Stop Apologizing! You're not "Spending Money On Yourself"

Frank: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Next Sunday podcast. I'm Frank Beer and I'm sitting here with Jim Redeye Shepard cuz Jim just took a redeye flight to get back to be on this podcast right now. But the crazy thing is Jim slept more on that red eye than I did last night in my own bed.

Jim: In your own bed? What is going on? Well, you know the reason the Whoop tells me whether I slept good or not. This is crazy cuz if you're at home, you know this is actually hard to do. I mean, to pull a green score at home is hard enough. I pulled a green score on the airplane. 80% efficiency and 85% recovery frame.

Frank: I just pulled mine up. I had a 73 last night, Jim, in my own bed. You're crushing it.

Jim: Sorry, bud. Living that best life. Sorry. I got travel hacks. I know how to get that seat just right. And I had nobody bothering the whole night long. So, we're good.

Frank: I got a family. I got everybody bothering me, Jim. That's just part of it. It's part of it. It was a red eye. It was a red eye, but I'm ready, buddy. I'm ready. Ready to go. And you got a topic today.

Jim: Oh, I'm a little fired up. I may be a little fired up. This is not going to be up there with, you know, stop saying, you know, compulsion under compulsion when we're talking about giving. But it's not very far behind.

Frank: It's another phrase that pastors and leaders say from the stage, from the pulpit, and communicating around generosity that's frustrating because it causes confusion for the congregation in the way it's said, but I think said with a good heart. I think there's probably a right intentionality behind it. But if people start saying it too often, it becomes so frequent. And at no point can I see where it actually adds value. Adds no helpful. What is this phrase, Jim, that people say? Adds no value. Drives you crazy.

Jim: We're going to try to keep this from becoming like a 35-minute Jim on his sofa. Two breath rant, right? Take two breaths. But it's this whole idea when people say in a giving initiative in a capital campaign primarily use the words when they're building buildings or adding on space and they use the term spending money on ourselves. Drives me nuts.

Frank: Give some context. Tell me why that drives you crazy. And why are they saying that? Why are they even referencing that?

Jim: I don't even know. But when I bring it up to them and I redefine it in the way that we're talking about today to a person, every one of them looks at me as like, "Wow, I should have known that, shouldn't I?" I mean, most recently, a guy who's been in ministry for probably 40 years. 40 years. And he kept saying it in his capital campaign, and I finally just had to have a conversation with him, say, "Bro, can we stop saying that?" And he's like, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Let me ask you this. You've built a lot of buildings. You've got a lot of infrastructure, physical infrastructure here. You've got a lot of that. Is there any one of these buildings, any expansion that you've ever done, anything that you've ever spent money on for buildings that was really and truly designed for people who are already here?"

And he tilted his head and looked at me a little funny and he says, "Well, no." And I said, "Then why do you say we're spending money on ourselves?" I said, "And by the way, you're talking about spending money on yourself and then you're running a giving campaign with buildings where you are spending money on yourself, right? And so you're confusing people. They're really confused. They're really confused. And then even worse, stick with me. Even worse is when they stick in and say, 'Oh, but we're going to give 10% to the local food shelter.' Or homeless shelter or whomever. What's that all about? I mean, I'm not opposed to that, but it's like we're doing that to alleviate whatever internal guilt we might feel for spending money on ourselves, which we're not doing in the first place.

Frank: Right. And as noble as that is, here's what I can tell you. For some of the givers, that's confusing to them because they're like, "Wait a second. I want to give money for the kids building." If I wanted to give money to that homeless shelter downtown, I would just go give money to them. But that's not what I want to give to here in my church. I want to see that kids building built. And I want 100% of my money to build that kids building.

Jim: Wow.

Frank: Because the giver is actually saying, I know that that's not just for us.

Jim: Right. It's for my kids do get a nicer place. It's going to be a, you know, a more comfortable space. We'll have more features. It'll be all the things you want it to be. But it's not for your kids, man. It's not for your kids. It's for kids that don't even know this church exists yet. And they're going to walk onto this campus. And meanwhile, we got, you know, a pastor and a whole leadership team that are up there talking about a giving campaign and spending money on ourselves. Spending money on ourselves. Physical infrastructure is not spending money on ourselves. It is building a base camp, so we can take on a war. A war against the culture, a war against the evil forces that are out there, a war against everything that the gospel stands for.

I mean, Frank, you don't go, you know, in military terms, now I'm not a military guy, but I know this. You don't go to a foreign country, you know, with 12 pup tents and four mess kits and try to take on a big battle, right? You build massive infrastructure. And you don't apologize for that. And so it's not only that I want us to stop using the term, but to stop apologizing.

Frank: Stop apologizing. We're confusing people. And it's not something we need to apologize for. Right. Over time, where do you think that creeps in? Because this church that you're talking about and other churches that have used this language before, I honestly know their vision's clear. I know what they're trying to do. I know who they're trying to reach. And they can communicate that so well. The mission, the vision, the purpose of serving their community and changing their world in the name of Jesus. They can communicate that so well. And yet this phrase creeps in. Why? Why is there even room for that phrase to creep in when they're so good? It's not like they're confused on what they're trying to do with all this anyway. So they understand the idea of base camp. They understand these principles, but this language still finds its way in through the cracks. Why does that happen?

Jim: I don't know for sure. I'm going to give you where I think some of it comes from. I think it comes from two or three different places. One, not necessarily in this case, some of it's there, but in a lot of churches, it's just their anxiety with the conversation about money in the first place. So, if you got anxiety about that, and now you're building a building that in your mind looks like it's for yourself. And then secondly, the pastor's theology hasn't even been, you know, sorted out clearly. And these are smart men and women who do this. And when I bring it up to them, they look at me like, "Oh, right. You really aren't spending money on yourselves." I was like, "It's theologically inaccurate and from a practical standpoint, it's unhelpful." Completely unhelpful. And that's why I get so worked up about it.

Frank: Do you think that some people say it and they're actually framing it as a way to explain to the point where they're actually, hey, this is good for you. Like no, trust me. This is a good investment because this is going to help you too. Do you think there's any hedging there where if we point too much about others, like I'm saying that theology if they've got it kind of warped in their head, if they talk too much about others people will be like, what's in it for me? Because everybody thinks that good bad and different. So do you think some of that framing could be them finding a way to say no, you're going to benefit from this too. And I hadn't thought about that till this conversation right now. I'm just wondering if do you think that there's some of that that's another form of kind of hedging? To make sure that people feel comfortable and bought in because they want to let them know that they're going to benefit from it.

Jim: I think that's there, Frank. And let me just tie it a little bit more. I think it's really probably tied to some vestige of the transactional mindset about money in the church. Right. Because if you're in the transactional mindset, then what you're thinking, your self-talk as a leader may not be what you say out loud, but you're selling projects to your people. And if you're selling projects to your people, then there needs to be something altruistic about these projects and they got to be bigger than you. And so you start apologizing. Well, this is, you know, we're spending money on ourselves, but we're going to give this money to missions over here while we're doing this. And it was just like, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. And here's where the clarifying moment comes from because they'll say, okay Jim, so if you don't want us to use spending money, what are you going to say? I said I think it's really simple: we spend money inside the walls so we can be more effective outside the walls.

We spend money inside the walls, we don't apologize for that. We don't apologize for the infrastructure for this kids ministry. We are not apologizing because kids are going to come to Christ and we're going to have baptisms on Sundays and we're going to do great stuff and we're going to take ground for the church and the culture. We're going to push back the darkness with that building right there. That's what we're going to do. That is not spending money on yourself. That is fortifying the inside of your walls so that you can do more outside the walls. And that's the aha moment. That's when it flips on for them when I explain it to them. And everybody knows this, right? This is the frustrating thing about this. This is not hard to know. Everybody knows this when I point it out to them. But I still hear them out there. This was only the most recent example of it, which prompted me to write the blog post, which is why we're in here talking about this today. It's just unhelpful for the church.

And so once you start using inside the walls, outside the walls language, everything lines up. For the church, your theology is clear. The practical aspects of it are clear for the givers because they know, oh, got it. We're building inside so we can go bigger outside. Of course you are. Right. A 12-bed hospital can't minister to, can't take care of very many people. A 300-bed hospital can take care of more people. They don't apologize for that. Why should you?

Frank: That's good.

Jim: Why should you? And so I think it's rooted in that transactional mindset. It's rooted in tradition. It's rooted in what they hear other people say. It's rooted in their anxiety when they talk about money. Because you know this, Frank, if the pastor and or the lead team are anxious talking about money, everything gets a little sideways.

Frank: So, it ultimately comes down to that thing that you and I are becoming more and more clear about how important it is for your church to have a proper theology. What does your church believe about stewardship and giving so that everything becomes anchored to it and then it becomes a lot easier. Right, Jim? Our words are obviously very important and we have to have a clear theology and understanding of scripture when it comes to generosity. I was with a leader, a former elder attendee of a church in Alabama just last night. I'm sitting there at a dance competition and this guy comes up and he's interacting with our family and he says, "You guys have a special family. I bet you're believers, aren't you?" And it's like a cool conversation. And he says, "What do you do?" And I tell him a little bit about what I do. And he goes, "Well, I just gave my last big gift to my church." And I almost threw my neck out. I swung my head over so fast. I was like, "Where did that come from?" Because he's talking about Jesus. We're having all these conversations. No transition. And I was like, "Are you done with the church? What's going on?" And he goes, "Nope. But I told him when they were asking for this campaign that this was my last gift." And I said, "Did that come from you or God?" Like, I don't know this guy from anybody. But I just was so confused. I was like, "This does not compute." And he goes, "No, that's what my pastor told me." And I repeated it back. And I said, "Help me understand. Like, I don't understand." And he said, "Listen, I know you're getting older in years, but I really need you to help lead the way in this campaign. And so, you can consider this your last big gift to our church."

I think the pastor was trying to guide him to give a bigger gift maybe or not to hedge. The guy's not that old, Jim. The guy's not gone tomorrow. Like, this guy's gonna be around for many more years. He's feisty. And so, I watched that language and that misuse of language and how confusing it can be for congregants. And he literally regurgitated those words to me, a stranger in this conversation. And so I just want to emphasize the weight of our words and how we teach our people around generosity is pivotal for all these conversations and what means for the future of the church. And so we got to lock in on these words and we could easily justify and go, "Well, that was harmless or I know what they meant by that and kind of keep rolling." But there's an importance in leaning in and making sure that the statements we're saying around generosity reflect what we believe about our God and we believe about our theology. Now this idea you grounded this article in Nehemiah when you were talking about infrastructure. Can you go there for just a minute on that?

Jim: So this whole idea of Nehemiah, I think one of the things we miss in the story of Nehemiah is how deep his burden was for those people. And so it was the burden out there that drove the project in here. And that's the way it should be for our churches as well, right? Just in summary, because over the years, Frank, when men and women talk to me about their gifts and they do because, you know, I'm safe and they figure I know stuff anyway. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. They just come and tell me. But what they talk about is the burden they have for the thing that the church is trying to do. And to the extent that you have that burden, you'll give sacrificially. And to the extent that you don't, you probably won't.

Let me just say there are men and women, Nancy and I would probably be somewhat like this. We're not as concerned what things our church is doing. We're not unconcerned, but we're more concerned about what the Lord is doing in and through us with what he's put into our hands and trusted us with. And so, for us, it's just a very uncomplicated relationship with money that we have. But if we were more like that, it would be, hey, what is my church's burden? But my church has a clear burden outside. I mean, we're giving away 28% of our money every year outside the walls to people who can't pay us back. Some of whom don't even know our name, which is fine. We love that. So, it's things like that. I think when you have the money conversation proper and you've anchored it around solid biblical principles and you help your people to have burden for folks that are out there. Every non-believer would build stuff for their kids, for their own kids. That doesn't separate us from anybody, right?

Frank: That's good.

Jim: It's the church that builds these facilities for people who don't even know about us yet, haven't even come on our campuses, right? And then, this language thing, I wrote down four things. I'm just looking at the four things I wrote in the article that occurred to me when I was thinking about the weight of the language, 'spending money on ourselves,' that we're subtly communicating. Here's four things that we don't intend to communicate, but we're communicating. Firstly, that facilities are inherently selfish. No, they're not. Not at all. No, they're not. Now, you wouldn't go to Africa and build the same building that you're building for Perimeter Church down here, just a couple of miles south of here, but you might build something over there, right? Buildings are not selfish.

Here's the one that's frustrating. That ministry only happens out there. Out there, you know, well, gosh, I mean, doesn't your church have a significant staff infrastructure that live inside these buildings? Well, that's ministry that happens both here and there. So again, we're working inside the walls to do stuff outside the walls. That investing internally is spiritually suspect. That's the one that drives me nuts.

Frank: Wow. That's good.

Jim: It's spiritually suspect. It's not. I mean, Frank, you know, we just redid the computation on the gift that King David made for the temple in Jerusalem in 1 Chronicles 29. In today's money, $20 billion. That's billion with a B as in boy. 20 billion. That building was not unimportant. It wasn't spiritually suspect. And then the last thing is that this whole thing of offering something to, you know, a 10%. Oh, we're going to tithe off of it somewhere we should feel a little guilty. And we should do something for somebody else when we're doing all of this. And I think when we've solidified the language inside the walls, outside the walls, everybody's clearer now.

Frank: And there's nothing wrong with during a generosity initiative having pillars and we're going to achieve multiple things in this initiative. It's this percentage payback thing that gets lost in translation and causes some confusion oftentimes because it's like, hey, I know we're keeping a lot of this for ourselves. We got to help others as well. It's some of that framing that's there that's out of kilter. It's not the dollar amount. It's not that there's not multiple facets to the initiative. It's the way it's framed and the way it's almost like a tax or a penalty we want to pay for wanting to do some internal work.

Jim: And here's where I would say too, Frank, I think we should just throw this in because I know someone will probably think of this somewhere along the way. I think the call here would be that if you are going to construct facilities, be very careful and very prayerful about what you're going to build, how much space you're going to provide, and how much you're going to spend on it. Because this is a stewardship question. That's not to say that there aren't some foolish buildings. There surely are. And I've seen them over the years that like, well, that one didn't make much sense. But when these are well-framed, well-articulated buildings that both reflect something that's already happening. So this is not build it and they will come. You know, we can look at the regression model. It already tells us we're out of space for students today. It's only going to get worse two years from today, right? So we got to do something, right? Or whatever it is. And that it fits clearly within the mission and vision of our church. Who we see God calling us to be, not something over here that somebody else is already doing better. Not responding to a quote-unquote competitive ministry pressure in the community. Not that that's not always a bad thing, but you try to do your thing, your distinct thing that God's called you to be, and then let all of your infrastructure, your building facilities, and everything else you spend, let it fit in with that.

Frank: Which for those that have established facilities, it may be time to revisit a master plan, which I love. A lot of the people that we get to work with, they want to kind of zoom out before they zoom in. It's not as quick as just let's renovate this space, but to zoom out a bit and go, okay, what's the plan over the next five, ten years? This may be phase one, but kind of looking more comprehensively of the infrastructure and how we're building and how it feeds for what's next. And that could be very helpful.

Jim: Lots of buildings, lots of churches, particularly established churches that have been around, let's just say 60, 70, even 100 years, they've got building projects that may have been done under different leadership times, leadership seasons, and they don't all fit together. They've been kind of juxtaposed here, and that made sense over here, and it made sense over there. I mean, I've got a client, this is crazy. I've got a client that seven years ago, they did a master plan. You talk about prioritizing kids ministry. Listen to this. They did a master plan for their campus. And the study of the master plan was that the best place for the single best place on that campus for the kids building was where the chapel was currently. And the chapel was named for a long tenured, dearly beloved pastor. He wasn't the founding pastor, but he just as well to have been. Had his name on it. It's one of those things where I like to say, "Hey pastor, if you touch that, it's going to be a moving experience. You're going to have to move." I don't mean moving emotionally. I don't mean you're going to be moving on.

So, the architect, a friend of ours, somebody that you know well, the architect came in and said, "Why don't we just move that chapel to the other side of the parking lot and refurbish it and redo it in a way that it'll bring even better usefulness and it'll look better than ever before and put the kids building right there." And they did that. Pick it up and move it. A 356-ton building moved across the parking lot. The pastor asked me during the campaign, he's like, "Hey, we're due to give the church an update and you know, we're dedicating the children's building and what should I say there?" And I was like, "Look, pastor, at the children's building dedication, you just have to say, hey, look, I could say that kids ministry is important here, but you already know that we moved a 356-ton building to put it right here." That's all you got to say, right? And so for them, that was really clear. That's not spending money on yourselves. That's realigning our campus to better fit today. That was not an inexpensive thing to do. The church supported it. They oversubscribed the financial goals for the campaign because they got it. This was clear. This gets in the way of us being the church that God called us to be. For us to be better inside the walls is to do it here so we can be better outside the walls everywhere else.

Frank: That's so good.

Jim: Isn't that cool?

Frank: So Jim, how do people start purging this language from their vocabularies? Is it as easy as just stop saying it? Do they need to recalibrate? Do they need to address the fact that they've been saying it and kind of recalibrate that way? How do you get this out of your language? I think it's a good way for us to kind of land.

Jim: The lead pastor is going to have to take the lead on this one. Whoever, what do you call senior pastor or lead pastor, whoever, they're going to have to take the lead on this. There's going to have to be some staff re-education as well. It can't just be the pastor looking in the mirror and saying, "I'm gonna stop saying spend money on ourselves. I'm gonna start saying inside the walls, outside the walls." It's a cultural thing. This thing has lived in there long enough. You're not just going to get the exterminating spray and spray and it goes away tomorrow morning. You're going to have to spend a little bit of time. But if you can educate the staff, your key staff, that'll make it go away. And it may take, you know, four, five, six, eight, ten, twelve months, but it'll be worth it because now you've redefined everything. Your church givers, your people in the church are like, "Oh, got it. Inside the walls. Outside the walls." And everything gets defined as we do it inside the walls so that we can be better outside the walls. And now everybody's on one page.

Frank: That's so good. Well, this has been...

Jim: And I can stop ranting about it. That's the big right. I can stop.

Frank: I got this for Jim's sanity. We're really just doing this for Jim's sanity. He's got it off his chest. Now we can move on. And hey, this has been another episode of the Next Sunday Podcast. We hope that you found this helpful because what you do next Sunday could change everything.

Jim: That's so good. See y'all soon.