The Weight
The Weight
"Trust, Transparency, & Generosity" with Chris, Eddie, & Cody
Show Notes:
Eddie, Chris, and our producer Cody Hickman sit down to discuss generosity and how it’s changed over the years. The three of them have a combined 61 years* of experience in a church setting, and all three have seen changes in giving. Economic factors, widespread institutional distrust, and increases in the cost of living mean that now more than ever, people need to trust the organizations they give to. To get that trust, organizations need transparency: where is your money going? How much good is being done with your resources? Are there other ways you can help when you can’t donate financially?
It helps when churches connect the dots between what God is doing in the world and how you can be a part of it, but this is not just a conversation for pastors. The beneficial ripples that generosity creates is good for us individually, and those ripples strengthen our institutions, communities, and world.
*approximately. Math is not their strong suit.
[INTRO] Leadership today demands more than technical expertise. It requires deep wisdom to navigate the complexity of a turbulent world, courage to reimagine broken systems, and unwarranted hope to inspire durable change
Eddie Rester:As Christ-centered leaders in churches, nonprofits, the academy, and the marketplace, we all carry the weight of cultivating communities that reflect God's kingdom in a fragmented world.
Chris McAlilly:But this weight wasn't meant to be carried alone. The Christian tradition offers us centuries of wisdom if we have the humility to listen and learn from diverse voices.
Eddie Rester:That's why The Weight exists, to create space for the conversations that challenge our assumptions, deepen our thinking, and renew our spiritual imagination.
Chris McAlilly:Faithful leadership in our time requires both conviction and curiosity, rootedness in tradition, and responsiveness to a changing world.
Eddie Rester:So whether you're leading a congregation, raising a family, teaching students, running a nonprofit, or bringing faith into your business, join us as we explore the depth and richness of Christ-centered leadership today. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO] I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly:I'm Chris McAlilly.
Cody Hickman:Hey, I'm Cody Hickman.
Chris McAlilly:And this is The Weight podcast. Today we are talking about generosity and how it impacts organizational life and church life. And we're glad to be together. We don't have a guest. This is a conversation...
Eddie Rester:We are the guests.
Chris McAlilly:We are the guests.
Eddie Rester:We are the guests today.
Chris McAlilly:That's because Eddie's been in ministry for how many years?
Eddie Rester:27 years. 28? 28 years.
Chris McAlilly:17 for me. How many did you say?
Cody Hickman:15 or 16, probably.
Chris McAlilly:We've got a lot of experience.
Eddie Rester:60 plus years. I'm not gonna do math. I don't...
Chris McAlilly:We're gonna be talking about...
Cody Hickman:Nobody expects that from you, Eddie.
Chris McAlilly:Don't do math.
Eddie Rester:I'm not gonna do math.
Cody Hickman:That's the number one takeaway from this episode.
Chris McAlilly:The way that people think about giving, about generosity has changed through time. But it's really important if you want to engage in a sustainable way in your community, make an impact. Money is part of that. You know, funding the ministry is part of that, and that's what we're talking about today.
Eddie Rester:One of the things that I think most organizations realize is that COVID shifted a lot of things. It shifted a lot in how people see organizations, their trust of institutions, how they respond to them. We also got caught up in just a shift in generational understanding, in generosity. And you know, we can talk about some of the things that have impacted the younger two generations, that really have caused them, I think, to rethink how they spend money, how they respond to organizations. But there are a lot of things in the mix right now for folks who are trying to figure out, whether it's a church or nonprofit, how do we engage people so that they are willing to give, to be generous? Which I think is part of what God has called us to be, is to be generous people.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, so that's what we're talking about. What? Why are you excited about this conversation, Cody?
Cody Hickman:[LAUGHTER] Why am I excited? So I think it's an interesting conversation, as the youngest person at this table right now.
Eddie Rester:Wow.
Cody Hickman:Yeah, I am. You're very, you're much older than me, Eddie.
Chris McAlilly:You are.
Cody Hickman:It's just a truth. Math.
Chris McAlilly:Math.
Cody Hickman:I think it's interesting to follow. I mean, a lot of things you said. There's, I think there's a big institutional distrust, especially in a younger generation, and what it means to give, and why we give. And I mean just the things that we have available to us to give to now, and how easy it is to do that. It's just not the same as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. And so, you know, why should anyone give to their local church?
Chris McAlilly:I do think that's the... I think it's why give. That's the first question.
Cody Hickman:Yeah.
Chris McAlilly:It's not even why give to the church. But why should a person be generous? Why should somebody give to anything rather than just, you know, live a life of unbridled hedonism where you get as much money as you can and then spend it on yourself?
Eddie Rester:You've waited a long time to use the word hedonism on the podcast.
Chris McAlilly:Do you want me to use it again?
Eddie Rester:No, we're good.
Chris McAlilly:Okay.
Eddie Rester:You know, I think for Christians, that one of the things that we believe is that all is a gift, and if all is a gift, then our response is also gift. If we follow a generous God, then if we're going to emulate and reflect that life of God into the world, then we're generous as well. I think about stories going all the way back into Genesis, where God is talking to Abram and saying, I'm gonna make you a great nation. And he says, I'm gonna give you ancestors. But the last thing he tells him is...
Chris McAlilly:You get a car. You get a car.
Eddie Rester:That's right. You get a car! He's not Oprah. God's not Oprah. There's the pull line right there. God's not Oprah.
Cody Hickman:That's the title of this episode.
Eddie Rester:The title of this episode. Is that the last thing is, I'm going to bless you so that you may become a blessing. And I think from the very early pages of Scripture, there's a sense that we are blessed so that we can bless others.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, we can get into the issues and the challenges and the obstacles around giving, or how the mechanics and the tactics around how an organization might be structured towards financial sustainability. But the starting place, if you're a Christian organization, if you're a church, really is a theology of giving and...
Eddie Rester:Rght.
Chris McAlilly:Generosity originates for people of faith with God, God's character. God is generous. God is good, faithful, merciful, abounding in steadfast love. It's the generosity of God that we experience in the created world, in, you know, the gifts that we receive. And it's just in some ways, like gratitude is the starting point.
Eddie Rester:Right.
Chris McAlilly:Wouldn't you say? I mean, it's just developing, cultivating a habit of gratitude and recognizing the good gifts that have been given to you. I think that's the starting place.
Eddie Rester:I think that's definitely the starting place that once we realize the gifts that have been given, it frees us to give.
Chris McAlilly:Another thing that has helped me is to think about God as the owner of everything. You know, I don't own anything. I own things, but only provisionally.
Eddie Rester:There was a great illustration a preacher used one time. It wasn't me, but he...
Cody Hickman:We knew that when you said, "a great preacher."
Eddie Rester:Boom. This is why you wanted Cody on this episode.
Cody Hickman:[LAUGHTER]
Chris McAlilly:Yes, yes.
Eddie Rester:But he said, If you go to stay at somebody's house and you're trying to thank them when you leave the house. You know, our understanding of what we own would be like you grabbing one of their lamps and saying, "Hey, I want to thank you for letting me stay at your house. Here's your lamp." And so we're giving back what's already been given to us.
Chris McAlilly:It's a different way of thinking about the economy. You know, in God's economy, God owns everything. Everything belongs to God. You know, all the stuff, all of your energy and time and resources and money and your house and your car and your dog and your stuff. It all belongs to God. God is the maker and the owner of everything, and that's good news. In part, it's good news because God, if God's the owner of everything, then we don't have to worry. There's this sense that we're free to receive the good gifts of God, and that God's going to provide.
Eddie Rester:Yeah, I think we begin to hold tighter to what we have when it is hard or it's difficult to think about where is the next provision coming from? Am I going to have a job? You know, one of the things that we when we look at the youngest generations, they've had some incredibly tumultuous years growing up. When you think about Gen Z and millennials, they had 911 the great recession of 2008. A lot of millennials were coming into the working world at that point and either lost their jobs or...
Cody Hickman:Didn't have a market to go into.
Eddie Rester:Didn't ever have a job to go to. The digital revolution that happened 2005 to 2007, which really began to upend a lot of different markets, a lot of different ways of seeing the world. The 2020 pandemic. Right now we have the tariff economy. And what happens is that for the youngest generations, any fluctuations in the world economy or the national economy impact them the most. And so when we think about these younger generations, who, particularly for older millennials, should be in a stage of really generosity. This is the stage for older, older millennials, when they should really be stepping into some financial leadership in terms of nonprofits, churches, different organizations, universities, colleges. All that's been delayed because of everything that they've been through. You think about the Greatest Generation that went through the Depression and then World War Two. Maybe that's parallel to what the younger generations have gone through, but probably not.
Chris McAlilly:I also think about man, it just costs more money to live to live today. Cody and I were talking about it. Somebody ran into me, my vehicle, and totaled my car.
Eddie Rester:Wait, your, the Subaru?
Chris McAlilly:The Outback. I don't think I've told you this.
Eddie Rester:No, I didn't know that. The Subaru's gone, man.
Chris McAlilly:All right, so I'm there.
Eddie Rester:That's a blessing. We talked about it last time. It's been held together by tape for a while, but go ahead.
Chris McAlilly:It was a blessing.
Cody Hickman:[LAUGHTER]
Eddie Rester:Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Chris McAlilly:Thank You Lord Jesus, taking it out, and this is how it went. It was an act. It I don't think it was an act of God. It was actually a. I won't name publicly all the things that happened. But nevertheless, I was there and my car was hit by a stray tire going 35 to 40 miles an hour.
Eddie Rester:No way, damn.
Chris McAlilly:Like I hit my microphone to simulate the impact of the tire hitting my car.
Eddie Rester:Oh wow.
Chris McAlilly:Anyway, totaled out my car, and so I've got a little bit insurance money, and I'm looking at the used car market. And I don't know if you've looked at recently.
Eddie Rester:Uh huh.
Chris McAlilly:It is stupid.
Eddie Rester:It's dumb.
Chris McAlilly:It's like, double what it was last time.
Cody Hickman:It's double since the last time I bought a truck.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, it's so dumb. So if you're... You've already, you know, raised your kids, Eddie, and now you're sending them out into the world.
Eddie Rester:I know. The last one's graduating, so.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah. And so I, you know, it's like in the middle of life, there's just so much, so many expenses. It's hard to think about all the things that just have to be covered, plus.
Eddie Rester:Right.
Chris McAlilly:The plus seems impossible.
Eddie Rester:Well, and for again, I want to go back to those younger generations, millennials, which I think both of you are millennials and Gen Z.
Chris McAlilly:You can't label me.
Cody Hickman:We're millennials.
Eddie Rester:You're millennials.
Cody Hickman:We're elder millennials.
Eddie Rester:Just the economic pressures your generation and the generation below, because y'all are not young anymore, are facing educational costs. Public education, public education went up more than 200% between 1987 and 2017. That's not private school, private colleges, that's public universities. People between the age of 25 and 34 have an average of $32,000 of educational debt. Childcare costs right now...
Cody Hickman:Insane.
Eddie Rester:25% of a young person's annual budget.
Cody Hickman:Yep.
Eddie Rester:Basically they're paying for childcare what they're also paying for housing costs. So 50% or more of their budget is being eaten up by two expenses.
Cody Hickman:Which then leads you to like. So, I have four kids, too. They're 10 and under. So that's the decision we had to make. My my wife, she cut hair for a living, and then third kid came along. And so we're looking at...
Eddie Rester:Yeah.
Cody Hickman:It doesn't make sense to keep paying childcare prices. So now, okay, she's gonna stay home with the kids, and she homeschools the kids now, and so that's a decision we had to make. We can either, you know, pay these crazy costs for our kids to go to daycare, or she can stay home, and we can figure it out on one income. And that's a common story right now.
Eddie Rester:Well, I did a lot of research for this, for my job with Cargill Associates that I was in for a year, and housing costs, from '20 to '23, housing payments went up 100%. Median income only went up 12% during that time. So every economic data point for the last decade or more has been punishing for young adults. And so we, I think what you were talking about a minute ago, is that's part of the conversation around generosity and giving, is that it's just expensive.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, that's right. But those are some of the external factors. Some of the other factors include something that Cody mentioned earlier, which is just widespread institutional distrust, particularly among, you know, churches and other organizations. I think that's a huge factor. People just don't trust churches to do good work. And so I do think one of the things that you see is, I don't know, maybe just a higher degree of discipline around these things in nonprofits, the educational space, etc. We're in a college town here, and, you know, the university... Philanthropy is a larger and larger component of... I mean, that's a public research university, but a lot of the funding is coming from private funding. And so that's just another thing that is out there that would would compete with an organization that's in a nonprofit, or,church space for for resources. And so I think all of that has to lead, it seems to me, to more clarity about why people give in general, and why would people give specifically to a church or a Christ-centered nonprofit.
Eddie Rester:Rght.
Chris McAlilly:And that comes back to communication. And
Cody Hickman:Yeah, I think that that's a huge part of it. I sometimes... think for a long time, for generations, the church didn't have to have a real good why. I mean, it's probably helpful if you did, but you didn't have to.
Eddie Rester:You didn't have to, no.
Cody Hickman:And people, it was just part of the routine. You were part of a local church. You gave to the local church, and I think...
Eddie Rester:And that was your first gift.
Chris McAlilly:It was a duty, it was an obligation.
Eddie Rester:It was your first gift. If you gave to anyone else, it was way down the line.
Cody Hickman:Yeah, 100% and so, you know, that's just not the case anymore. There's lots of organizations that do really good stuff, both, you know, Christian organizations and secular and they're doing good work and that are worthwhile causes. You want to give to an organization that's building wells for people in Africa, you know, that's a worthy cause. And so people see that. And honestly, I think one of the reasons why people have shifted to that, aside from just the access to that and knowing what these organizations are, is that those organizations are way better at communicating the why than churches are.
Eddie Rester:Because they've had to be.
Cody Hickman:They've had to be, yeah. They had to navigate the marketplace and rise to the top of that. And churches are just real behind. I mean, that's true across the board with churches. We're typically 10 years behind the curve on everything else, but that's especially true in communication.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, so one of the things that we've tried to get much better about, Cody and I've had these conversations, we talked about it through time, and part of it is making sure that you're showing clear impact.
Eddie Rester:Correct.
Chris McAlilly:You know that the metrics of you know, if you give X, it is going to go to Y. And you know that is a different habit for a church than than perhaps for a nonprofit or a for profit organization, just tangibly connecting giving to real, measurable results, I think, is a really important factor. What are some of the other factors in communication you think are important?
Eddie Rester:What I think that if, you know, you have to build
Cody Hickman:Yeah. trust, and if you're speaking to the two youngest generations, and only about half of Gen Z is 18 or older, because they have become frugal, and their life is just expensive. They see giving as discretionary. They give when they can. They give to who has moved them, and the statistics bear that out. They don't give because of institutional loyalty. So I think some of what you have to do is build trust through story. What are the stories of your church or your organization, where lives are being changed, where the mission that you state you're on and pursuing is actually being accomplished? If your church says we're going to do great things with the children in our community. Okay, what are the results of that? Prove it.
Eddie Rester:Show people that you are actually doing that. Tell the story well, so that others can tell the story well.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, it's giving that begets giving, and it's a way of giving, not out of obligation, but out of inspiration. And so I think part of the important, that's where I guess communications and finance have to be in deep conversation with one another always, so that giving flows toward people and stories and causes that move other people. And this has happened. You know, we've seen this happen. We've put an emphasis on generosity that leads to being able to do the things like paying for the lights to be on and the HVAC to run, but it's put us in a position to do something we've never done before. This year, Cody and I talked for years about, how do we give more away, especially at Easter, Easter and Christmas?These times of year where, you know, you're gonna have a lot of people come to the church that maybe don't come all the time. You want to demonstrate, those particularly high impact moments that the church isn't just interested in itself. And so we were able to give away half of our Easter offering this year.
Eddie Rester:And OU gives away their entire Christmas offering.
Chris McAlilly:Christmas offering,yeah. And so we just got this back, and we gave to a great organization in our community called Doors of Hope that helps women, mothers specifically, who are on the brink of eviction with children, and the wraparound services. It's a great organization. But in addition to the gift that we gave, I just found out today, there was an anonymous individual who essentially matched the gift.
Eddie Rester:Wow.
Chris McAlilly:Which is incredible.
Cody Hickman:I didn't know that.
Eddie Rester:Right. That's awesome.
Chris McAlilly:It comes back to the storytelling dimension to Yeah. Isn't that incredible? And it's just, it's
Eddie Rester:Well, and when you look at the stats of what me. generosity that begets generosity. It's infectious. millennials and Gen Z pay attention to, they pay attention to social media and to social media stories. They pay attention to video, short form video, not seven or eight minute video or five minute video, and probably not even four minutes or three minutes of video. Compelling storytelling that is consistent. You know, I think one of the things that churches and other organizations fall into is sharing what's coming up, information, calendar stuff, how to get registered for things, and we never follow back up with story.
Cody Hickman:Yeah. So I'm going to say this, not to say that we succeed doing this all the time, because we don't. And look, a lot of this stuff comes down to personnel. Do you have enough people to do all the stuff you want to do? That's just a reality. And so right now, we have fewer people, and we're not, we don't do it every time. But the goal is, if you're going to promote an event, then you follow up on the event. So you're at least getting a 50/50, mix of event promotion and storytelling. Because at the end of the day, churches are event organizations. We have events that we have to promote, but telling those stories. And I think that one of the differentiating factors for
Eddie Rester:It gives them the opportunity to give. churches against other organizations, where you're maybe just giving money, is that there's a real chance to get involved. And so that's one thing we've done here, too, is
Cody Hickman:It's an opportunity to still serve and try to really hone in on not just writing a check and calling that a day, you know, we've done our good duty. But really, you know, following up, building relationship with these organizations, and plugging in and serving at the food bank and going down to Costa Rica, or, you know, whatever it might be, that takes that next step beyond just writing a check. And for some people who can't write a check... still give.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, and I think that that's aligning these things. I think particularly if you're trying to find ways to get younger people involved in giving, it's expanding the category beyond financial giving, but aligning the financial giving of the church with opportunities where young people might be able to give their time. Especially in a college town. Yeah, I think that's something that's helpful.
Eddie Rester:Well...
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, go for it.
Eddie Rester:I was just going to say practically, one of the things that any organization can do inexpensively, it's free, is something that I stumbled on years ago, that we did a lot while we were here, and they all continue to do at OU and I'm taking it to my church in Dallas, is just the three question interview. And you can do that, whether in worship or out of worship. You can do it in worship and clip it. There are a lot of ways that you can use that so that you're helping someone tell the story well. You're getting a point across with it. And because it's three questions, it's a time constrained event.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah. And sometimes we've used that, I mean, yeah. And this is something that you kind of brought into the worship context. It's a way to tell stories that's not just hey, promotion.
Eddie Rester:Right.
Chris McAlilly:It's a way to give... One of the difficult things is like giving somebody a microphone and not knowing where they're gonna go.
Eddie Rester:Where they're gonna go. We've done that.
Chris McAlilly:We've had some bad experiences.
Eddie Rester:We've had some experiences. Let's just call them learning experiences.
Chris McAlilly:Learning. We did a lot of learning.
Eddie Rester:Yes.
Cody Hickman:A lot of learning.
Chris McAlilly:Lots of learning.
Eddie Rester:Lot of learning.
Chris McAlilly:But it's a way to tell mission impact stories, essentially, and then coming, not being afraid to kind of come back around and back around and back around and connect the dots for people in a saturated media environment. It's just like, what's the story that your organization is telling around some of these matters. You've done a lot of this research. Any other kind of insights that you've discovered as you've kind of looked into this?
Eddie Rester:The research on the younger two generations is fascinating on talking about giving, because the older generations, boomers and Gen X, and I'm Gen X, they don't like you to talk about giving. They don't want to hear about it. They just assume that it's happening. They'd rather not talk about it. The youngest two generations are looking for someone, anyone, to help them understand how to live with their financial life. That's not just giving, but they're interested in, how do I make sense of I have money that comes in and money that goes out, and how do I live faithfully in that? And so the Barna Group has done this research, and they find that, again, Gen Z, millennials are okay with people in their churches having conversations around money, and that's different, because most preachers are taught only talk about it when you have to.
Cody Hickman:I'm surprised to hear that, honestly. I didn't know that.
Eddie Rester:Yeah.
Chris McAlilly:I, you know, when I first started thinking about all of these things... You know, so I Eddie and I worked together. I guess Eddie and Cody and I all worked together, but Eddie was in the lead pastor seat and I was in the discipleship seat. So frankly, I just didn't have to think about these things. I didn't think, you know, I just trusted Eddie, who had had a lot of experience in a lead pastor role, to make sure that we had financial sustainability in our organization. If he said we did, then I assumed that it was true, and I didn't interrogate it. And it was true. What I've learned is that... and so I had a fair amount of trepidation, talking about money, because I didn't, I just didn't have a level of comfort with it. I was an English major.
Eddie Rester:No math.
Chris McAlilly:I just, math was not a thing that I did much of. But what I did realize is that ultimately, you know, the kingdom of God is something that God is doing beyond, far beyond, just like one organization or... And really the gift of the conversation is to be able to connect the dots for people between what God is doing in the world and how they can be a part of it. And if you can do that over and over and over again, it just creates far more abundance than, you know, one... It doesn't just help one organization. It allows the organization to connect with what God is doing in the community. And I just now have a ton of confidence that those that people want to be a part of that with their resources, whether, for young people, if they don't have financial resources to offer with their time. And for those who are maybe, you know, have done well in their careers, or are retired, but can't go to a place like Costa Rica that it gives them a way to be a part of what God is doing in the world, from a financial perspective. And I think that, yeah, I mean, I just think that it's... I wouldn't be... If you're out there and you're listening to this, you're like, I just don't have a lot of comfort around it. The first step that I would say, is develop your own theology of generosity. Go back to the Bible. Develop it for yourself, so that you understand how you think about these things, and then allow anything that you say to flow out of that. I think that's really helpful, you know, I was encouraged to do that. It was really helpful for me.
Eddie Rester:And one of the things, when you talk about it, it grows generosity. There's a great article in Vox last summer, and I think also in the New York Times as well, that generosity across the board is flagging, not just to churches, but to all organizations. It's kind of dipping right now, and what they're beginning to realize is that, as the church has begun to contract, generosity across the board is contracting, because the Church teaches generosity more than any other organization, that if you believe and trust that God is working in the world that we share in that work financially. And so there's some big worry that as the institution of church fades at some level, that it's impacting the larger generosity in the United States.
Chris McAlilly:I mean, that is part and parcel with the conversations you hear, where people are worried about, what's the difference between... You know, if you don't have a Christian influence on the culture, the assumption for a long time was thatmaybe things would get better, but it may be that things could get far worse. Some of the base level kind of moral intuitions that have emerged out the Judeo Christian tradition may not stay with us if people recede from the church, and things actually might get coarser, and, you know, more I don't know, just like harder edge. And so I think, I don't know. I think it should
Eddie Rester:Right. offer someone, if they're in a position of leadership in a Christ-centered organization, in a church, to just double down on the base level teachings of the Bible. I also think that it's helpful to go out and find resources in social science and otherwise that reinforce the idea that generosity actually is good for people. There's a book called "The Paradox of Generosity," by Christian Smith, and he talks about, like, all the indicators of well-being emerge from being generous. People that are generous are happier. They have fewer illnesses, and they live with greater purpose, and they experience less depression, and they flourish. That is social scientific fact. And so it's not just that it's a good idea that the Bible tells you to do it. It's that those who give receive. It's counterintuitive, but it's true. By spending ourselves for others, we enhance our own well being. There's another great resource called Saving Grace, and it's a guide to financial well being, and it's a great resource that you can get. And it doesn't, it takes in that holistic view of, how does this impact my life? How are my finances in general impacting my level of worry, stress, joy, or freedom? And how do we work through that? I think finding resources to help in the journey and help others in the journey, I think it's a gift that we can give.
Cody Hickman:Yep. I think the church, broadly, I think we've done this in some ways, maybe, I don't know if we've named it out loud, but has just some work to do on regaining trust. I think that the church has lost trust over the years and decades. I think some of that is, you know these big televangelists and things that people, you know people who aren't in a local church, but the only church they see is this, hey, you know...
Chris McAlilly:What's the one?
Cody Hickman:I thought we weren't naming people?
Chris McAlilly:Oh, no, never mind.
Cody Hickman:But like, you know, hey, give, and you'll, you'll get 20 fold. And, you know, this is a way to get rich.
Eddie Rester:A little prosperity gospel.
Cody Hickman:Little prosperity gospel. And that was huge, like, my upbringing, it's, maybe it's not as much now because there's so many other media outlets. But like, that's a big part of people turning away from the church in general.
Eddie Rester:100%.
Cody Hickman:And a big part on the financial side for sure. You know, I'm not going to give so that you can go buy your jet.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, that's Creflo Dollar in Atlanta. Sorry, that's...
Cody Hickman:Yeah, yeah, that's one of them.
Eddie Rester:There are multiples.
Chris McAlilly:I was thinking about the Righteous Gemstones. That's what I was thinking about.
Eddie Rester:My daughters started watching the Righteous Gemstones recently, and they've got questions.
Cody Hickman:I think, but it's, I think that's a very real thing that people, my generation is still trying to overcome. If I give to you, what does that money actually go into? Are you buying your new house? Or is it going to actually help people? What is this actually doing?
Eddie Rester:And this is one of the places, again, that young adults have shifted. Older adults and in Gen X, my generation, they have a level of trust, but young adults have grown up with organizations putting out annual reports where they really say, this is where we spent your money this year. This is where percentage went to different things. Churches, they might...Maybe they put out... You know, I remember growing up my little church in Akron, at the end of every month, there was a P and L sheet, profit and loss sheet, how much we took in, how much we spent. But that didn't really tell the story. That was just for the accountants and those kinds of folks. I think there's a great place for churches to tell a bigger, transparent story of how we spent your money, not just telling the story of the impact, but we spent 15% on facilities last year.
Cody Hickman:Yeah.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah. I think that's...
Cody Hickman:Yeah. Just acknowledge the real things, because that's a big hang up for a lot of people. The overhead of building and staffing and all the things that are utilities. So you're taking how much percentage off the top of my dollar, that's not even going to help anybody.
Eddie Rester:Right.
Cody Hickman:That's real.
Chris McAlilly:You know, Eddie, you've done multiple capital campaigns for building infrastructure. Why should anybody care about that? Why should anybody invest in infrastructure? Why does that matter? Why not just spend that money to help somebody?
Eddie Rester:Yeah, which, though, that's the question I got asked every campaign. So I would ask that question. It always comes back to, what's the mission? How can you expand the mission? And if you grow the mission of reaching people for Jesus does that, then increase the ability of a church to do the good, generous work and service in the community and beyond? And if the answer to that is yes, then go for it. If you're just shining up the apple, then maybe it's not a great thing. But if it aligns with your mission, and you can clearly articulate how it aligns with your mission and pushes that mission forward so that more impact is made then that's worthy, worthy of pursuing. And I think that churches sometimes skip that, "why do we really want to do that?" step when you talk about facilities.Because facilities, now more than ever, are way more expensive than they used to be. When you look at the construction of the, I'm going to say this out loud, the sanctuary at OU United Methodist Church in Oxford, Mississippi, which was built in the early 1950s--and it's not great. The walls bleed heat and air conditioning--versus what you build now, according to codes, it's just tons more money to build now than it used to be. So you have to have a clear answer of, how does this help us advance the mission?
Cody Hickman:Yeah, when I first came on to, actually, before I came on the staff here, I started, you know, filling in on a Sunday, and then did interim for like, six months, and I didn't want this job for the longest time. Because I had come from a situation that was, you know, a little bit of church hurt, you know, woe was me. But we were just launching a building campaign here, and that was a big detractor for me, at first to say, like, Hey, why are we spending this money? And what are we doing this for? And again, I wasn't even on staff. But then I got to know, y'all. I got to know some of the congregation, and actually, I got to know the why.
Eddie Rester:Yeah.
Cody Hickman:Here's what this is going to allow us to do. And it took me time, as like a church guy, to wrap my head around it for this. And so I'm in a much different spot now than I was then. But I think just knowing that, that there's always going to be a certain percentage of your congregation, or new people who are coming in, or maybe somebody who's never In your community. Exactly. even stepped foot in the door, but they're in your community and they hear you're doing this building campaign. So I think making sure that not only your people understand the why, so that they're giving and supporting and it's in line with the vision and mission of the church, but your community needs to know the why on some level so that you can maintain trust or build trust.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah. So the first thing I heard you guys talk about is just show your work, you know, be transparent, and maybe that looks like adopting some of the practices that you see in other sectors, like annual reports and budget breakdowns and updates on giving and spending that might... That transparency can go a long way, in providing clarity and ultimately building credibility. And then having a level of scrutiny to connecting what you're doing and why you're doing it, both for your internal and external audiences. And then the other one, just circling back around to what we said earlier, it's just stories of real impact. So, you know, the building campaign that we did together in 2016 to '18, one of the real impacts of that is, yes, we built a building, and it's in the center of town, but it's allowed us to be a community hub. And so you've got, you know, I mean, there were, I mean, just 1000s of hours of building use for people in the community that otherwise wouldn't be, didn't have a path of access into our community, and so we still have to connect the dots between the people coming in the building and the and the community. So there's still work to be done. But I think that generosity is helping create space for people that otherwise wouldn't be interacting, perhaps, to be interacting, not only with us, but with one another. It really is becoming more of a third space in a time where, you know, people are not joining organizations as much, and they need kind of third spaces outside of their personal and professional life. So I do think telling those kinds of stories, I think can be very, very helpful in building trust. But I do think that that's the key, that's the key phrase, is that in a low-trust environment, what are the habits and practices that can be done to help gain or regain trust, especially for younger generations? Anything else that you've that you've seen in your research, or kind of in your travels, Eddie?
Eddie Rester:I was just reviewing a couple of things here. And Cody... Cody, oh, he's flashing.
Cody Hickman:Not gang signs. It's time.
Eddie Rester:Time signs. I was like, "What is he flashing at me?"
Chris McAlilly:Another math.
Eddie Rester:I think one of the things is just the willingness to listen or to give space for people to share and to engage. And I think when we think about younger generations again, who have discretionary giving, not just discretionary spending, who are going to give to the organization that's moved them the most, most recently, creating space where you can listen and connect in those generations. And I think that's a hard thing to do, because any transfer of power in any organization, particularly from older to younger, that creates a sense of just anxiety. What are we doing? We're doing something different? But I think that really creating some space for people to have conversation about the life and the work of the church, or how the church is or isn't responding in a moment.
Cody Hickman:I mean, I think just across the board, a church allowing questions is a good thing. I think, if we're talking about building trust, whether it's finance or spiritual development, what does faith look like in any given situation, being able to question things and have a safe place and a pastor you can come to, where you can say, "hey, this part of the Bible confuses me," or "I don't agree with it," or "What's going on? Let's talk about it." That's a big deal.
Eddie Rester:Well, because it makes me stop and think, why are
Chris McAlilly:Or even, like,"Why are we spending money on we doing it? Or, why are we doing it this way? Or, why are this instead of that?" Like that, being willing to receive that criticism, I mean, for for me, it's been helpful, because what it does is, ultimately, it creates accountability with the community, so that, so that your responsibility, if you're in a leadership role, in a financial leadership role that just allowing yourself to be held accountable on those matters by the community of people that are investing in the organization and being very responsive, I think, is one of the things I'm learning. we not addressing that? Yeah, I guess the other thing for me, in terms of being in a financial leadership role within an organization, is to develop habits and practices in my own personal life, where I am trying not only to say these things, but to do them to, to develop habits and practices of generosity myself has been helpful. And then, you know, essentially, every morning, getting up and saying, "Christ, this is your church. This isn't mine. You know I'm here as a servant for you and your mission." Like, that's been incredibly important for me, because it it reminds me that, the reason why I'm doing any of this is not to prop myself up. That's not the goal. It's trying to put your life in service of building up the body of Christ. And I think for me, it's that personal, that spiritual habit of coming back, literally, on my knees, to say, this is your church. I want to do everything I can to build it up. But it's not about me. That's a really important spiritual practice, to get my heart right so that when I'm having public conversations around giving or generosity, it's coming out of the right spirit and the right place.
Eddie Rester:Because I think too often, it's very easy for leaders, whether it's pastors or finance committee chair leaders or elder boards in Baptist churches, to really just focus in on we've got a church budget, we've got a church building. We've got to maintain the budget. We've got to pay staff. We got to... And you lose sight of it's not, it doesn't belong to us. We are stewarding a gift of a facility that's a tool of a congregation that has this is all in service of the larger mission of making disciples to change the world.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, we're caretakers for a season of time.
Eddie Rester:Right.
Chris McAlilly:And, you know, God, the church, I mean watching the... We're recording this at a time where the Catholic Church is electing a new pope, and just a reminder that the Church is has been around a lot longer than any of us, and it will be around a lot longer than any of us, and for a brief moment of time, we have an opportunity to steward these gifts. And you know, you can choose how to do that. You can do it with jealousy and greed and fear and meanness and manipulation and corruption and pride and all those things. Or you can choose to practice this way of gratitude and responsible action, and you can try to create cultures of generosity where people are giving their time and energy and money to renew and heal and restore the world, your corner of God's creation. And that seems a lot more fun to me.
Eddie Rester:That is a lot more fun. Yeah, when you said you talked about the church a second ago, it reminded me of a GK Chesterton quote that I looked up while you said that, it said, he said, "Christendom has had a series of revolutions, and in each one of them, Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again, for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave." And I think that when we hold the Church lovingly but also loosely in our hands, then it becomes a gift that can be shared and not something that we hold on to too
Cody Hickman:I think that's a really good reminder for tightly. specifically church staffers, so non pastoral role. So me. It's good for me to hear you say that and you say this in other ways, and you exemplify it. And Eddie, so have you over the years. But like, you want to hire good people who, and the larger your church, the more you hire specialty people who are good at their jobs. And they're proud of what they do, and they put a lot of time, effort, and energy into perfecting what they do. And sometimes that becomes the focal point. And just being able to step back, say, Hey, we want to be excellent, but we want to... This is not ours. This is not ours. It's going to be somebody else's soon. And it's going to be God's forever." So just do the best that you can while you're here, steward it well, and hold it loose.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, I think that's right. And you know, for
Eddie Rester:There you go. me, just having a deep, profound confidence that God desires to renew the church for the healing of the nations, and just like having confidence that God can use the time, energy, and effort that you put into creating a church or an organization worth giving money to, will allow God to do a lot of great healing work. I mean, for me, where all of this cashes out is in a young woman who came, who has not been a part of a church,who came to our church on Easter, last Sunday, was a part of the congregation for essentially an entire year, and then decided she wanted to be baptized, that she wanted to kind of give. She's going to go into the medical profession. But what she wants to do is to do that from... During the series we're doing on healing, she wants to connect the work that she wants to do in the world, to heal people, to the healing ministry of Jesus. And just getting to connect all of those dots, for me, it's just worth investing everything that i can in it. And so, you know, hopefully, the conversation that we're having will inspire you to do the same thing, wherever you are, in whatever corner of the world you're serving. And you know, ultimately, I learned a lot of these things, they were modeled from you, Eddie, and other leaders. And so, I think look for people that you trust, that you're like, "I like the way they're doing it," and then go ask questions. Ask lots of questions to find as many resources as possible, but develop your owntheology and understanding of generosity, and then speak from that place of authenticity, that would be my biggest... I think that's a good place to land on. I think that authenticity is, it's probably always been the best tool in terms of, how do we spark generosity. But I think in this era, for the life of the church and institutions, I think just being authentic about where we are and where we aren't, what we can do together, and let that be the word.
Chris McAlilly:Are there any authentic words that you like to offer Eddie here as we end?
Cody Hickman:Just to Eddie? About finances?
Chris McAlilly:Just about anything.
Cody Hickman:Broadly.
Eddie Rester:Or apology for being mean to me yesterday.
Cody Hickman:Okay. I was a little mean to Eddie yesterday. I told him he didn't have any friends. [LAUGHTER]
Chris McAlilly:[LAUGHTGER] That's the last word. Don't take yourself too serious.
Eddie Rester:Thank y'all for listening and being with us, and we'll be back next Thursday.[OUTRO]Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.
Chris McAlilly:If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]