessing that I'm promising them. What am I saying?

You telling them they gonna get a Benz. This person doesn't regularly go get oil changes on their Honda. Hello, hello, Honda oil changes $35, Benz oil change, $350, $400, it gets up there people. What am I saying?

I'm saying that we end up taking advantage of people who are illiterate in a particular area, promising them something that they can't even handle. And then let's be real. Let's be real, appreciate it, Crystal. When they don't get blessed and nothing happens, we just come back to the next anniversary, the next year of service and do the exact same thing again.

We keep copying and pasting and copying and pasting. Telling people the same thing, your breakthrough is coming. This is coming. If you give this amount of money, your breakthrough is coming.

Listen man, I know how much a Gucci shirt costs. I know how much some Yeezy shoes costs. I know how much a Jaguar car costs. I know how much a Honda and a Toyota costs, but you can't put no price on no blessing from God.

I said it, buddy. I said it, buddy. You can't put no price on no blessing. You have to be careful putting price tags on things in church.

Because what happens, right? And I'm gonna move on from this in a second, you put people in a mentality like a shopping mall mentality. And the reality of it is, you feel me, Crystal, we really shouldn't want people coming to church with a shopping mall mentality. And looking on the wall and saying, how much is that?

How much is this? Because at the end of the day, this is about lifestyle. This isn't about, first of all, self-righteousness. You do this, you get that.

It doesn't necessarily work like that, and I'm gonna break it down further, because God might have you in a place. Ooh, I like that. God is not for sale. I really like that.

Actually, Crystal, if I was thinking, that would have been the name of this episode. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it up midway through the show, as if you knew. Anyway, we gotta be careful with this idea of, I love that God is not for sale.

Like, that shopping mall mentality, it can make you self-righteous, because the reality of it is this, God might have me in a season in my life, where he wants me giving, right? Let's say God wants me doing things for people, helping people, and just giving, but giving by faith. See, if you give him by faith, there is no promise that you're gonna get a Benz, because you gave $100. First of all, a Benz don't cost $100.

Bingo, yeah, I said it, doesn't cost a hundo. Doesn't cost a hundo. It's all good, Crystal. So you're creating this false image for people that they can come to church, or almost play church like a lottery, put a hundred dollars in, pull the slot, and a Benzo pops up.

Pull the slot, and a husband pops up. Pull the slot, and a family pops out, and it's like, bro, hold on, let's speed this down. Let's slow it down. I said speed it down on purpose, okay, I'm not crazy.

God may actually be dealing with you in a way, dealing with me in a way, where he like, nah, jay, I just want you like, like I might be pruning your heart. I might be changing something in you, and I need you to give, right? And maybe what you're gonna receive, the blessing isn't gonna be something tangible, right? Maybe it's gonna be something internal.

And so now, instead of you putting a price tag that, hey, I spent a hundred dollars, I get a pair of Nike's, maybe it's like, no, bro, I want you just giving. You don't even know, you will know when you need to stop, but every week, just give right now. And then not one type of that, that given, may look a little different. Maybe it's $50 in church this week, and $50 tip to a waitress, or a hostess somewhere, at a restaurant, or maybe it's a $20 tip to the valet service guy.

And so the other thing that we do, when we put this shopping mall mentality on the people of God in church, is we limit everything to church. And I'm gonna talk about why this happens in a minute, but we limit everything to church. And then, so you have Christians that go to church, and give, but then go to the restaurant, and can't give a good tip. And they are maybe some of the most rude people, and I'm not saying that every person is this way, but I'm saying this is the mentality that can be created.

When we tell people, hey, come to church, and give this amount, and God is gonna do this, we limit God. We think we are making some people better, we're limiting people's perspective of God, because God might want you to give outside of the church. It may be like, you may need to give more. A hundred dollars may not be enough of what God wants to give.

Any money may not even be the thing he wants you to give. It may be your service, it may be your time, because money isn't everybody's vice. And the other problem with preaching that, is some people got money. So for them coming and giving a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, ain't nothing.

Now I have to talk about the other side of why this happens sometimes. And this is gonna be tough, this is something else I thought about. I wanna be, I'm not, it's almost no way for me to say this is other than just say it. I think one of the reasons that so many churches find themselves in compromising spots for asking for money, not all churches, because some churches got millions, and they steal, like, they steal getting people.

But sometimes it's because you started a church before you even had your foundation together personally in your life. And so you started a church and you need money, or you started a church, and you're not financially literate or financially savvy. I mean, you don't know how to raise money, you don't know how to rally money, you don't have a business mind, you don't know how to manage money, you don't know how to leverage money, you don't know, and this is not a shot, but it's something that's reality, especially from where I'm from. And our culture, you know what I'm saying, where a lot of times you starting from the bare minimum, and the bottom, and a lot of times, I'm gonna tell you something, when I read whose book was this in?

This was in Booker T. Washington's book, Up From Slavery. And he talked about when the slaves were free, there were two jobs that they went after, politician and preacher. And right, those were two ways that they can use there, whether you have to gift a gab or something, and you can go and make money, right?

So when preaching is a career or opportunity, or something that you're looking like, oh, I never made an in basketball, maybe I'm about to go preach, like it's a very dangerous thing. I'm not saying it's wrong for you to want to preach, I'm saying it makes it dangerous. Remember, we're not talking about either, or we're talking about end, right? And so a lot of churches find themselves in compromising position, because they need the money.

So if you've got a member there, let's say the member is selling, who knows what the, who knows where and why. Who and why? Like you might be a little reluctant to preach against that sin, if that member is a given member, and they're given a lot, and you find yourself in a position where you're like, I need this money. And so, hey, I need this money.

So I need Sister Shirley to give $100, even though I know her life's about to be out, or her grass ain't been cutting six months. Sister Shirley, I need this $100 to pay this light bill at the church. So I think that's one of the reasons it happens. We often dive right in without counting up the cost.

Amen, that's the words of Jesus. He told the disciples to count up the cost before they follow him. And so a lot of times, see your point, Crystal, a lot of people start churches, and they haven't actually understood what it's gonna cost. So then you find yourself, let me tell you, in a position where you need money.

One of the most compromising positions and situations you could be in in life is a situation to need money. Because in any area of life, man, it puts a lot of pressure on people when they need money or when you love money. Love and money is really bad, because you may not even need it and love it. But need money is a tough space to be.

People have done all type of horrible things in life and compromise their own values and belief systems for money because it is a stressful area to be in life. So I wanna give you a couple tips. As I'm talking about this, it's not just to be negative, and I'm gonna get to some of the positive sides as well. My belief is that this is why it's valuable to learn about money and become financially literate.

Because if you take time and learn about money, right? Let's say you're a pastor, and you learn for your own life about money, and you learn how to manage it in your own life. And you put yourself in a position where, now let's say you start a church, and you're not compromised, you're not vulnerable, because you're taken care of. You are, and let me say this, I'm not saying you have to be well off the start of church.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about your mindset and literacy and understanding and being structured and found it in a way that you can take something and invest in it and grow it, right? In a way that you actually know how to steward the money even that you receive from the people. The thing is, if you find yourself in that position where you're not vulnerable or compromised, because you have structure and foundation financially, now you are not at the mercy of the givers.

Because what a lot of people do is they use their money as like, well, I ain't given this, right? And again, when you're in a position, you need money, it's a very compromising thing. Let's talk about this last thing, maybe negative, and then I'll get into some positives about money for the church side at least. This is a very tough one, very tough one.

One of the problems with the church with money is that too many times the money flows to the top. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean that if I go to your church and I've been in church for 20 years, and I've been broke for 20 years, but the church is thriving. The church just remodeled.

The church did this, you got this, whatever. The problem is, if that is never flowing to me, but for years I'm given, then I believe there's a missed opportunity on the church side to actually educate the people about money. So what do I mean about this? I think there's value in teaching people about money to make them literate versus trying to coerce or persuade people to give money.

I'm gonna be very clear. We spend more time in church trying to persuade people to give money versus teach people about money, because I think we're afraid that if they learn about money that they won't give it to us. There's a weird dynamic there that's just a thought, I'm not saying that's the case, I'm just saying there's something that I've seen where it seems like the focus is more persuasive than educating. And I'm gonna tell you the value of education.

People give their money to things they believe in. If the church focus more on being financially literate and promoting education and financial literacy to the members, and I know some churches do it, I've said that church is on panels multiple times this year talking about financials, career growth, all that stuff. Remember, I wanna see the church grow. I'm not talking negatively about the church to beat the church down.

This is about a self-development because I am part of the church. So this is a self-development opportunity for us all and how we talk about these things. And this is why I go to churches and I will sit on a panel and talk about these type of things because I think when you teach people about something and they're educated, now they can make a educated decision, right? Now think about this.

If you are a part of my fellowship, my community, my church, and you have money and you have money and we've taught each other how to have money and maybe it ain't about the amount of money that you got but you're a good steward of your money. Remember the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 verses 14 through 30 is really about this stewardship idea with money. So one of the mistakes we make with money is we focus on the amount versus the stewardship. So it should be more about what you do, which are money versus do you have more money to me.

But again, money is a polarizing topic and people tend to focus on the amount versus how you're managing it. So I'm a believer that it's about being a good steward of your money. But if we're part of this community and we all start being a good stewards of our money, then the community grows, the church will grow. You can't be afraid to teach people the truth to feel like if they know the truth, now I can no longer manipulate them and just make them give money because they're scared.

All right, now let's talk about the other side. So that was for the side of like, remember, money is good and bad. That was really some of the challenges that I believe the church faces as far as money and maybe some of the areas that we focus too much more money and things. But let me talk about the other side of it.

On the other side of it, I also think people are just way tougher on the church than they are other areas in life, other businesses and everything. Here's what I'm gonna say. Everybody raises money. Yeah, I said it up.

I said it up. I almost, let me tell you something. I almost never go where anywhere in life where money isn't being raised. Think about it.

Everybody, I work in corporate America. You know what I'm saying? Again, at a fortune, let's call it a fortune 100 company. It's somewhere in the 50s and 60s of some, but let's call it a fortune 100 company.

I've been here for years, grown my career. I go to all type of corporate events traveling for different partners and major businesses that, I don't name, I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody or anything like that. I'm just speaking generally. Everywhere I go, they're raising money.

There's always a charity. And a lot of times if I'm being real, it always reminds me of church. There's a guy or a girl on stage, some executive or some representative from the board or whatever and they stand on the stage and they tell you a story about their charity and why it's important and all these things, right? And then they ask you for money.

Now, there are some differences in church because a lot of times a lot of these charitable organizations, there's sometimes a direct benefit. So here's, we talked about the God factor earlier, like, hey, if you give this amount of money, you will get a Benz, you will get this. Well, a lot of corporate events, different businesses donate trips or experience. Let's call them like excursions, right?

So it will be like, hey, if you give this amount of money, then you will end up with a trip to Mexico or something like that, right? Those are the type of things that happen in a business world. Think about something like the walk for cancer. Cancer walks, people pay registration fees and buy T-shirts, right?

That's because they believe in it. People spend money everywhere, people raise money everywhere. So I think one of the things that we do unfairly is we make it seem like the church is doing something different than everybody else. Everybody, matter of fact, I see people post happy birthday to themselves on Facebook and put their cash out tag.

They're raising money. Everybody is always raising money. People have go fund me when a business goes from private to public and go into the stock market, the stock exchange, that is them raising capital, right? If you are an angel investor before they go private, that is them raising money.

Everybody, everywhere is always raising money. So this is why I actually believe we need to do a better job of educating people about money in church versus mystifying it, because I think that education will allow us to have not just financial literacy, but biblical literacy. Because when we have biblical literacy, now we are less driven by our emotions. So the big gap here is that in church, we walk in this building and money becomes emotional versus practical.

It becomes emotional versus something that we're educating on. And a lot of times on the bad side, those emotions are manipulated sometimes by bad actors and things like that. But then on the other side, it's like, bro, like some people be any emotional about judging it because it's like, yeah, like we are raising money. Everybody, all the time.

So that's that, you feel me? Biblical literacy all day long. Now let's talk about success, right? I want to talk about success.

Well, before I do that, let me say something else about the idea of money in church. When I say you give to what you believe in, let's make it that simple. Again, people go on to walk for cancer because somebody in a family pass, I understand, this is not a shot at that. People give to all types of charities.

You go, I go to the retail stores and they ask me, do you want to round up for charity, right? Everybody is always raising money. Be fair to the church. The question is more so do you believe in this church?

Do you believe in what they're doing? I do think church, there's an opportunity to be more authentic and transparent about where the money goes and how it's utilized. And this takes you to have some character in it and not that manipulative authoritative leadership. That leadership that says, just listen to me because I said it because I'm the man of God.

I really think we are hurting ourselves by mystifying everything, right? By kind of playing on people's emotions and making them afraid, he's the man of God. He said this, and I'm not saying it's the disrespect. I'm not saying it's the say that there's no power in what the leader is saying.

But I'm saying there is a proper way to lead and there's a manipulative way to lead. And I do believe that a lot of times unknowingly, pastors are using manipulative forms of leadership versus things that are not intended to kind of take advantage of your emotions, right? To deal with you respectfully. Now I'm saying this from the perspective.

I want to give a little insight. I'm saying this from the perspective of like, I am a leader as well. I'm a leader in the corporate world. And anytime that people have worked for me, they get treated with respect, transparency.

I try to be as genuine as possible. I don't really care about the hierarchy. So me being your boss is not something that I need to wake up every day and wave over your head. Like, I'm your boss, so this is right.

And that's what we do in church. It's like, I'm the leader. The leader said this, we turn the leader into this mystical creature that can do and say no wrong. And it really sets a lot of leaders up for failure.

When they do make mistakes, that's why people come down on them so hard because it's like, bro, like, well, you made it seem like you was walking on water. Whereas if you lead with respect and really true leadership, you know, it's not about manipulating people or bossing and people around, it's really about caring about people and really serving them in a way, but it makes them better. And as a leader, you realize, well, when that person is better and I'm truly invested in them, then I'm better. And what I'm leading is better when they're better.

I don't need to manipulate them. I wouldn't want my boss to do that to me. Just wake up every day saying I'm your boss, right? It'd be like, all right, I get it, bro.

You my boss, like, I get it, but you don't have to remind me of that every second. That's not the sign of a good leader. So I do think there's also some value in the church for us to really step back and think about what it means to be a leader in in some ways, like demystify some of this stuff. And I'm being honest, like the Bible is full of principles, literal principles.

The Bible says it reigns on the just as well as the unjust, right? Like there are things in the word of God that you can do that are principle driven that don't take me scaring you right now and like it got to be lightning and thunder for it to be true. Church is the only person, only place where people go and they look for the ruin the shake for something to be true. You go to stuff all the time and hear people convincing you.

You go to the dealership and they convince you to buy a car and the room didn't shake, but everything in church is like, we wait no, smoke to come out and create in this whole weird thing. Literally everything you need is in a Bible. I could not agree more. So let's talk about success, right?

Is the church focusing too much on money and success, right? I'm gonna wrap it up at the end and give kind of a blanket answer. What else did I write down? I don't want to make sure I missed nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ooh, success. So one of the problems with success is that, all right, and so here's what I'm talking about when I say success. We got a lot, we live in success culture, right?

This show is about faith and business and if you're just jumping on, I kind of say it in intro, but I did 160 some episodes on audio before I ever showed my face on a video to do something on YouTube. And we had already laid the foundation in maybe a hundred of those episodes, right? But I feel necessary, like not in this new, still new to the YouTube and video world of doing my podcast that I take some time to establish the fact that, yo, we are very much about Christ and God driven here and I believe in the foundation of the Bible. So when we think about success, one of the challenges of success in church and focusing too much on success is that it gives people the idea that success is equivalent to godliness.

So I think that's the first question we have to ask ourselves, do we believe that success automatically makes you godly? There's a reason that I'm breaking this down this way, because what I've noticed is that the introduction of social media and us being brands as individuals and having these pages and profiles is that people have started giving more authority to people who have more followers or bigger brands. And so what success is, it's like, yo, I only have right now 1,100 subscribers on YouTube. So that's not that successful.

So based on my YouTube subscriber count, then if somebody with 20,000 subscribers comes in and makes an argument against this video, then I can look stupid on social media because this person simply has more followers than me. So there are more people that are prone to agree with them or place value on what they're saying. And so we live in this world where this things are changing to where the lines are being blurred. And we haven't even stopped to think about half of this stuff, by the way, we haven't even thought about the fact that this didn't exist 15 years ago.

15 years ago, nobody had a page. You weren't a brand, right? And when I was in high school in college, nobody was saying how many followers do you have? And then that's now validating you being cool or not cool, like, no, bro, it was based on real life, who you were.

And I'm not saying that was like some authentic form of judging in high school, it was still childish. But my point is we now live in a world where success to a lot of people means you're right. And I think it's important for the church to be mindful of the like that we shine on success in the way we manage and maneuver the world of success, whereas yes, 100%, it is okay for people to be successful. I would like to think that I've grown to be more successful in my own life to whatever extent that means, versus the old mean, not versus anyone else.

There are levels to success, by all means, I'm not saying I'm at the highest or near the highest level. But what I'm saying is that yes, I have strived in my life to get better, to make better financial decisions, to take better trips, to do things, right? To get a better job or whatever it may be to grow and to become successful. But I think it's very important as a part of that success, not to validate yourself in it.

And I'm gonna tell you some of the reasons why we should caution that. A, because it can give people a voice in the church that haven't earned that voice. All right, all right, all right. What I'm trying to say is, I'm gonna try to make it plain to you.

Let's say I am an expert psychologist. And in the field of psychology, like there's no person you should come to other than Jermaine. But then let's say you're looking to buy furniture. Well, why would you come to me about what's the best quality furniture?

Simply because I'm successful in one area, does not equal anything in another area necessarily, right? Now, when somebody is successful in the world, let's say you own car dealerships, and you become one of the richest people in your city from owning car dealerships, and you happen to go to church. Now you go to church, and because of your success, you're being treated like a celebrity, you are now being treated like you are above. And in the Bible, it literally talks about some of this stuff in the Bible.

Like there's a scripture in the Bible, I wish I should have pulled it up. There's a scripture in the Bible that says, like, yo, don't bring somebody in church and sit them in the front based off how they dress. It literally says that, now I wanna find it, like, oh man, now I wanna find it. Uh, okay.

I'm about to find it, y'all, give me two seconds. Okay, I think Luke 14 and seven, let's see. Let's go to Bible, I'm about to share my screen. Let's go to Luke chapter 14.

This be the kind of stuff when it happened on the fly man, I just have to do it. Luke, let's go to Luke, I put in 14 and it's going to verse four. Luke, why is it Bible? Bible, read, there we go.

Okay, Luke, I'm almost ready. All right, all right, 14. All right, y'all, let's share this real quick. I gotta read this because like, I just got to.

I'm sorry, when it comes to the Bible, it'd be like, I gotta read it. Jesus heals on the Sabbath. Okay, he's breaking all type of rules already. Um, all right, Jesus teaches, ooh, Jesus teaches about humility.

I think that's really dope as we're talking about success. Jesus teaches about humility. Let's see what this about, Luke 14 and seven, new living translation. When Jesus noticed that all who had come to the dinner, were trying to sit in the seats of honor near the head of the table, he gave them this advice.

When you are invited to a wedding feast, don't sit in the seat of honor. Would have someone who was more distinguished than you was also been invited. The host will come and say, give this person your seat. Then you will be embarrassed and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table.

Instead, man, the Bible will be spit and gamed. Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, friend, we have a better place for you. Then you will be honored in front of the other guests.

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. I mean, this is just the Bible. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled. That means if you walk around and you always talking about your success and my success make me better than you.

And that is like, okay, keep on doing that. And you're going to get humbled in front of everybody. But if you learn a little bit of modesty, a little bit of humility and just allow things to happen, then you will be exotic in the proper time, according to God's will. So what does that mean as it relates to success?

It means that I think as the church, we got to be careful shining that light of success over everyone without teaching people how to navigate it. So as an example, Jermaine, just because you have a podcast doesn't mean that you can come to my church and stun on everybody and you automatically write about everything. No, it doesn't. No, if you're educated in an area, that means you have credibility.

But 10,000 followers on Instagram doesn't just mean you're credible to talk to people about growing their credit score. And you have a 350 credit score and never bought anything or grew your credit. So what am I saying is that just because you're an expert in one area, you make good videos, it doesn't make you smart in everything. And I see this all the time in the comments section, especially on YouTube, YouTube is different.

Like I get a lot of comments from people and honestly, sometimes I could tell like, I'm like, my man don't know what he's talking about, not educated. Like it's just, it just is what it is. And it don't mean, I know everything, it just means that sometimes you could tell success. Here's where I wanna wrap this up.

Success is not wrong. Money is not bad. You need money to pay the bills, you need money to buy the building, you need money to grow the church. I think there's value in teaching people the right way to manage and be stewards of their money.

And you can do that when you don't need their money. See, I think one of the tricks is like, steward your own life and get yourself to the point where it's not life or death. If people do or don't give you money, right? If you have a church, put yourself in a position in Lord willing where maybe you can afford it.

And it's not, the lights ain't gonna go off if everybody don't pay the light bill and you don't have to do these stories about convincing them why they should give. But you could just teach them about giving the right way. And I believe that when we do things like that, God will bless us, right? But I think sometimes when we are, I just think we gotta be careful not to manipulate people.

That, and I'm gonna say this with money. Money in particular, it's a manipulating tool. Not just in church, but people in families at home, like you can do this anywhere. People manipulate when it comes to money.

And a lot of times it's because a person doesn't have money and they don't even know they're doing it. But what do I mean by that manipulation in particular? I mean, when people, let's say you saw me walking down the street and you wanted me to donate to your charity. And you knew, maybe you knew me.

And you knew if I just ask him and not tell him what the charity is, he's not gonna do it. But what can make him do it is if I make up this story and tell him this story about how somebody in my family, this happened and da da da da. That's when you start playing on people's emotions to get money out of them. And I think that's when money gets tricky.

And success is almost a little different in the sense that, you know, we want successful people in our churches and things like that. And I'm not saying nothing is wrong with that. But I think the thing about success is, you gotta be careful how you phone it. You gotta be careful how you treat it.

You gotta be careful not to put successful, ungodly people at the forefront of church. Ooh, that's a stinger. What do I mean by that? I mean that just because I'm successful, let's say I grew up in a church and I used to sing in a church, but then I went on to be a great R&B singer.

We know there's no chance of that. But I went to be this great R&B singer. I got a Grammy and then, you know, all I do is sing about sex and sleeping around. But then I come back to the church and y'all know me, see y'all love me and y'all should.

But then it's like pastor want me to get up and say words and everybody screaming and whatever. It's like, whoa buddy, just because he's successful and has a Grammy, does not mean you should give him the mic when he comes to church, because they're not screaming for God, they're screaming for him. And I think that's a very tricky thing because a lot of times when someone goes out into the world and gets success, we automatically want to put them on a pedestal even if they don't have biblical literacy or they're not even living a life in the example of the word. Sometimes these people can be straying your members away from the church.

They're the reason that your members might be in the club every week is because you keep putting this person in front of them who's really contradicting everything that you're preaching about, right? You're feeling crystal so, look man, I really hope I'll wrap it up this way. Like I started it two a couple of minutes ago. Success and money aren't bad.

I think we should want to be successful. We should have ambition. I think, you know, we should want to grow money and grow our money and have, have, be good stewards of money is the best way I think I can put it. But I think we have to understand that those things are good and bad.

What do I mean? When something is good and bad, it's kind of like you have to learn how to limit it, right? Like it's okay if I have, I don't even want to use some example, but if you eat a certain meal today, it might be good. But you don't want to eat it every day.

Then it becomes nasty. Like, all right, I'm tired of this, right? Things can be good and it can be bad. And so you have to learn how to manage that when it's good and bad.

So with my success, it might be like, oh, I want to be successful. I want to grow my career. I don't want to be poor for the rest of my life. But I'm also, I have limitations.

Meaning on the flip side, I'm not willing to do anything for money. Or if people approach me with financial offers for things that go against my values and my standards and my belief system, then I'm not going to accept them things. So you see how you have to balance it out? Like, yes, I want to grow or I want to do something, but I don't want to do it by any means necessary.

And I think when we talk about things in this either or way, that people will come at you like, yeah, see, I'm getting an example. I make a video about Andre 3000, right? And you know why I wasn't personally going to listen to his music. I also said in that video, like I'm not telling you what to do.

I'm telling you what I'm doing. And it was a guy and I could tell he must be a Christian based on the tone of his comment. Now, most people who was going off on me weren't Christian. It was going off on me, cool.

There was this Christian guy that went off. And he literally, I mean, he said a lot of things to me that was interesting. There was too long messages, comments. But he was like, a couple of the things he said, people like you are the reason that we can't get young people to come to Christ because you know you too, I don't want to mix up the comment.

But it was like, he basically created in his mind off of this 30 second video, he created this whole world where I was this person that wasn't in tune with young people in the church. And you know, we could never grow a church or get young people in because of people like me. And this was because I don't want to listen to an Andre 3000 song where he took some hallucinogens and said he turned into a panther. I think that's interesting.

Well, here's the thing, Andre 3000 is successful. And so when people are successful, the church has now adopted the same mindset as the church where somehow it means that you're right or that what you're doing is good because it led to some success. And it's like, no bro, I just don't believe that. I don't mean success is good about any means necessary.

I believe a lot of people can do bad things and become successful. And that doesn't mean that I should go and model myself after, right? But we now live in this world where people just emotionally just say whatever and like believe whatever in a way too. So my thing is, is the church too focused on success and money?

I think so. And the reason I think so is not because success and money is bad. It's not that I don't think we should be focused on success and money at all. I think we haven't done our due diligence in making sure we explain it properly.

And I think part of that is because people are drunk off their own success. Success is like a drug. You have to be very careful with it because when you get success, you can start thinking too highly of yourself. You can start feeling like you are above people.

And I think a lot of people do that. Just from things clips I see and podcasts and things where success can make people very arrogant in their approach. And what I mean by arrogant is not willing to hear the other side. A lot of times when I see people arguing about certain things, Christians I'm talking about online and let's say a guy goes on a podcast and he like, like, all right, this one of the things I'm trying to think of some examples.

I've seen little things like where you'll have a Christian couple and let's say they, you know, on a Instagram and people are arguing about is the outfit to revealing, all right. And you'll have people like literally arguing back and forth on both sides like, see that's what's wrong with y'all. Can't nobody have fun. Then you had other side like, no, that's just wrong.

And I'll be looking and I'm like, I wonder is anybody actually truly interested in hearing the other side or are we just interested in spewing our own? So let's unpack that real quick since we brought that up. And now I'm talking about the, how do I say this isn't necessarily about success in money, but it is like a result of success in money and how we think through it. So if you take a picture, so let's say, all right, I'm gonna use some real.

Like I was just on vacation, me and my wife went, you went to a couple of places. It don't matter where we went. We went to a couple of little islands or whatever. And you know, like, you know, you take pictures, you have to beach, like we got pictures, right?

To me, let's say if we posted a picture, now I'm half naked on the internet, now I'm half naked on the internet, put some clothes on, bro. Well, let's say we posted this picture, let's say I posted a picture, I'm at the beach. And then it creates this big uproar because, because I got 2000 followers or something and everybody, you know, I'm famous with 2000 followers. That's what everybody think now you're famous because you got 2000 followers, people weird.

And people going crazy, for me, if I'm a true believer and I'm a leader, I might actually, in my maturity, I should be able to hear, like, all right, wait a minute. So I posted this picture and I'm half naked on the internet. You know, now first of all, you know if the picture went up that you was feeling good about yourself. You know, good and well, when you put the half naked joint on the internet, you would, they had none to do with God fam.

That was all flesh. No different than when you take the picture in front of your new house and you say, I want to praise God for blessing me with this 5,000 square foot mansion. It's like, do you want to praise God or do you want to show me the mansion? Or when you take a picture in front of your numerous ladies, beings at the dealership and say, thank you Jeff for being myself as person for this new AMG package, $100,000 Benzos with the 10 win, dude.

It's like, did you want to praise God and thank Jeff? But did you just want me to know that you had the $100,000 Benzos with the 10 win, dude? Like, no, you know that was about the Benz. So what am I saying?

If I post something like that and it creates an uproar, if I'm a mature believer, I'm not just going to get out and be like, see, that's what's wrong with y'all. See that? I'm going to be real with y'all. I think it's an immature way to approach conversations.

See, that's what's wrong with y'all. It makes me cringe every time, leaders. We're talking about leaders now, right? When I hear a leader talk like that, see, that was wrong with y'all.

Like, huh? You a leader, bro. Come on, now. You know you was having it on the internet.

What kind of validation was you looking for with that picture fam? Am I saying, you going to hell? Am I? No, I did.

Okay, you and your girl was at the beach. Okay, that's cool. But when you picked that one and you uploaded that to the gram, like, you knew what it was going to do. And so my thing is like, if that happens, it's not just about are they right or wrong.

Sometimes it's about the conversation that needs to take place about what happened. So if you were a leader, it might be like, oh, right now you just created, like you a leader, but you just created a scenario where now people are coming to your church and you now are attracting groupies. So like, and you ain't just attracting groupies because you just look good naturally and you can't control it. You're now attracting groupies because you're putting out groupie traps, right?

Like, it's like you attracting it because you put out the honey, you attract the bees. That's what I'm trying to say. Like, you just pour a honey all over the outside of the church and now the bees are swarming in. And so now you finally yourself in a position where you're saying that's what's wrong with y'all, but hey, I would look at myself and be like, Jay, you knew the good and well when you posted the half naked on the internet.

You know you thought you was looking right. So you know what that was gonna do, right? And now that it's doing what it was gonna do, you can't flip it and be mad at the people for the Bible talks about not being a stumbling block bro. You put a rock in front of her, she tripped.

And now you like, that's what's wrong with you. It's like, come on y'all, I don't think it's just mature to put things out, especially when you're a leader, it's thousands or millions of people following you. You gotta consider it all. Cause that's what makes you a leader, right?

To whom much is given, much is required. So you might not be able to post that ham n***a ona ina n***a. Or if you slipped up and did it, you might have to look in the mirror and be like, you know what, I could have saved that one. We made a couple people trip.

We got a couple new groupies in the quad. You know what it is. This is, see people don't wanna be real. I think it's just be real.

You know why you posted it, right? So don't blame them. And then you get everybody is so much wanting to just argue everything that they're not having honest conversations about some of this stuff. Because if you're leaving the church, you shouldn't be worried about being, you know, a sex symbol, right?

And I think I know sex sales and these are the things, right? When you start talking about success, success, and that hunger and desire for success starts making you do a bunch of weird stuff. You feel me? Maisha, is it Maisha?

Maisha or Maisha? Sorry. Thank you. Appreciate you.

Sorry for being your name wrong. I apologize. But, you know, we find ourselves in this situation as the church where, you know, my plea to the church is this. If you are a church leader watching this, my plea is let's be willing to look in the mirror and not just out the window.

And understand that as a leader, you have to be willing to self-assess. And you need somebody in your corner that's gonna tell you the truth that doesn't care about your success or your title. Again, remember, like, and this is something that happens in church. Church is such a hierarchy, right?

Like I'm not a pastor, right? Some people is like, yo, you're not a pastor, you're not in this clique, you can't tell there's nothing, right? It's like, all right, that's cool, bro. But I'm just telling you, I'm a leader though.

Like I'm a leader in this other world in business. I'm a leader in like, in this world. I know what a good and a bad leader looks like. So I think sometimes people get so caught up in the four walls of church.

Like, you don't know me, you don't know what I'm doing. So you think I'm not valuable or my opinion is invaluable because I'm not a king in this world. Like, it's like, well, that's cool. And I think sometimes the church becomes too much of a hierarchy where nobody can get through to the people at the top.