Simple Faith with Rusty George | Transcript: Episode 230: John Rinehart makes Christmas generosity in your church simple

Episode 230: John Rinehart makes Christmas generosity in your church simple

December 7, 2022 / 57:26/E340

What does radical generosity mean to you? And how can you find ways in your own life to lean into the gift of generosity? These are just a couple of questions that Rusty discusses with speaker and author John Rinehart on this week’s Leading Simple.

00;00;07;25 - 00;00;17;28
Intro/Outro
Welcome to Leading Simple with Rusty George. Our goal is to make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple. Here's your host, Rusty George.

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Rusty George
Hey, welcome to Leading Simple. My name is Rusty George. I'll be your host for our time together. Thanks so much for listening. And if you've been a subscriber ever to the show, thank you. If you have been, pass this along to you, we'd love for you to sign up and subscribe. Our goal is to help make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple.

00;00;36;22 - 00;00;53;29
Rusty George
My goodness, there's so many resources out there. How do you cut through it all? How does it make sense for everyday life? That's what we're trying to do. And today we're going to deal with something that a lot of leaders in churches and church leaders want to figure out. And that is how do you make giving in your church a bit more simple?

00;00;54;19 - 00;01;11;05
Rusty George
You see the people in our churches, they don't have a problem with giving. They have a problem with giving to your church because they all get very generous around November, December. We all want to do something that benefits other people. We also want to do something that looks really good on our tax returns. So how do we do that?

00;01;11;12 - 00;01;32;01
Rusty George
Well, it just so happens that the majority of us do that through our churches or other non-profits. So if you're a church leader, how do you make sure that you're able to give a great option for people to give to what it is that you were doing that might benefit your year in giving, might benefit your next year's ministry, and might impact the people in your community?

00;01;32;23 - 00;01;55;10
Rusty George
Well, today we have a great conversation with an individual you may not have heard of named John Rinehart. John wrote a book called Gospel Patrons years ago that details three different stories of the people behind the people that you may know, people that made strategic moves to leave a great impact in the world and for the Kingdom of God.

00;01;55;20 - 00;02;20;00
Rusty George
Behind them was a person that was financing the whole project. You may not know them, but I guarantee you have been affected by them. John takes a look at these gospel patrons that literally paved the way for ministry to happen and encourages those in our churches and ourselves to be gospel patrons ourselves. So I'm going to talk to him a lot about how do we make giving in our church a little bit more simple?

00;02;20;07 - 00;02;38;24
Rusty George
How do we make it a little bit more exciting for people rather than us standing up, banging on the offering plate and ask him to meet the daily needs? I think you're going to really enjoy our conversation together. Well, this month we decided not to have a sponsor just so we could promote our real life church Christmas services.

00;02;39;05 - 00;03;10;01
Rusty George
And this particular year, at real life, on the weekends, we are moving into one of our favorite series of the year called At the Movies. And this is a special one because it is Christmas at the movies. And so if you are listening to this at any time during the month of December, you're going to want to make sure that you tune in on the Weekend to Real Life Church at 830, ten or 1130 on Pacific Time or Thursday night at 7:00 Pacific Time.

00;03;10;17 - 00;03;38;04
Rusty George
Just tune in through our website, Real Life Church dot org and you can watch our at the movies experience. Because of copyright rules, we cannot put it on demand where you can watch it later, so you'll have to watch it live. If you live within driving distance of one of our campuses either in Lancaster, Valencia or in Simi Valley, we encourage you to make your way over there for a day that you would not soon forget because of the great experience of using a Christmas movie to tell the Christmas story.

00;03;38;14 - 00;03;57;24
Rusty George
I can't tell you the movies, but I can tell you they're all favorites and they're all great. We're going to do five of these starting the weekend after Thanksgiving, and then we're going to wrap it all up with the final one on our Christmas Eve service, December 22nd, 23rd and 24th. We would love to have you as part of our service.

00;03;58;04 - 00;04;22;22
Rusty George
Just join us. Real life church dot org. Go to the app. Find out more. You can download the app right now through the app store. Well, so excited for Christmas, but also excited from my conversation with John Reinhart. Here we go. Well, welcome to Leading Simple. I'm honored to have author, speaker, former college basketball player extraordinaire John Reinhart in the studio today face to face.

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Rusty George
Normally I'm on Zoom with somebody, so it's great to have you here. John, for our listeners that don't know who you are, tell us your story.

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John Rinehart
Yes. So I studied business in college alongside playing a little bit of basketball.

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Rusty George
Okay.

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John Rinehart
And when I was done, I was asking the question, okay, what am I going to do? I got a job in sales and began the mountain climbing of paying off student loans. And I was I know there's a lot of people can relate with that. Right. And it just felt like, okay, I was solely focused on doing business, making money, paying off debt.

00;04;52;24 - 00;04;58;17
John Rinehart
That was on the 15 year plan. And we prayed and prayed and prayed and God did it in 18 months. Paid it all off.

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Rusty George
Wow. Yeah. How did he do that magical check in the mail?

00;05;02;05 - 00;05;13;05
John Rinehart
No, I was just he blessed my sales. Honestly, I got promoted four times in two years. I closed the biggest deal our office had seen in four years, and he was just His favor was all over it.

00;05;13;05 - 00;05;14;09
Rusty George
What kind of sales were you in?

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John Rinehart
Believe it or not, copier sales.

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Rusty George
Copiers! So this is 90s, 2000s?

00;05;20;23 - 00;05;39;07
John Rinehart
This is 2003 to 2005. Okay. And I'm in Orange County, California, of a territory of five cities. I'm knocking on doors every day meeting business owners. Okay. Part of the tension was I was good at what I did, but as I’m meeting business owners, I wanted to talk to them more about spiritual things. I'd be sitting in their office getting to know them, and I just feel like, okay, I can help save the money.

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John Rinehart
I can help make all of their documents go digital or give them better ways to print and copy all that stuff. But I care too. I care about them on a different level, but that's not why I'm here.

00;05;48;22 - 00;05;49;08
Rusty George
Okay.

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John Rinehart
And so anyway, I was aware of that in the midst of the journey, but once our debt was paid off, we threw a party for our friends. We called it a God's faithfulness party and said, We're gonna celebrate that God got us out of debt. And after that, I really went into a really interesting soul searching season where I was.

00;06;06;24 - 00;06;21;16
John Rinehart
I was good at what I did and knew how to make money. I got paid 100 grand, but by the time I was 25, but I went, What's this for? Wow. We're living in Orange County, and the goal in Orange County and many other places around the country is to make as much money as possible so you can be as comfortable as possible.

00;06;21;16 - 00;06;40;29
John Rinehart
As secure as possible as soon as possible, for as long as possible. I'm like, That's not a good goal. God didn't just make us to chase comfort and security. He made us for something more. And so I began to ask the question, Why am I put on planet Earth not just to get a bigger and bigger house, closer and closer to the beach and a faster and faster car?

00;06;41;11 - 00;07;03;03
John Rinehart
What do you want me to do? Why did you make me? And for a while I was like, Maybe I just need a different business job or a different industry or something in real estate. Was booming in California. Maybe I should just try that. But it always felt in my heart like, no, no, no, no, no. Simultaneously, I'm wondering, are business people second class in God's kingdom?

00;07;03;03 - 00;07;20;05
John Rinehart
Because I'm good at this, but I don't feel deeply engaged in the purposes of God. Yeah. And I. No one had ever told me that business leaders were second class in God's kingdom. Somehow I had just absorbed that or Satan and lied to me. And I just thought that. And I didn't want to be second class. I didn't want to miss God's best for my life.

00;07;20;07 - 00;07;32;10
Rusty George
Right. Well, I've got to take some of the blame for that, because I think all pastors have acted like our job is the holy one. Yeah. And you guys are out there slugging it out so you can try to make us do what we do.

00;07;32;13 - 00;07;32;22
John Rinehart
Right.

00;07;33;02 - 00;07;34;00
Rusty George
But that's not true.

00;07;34;00 - 00;07;41;07
John Rinehart
No, not at all. And yet very few voices say that and even acknowledge that and then say maybe there's another way.

00;07;41;07 - 00;07;41;19
Rusty George
Right?

00;07;41;29 - 00;07;46;06
John Rinehart
So I left business, went to seminary at Talbot School of Theology for four years.

00;07;46;06 - 00;07;47;15
Rusty George
Which is connected to by all the.

00;07;47;16 - 00;08;10;07
John Rinehart
Rights, by all the seminary. And I was intending to I got the degree of Pastor Masters of Divinity Degree, which is the worst name of a degree in the history of the world. I am the master of Divinity now. He's my master. Anyway, it was four years of theology, you know, New Testament, Old Testament, Greek, Hebrew, preaching, pastoral ministry and was finishing up that degree.

00;08;10;07 - 00;08;26;26
John Rinehart
And I said to my wife, I asked my wife a question that changed the trajectory of our life. And I had no idea this was about to happen. I just thought I was asking a question. But she had continued her work in business and supporting me through seminary, so we didn't pick up any more debt. And by the end of that I said, Renee, we've been chasing my dreams for four years.

00;08;26;26 - 00;08;48;19
John Rinehart
What's your dream? Hmm? I don't want to miss her dreams. And out of her heart and out of her mouth rolled a sentence that really did change the trajectory of our life. She just immediately with almost without even thinking, just said, ever since I was 13 years old, I dreamed of traveling all the way around the world in a single shot in order to become a global Christian and to learn to walk by faith.

00;08;50;15 - 00;08;54;01
Rusty George
Wow. She just had that in the chamber, just queued up, ready to go.

00;08;54;02 - 00;09;13;11
John Rinehart
I mean, it had been deep in her heart, but it wasn't that we had ever, in our years of marriage, even had a conversation about that. Wow. It just is what rolled out in the moment. And I said, that's a great dream. We're 29 years old. It's probably now. Or when we're 65. Yeah, do it now. Yeah. So we put all of our belongings in storage.

00;09;13;18 - 00;09;29;21
John Rinehart
She took a leave of absence from her work, and we traveled the world for four and a half months, 132 days around the world, with the goals of not just sitting on beaches and drinking margaritas and staying at five star places. It was to become global Christians because God's not just the God of America, he's the God of the entire world, every nation, every tribe.

00;09;29;27 - 00;09;30;08
Rusty George
Right.

00;09;30;22 - 00;09;58;17
John Rinehart
And then let's learn to walk by faith. So what that meant for us is we didn't book 132 hotel room nights before we left on the journey. We had the skeleton of our flights, but we were going to trust God to show us where he wanted us to stay. Sometimes that's, you know, a miraculous provision, like we're on a train riding into Oslo, Norway, and had found out that almost all the hotel rooms in the whole city of Oslo were booked because it was a massive soccer match, a huge political rally, and one other big event that was basically taking over the city.

00;09;58;18 - 00;10;11;26
John Rinehart
Right. And we didn't have a place to stay. And so we're sitting on the train and we pray, God, would you provide our daily bread and our daily bed? It's two girls are sitting across from us on the train. They start whispering to each other and then they turn to us and say, Are you Americans? And we said, yes.

00;10;11;26 - 00;10;29;07
John Rinehart
And they said, Well, we're Norwegians. And we just spent the last three months working with the Americans on a discipleship training outreach. And we love how friendly Americans are. Can we talk to you? And we said, sure, of course. And through our time talking with them, they said after we got off the train, they said, Hey, want to go to coffee?

00;10;29;07 - 00;10;43;06
John Rinehart
We said, sure. And at the end of our coffee they said, Where are you staying In Oslo?
And we said, We have no idea. And they said, Well, good luck. God is good. We have an extra bedroom in our apartment that's fully furnished and our roommate's not going to arrive for another week. So stay as long as you want.

00;10;43;06 - 00;10;44;23
John Rinehart
And we've got a place for you.

00;10;44;25 - 00;10;47;24
Rusty George
Wow. Oh, my goodness.

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John Rinehart
So it was learning to trust God day by day. Sometimes we stayed at hotels, sometimes hostels. And just it wasn't that we weren't going to pay for it, but we were going to trust God to show us where he wanted us. And I say it took about 80 days to learn to trust God and not be nervous. And after 80 days, we could look back and go, Oh my goodness.

00;11;06;02 - 00;11;13;01
John Rinehart
And this country and that city and this place he provided, he's faithful. I don't know where he's going to come from now, but I know he's going to provide.

00;11;13;28 - 00;11;23;03
Rusty George
Wow. I want to just dial in on one thing. You traveled for four and a half months, but 75% of that was you learning how to trust?

00;11;23;12 - 00;11;23;23
John Rinehart
Yeah.

00;11;24;10 - 00;11;33;12
Rusty George
I mean, that is incredible right there. I mean, that just sounds like a microcosm of our life, right? I mean, yes, you meet older people and they like they got it. Yeah. And it took him a long time.

00;11;33;12 - 00;11;39;02
John Rinehart
So. Yeah, like good company, by God's grace, it was it was a masterclass in trust and faith.

00;11;39;05 - 00;11;41;06
Rusty George
What does it mean to be a global Christian?

00;11;41;06 - 00;12;04;22
John Rinehart
Yeah, I think what it meant is to see that God is working everywhere. So for us, what that meant is we were trying to worship with local believers in their languages and in their contexts, wherever we could, and meeting Christians all over the world. And so not just traveling as a tourist, but traveling as a Christian. And I think that's the best kind of travel because when you meet brothers and sisters all over the world, you understand so quickly what the body of Christ means.

00;12;04;22 - 00;12;24;18
John Rinehart
Here we are. We don't know each other compared to the stranger that I see on the street. Right. But we have this bond in Christ, and you welcome me into your culture, into your life, into your home, into your church, as you would a family member. And then that becomes as then a from the tourist side, that becomes an amazing entry into the culture where I can ask a believer, what does this mean?

00;12;24;18 - 00;12;41;20
John Rinehart
What does that why do people do that? What how does your culture work? How do you guys understand this? And all of a sudden, it's not just I'm seeing a few UNESCO's World Heritage sites, but I'm getting into how people think, how they operate, why they do what they do and what is that what's going on in this culture.

00;12;41;20 - 00;12;58;12
John Rinehart
And I love to do that through the lens of meeting other believers. And then you get to see how they worship and we get to pick up things all along the way where people would ask me, Now, what denomination are you? And so it kind of depends on the day. I mean, I could be Anglican, I could be charismatic, I could be Presbyterian, I'm good with Baptists, Assemblies of God.

00;12;58;12 - 00;13;11;23
John Rinehart
We got we're friends, you know, or some denomination somewhere around the world and never even heard of doesn't really matter. These are my brothers and sisters. They follow King Jesus. They love the Bible. They're open to the Holy Spirit. We're good. Yeah.

00;13;12;17 - 00;13;29;14
Rusty George
Okay, so you do all that. You come back and then you go to church. Okay? Yeah. We're back in the American church. You know, three songs, message, three points, prayer and a poem out the door. How did you view church differently after that experience?

00;13;29;14 - 00;13;48;16
John Rinehart
Yeah, I think it's there's I guess I don't expect a single local church to embody all of those, you know, unique aspects of the unique facets. Right. I think we can appreciate with every local church that there's a unique grace of God on them to to bring out a facet or a couple of facets for the body of Christ.

00;13;48;29 - 00;14;13;28
John Rinehart
They're not going to do everything. I think what I've learned, both with business leaders and with with ministry leaders or pastors, is that we always create something within our own image, just like God. God made us in his own image. So everything that we create is going to be in our own image. What that means for a church is that the church is going to be a reflection primarily of the senior leader or senior pastor and then the other pastors as well.

00;14;13;28 - 00;14;38;23
John Rinehart
And so it's going to be it's going to play to the senior leaders gifts to his personalities, but also to his weaknesses. And so if you are a senior pastor who's an evangelist, your church is going to look very evangelistic, which might mean that you have a weakness in discipleship, in training and raising up younger leaders. And in some sense, I'm okay with that as long as we can acknowledge that's what it is, because you're creating it in your image.

00;14;38;23 - 00;14;56;10
John Rinehart
And if you can staff your weaknesses, do it. If you're in business and you can staff your weaknesses, do it. But whatever we create has to be within our own image. It's how we're it's how we're made and how we're wired. And so I think to not expect every local church to do everything or to be everything, but to acknowledge the unique gifts and grace of the leaders.

00;14;56;10 - 00;14;58;20
John Rinehart
And that's what's going to be reflected in the body.

00;14;59;09 - 00;15;14;02
Rusty George
What a great statement for all church members to hear that their church doesn't have to have everything, you know, and a great, great freedom statement for all pastors that you don't have to be everything to all people. It's okay. This is who you are.

00;15;14;03 - 00;15;14;17
John Rinehart
That's right.

00;15;14;23 - 00;15;24;26
Rusty George
Boy, I wish I'd learned that lesson a long time ago. Okay, so I'm going to fast forward a little bit to gospel patrons. What is this? How did you find this?

00;15;24;26 - 00;15;30;06
John Rinehart
Okay, so this the reason I tell you this long story about our trip around the world, because that's where I discovered the idea of gospel patron.

00;15;30;07 - 00;15;30;20
Rusty George
Okay.

00;15;30;20 - 00;15;47;15
John Rinehart
I was on this trip asking the question when I finished this trip and get back. Do I go back into business because I know how to make money or do I do something in ministry because I just finished seminary? Felt like in one hand was business, in the other hand was the kingdom of God. And I didn't think those things overlapped or connected very often, very much, and I didn't know how.

00;15;48;04 - 00;16;02;26
John Rinehart
But here I was in Sydney, Australia, meeting a friend of a friend who had been referred to me by a missionary friend of ours in India. And it was we set up a time to meet for coffee and I was supposed to ask him about this idea called gospel patrons, which meant nothing to me at the time. Oh yeah.

00;16;03;04 - 00;16;31;22
John Rinehart
But he spoke a single sentence that again changed the trajectory of my life. He said that behind every great movement of God, there are preachers, people who proclaim the Word of God, teach and teach the gospel, spread the word. And we tend to think of those people as lone rangers, but they're not. The deeper we look in a history, they've always been supported by people who are gifted differently in starting businesses, making money, being strategic, being generous, coming alongside others in partnership.

00;16;32;05 - 00;16;58;24
John Rinehart
And when God brings together those who are the gospel preachers or Proclaimers and those who are the gospel patrons, he does extraordinary things and he told a few historical stories about how God has always used those behind the scenes generosity leaders, business leaders as gospel patrons. You know, that lit me up and it fuzed those two pieces of my calling in a way I had never seen before.

00;16;58;24 - 00;17;03;19
Rusty George
Now you finally see it. You can be in ministry and business, right? Interesting. Okay.

00;17;03;19 - 00;17;12;16
John Rinehart
Yeah. And I was so excited about the idea. When we got home from that trip around the world, we began telling other people and they were electrified by it. And I went, okay, I think God's in there.

00;17;12;16 - 00;17;13;16
Rusty George
We've all been lied to.

00;17;13;19 - 00;17;34;20
John Rinehart
Well, what do we do now? And so the short story is out of that. I asked him to write a book called Gospel Patrons, and it ended up that I wrote a book called Gospel Patrons to tell those historical stories, some biblical examples and a call to action for what it looks like for those who aren't, who are never going to work in ministry, never going to get a paycheck from a church or a charity.

00;17;34;23 - 00;17;40;00
John Rinehart
Yeah, but to say you're not second class, you have an amazing part to play and God has designed you for this.

00;17;40;09 - 00;18;04;06
Rusty George
I love that for for this simple reason, I have met so many Christians that feel like working at a church is the pinnacle of spiritual growth. And they leave the marketplace to go into the ministry field and realize, I hate this, this is really hard, or it's not my my sweet spot, my skill set would have been it would have been a whole lot better had they just stayed in the marketplace to evangelize their friends there.

00;18;04;07 - 00;18;10;27
Rusty George
That's right. And made money to fuel ministry, you know. Yes, that would have been great. And they would love that. And there's nothing wrong with that.

00;18;11;05 - 00;18;27;10
John Rinehart
Yeah. And I'm not setting my story up as an example of you ought to leave business in order to go into ministry. I think God had me uniquely right do this to capture this vision that then now I could be a mouthpiece for business leaders, but also a servant to pastors and church leaders to say, here's how this works.

00;18;27;10 - 00;18;28;07
John Rinehart
Here's a way that God.

00;18;28;07 - 00;18;31;28
Rusty George
Work, right? You're in the middle of those two concentric circles.

00;18;31;29 - 00;18;45;21
John Rinehart
I don't know which I Venn diagram. I guess in my ministry I kind of sit on the fence and I love both sides. Yeah, I try to connect to them. Years ago, a friend said to me that one of Satan's main tactics is to keep people with resources and people with vision separate.

00;18;46;13 - 00;18;47;02
Rusty George
Wow.

00;18;47;12 - 00;19;11;17
John Rinehart
And I always found that very insightful because when we look in Scripture, the thing that Jesus prayed for is that we would be one, you know, and the thing that Paul is constantly celebrating is it's a body with diverse members, but we're meant to grow together, intimate purity, to be one. And what we find all the time in Scripture and in life is that when God's people operate in unity and in oneness, there's multiple creation.

00;19;11;21 - 00;19;29;25
John Rinehart
He does extraordinary things when we stay united. And so it's such a huge call to say, you don't have to be someone else. You get to be you, but be you for the glory of God, be you, not just to build your kingdom, be you for His Kingdom. Use your gifts for his name, not your name. Use your wealth for His Kingdom, not just your personal kingdom.

00;19;30;04 - 00;19;49;18
John Rinehart
When that happens, God just does extraordinary things. And so it's a it's a it's been freeing for many professional leaders, business leaders I've talked to around the world to finally get to go, Oh, so I'm good at being a lawyer. I'm amazing at real estate. I'm an ER doctor or I'm a nurse or I'm an entrepreneur or a financial advisor, and that's good.

00;19;49;18 - 00;19;54;00
John Rinehart
And I go, Yes, that's how God made you, but do that for the glory of God.

00;19;54;01 - 00;20;21;00
Rusty George
For the glory of God. Oh, that's so good. How do you how do you balance that? This I mean, especially if you're type-A personality, you're a three on the Enneagram or one or whatever, you know, and certainly even the male mindset has a little bit more conquest driven. How do you operate in the business realm and work really hard at that next deal and succeeding and all of that without letting it become an idol?

00;20;21;03 - 00;20;31;17
Rusty George
And now and now it's no longer for the glory of God. It's for the glory of you. And the truthfully pastors can do this as well. They chase numbers and buildings and those kind of things. How have you seen the way to kind of balance that?

00;20;31;17 - 00;20;57;20
John Rinehart
Yeah, it's a really good question. And we're always going to be tempted with pride and selfishness and building our kingdoms and our names. But I have seen that many business leaders who are very, very successful have found that the framework in the calling of being a gospel patron as a huge motivator for their success in their careers, because at a certain point, once you get your house and you get kind of your life set up the next deal, you don't need it.

00;20;57;20 - 00;21;16;05
John Rinehart
It's not going to change your lifestyle all that much you can make. You know, you might be able to build a bigger barn and stockpile some more money. But I've seen business leaders go, I have enough. I could retire already, but I'm staying in the game as because I'm motivated to get this next deal, close this next investment round, whatever, and use that for God's glory.

00;21;16;05 - 00;21;32;16
John Rinehart
I'm proud of it. This is what this is why I do what I do. It's not for me. It's not for my lifestyle. It's for for his kingdom. And so I think there's a sense of stewardship that we're not the main main thing that we all need to understand again and again with money is it's not ours. Mm hmm.

00;21;32;27 - 00;21;50;27
John Rinehart
And for pastors with churches, the people aren't yours. Mm hmm. You're an under shepherd. Under the king. Mm hmm. And he brings the people for a season, and sometimes they move or switch churches or. But they're never yours. And we're not meant to be grasping people. We're meant to be really open handed people, whether it's in business or in ministry.

00;21;51;04 - 00;22;06;01
John Rinehart
If we have open hands and we allow God to bless us, that we might be a blessing. We allow Him to give to us that we might give to others. It keeps us in a place of tons of joy and lots of freedom. And we're open to however, like job he gives and he takes away. But blessed be his name.

00;22;06;07 - 00;22;08;06
Rusty George
Mm hmm. That should be a song.

00;22;10;01 - 00;22;10;20
John Rinehart
For a thought.

00;22;11;00 - 00;22;16;08
Rusty George
Yeah. Really? Okay. Tell us some classic stories of gospel patrons throughout history.

00;22;16;09 - 00;22;25;20
John Rinehart
I'll do the short versions. Okay. If you're interested, you can get the audio book and listen to my voice for 3 hours till the long version. Or you can buy the book and read it.

00;22;25;20 - 00;22;27;07
Rusty George
Did you enjoy reading the audio book?

00;22;27;08 - 00;22;45;07
John Rinehart
I did. It was fun. We recorded in a studio in Burbank, actually. There are lots of these huge hit records where, you know, you can only get access to the studio late at night. And so it was like 11 to 4 a.m. of us reading into a mic that was worth more than my life. And but we got it done and it's been really effective.

00;22;45;07 - 00;23;14;02
John Rinehart
So and the reader makes all the difference in an audio book and it does. Okay. So gospel patron stories. Well, I'll tell you three, three quick ones. The one that's captured the most momentum and is the fact that the English Bible would not have existed without a gospel patron. There was a Bible translator in the 1500s in England named William Tyndale, who had a passion to translate God's word from the original languages, Greek and Hebrew, into English for the first time in history.

00;23;14;18 - 00;23;35;05
John Rinehart
Only problem was Bible translation was illegal. Think about how crazy that is. But in the in that in that day, they thought of Latin as the exalted language. And so the Latin Vulgate translation was elevated despite the fact that language had evolved and people were not speaking Latin in their homes or in their businesses. They're speaking German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, English.

00;23;35;11 - 00;23;35;21
Rusty George
Right.

00;23;36;04 - 00;23;56;28
John Rinehart
And all of a sudden, this young guy says, I want to give God's word to my people in their language. He came from a family of merchants, so he understood that they didn't know Latin, but he had been to Oxford, was gifted with languages and wanted to give them God's word. And so he took a risk and sought permission from the church leaders in London that maybe they could bypass the law.

00;23;57;04 - 00;24;25;15
John Rinehart
They didn't want to do it for him. And so six months later, God raised up a cloth. Merchant cloth was very, very big business. Back in the day, a guy named Humphrey Monmouth that the world has totally forgotten who funded William Tyndale housed him while he translated the Bible from Greek, from New Testament, from Greek into English, and then even used his merchant ships to get the Bibles printed in the European continent, smuggled back into England in secrecy and distributed which birthed the English Reformation.

00;24;26;05 - 00;24;54;14
John Rinehart
The patron, the business guy, was imprisoned for a year. Think about that for funding. William Tyndale. William Tyndale gave his life to give us an English Bible. He died at 41 years of age as a martyr. I but what? But what they launched together. Changed. Changes my life. Every day. Every Bible that you've ever read in English finds its headquarters in two guys William Tyndale and Humphrey, Monmouth, a business leader coming alongside a Bible translator.

00;24;55;15 - 00;24;56;25
John Rinehart
That's why we have an English Bible.

00;24;57;25 - 00;24;58;15
Rusty George
That's humbling.

00;24;59;01 - 00;25;15;09
John Rinehart
Yeah, absolutely. And they suffered mightily for it, and yet they didn't get to see the ROI in this life. But there's 600 million or more English speakers now who have access to God's word in their heart language because of two guys. Wow. Second story.

00;25;15;09 - 00;25;16;18
Rusty George
Amazing.

00;25;16;18 - 00;25;42;23
John Rinehart
A couple hundred years later, that English Bible became a dusty book on many people's shelves. Rather than being the active living Word of God that it was when it exploded in the English Reformation. And it's kind of the Victorian era of England and lots of licentiousness, lots of entertainment, lots of a lack of concern for the poor and just people using again what they had earned for themselves.

00;25;42;24 - 00;26;04;22
John Rinehart
And God raised up this young, amazing preacher whose voice was like thunder and his preaching was like lightning, a guy named George Whitfield to be this ambassador to his generation, to speak to them. This all these old truths from the English Bible, these old truths of the gospel. Well, he didn't feel called to be a local church pastor.

00;26;04;22 - 00;26;29;09
John Rinehart
He was a traveling evangelist, predating Charles SPURGEON, predating Billy Sunday, predating Billy Graham. He was an itinerant evangelist, and yet he needed support for that. And there was a wealthy, aristocratic woman whose husband had recently passed away, leaving her the sole heir of vast wealth and vast estates, and Lady Huntingdon as her name. And she heard Whitfield preach.

00;26;29;09 - 00;26;51;04
John Rinehart
She had become a recent convert to Christianity and her late in her mid-thirties, and she was asking God, what's my part to play? How could I serve you? Which I just think is a great question for all of us to ask. Lord, what is my unique gift? What's my unique part to play? And Lady Huntington walked among the crowds as George Whitfield was preaching to the poor.

00;26;51;04 - 00;27;20;20
John Rinehart
And she watched their tears over their conviction of sin and heard their cries for repentance and faith in Jesus. And she went, This is real. I got to get behind this guy and I got to get up behind a whole lot of preachers in my generation. So she leveraged her wealth and her influence to not only support George Whitfield as he preached to thousands, literally 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people live, no microphone, no amplification, preaching outside in the inclement weather.

00;27;21;04 - 00;27;41;25
John Rinehart
And she was funding him. But then she held a private chapel on her estate, invited all the wealthy aristocrats to come, and they would never go hear a guy like that preaching to the masses. But she said, come and hear him in my in my drawing room. And she would just unleashed unleash George Whitfield to preach to the wealthy lords and ladies and aristocrats of London.

00;27;42;06 - 00;28;06;06
John Rinehart
And so here he's reaching both sectors of society. And this is birthing what in England was called the evangelical revival, but in America was known as the Great Awakening. Oh, my. Before he passed away, Whitfield had preached 18,000 sermons and he had preached to I think more than 10 million Americans live before America was ever a nation. He was more famous than the king of England.

00;28;06;21 - 00;28;28;12
John Rinehart
And when he would roll into town and preach at 5 a.m., people would close their businesses. They would leave their, you know, farm, farm work, and they would come here and preach for 2 hours outside. It was just a phenom. And she got behind him. And not only she'd get behind him, she got behind a whole generation of preachers founding a seminary, developing these chapels to make sure this message of the gospel could be heard.

00;28;28;22 - 00;28;45;21
John Rinehart
She did what it took to the point of even selling some of her jewelry. Right. She wasn't just giving out of what was easy. It was tough. Yeah. And I think we see that in the Book of Acts, people selling what they had to say. This message really matters. And when God's moving, I don't want to I don't want to miss my chance to get behind it.

00;28;45;29 - 00;28;59;21
Rusty George
Wow. Hey, let me interrupt this podcast for just a second to remind you, this Christmas. Check out one of our Christmas services, real life church dot org for service times. Love to see you there. Now back to the show.

00;29;00;23 - 00;29;17;19
John Rinehart
Third story in 1787, a new hymn book was launched into the world called Only Hymns. And there's, you know, lots of famous and amazing hymns in that. But hymn number 41 was called Faith's Review and Expectation. How about that for a name?

00;29;18;25 - 00;29;20;20
Rusty George
A lot of things rhyme with those words. Yeah.

00;29;21;07 - 00;29;52;06
John Rinehart
And this this new hymnal was launched because it was a country church pastor named John Newton, who was preaching to two or 300 people, mostly lower income farmers, lace workers, bricklayers, that kind of thing. But he was also writing theologically robust hymns for his congregation as another mechanism of teaching them the truths of God's word. And he became friends with the foremost businessmen in London and these guys wrote letters back and forth to one another every two weeks.

00;29;53;05 - 00;30;14;04
John Rinehart
I've held those letters in my hand. Hundred and 86 letters from the Cambridge University Archives had to put on white gloves and get past all this, you know, security essentially to be able to hold these letters in my hands and transcribe them. And these guys exchanged letters. They became really good friends. And they in the letters, John Newton would send this business guy named John Thornton.

00;30;14;15 - 00;30;36;17
John Rinehart
He would send him some of the hymns that he wrote. Hmm. Just scribbled on the bottom of his letter. Hey, this is my new year. Him. Hey, this is my Easter. Him Hey, this is my Christmas hymn. Well, the business guy, John Thornton, said these are pretty good. If you would be at the trouble of compiling these and putting these into a hymnal along with your buddy William Cooper, who was also writing hymns, I'll be at the expense.

00;30;36;20 - 00;31;13;03
John Rinehart
I'll buy the first thousand copies. I'll pay for the printing, and I'll distribute them. Among my wealthy and influential friends in London, which he did. The hymn book didn't really take off in England, honestly, but when it jumped across to America and they found him, number 41 Faith Review and Expectation, they decided to change the name to the first two words of the hymn, which are amazing Grace we never would have heard of or sung the hymn Amazing Grace if there wasn't a business leader, a gospel patron named John Thornton again, who's been behind the scenes in the world, almost completely forgotten, saying, This is good stuff, this is worthy.

00;31;13;19 - 00;31;16;03
John Rinehart
I'll invest, I'll give, let's go.

00;31;16;25 - 00;31;19;08
Rusty George
Wow, those are amazing.

00;31;19;18 - 00;31;25;19
John Rinehart
That's what I thought when I first heard them. Like these got to be in a book, right? But he has to tell these stories and. And found out it was me.

00;31;26;22 - 00;31;31;13
Rusty George
So you put these in a book and you get these out there. And what's been the response?

00;31;32;04 - 00;31;54;28
John Rinehart
It's been incredible. I feel like I'm riding the biggest wave that I've ever seen and just trying to stay on the surfboard. You know, God's been really, really good because I think people are hungry for we all want our lives to make a difference. Yes, we nobody wants to waste their life right. But how does that fit if you're not going to work for a church or you're not going to preach sermons for a living or you're not called to be a missionary, what does that look like for all of us?

00;31;54;28 - 00;32;09;22
John Rinehart
We can connect with people both in Scripture but then in history who've played these roles before us and say, Wow, maybe my life could look a little bit like that. Mm hmm. I think it's flipped the script where a lot of times people come to church and they expect the pastor to do all of the work of the ministry.

00;32;09;22 - 00;32;13;22
John Rinehart
And they'll applaud and they'll show up and they'll give. And he's the hero.

00;32;13;26 - 00;32;14;04
Rusty George
Right.

00;32;14;14 - 00;32;37;13
John Rinehart
And instead, I think these stories flip the flip the script so that the gospel patrons get to be the heroes, too. You know, they make incredible things happen. And the pastors, a partner with them in that he's equipping them for their role in ministry. They get a chance to probably increase his voice, his reach, the ability to get to the people who need the message the most.

00;32;37;14 - 00;32;55;28
John Rinehart
Mm hmm. So we've seen incredible generosity. We've seen people catch fresh vision for their lives. I spoke to some pro athletes last week, and they were catching this message for the first time. We've spoken to people all over the country, all over the world who are whether they're 20 or 75 going, we're told I could be a gospel patron.

00;32;55;29 - 00;33;12;21
John Rinehart
Yeah. Yeah. It's a vision for your life. It's a vision for your life in light of eternity. Hmm. And you can jump in at any point, any stage, any age, any place of where you're at wealth creation wise. It's not a there's not a financial ticket for where you know how you get into this party.

00;33;13;04 - 00;33;36;16
Rusty George
Yeah. Let me ask about that, because I imagine there's some listeners thinking, boy, that's cool if you got a lot of resources and if I was a professional athlete or if I hung out with the wealthy of the, you know, of London, I might be able to pull that off. But what would you say to somebody out there that's like, listen, I'm a single mom just struggling to make it through or I'm a plumber or I'm a blue collar worker working seven days a week.

00;33;36;27 - 00;33;38;09
Rusty George
Can they be a gospel patron?

00;33;38;10 - 00;34;06;24
John Rinehart
Absolutely. And I would say you can't afford not to. I think otherwise. Jesus says, store up your treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy thieves. Do not break in and steal, don't stored up on earth because that those things happen that breaks down. I think you can't afford not to give because what happens when we don't give as our hearts get anchored to earth and they're meant to be elevated to heaven, that's where God wants our hearts, our mindsets to think on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

00;34;06;24 - 00;34;42;09
John Rinehart
Colossians three says, When we give our money, we direct our hearts, and you might be able to do more if you have more. But we're also called to be faithful with little so that we're ready and prepared to be stewards of much. And so I think give what you can give now. Don't, don't wait, don't make excuses. Don't tell yourself you'll give later when you get more money because there's later never comes Don't tell yourself you'll give more when the big ticket comes in because you won't if you're not giving now, you know, jump in, jump in right now where you are, begin to support your church, give generously to your own local body, and

00;34;42;09 - 00;34;59;20
John Rinehart
then jump in and ask God, who else can I get behind? Pastors, missionaries, ministry leaders. Ask them the question. Be proactive. What would be a game changer for your ministry? How can I be involved? You may not be able to meet the whole need. Maybe you can pray. Maybe you can rally other people to come around it and who knows what God would do.

00;35;00;02 - 00;35;21;13
Rusty George
Those are some of the best stories of people that have come up around, around our church and said, Hey, how can we help out beyond just, you know, tithing? And I'll give them a project and they'll say, okay, that's a big ask. But I'm going to get my small group involved and we'll all do it together. And they all pitch in resources or they all go renovate somebody's house or they all go on a mission trip together.

00;35;21;13 - 00;35;23;12
Rusty George
And it's now it's a joint effort.

00;35;23;15 - 00;35;23;27
John Rinehart
That's right.

00;35;23;28 - 00;35;24;19
Rusty George
That changes their.

00;35;24;19 - 00;35;46;11
John Rinehart
Lives. Only person Jesus ever praised for generosity was a woman who had two copper coins. Right. He's the only one she ever praised. And he says she put in more than those who had much. Right. So his math somehow is different than our math. It's based on sacrifice. It's based on faith. It's not just based on the size of the check.

00;35;47;00 - 00;35;51;04
Rusty George
Okay. So let's talk about pastors for a second because we've already ratted them out that sometimes.

00;35;51;04 - 00;35;51;19
John Rinehart
Pastors.

00;35;52;20 - 00;36;12;28
Rusty George
Sometimes we think, you know, there's ministry, then there's business and never the two shall meet. And fortunately that idea is going away. I think over the last 20 years we've been figuring this out. It's been a whole lot better to communicate that. My question is this. A lot of pastors have to talk about money and Jesus talked about money more than anything else.

00;36;12;28 - 00;36;29;20
Rusty George
So we need to talk about money, but we feel so ill equipped to talk about it or we feel like, listen, you make a lot of money, so you understand money. I don't. So I'm not somebody I should be giving advice to you. What do pastors and churches typically get wrong when they talk about money?

00;36;30;17 - 00;36;34;11
John Rinehart
Well, I mean, I get it. I went to seminary. We never had a class on money.

00;36;34;11 - 00;36;35;05
Rusty George
No, it's just.

00;36;35;05 - 00;36;55;02
John Rinehart
Ironic because Jesus talked about it 25% of the time. Right. And we never talked about it. Right. So I went to Bible school, never came up. I went to a great Christian university and went to a business program in that great Christian university. We never talk about money, generosity, stewardship. I'm not blaming them. I'm just saying this is a conversation that many people have never had before.

00;36;55;19 - 00;37;11;00
John Rinehart
And so I think I'll give you five quick things that I think pastors get wrong. Number one, they just avoid the subject for a number of reasons. It's awkward. I feel ill equipped. There's people in the congregation who make more than I do who understand this stuff better. So who am I? There's a lot of those doubts and lies.

00;37;11;25 - 00;37;31;24
John Rinehart
So I think the first mistake pastors make is just to avoid talking about it. The second mistake a lot of pastors make, and I don't know, they're the ones listening to this podcast or not, but is to talk about money in a wrong way, which I would say is a prosperity gospel way. The quickest way for me to summarize what the prosperity gospel is, is money is the goal, and God is the means.

00;37;32;23 - 00;37;35;14
John Rinehart
Money is the goal and God is the means.

00;37;35;20 - 00;37;37;05
Rusty George
Interesting. That's really good.

00;37;38;08 - 00;37;55;11
John Rinehart
The truth is God is always the goal. He's the end goal. It's we want to go to heaven, not because we'll never die. We want to go to heaven, not because there will never be any pain and suffering there. We want to go to heaven because God is there and he's our greatest treasure and he's the one we're living for.

00;37;55;21 - 00;38;13;07
John Rinehart
And so God is always the goal. He's never the means to get other goals, especially earthly goals. And so it's wrong to teach on giving in a way that would say, if only you had enough faith or if only you trusted God, you would be really, really rich. That makes money or prosperity the goal. It's not the goal.

00;38;13;19 - 00;38;37;29
John Rinehart
And that's the second mistake. Third mistake. I think when pastors do talk about money, they can be shy, timid or even intimidated. I think that's totally the wrong approach. When Jesus talked about money, if some of his fiercest language, when he's talking about the parable of the guy who built the bigger barns, the rich for Jesus, I just picture him looking at these people saying he would be called you fool.

00;38;38;24 - 00;38;58;17
John Rinehart
Yeah. Not like, hey, that was pretty bad. Or, you know, you could have done something different. So he says you for 1/2, the Pharisees, about how they're grabbing hold of money. And they did love money. He Calls them hypocrites. You brood of vipers. You know what? You're handling money wrongly. You're using people to get money. That's horrible, right?

00;38;58;28 - 00;39;17;15
John Rinehart
So we ought not to be timid. I wrote a poem that's on our website, gospel patrons dot org called Pastors Please talk about money. Hmm. And and one of the things I call for them is, is don't don't tiptoe around banging on the door, kick it open. Let us see that this really matters. Let us see that our hearts are attached to our treasure.

00;39;17;15 - 00;39;36;12
John Rinehart
Yeah. So I would say we ought not to be timid. Jesus wasn't shy about talking about money. Third mistake or sorry? Fourth mistake I think pastors can make in talking about money is to talk about it only in December. When there's an ask, when it's year end, when it's let's meet the budget, let's fill it up when there's a need.

00;39;36;27 - 00;39;58;24
John Rinehart
I think that's a mistake. What that says is we're only going to talk about money when there's a transaction that's needed rather than a discipleship conversation. This is a core discipleship issue. If we don't understand how attached our hearts are to money will avoid talking about it. And we'll talk about kids and parenting and sex and everything else, that culture and how we engage all those things.

00;39;59;05 - 00;40;23;16
John Rinehart
There's only one thing that Jesus says where this is there, your heart will be also only one thing. There's only one thing that he says you cannot serve God and money, Mammon, wealth. It's only one thing if we miss money and we only talk about it in a transaction phase. We're missing the discipleship core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

00;40;24;29 - 00;40;52;17
John Rinehart
Fifth big mistake we make is we talk about budgeting more than biblical teaching. We talk about money in terms of budgeting and financial stewardship, which is not a bad thing, but it's not a biblical right. Jesus never taught about budgeting. He didn't as budget. A wise idea, sure. But it's not biblical, you know. So let's not make our financial conversations worldly wisdom, even if it's true versus biblical teaching pastors.

00;40;52;17 - 00;41;13;26
John Rinehart
You know the Bible, you've been trained in the Scriptures, so don't be intimidated by the financial advisors who are the, you know, really wealthy people in your congregation who have all this other worldly training and wealth. You've got scriptural training. You know what God says about it? Say that they don't expect you to say all of the what the markets are doing and how to invest.

00;41;13;28 - 00;41;31;02
John Rinehart
Nobody cares what you think about that. They don't. They really don't. What we want to know is, what does God have to say? Does heaven have an idea of how I should use my wealth? Does the God of Heaven have anything to say? Yes. Say that. Say That. And you won't be making a mistake. Those are the five things.

00;41;31;02 - 00;41;42;20
John Rinehart
People avoid it. They talk about it badly, like prosperity, gospel, teaching. They're shy and timid. Only talk about it in December when there's a transaction or a need and they talk about it in terms of budgeting rather than biblical and biblical training.

00;41;42;24 - 00;41;54;25
Rusty George
That's so good. Okay, so what advice would you give all churches right now during December about how to engage your in givers? So it's more than just a transactional thing?

00;41;55;23 - 00;42;19;12
John Rinehart
Well, I. I think, for one, I would say you need to model trust in God with finances. You need to be the model of that. So when you talk about money, you're never going to put pressure on a person to meet your needs. Scripture is filled with the amazing realities that God owns everything. Not only the cattle on a thousand hills, it's Haggai talks about he owns the silver and the gold.

00;42;19;28 - 00;42;39;22
John Rinehart
Daniel talks about belt. The Shahzad's breath is in God's hands. He owns every, every, everything, and he distributes into his people. Psalm one for the young lions look to him for their food and he meets their needs. The ravens of the field, he knows the birds of the field and he feeds them. How much more will he provide for us?

00;42;40;03 - 00;43;04;21
John Rinehart
How much more to see value us. We need to take these truths and let them sink in really deeply. As pastors and ministry leaders, we sometimes expect other people to meet our needs and or meet the needs of our church or our ministry. And we miss the big truth that God is our capital P provider. We have to let that sink in deep so that whenever we talk about money, there's no sense of pressure.

00;43;04;21 - 00;43;24;15
John Rinehart
It's all opportunity. If you're appealing to people within your congregations to give and they don't give. Guess what? God's going to find another way. He's going to find another way. And they'll miss out on the blessing. They'll miss out on the eternal reward. They'll miss out on the partnership. They'll miss out on having their hearts anchored up to heaven rather than anchored down to earth because they didn't give right.

00;43;24;16 - 00;43;44;10
John Rinehart
And so we need to settle that. And I don't I don't think it's a one time settling thing, but continually settling in our hearts that whenever we talk about money, we're going to talk about it. Talk about it from a place of deep trust in God as our provider. No pressure, all opportunity. That's point number one. When you talk about it, put no pressure.

00;43;44;11 - 00;44;04;00
John Rinehart
All opportunity. Number two, I think instead of appealing just to people who've never given, to give and be involved, we should creatively thank the people who are currently giving. We see that Paul does this. The whole book of Philippians is a fundraising thank you letter. It is.

00;44;04;00 - 00;44;05;01
Rusty George
I never thought about that.

00;44;05;01 - 00;44;21;10
John Rinehart
I've gotten those from missionaries or people who go on short term trips. They write back to tell you what that's what Philippians is. I want to thank you from verse five as it for your partnership in the Gospel. He closes out advert in chapter four saying, You have partnered with me in giving and receiving. You're the only church that entered in.

00;44;21;16 - 00;44;38;00
John Rinehart
Thank you. Not that I needed the gift, but I wanted to increase, you know, the you know, the fruit that increases to your credit is what Philippians is with a lot of amazing theology mixed in the middle. I think the more we think the people who are currently giving, the more they feel valued for their role and the more they jump in with us.

00;44;39;06 - 00;44;49;20
John Rinehart
So find ways to creatively thank them. Let me just put a personal plug. Not a biblical thought here. Personal plug. Don't give them church merch to thank them. We don't need any more coffee cups.

00;44;49;20 - 00;44;51;09
Rusty George
Oh, man, I'm guilty.

00;44;51;10 - 00;45;10;29
John Rinehart
No more coffee cups. We don't need any more T-shirts. We don't need any more hands with the church logo on it. Buy them a really nice bar of chocolate. Buy them a bag of pasta and pasta sauce. Get them a cool handwritten card, send them flowers. Do something that's not church merch. Do something that's human to human. Thank you.

00;45;11;05 - 00;45;12;00
Rusty George
That's really good.

00;45;12;00 - 00;45;31;13
John Rinehart
This meant something to me. That's really. This meant something to us. This meant something to our mission. Give them something they would actually want or use. Not just another copy of your book. Yeah. You know, find creative ways to humanly thank the people who are your your givers and who contribute. 30 years ago, someone said to me, you know why people give?

00;45;31;14 - 00;45;53;24
John Rinehart
And I said, No, why? They said, Because someone asked. Number one reason people give is because someone asks. If people don't know you have needs. Yeah, they won't be able to step up and meet those needs. Sometimes the Holy Spirit drops that on a givers heart where they meet a need they didn't even know is a need. Most of the time people need to know there's a need, but we don't pressure them to meet our needs or the needs of our church.

00;45;53;24 - 00;46;14;07
John Rinehart
We invite them. It's all invitation, it's all joy. So I would say be honest about the fact that you've got needs and your church's needs and your staff has needs and your dreams for what you think God's going to do or are going to take needs because God is our provider. But God's primary way of providing is through people who step out in faith and choose to give.

00;46;14;19 - 00;46;34;08
John Rinehart
That's how God meets those needs. And so we're going to be honest about those needs without a sense of pressure. I would also in December, I would be honest, as a pastor about the percentage of your budget that normally gets met in December. So people feel a little bit of the weight of that. Let's say that 70% of your giving happens in January through November and 30% happens in December.

00;46;34;19 - 00;46;47;28
John Rinehart
Great. Tell people that, hey, we know that you're busy. We know that lots of you are traveling when you get trips. We know you got business, kids, all that stuff. And so giving is probably not always on the forefront of your mind to nonprofits, but it tends to bubble up to the surface for all of us in December.

00;46;48;06 - 00;47;06;12
John Rinehart
So we want you to know that 30% of our church giving happens in December. We'd love you to be a part of that if you've missed it for 11 months because you're new to the church or you've never given or you just hasn't been on your radar, that's fine. But join us in December. Help us close this year out strong and be in a great position to start the new year.

00;47;06;29 - 00;47;17;12
John Rinehart
In that way, there's no guilt, there's no pressure. You just acknowledge where people are at and give them an invitation to be involved. And they they kind of expect, oh, this happens in ministry. We get that, you know, jump in, be involved.

00;47;17;21 - 00;47;22;28
Rusty George
Yeah. And it is the time of the year when everybody else is trying to do that through their nonprofits as well. So they're used to.

00;47;22;29 - 00;47;24;09
John Rinehart
Yeah, they get the letters in the mail.

00;47;24;09 - 00;47;41;11
Rusty George
They get all the letters. Exactly, yeah. So they understand that. Okay. So we want to break out of just December only. Yeah. Give our church leaders a few things that they could do to make sure this is more of a, a, an annual or year round kind of process of ministry development.

00;47;41;11 - 00;48;05;27
John Rinehart
Yeah, I would start by saying we need to remember that Romans 12 talks about giving as a spiritual gift, not just teaching, not just exhortation or mercy or helps or any of those things. Giving is a spiritual gift that you use. So my question would be how could you empower, equip, strength and those within your body that have that gift if the answer is nothing?

00;48;06;14 - 00;48;24;14
John Rinehart
Well, let's change the answer to something. You don't have to do everything, but we should do something right. So what would be a goal you could go after for 2023 or whatever? Whenever you listen to this, whatever the next year is going to be, to say, I want to do something to equip people who have the gift of generosity.

00;48;25;00 - 00;48;41;27
John Rinehart
I want to train them. If people have the gift of teaching, we'll find ways for them to serve. If people have the heart to volunteer with kids, we'll plug them in for sure. Yeah. If they're worship leaders, there's a pathway for them to get involved. But if they're gifted in giving, in generosity, what do they do? They sit there and they feel alone.

00;48;41;27 - 00;48;58;04
John Rinehart
Most of the time they're isolated. Most of the time they don't really want to tell people that they have a gift because they're afraid people will misuse or abuse that knowledge they're gifted in giving. I would say let's let's acknowledge that there is a gift of giving. Let's acknowledge it publicly in front of the church. This is a gift.

00;48;58;04 - 00;49;16;19
John Rinehart
Read the verse in Romans 12. This is a gift that God gives. What we're looking to is disciple, train, empower the people within our church who have that gift. And some of those people might have a lot of money because God tends to bless people with that gift. So that just as he does with pastors, he gives them wisdom, insight, teaching, so they can be generous with it.

00;49;16;19 - 00;49;23;16
John Rinehart
To others, he does the same with wealth. He gives people who have the gift of giving wealth because he knows he can trust them to release it.

00;49;23;16 - 00;49;24;02
Rusty George
To be generous.

00;49;24;02 - 00;49;46;11
John Rinehart
And so I would encourage you to to acknowledge the gift, invite to maybe a quarterly event where you can show a video from gospel patrons dot org and start a conversation where you could give them a copy of a book. God and Money is a great book. Gospel Patrons is a great book. Give the Gift and The Giver is a great book.

00;49;47;07 - 00;50;02;21
John Rinehart
To start the conversation and begin to put tools and resources in front of them to develop their gifting. Hmm. Then I would put vision and opportunity in front of them. Now there's a little tension here because I know a lot of pastors think, well, they give to other things that's out of our church. Is that okay? Yes, it's okay.

00;50;03;04 - 00;50;20;06
John Rinehart
If you only ask them ever to give to your church or only expect them ever to give to your congregation, you're going to limit their generosity. Some of these people have so much more capacity. They could fund your entire church budget for a year by themselves. They're not going to do that. And so if we only tell them to give to the church, you're going to limit their gifting.

00;50;20;17 - 00;50;38;14
John Rinehart
And instead we want to say we hope and trust that as we equip you here will bring needs to our church and vision to our church of things. You can uniquely be involved in. And we hope you give to things that God additionally has on your heart. Some of you are fired up about missions and you're going to give to missions, organizations or missionaries that are not connected to our church.

00;50;38;18 - 00;50;56;00
John Rinehart
Awesome. Do it. Bless them in that some of you love Bible translation and there's a super amazing movement in our generation happening with finishing the translation of God's Word in all 7000 languages on planet Earth. Give to that, do it. Or you know, someone who's starting a church in another place or starting a ministry of your son or daughter is doing whatever.

00;50;56;09 - 00;51;14;26
John Rinehart
Yes, get behind it. Bless them to give everywhere and trust that the overflow will bless what God needs you to do within your own congregation. Don't try to restrict them. Just with a scarcity mentality to just give to your church because you're going to hold them back from their gifting and I think also from their generosity to your congregation.

00;51;14;26 - 00;51;30;26
Rusty George
So is that a little bit of the the answer the question I had in my mind is, okay, I know how to develop somebody who has the gift of teaching. I know how to develop somebody who has a gift of music. And that is to empower them to talk with somebody who has a gift to music. Yes. But I mean, they could they could learn a different instrument.

00;51;30;26 - 00;51;46;27
Rusty George
They could learn how to sing better. They could write songs. Yeah. What does it look like to develop the act of giving? Because I think historically all the church has done is, okay, you have the gift of giving. Here's some more things to give to. Or could you move to recurring giving now? But what does it look like to develop that?

00;51;46;27 - 00;51;51;14
Rusty George
Is that is that to give them other opportunities even outside the church? Is that what you're saying?

00;51;51;14 - 00;52;14;00
John Rinehart
I think that's that's a part of it. But I think another part of is to put put before them vision and resources of what it looks like to grow and in their gifting. And so it's partly been my calling for the last decade to create those examples, to tell stories or to do interviews of other gospel patrons and other places all over the world, and putting those examples before the Body of Christ.

00;52;14;00 - 00;52;34;02
John Rinehart
There's a mistake that we've made, and I think it's probably well-intentioned, but theologically, Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, he says, Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is, is giving him. And we've said we should never talk about giving because of that, because we don't want to lose our reward, because those things that are done in secret, your father rewards.

00;52;34;02 - 00;52;56;29
John Rinehart
But those things that are done for hypocritical motivations to be seen, you lose your reward. Mm. I think it's a misunderstanding of that passage of the Bible because in the very same sermon, just a chapter earlier, Jesus says, Let your good works shine, let your light shine before men whom that they may see your works and give glory to your father in heaven.

00;52;57;14 - 00;53;18;27
John Rinehart
Same sermon. Contextually, we need to understand there's times to talk about giving and there's times not to. And most of that's on our heart motivation for doing it. To gain glory for ourselves. We'll lose a reward for doing it, to give glory to our Father in Heaven. We're good. And so what we've tried to do is tell stories of generous people and the various things that God calls them to do with that.

00;53;19;06 - 00;53;43;02
John Rinehart
We've done interviews with people in the series called Gospel Patron Journals of 30 different people, different profession ones, where it's a written interview of ten questions. And we're asking people things like, What are the dangers of wealth? How do you treasure Jesus more than wealth and success? Because that's a real temptation. How do you make giving decisions when you can give to Mercy Ministries, Christian things, non-Christian things, you give the hospitals you can give to your church.

00;53;43;12 - 00;54;00;08
John Rinehart
How do you make some of those tough calls with giving decisions? What are what do you want to be remembered by? If you had to sum up, you know, at the end of your life, three words, what would those three words be? What interviewed 30 different professionals around the world and ask them the same ten questions to say, tell us your story.

00;54;00;28 - 00;54;19;00
John Rinehart
I think those who are gifted in giving need other examples. Just as if you're a worship leader, you'd watch YouTube videos of other worship leaders or a preacher. You listen to other preachers read old preachers. Right, right. We need examples and we need vision. And so putting those examples in front of people with that gifting means they'll grow.

00;54;19;09 - 00;54;34;19
John Rinehart
And then at times, not all the time, but then at times you put opportunity for them to act on that some within your church. And I think some without some things without some things in your city or some things globally that they can be a part of. You will be amazed that they'll rise to the occasion. But we need to train them.

00;54;34;19 - 00;54;53;22
John Rinehart
We need to disciple them. And we've tried to create a library of resources that gospel patrons dawg that are aimed exactly at that because we know it's not really within most churches budget or purview to to do that, to focus on that. So we've kind of tried to tried to take that on to create these resources that can spread to everyone everywhere.

00;54;53;22 - 00;55;09;25
Rusty George
That's so great. And for those of you listening that that lead a church plant or a small church and you think, well, I wish I had a stewardship pastor on staff to handle this off to. And it's just you just go to your to your Web site. Right is working everybody find you to get more information.

00;55;10;03 - 00;55;25;16
John Rinehart
Yeah gospel patrons dot org is our home base. Okay. And so you can go there, you can click on the library tab, look at all the free content. We're not trying to get something from you. You can subscribe to our emails, you'll get a new piece of content every two weeks, but you can also poke around and see if there's something helpful for you there.

00;55;26;15 - 00;55;29;15
John Rinehart
We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook at Gospel Patrons.

00;55;30;01 - 00;55;31;05
Rusty George
So ticktalk.

00;55;31;15 - 00;55;31;29
John Rinehart
Not yet.

00;55;32;08 - 00;55;32;29
Rusty George
Snapchat.

00;55;33;04 - 00;55;36;18
John Rinehart
Yet. Be real. I'm not ready to dance on campus, so I'll pass on.

00;55;37;08 - 00;55;57;20
Rusty George
All things I only know because of my kids. So John, this has been amazing. And we went longer than I had ever imagined because I just, you know, I thought we'd hear a few stories, but, man, you crushed it. Thank you so much. This is such great content. I hope our listeners share this with others and pass this along to people because it's really, really helpful.

00;55;57;20 - 00;55;59;05
Rusty George
So thank you for being here this weekend.

00;55;59;05 - 00;56;00;06
John Rinehart
Appreciate it. Thanks.

00;56;00;19 - 00;56;20;28
Rusty George
Well, I hope you got as much out of that as I did. I really loved my conversation with John. What a great guy and what great ideas and how to help your church be generous towards the things that matter for eternity next week. Boy, I tell you what, this is going to be a first. I got a chance to interview an actual Charlie's Angel.

00;56;20;28 - 00;56;41;20
Rusty George
Cheryl Ladd is going to make her debut on the podcast and talk about her story of faith and an upcoming book she has coming out. I know you're going to love this, especially if you're anywhere my age or older. You remember Cheryl Ladd as a Charlie's Angel? I technically was too young to be allowed to watch it in my home, but I had my ways anyway.

00;56;42;02 - 00;56;57;02
Rusty George
Cheryl Ladd makes her appearance on the show and we're going to have a great conversation. So join us next week for that. As always, share this with a friend. You might have a pastor you know of that could really benefit from this conversation, send it along to them. And as always, keep it simple.

00;56;57;14 - 00;57;20;17
Intro/Outro
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