Enduring Wealth: Raymond Harris on Kingdom Stewardship and Leadership

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Stewardship is a lifetime journey.

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You don't all of a sudden become a steward.

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It's a process.

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and as you get older and older, it doesn't necessarily become easier

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because you have fears in your life.

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And, you know, well, I have enough to live on.

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If I give away some stuff, do I have enough at the end?

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So it's always a battle.

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It's a journey all your life to be a faithful steward,

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Um, uh,

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you ready to explore how wealth can transcend earthly possessions

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and shape God's kingdom?

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Welcome to Seek, Go, Create the Leadership Journey, where

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today's guest is Raymond Harris.

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An architect and a venture capitalist, Raymond has brilliantly fused his

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expertise and faith to cultivate wealth.

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Economic engines that propel both business and benevolence.

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He's the author of Enduring Wealth, Being Rich in This World and the Next.

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He illuminates paths for building lasting wealth that benefits communities

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and furthers the kingdom of God.

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Join us as Raymond unpacks the principles of creating wealth and endure beyond

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a lifetime, fostering significant impacts through entrepreneurship

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and entertainment, agriculture, technology and other businesses,

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all while serving God's kingdom.

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Raymond, welcome to SeatGoCreate.

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Thanks, Tim.

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Great to have you with us.

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Where are you?

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What part of the world are you coming from?

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Well, I live in Dallas, Texas.

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my wife and I live, in the summers a little bit up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

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where we have a, 20 years ago and we host, 10 grandchildren up there every summer.

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Very nice.

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My wife and I, we're currently in the black Hills of South Dakota.

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And just two days ago from when we were recording this, we got

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back from the, I guess we were in the Cody Yellowstone area.

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We spent about 10 or 11 days over there with some friends

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and a beautiful time of year.

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You know, this is, we're recording this in September to let people know.

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We sort of have just met, even though I feel real comfortable with you.

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I've just read your book, Enduring Wealth, and we're going to talk

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a lot about wealth and kingdom of God, stewardship, things like that.

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But before we do that, Raymond, I know you're, um, Had somebody recently

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call me a seasoned business guy, which I think is code word for old.

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I'm going to call you a seasoned guy.

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But, if somebody

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you can

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call me old.

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You can call me old.

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I'm fine.

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I'm good with that.

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I'm wearing pink.

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I'm comfortable.

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Just as long as

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Yes.

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And, and, you know, we get to a place where we don't care what people call us.

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Right.

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call

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us.

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Raymond, but let's, I mean, I'm sure you get this probably, and that is if

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someone, you know, you're on a plane or you're out and about and someone

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says, what, oh, what, what do you do when somebody asks you that question?

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It's sometimes a cheesy superficial question, but what do you answer

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nowadays when someone asks you that?

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Well, I like that question because I actually ask that of

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almost everyone that I meet.

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So, I'm a retired architect.

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I had a large architectural firm in Dallas for 37 years.

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But now, and Mary Dale, my wife, asked me, Hey, what do you do now?

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And I said, well, I go to work every day and I do basically five things.

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I try to meet with young men, uh, to, encourage them.

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some would say I mentor them.

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I just call them my young friends.

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I write.

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I invest in the kingdom, both in for profit world.

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I try to help young men start businesses.

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and I invest.

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in not for profit work, some, but I also look to invest in for profit

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things that build the kingdom.

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And then I spend time with my grandkids, I've got ten of

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those, and I like most of them.

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So, Absolutely.

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there are times where I don't know what order you put those in, but there are

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times when spending time with my minor four and two years old little girls that

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everything else goes to the back burner when it comes time to the grandkids

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and, and I, I get so much joy from that.

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Hey, you know, I wasn't going to go this route because I know we, like I

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said, we've got a lot of discussion about wealth and the kingdom of God and

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things like that, but being primarily a leadership journey podcast here,

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and I'm a, I'm a leadership coach.

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I work with leaders.

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What are you finding now with some of the, what you call them, your young friends or

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young leaders that you might be mentoring?

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What are you seeing?

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What are the trends?

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What are the concerns?

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What are the positives?

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What are you seeing with some of the people you're interacting with that

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are in the, probably not even the next generation, but a few generations

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below where you are and where I'm at.

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Well, I've noticed that some of the young men that I spend time

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with, are actually seeking wisdom and counsel from older guys.

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And that is so refreshing.

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I don't think my generation did that much.

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I don't think we were looking for older guys to really, coaches.

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But I find a lot of younger men are seeking wisdom and they're

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seeking help and counsel.

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I know that I have men call me all the time and I have a policy of

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never turning down a young man if he wants to meet for coffee or lunch.

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And then I don't turn them down if they want to continue meeting on a consistent

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basis because they're seeking wisdom.

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And I think that's one thing that as older guys that we, can do is offer some

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of our experiences to help them navigate.

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I think that's going to be one of our best stewardship investments

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is to invest in the next generation by spending time with them.

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And so I don't call on guys and look for guys to have in a Bible

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study or try to have a group.

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Most of them will seek me and then I don't turn them down typically.

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So sounds like you make yourself available and just allow them to make the request.

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For the most part, I don't have to coerce them into doing anything.

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They want to do it.

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I also, spend my time wisely with the guys that will, take

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advantage of the time together.

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there are certain men though that I call upon and say, Hey, let's get together.

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But by and large, I let them make the initiative.

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And it seems to work out best.

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And they're intent, they're intense and they wanna learn.

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I also find the younger generation pretty intense.

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the guys I'm with, they're serious guys that are trying to make an impact.

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And I meet primarily with, Christian men.

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even though I don't turn down any man that would call upon me, I, I,

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as a policy don't meet with women, just because of my comfort level.

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So I invest in the young man.

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I let the, the older women and, invest in the older women, in

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the younger women, excuse me.

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So

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Well, so in the book that I was going to jump to the book later, there was,

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something that I read when we were having this conversation about leadership that

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came to mind, and I think it was something to the effect of you really would rather

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invest in leaders than organizations.

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And

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yes, well,

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me on that.

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It sounds like that's part of that working with younger leaders or mentoring people.

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Also talk a little bit more about that and why that is organizations

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are less appealing to you than the actual leaders themselves.

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I noticed in scripture and then also my experience is that God would

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raise up an anointed leader and then ministry would form around that person.

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So most of the major ministries were started by.

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an individual that had an anointing from the Lord, and the Lord would

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allow that to grow and blossom.

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And I noticed that pattern over and over again.

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And then you go back to the Bible and you see how God raised

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up men and women to be leaders.

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he didn't raise up organizations.

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And so I entitled one of the chapters raising up leaders, not organizations.

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I also think when men are raised up and they leave, and I say men, I

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mean, men and women are raised up.

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Then, if they leave that organization, so many organizations try to keep

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that organization going, they kind of keep it on life support.

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Now, many times they can find another leader that takes the

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baton and does a great job.

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And we've seen that.

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through large organizations like Campus Crusade Crew has had great succession.

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But I've also been a part of organizations that did not have good successions because

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they were just trying to keep it going or the leader was not anointed or the leader

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was not, raised up for such a time is that and, some organizations flounder because

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I think their leadership flounders.

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because they're not either anointed or they're not good at that, but the board

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wants to keep the organization going.

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So sometimes they exist just to exist.

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I think the thing that i've seen working with the teams that I do I work with

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leadership teams is there are many times You know structure or market

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conditions or different things can come against situation, but someone who has

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We'll call it the mantle of leadership and that includes a lot of stuff Okay,

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I mean it it could be an anointing.

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It could be some skills.

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It could be some charisma There could be a lot of things involved with that

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You They can generally move in and out of a lot of different situations.

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if, and if organizations are dependent upon that, they're going

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to, that individual, they, they could really, really struggle.

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So let me, let me do this now.

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Let's jump because you've had quite a career yourself.

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and I do want to discuss it some before we kind of go really into the wealth.

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But let's back up a little bit in our subtitle is the leadership journey.

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And we talk about the leadership journeys that people have been on.

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if we back up and go back to, Raymond a few years ago, maybe more than a

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few years ago, I think I saw that you were at the university of Oklahoma

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and architect and things like that.

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Let's even go kind of before that, maybe like, you know, the schoolyard or,

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you know, pre high school or whatever.

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would you have called yourself a leader at that stage of your life?

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Did you have some of the characteristics or did you begin developing that later?

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I think that I was a leader young in my life, I wouldn't necessarily have

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been the gang leader in our Crestmont Raiders, which was our grade school group.

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But I did notice that, uh, when I was in junior high, I played football

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and I wrestled and then I would notice that I would become a leader

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of the team and eventually captains.

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I was captain of my, senior high school, football team.

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I was one of two captains.

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we didn't rotate them.

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We just had two captains for the year.

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I was a captain of the wrestling team.

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And, I noticed that, I had the ability to lead early and that was God given.

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It wasn't something that I would have learned.

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there wasn't any possible way to learn.

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So, I was president of my pledge class in college and in the paternity.

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And then, just different organizations.

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I would rise up and do leadership and I would volunteer

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I didn't really seek it out.

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It just seemed to be a little more natural to me as I look back on that.

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I started my firm, uh, at a very early age in architecture.

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You have to apprentice for a long time because it's a learned profession.

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It's not something that you can actually do academically.

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You just have to learn it by doing.

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I started, my firm at age 27, which was about two years after I became registered

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as an architect, and that's pretty young.

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in our profession, usually guys don't start their firms until their thirties.

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I think that was partly, being a good leader, and, having clients of which to

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start a firm with because the clients would like what I did for them and sense

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that I could do a good job for them.

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It, one of the things is very obvious from reading through your bio that

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there has been, like you just mentioned at 27, you started your own firm.

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So that was, you were leading at a young age.

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there's often these discussions about are people born with leadership traits

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or can they learn leadership traits.

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So I think the way I'd like to ask this, and I don't know if you've reflected on

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this, but what, do you think are some of those traits that you were sort of

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born with, they were inherent, and then what are some that you've had to really

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work towards developing over the years?

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Because I know that you have, you know, Even if we, I believe

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there's a combination of those two.

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So what, what are some traits leadership wise that you believe

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you had from a young age, you can't even remember not having them.

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And then what are some that you've had to really work on and develop?

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I would say, I do agree with you that leadership cannot necessarily be taught.

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It can be developed.

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I think leadership is an inherent God given gift.

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I ended up hiring over 300 architects during my career.

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And our firm was.

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At the peak was 80, 80, 80 guys and gals, 80 people.

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and of those 80 people, would vary between 65 to 80 people depending on the year.

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Uh, during that time of about 20 years, I only really had 5 leaders

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that rose up inside the firm.

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And you would say, well, you have 300 architects.

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You should have had.

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And I always look for young leaders when I would recruit out of college.

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And leadership is best defined by looking behind you to see who's following you.

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Now, as far as characteristics, gosh, I don't know.

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I would say that I would have the ability to communicate and to convey what we

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want to do and to encourage people.

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to want to do that.

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So they would want to follow.

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it would require enthusiasm and a positive nature.

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Uh, I think that good leadership is positively influencing people to want to

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achieve a goal and we achieve it together.

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Good leaders don't take credit.

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They include the whole team.

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And so one of the things that I think I developed later in my

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career was being a good cheerleader.

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I wanted to have a great design firm.

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But what God seemed to show me was I want you to be a great employer.

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I want you to be great with people.

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As a result, we grew from a 10 man firm when we were a great

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design firm to a 70 man firm.

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Uh, when I decided to be a good employer,

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so I don't know what else to say.

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I'll say just from reading through the book and interacting with

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you, I do notice a high degree of humility is required for leaders.

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And I've picked up on that immediately from interacting with you because

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it's something I actually felt it as I was reading through the book.

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And I guess the next.

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curiosity question for me is, know, obviously with a subtitle of, being rich

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in this world and the next on your book, there's a faith component that's been part

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of your life for seems like a long time.

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But my question is how long was that even growing up in grade school and

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all was your family, a family of faith, or is that something that you came to.

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you know, more when we start becoming, you know, I call it little humans,

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teenagers and things like that.

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I was raised by, Christian parents, but we were in the Episcopal Church.

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there wasn't a lot of discipleship or mentorship for me as a little kid.

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I loved going to vacation Bible school, but that really didn't do it.

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When I became a Christian was when a neighbor across the street asked me,

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To go to church with his family they had a little girl that was my age and I

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was nine years old and went to a church and they gave a gospel presentation

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and actually asked us to walk down the aisle to the front altar and give

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our lives to Christ I did that and I asked Jesus to come in my heart.

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I actually felt a cleansing at nine years old.

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I was not discipled, though, or really encouraged to grow

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my faith during that time.

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my grade school years because there was no one around to do that.

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Even though I went to Sunday school, it just wasn't something done.

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And when I was in high school, I began to seek a little bit, seek the Lord.

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And so I began to read the Bible.

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I began to read the gospels and I read them through about four or five

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times in high school, but I couldn't get much farther than the gospels

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because I didn't understand, the epistles and some of the other stuff.

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And it wasn't until I went to college that I had to make a decision.

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And I remember spring break, my freshman year, I was home, and I

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had to sit down and make a decision.

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Was I going to follow Christ or was I going to fall into

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a slimy pit of the world?

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And I did not want to fall into a slimy pit.

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So I made an intellectual decision to follow Christ, even though I was a

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Christian, I was not yet following him.

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And so I.

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decided to lay down my nets and follow Christ.

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It didn't mean that I was going to go into the ministry.

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It just meant that I would seek to follow him and do whatever he, asked me to do.

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at the end of my freshman year of college I decided to be a follower of Christ.

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And then I began to grow in my faith during college.

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I was discipled, by some men, and then I had a choice, my senior

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year, are you going to go on staff with a Christian organization or

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are you going to go to seminary?

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I did not like either of those choices.

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So I stayed and went to graduate school to become an architect I thought,

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that's what my heart's desire is, but all my friends and people that I

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was in ministry with, Felt like that if you were all in at the time, you

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should go full time into ministry or go to seminary to become a pastor.

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That was not my heart's desire.

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And so for 25 years afterwards, I kept looking in my rear view mirror wondering,

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did I make the wrong choice or did I not, did I not follow the right road?

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And I realized that I was on the correct road, that that's exactly where

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God wanted me is to be a businessman.

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that followed Christ and that I could build assets for the

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kingdom to build the kingdom.

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So that's what God called me to do as a full time Christian.

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And I realized that during that whole time that I was in full time

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ministry, I just didn't recognize it.

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So one of the things about that, Raymond, so you said you were given two choices.

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It was work for a full time ministry or go to seminary.

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So those were literally the two choices that were presented to you.

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Yeah, by the Christian leaders of the guys that were discipling me.

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So everyone during that time, you got to remember that was in the,

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seventies and the big Jesus movement.

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And it was the whole theme was go build and send.

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And we were gonna save the world and everybody was gonna go into ministry.

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In fact, there was a movement that you could actually use

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your profession in ministry.

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And so I applied to about 10 organizations saying I'm an architect.

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How can you use me?

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And every organization that I wrote told me, we really don't have a

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position for an architect on our staff.

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So would you like to teach math or would you like to go to Africa to do something?

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And I said, no, I want to be an architect.

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And no one could use me.

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And so I thought, okay, then I'm going to go into the profession and

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be the best architect that I can be.

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And that's what we did.

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I want to, I'm not going to leave this conversation of the issues

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with full time ministry versus working in the marketplace.

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And we've done tremendous numbers of interviews with people, Mike Baer,

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who's with the Businesses Missions Organization and just marketplace.

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people I was saved in a business setting, not in church world.

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so it's a little bit of a theme here, but before we go further down that

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path, Raymond, because we are talking about wealth here, I would like to

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know a little bit more about your concept or your thoughts about money.

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At that time or growing up or, you know, were you in a, middle class

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family, well to do what, what did you think about money leading up to that

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time when you were making a decision, the two choices presented to you, or

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no, I'm going to go do something else.

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I'm really wanting to

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yeah.

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your relationship with money as a young person.

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Well, I was raised in an upper, upper class family.

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My grandparents, were well to do business owners, uh, were in the dairy, commercial

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dairy business, milk and ice cream, and had, the largest dairy in Oklahoma, and my

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dad was a doctor, was a physician, and so I was raised in a well to do environment.

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My grandparents were very godly people, and they used their wealth

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to take care of a lot of people.

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They employed a lot of people.

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They were generous.

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They did not, use money excessively for personal pleasure.

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they were very, very good stewards.

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My dad did not know how to manage money, and so he spent

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basically everything that he made.

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so when I, uh, was in college, I had to pretty much Pay for my own college.

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My dad helped some, but I paid for a lot of my college as well.

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And then when I got out of college, I had no help at all.

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And as, as I always say, Marydell and I were very poor.

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We got married the week we graduated from college, literally the next weekend.

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And I had, uh, 600 to my name when I married my wife and I

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spent 400 on our honeymoon.

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And it wasn't a very elaborate honeymoon, you can imagine.

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even back in that day, that would get you by, but, you know, it

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would probably be worth 2, 500 today, maybe in today's terms.

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So we did not have money.

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My dad, did not manage money well, in my opinion, and

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didn't teach me how to do that.

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So I had to learn on my own, how do you handle money, as a, as not only

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a college student, but as a newlywed.

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And so Mary Dale and I very intentionally, read, some books by,

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Howard Dayton and by Larry Burkett.

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And I was later mentored and discipled by Howard Dayton.

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how do you handle money and how do you manage money?

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And so we were very frugal through the rest of our college career.

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I went two years to graduate school.

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Without any money, but we saved and we worked hard and left graduate

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school debt free and Moved to Dallas to our first job and then I sought

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counsel on how do you handle money?

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What do you do with it?

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And Larry Burkett was very influential through his writings and through his

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radio Programs at the time not podcast and so that's where I learned how to

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handle money I also realized that You should never possess the money you

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have because it would possess you.

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And I learned that early.

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So we lived on less than we made, and we did not look at money as our own.

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We looked at it as money that basically had been lent or entrusted to us by God.

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I learned that early, right out of college.

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so this is a good time to, and I don't want to leave that decision that you

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made because we're going to come back and talk about how you currently view

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some things related to ministry and how you invest and things like that.

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But maybe we'll pick that up in just a moment.

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You obviously went into your, you went into working for a

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firm, then you started your own.

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very very well What are a few lessons you can share?

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We've got a lot of entrepreneurs business people that listen in What are

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a few things that you can share and I want to kind of add something to it.

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I think I read That y'all at one point were doing a lot of architecture

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for small companies like Walmart Corporation and and people like that

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if that's correct if there's any other anything else you might want to add

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just about the nature of that firm?

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Obviously, it was a very large firm and all that but what are some lessons learned

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that you can share with the audience?

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Well, the first thing that I, I learned is that, God had given

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us our ability to create wealth.

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I would like to say that, you know, through my hard work and study

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and, and all that, that I was, a good architect because of that.

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You have to work hard.

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That's a principle in Proverbs that we learn.

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That's how you make it.

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But God gave me the ability to generate income and to accumulate.

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you know, I, if, if I wanted to, to accumulate, if I wanted to be the

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world's most famous, tech guy, I, I couldn't start my computer company

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in a garage and be successful.

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I mean, God had had to endow, uh, Steve jobs with money.

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It just wasn't all about Steve jobs.

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So for me, God gave me the ability to generate income.

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So that was the first thing I learned is that it was a gift of God.

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What I had to do is realize that it wasn't my genius or, that it was

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entrusted to me and as something entrusted, I don't actually own it.

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I actually have to manage it.

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And so I learned early in my career to be a manager of what God had

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given us and not to take possession of it to where it's, Oh, it's mine.

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I've got a monkey grip on it.

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I'm not going to let go of it.

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If I do give it away, I do it out of, trepidation.

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I don't enjoy doing that.

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But when I realized it was a gift and I don't hold it tightly.

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Then if I give, or if I'm generous with someone, then that's not as painful.

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So that was kind of something I learned early.

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and I also realized that God had given wealth to us for a

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greater purpose than for our own pleasure or for our own comfort.

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And, that was a, another lesson that I kind of learned early.

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So um,

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to learn this, was something you just said, which is don't spend all you make.

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That was like a, I mean, because it does, that, that'll start messing with you in

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more ways than just your bank account.

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It'll actually, start creating some issues.

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so over time, you know, when you've got a book that you've titled Enduring

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Wealth, have you grown to define?

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That word wealth and it ties in.

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I'm going to ask, as you think about it, I'm going to, I'm going to tie it in.

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One of the things that we've done here at Seat Go Create is we talk often about

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redefining success because in many ways I feel like that word success, we've kind

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of messed it up in our current culture.

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So I'm probably going to ask you later about defining success,

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but right now let's define, let's just talk about wealth.

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What comes to mind and how do you define wealth?

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Well, wealth is more than just, financial assets.

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Wealth is the ability to create, assets.

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Assets are not necessarily money, commodities, real estate.

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assets are things that can be used to build something else.

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And so I look at assets as what do you, what does it take to build God's kingdom?

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one of the great assets of building God's kingdom is wisdom.

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I think that, God gives men and women.

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a set of characteristics within each of us to generate assets

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for God's eternal kingdom.

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I think that we could look at wealth as successfully using our giftedness

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and our talents that God has given us.

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Uh, this could be through leadership, can be through convening people to, there's

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just all kinds of ways that we can build God's kingdom other than just with money.

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And so to me, it's using your essence, who you are and everything about

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you as a tool to be used to build God's kingdom or to build a business.

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So I think also that wealth is developing, kingdom currency, which we can talk about.

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the kingdom currency is something that can be used not only in

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this world, but in the next.

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So we have to take earthly assets and convert them into a different currency

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to be able to use, when we go to heaven.

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So if I throw the word success in the mix, does anything change with

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any of the descriptions you just use?

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Is there anything added?

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if someone were to say, you know, Raymond, how do you define success?

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Is there some differences with what we just discussed with wealth?

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I mean, is that where we start maybe tying in?

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if someone asks you how you define success, how do you usually respond?

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that's a hard question.

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I think the world would define success as someone that.

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Uh, was well known or had, earthly assets such as money or

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possessions and things like that.

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You always say, Oh, he's a successful guy because look at this house or look at his

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car, look at his financial balance sheet.

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I think success for me is, when you stand before the Lord and give an

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accounting of your life, will you shrink away or will you, stand there?

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and receive honor from him and adulation and also a commendation.

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If you can stand before the Lord and receive a commendation,

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I think that's success.

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And I think that for me, as I've gotten to be an old guy, no longer seasoned,

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I'm old, I would say I'm really looking forward to receiving a commendation

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from the Lord more than anything else.

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And what does it take to get that commendation?

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Men and women have to be on their own journey to determine

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what, what that commendation is.

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And we all have all memorized, you know, well done, good and faithful

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servant, but what does it mean, to receive that commendation?

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And, wealth is going to be part of that, but it's eternal wealth.

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it's it's not earthly wealth.

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So how does then that tie into, let's go back to that kingdom currency that

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you just mentioned because that, that is, it's real interesting at the end

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of last year, my wife and I, you know, we're not ones that would typically have

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like a word of the year or even a, you know, a verse or anything like that.

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One of the things that we do though, is we get themes of things that we

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feel the Lord wants us to press in on.

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And towards the tail end of last year, the word that kept coming to

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us was the word eternal and eternity.

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and that involves a lot of stuff.

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It's, it's obviously involves some wealth and the topics here, but know,

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it involves, you know, what I do with my time today, if I truly understand that.

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And I don't think we can grasp it this side of that eternal realm, talk

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to me a little bit more about that term you used early, which is Kingdom

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currency, which I think does play into that word eternity, possibly

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Well, Let me back up and just say that I came up with an idea of kingdom

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currency because I was thinking through any economic system, there's assets

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of value that have to be converted into a common currency to transfer or

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exchange or use them or redeem them.

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Now I believe that kingdom currency converts earthly

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assets into kingdom assets.

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And I think that it's kingdom currency is an attitude and an action It's

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the faithful stewardship of assets.

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That's been entrusted to us.

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And we use our resources, our talent, our giftedness.

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I call it our essence or our being.

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We use all of that to convert into things that will transfer into heaven.

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And I think that the transfer mechanism is the righteous heart.

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I don't think that our 20s in our pocket when we get on the plane to heaven

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will convert when we get out of the, you know, when we go through the gate,

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we have to go to the currency exchange counter before we get on the plane.

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And how do we do that?

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That's been a journey I've been on.

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How do I convert before I get on the plane to heaven?

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And this is where I'm at right now, not making a doctrine out of it.

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don't think I'm going to write a book on it, but you just brought up the heart.

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your background's architecture my background's engineering In

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fact, I still remember at georgia tech driving by that architecture

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building and seeing those folks.

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They're almost 24 7, by the way Yeah, the lights are on 24 7 because

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at one point I kind of mused with being an architect I'm going man.

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They seem to never sleep.

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They must be vampires or something like that but But so i'm i'm a little bit

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I lean technical, I lean practical, I lean, you know, natural, but I'm

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at the place I'm at now, Raymond, is that I think if it's not the currency

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exchange, it's definitely a big piece of it is the condition of our heart.

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Yes.

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and so it's the thing I keep.

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Determining and you know, you and I use terms like ROI and wealth and different

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things like that And I think we can factor that in when we talk about our heart but

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I do think there's a different mindset when we start talking about what is the

Speaker: 00:35:12

heart and I think the fruit of the spirit and things like that really Play into it,

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but there's a word you brought up that I want to Go down and we could kind of back

Speaker: 00:35:21

up to this if we need to but you brought up the word stewardship We've talked

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about stewardship a few times in fact i'm gonna read something that you wrote

Speaker: 00:35:29

i'm looking at it on page 98 here of your book And I'm going to read this and then

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we're just kind of a discussion about it.

Speaker: 00:35:35

It says it's logical assumption that God will use business people to perform a

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unique Stewardship role no one is better qualified in God's kingdom to be stewards

Speaker: 00:35:45

of resources than business people now We're going to discuss that but the first

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thing i'd like for you to do is maybe define stewardship a little bit more.

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So mention stewardship, and then we're going to talk about this sentence

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that I just read here about business people being uniquely qualified

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to be stewards in God's kingdom.

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Well, a steward, by definition, is not an owner.

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It's simply a manager.

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It's someone that takes care of the masters or whoever has hired

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them take care of their stuff.

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And so, uh, a steward does not own.

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He manages, and so he has to be accountable.

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He also has to be faithful because he's been entrusted with

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certain things to take care of.

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So a steward is simply just a manager.

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In my mind, uh, I think that, faithfulness is the most important thing for a steward

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and stewardship has nothing to do with amount of money or our impressment.

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It's faithfulness that really has the most important aspect.

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I think there's totally misunderstood.

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And I think our church has not done a adequate job of really teaching

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on the subject of stewardship.

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But it's it's simply realizing that we don't have anything.

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We don't even own ourselves.

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The Lord actually owns us.

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And so we are simply to be faithful, obedient to whatever

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he has asked us to do.

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Now, it takes a long time to journey to realize that because

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most of us, it's a journey.

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I say that stewardship is a lifetime journey.

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You don't all of a sudden become a steward.

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It's a process.

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and as you get older and older, it doesn't necessarily become easier

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because you have fears in your life.

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And, you know, well, I have enough to live on.

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If I give away some stuff, do I have enough at the end?

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So it's always a battle.

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It's a journey all your life to be a faithful steward, but the

Speaker: 00:37:51

reward of the faithful steward is more to steward in the future.

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And so that's what I'm looking forward to.

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Yeah, there's definitely scriptures there that the thing you mentioned that we

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haven't done a good job in, in the church.

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my observation is then does that the word is often used in church

Speaker: 00:38:10

as a a form of a giving situation.

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Yeah, yeah,

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is a state of being.

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a, maybe a title.

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I agree with you.

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I use the word just for my sake that a steward is a caretaker and a steward

Speaker: 00:38:27

is someone who takes care of something.

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if you do it well, you give it back in a better condition than when you got it.

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absolutely.

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world system would say that you were the owner, and I might have even said it when

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I introduced you, that you were the owner of an architectural firm that had up to 80

Speaker: 00:38:46

people and you did all these great things.

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But what I heard you say was, truthfully, you were really

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a steward that organization.

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Would that be a correct statement?

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Yes.

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And I would not say that I realized that from day one.

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I realized that as time went on that my employees were only

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lent to me for a period of time.

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I wrote in an essay once that

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Our employees are simply loaned to us for a period of time, and that I needed to

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take really good care of them, knowing that they would probably leave me.

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And, that's painful.

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You don't want any employee to leave you, unless you ask them to leave.

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But if they're good employees, you don't want them to leave, you want them to stay.

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And I realize that they're only loaned to me to take care of them.

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for a period of time And so that helped me understand that from a

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different standpoint, from a financial stewardship, it's a people stewardship.

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And our greatest asset in our firm was the fact that we had great people.

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And we worked together as a team.

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Quite frankly, when I would recruit at the University of Oklahoma and

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in Texas and Texas A& M, all these different schools where I'd go recruit,

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nobody really wanted to come work for us because of the work we did.

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And we'd say, well, we work for the world's largest client,

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which was Walmart at the time.

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And we do all this corporate work around the United States.

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And, they would kind of look at us and go, but what famous

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buildings are you designing?

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I'd say, well, I don't want to work for you.

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I said, but if you could say as an architect that everyone you've

Speaker: 00:40:28

ever met has been in a building you designed, wouldn't you want to do that?

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So we always had trouble, recruiting people because most architects

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wanted to work on famous buildings or being a famous firm, I would always

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say, well, we're, we're not famous.

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We might be infamous, but, We really provide a service that almost everyone

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in the United States will benefit from.

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And that is working for the world's largest client.

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So we became service oriented, not design oriented.

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Consequently, we did not always get, the, the shining students that would

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come out that were the big designers.

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In fact, as a side note, which was really a blessing, which I

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didn't realize till later on.

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But we, we hired an awful lot of international students because they were

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wanting a job and because of maybe a limitation of language or just culture,

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they couldn't always get the big jobs in the big firms and the famous firms.

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And so we picked up a lot of international students.

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In fact, we had 22 nationalities work for us.

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So we were 60 percent minority and 22 nationalities.

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And we were really, a hodgepodge of people, but, it was a, it

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was a really cool place to work.

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So that was my most important stewardship professionally was the

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people that we, that we had worked

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So tell me more about this statement.

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No one is better qualified in God's kingdom to be stewards of

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resources than business people.

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Give me a little bit more on that.

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Well, any business can only survive if they're profitable, meaning that they

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take in more money than they spend.

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And so they understand the value of taking care of resources.

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they know how to be efficient.

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They know how to be effective.

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and, I find that if ministries were run more like businesses, they would

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number one have something to sell that someone would want to buy.

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And therefore people would buy whatever they're selling and they

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would have more money than they spend.

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And so many ministries.

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and not for profits only exists because they get free unaccountable money.

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And so they don't have to work for the money.

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It's given to them and they don't have to account for the money.

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Now, that sounds like, Oh, yes, we do.

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We have a board of directors.

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Yes, I know all that.

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But in reality, real accountability is when you have an ability to be sustainable

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on your own and ministries and not for profits and those types of organizations.

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Cannot, sustain themselves.

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They have to rely on money given to them and the accountability

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really isn't there, even though they say it is, there's, there's not

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accountability like there is in business.

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If you don't make more than you spend, you will not be in business by definition.

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One of the things, Raymond, and this is one of these things that I have

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to be careful because my voice will start, this is something that can make

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my blood boil at times is the mindset you just brought up about ministry.

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I'm going to go ahead and read something again from your book on page 151.

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You say that some ministry leaders appear to have an attitude that says,

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give us the money and we'll do the work.

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Please don't meddle.

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You do your job of giving and we'll do the rest.

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This is not a very effective invitation to partnership.

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and the thing that comes to mind often, because I've been looked at like this

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when I've walked into churches that I've attended is like, you obviously

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have some ability to generate and create some money and some degree of wealth.

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Just write us a check.

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I am not excited about that because truthfully, I can sometimes see under

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the hood or behind the curtain like you.

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I've been on some boards of some smaller ministries and that doesn't excite me.

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cite me as much, and it doesn't seem to excite you.

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is that kind of what you're doing a little bit with your book here?

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Because towards the last third of the book, you spent a lot of

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time addressing that, I think.

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Yeah, I think, it's not a major problem with all ministries.

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It's a problem with some ministries and it can make people, you know,

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they say, Hey, we've got something important we're doing and we don't really

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have time to develop relationships.

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We just need the capital to go do it.

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I've always, said that it's easy to chase donors, but it's hard to mine stewards.

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Stewards are those that will give and really help a ministry.

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they're much like jewels are hard to mine.

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But once you find that jewel, it's very valuable.

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I think so many ministries chase donors.

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They just give us some money.

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Well, we'll go do the work.

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But when you have a steward and a ministry come together, they become number one.

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They become relational.

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But number two, they can become partners.

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And a partner in business doesn't like to be treated like, hey,

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you just go do this and don't.

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You know, we don't want to tell you anything.

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We just need you to go do this, or we just need your money.

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That's not a partnership.

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A partnership shares, um, rewards, and they also, take on liabilities,

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uh, of the other partners.

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And so, what I like to think of, when I work with a ministry or a not for

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profit, I want to be a partner with them.

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But I want to go beyond that.

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I want to feel like I'm really in friendship with them as well.

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Because you don't mess with your friends, you really help them.

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And when you become friends, you co work, you co labor together.

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So many ministries will call you a partner, but you're not a partner.

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You're just a donor.

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They just use that term.

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So you feel good about it and they feel good about it.

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But in reality, a true partnership has a burden of, sharing in the

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joys, and also, feeling like they share in the burdens as well.

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And I personally look for men, that I can enter into what they're doing

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as a partner and as a friend to help them, I don't mind giving them

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as much as they need as resources, because they are truly partners, and

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they're doing something I cannot do.

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I can generate capital, provide a partnership of capital, but they

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can provide the partnership of the actual work and the expertise.

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So I find that, not all ministries are just looking for money saying, go do good

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things that don't take that as everybody.

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But I've been approached by a lot that they don't have time for relationships.

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I just need the money because they have so much to do and

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they usually fail in the end.

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well, and what they really do, I love, the real word partnership, not the word

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as it's used in a lot of these situations.

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I really do love arms, being in covenant, whatever words you want to

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use with organizations, because I've got a couple of skills that might be

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beneficial to them, some faults or opinions, or just if I ask questions,

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I mean, you could tell from this interview, I love asking questions

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that a lot of people may not ask.

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And so I think that's valuable.

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One of the things you go through in the book and.

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As you walk through some examples.

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So in the time we have left, I would love for you to give, because I mean,

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I kind of nudged at a few things that might be perceived as negative, but I

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would love success stories because some people don't understand how this can work.

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They do believe that it's make some money and fund the kingdom

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by writing checks to ministries.

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They don't understand this aspect of, we'll call it partnership

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with stewardship layered in and all that we've talked about here.

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And I know, you've helped with movies like I Can Only Imagine

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and Jesus Revolution and all that.

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And you've done things that I love the stories of the honeys, the

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honey farm and things like that.

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Let's walk through a story or two, a success story, Raymond.

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So people know how this can work.

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So whatever comes to mind, please share.

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one of my favorite stories was, I, well, let me back up and say, I'm not

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smart enough to figure out how to do a strategic plan, how to invest in

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the kingdom, how, where to donate.

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I just, I'm not smart enough to figure that out.

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And I have to rely on the nudging of the Holy Spirit to prompt

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me to do certain things, or I have to rely on the Holy Spirit.

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help me meet someone that would be a good partner.

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I was, in China, in 2011 and I was actually doing a little bit of speaking.

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China was open during that time and I was doing a little bit of speaking to

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business leaders and using biblical principles and how to run a business.

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I had just written a book based on the Proverbs to that effect.

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And even though we were very careful how we shared, we were

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just sharing about the principles.

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And a young lady sat down next to me after I was through talking and

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says, Hey, can I tell you about a business that my co worker has started?

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And I said, Oh boy, I really don't want to talk to anybody,

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but I'm trying to be polite.

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And this lady kind of shared that says, Well, My, co worker started

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a jewelry company, and she said, it's an unusual business model in

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that we use women that come out of the brothels to make the jewelry.

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And I went, oh, that's intriguing.

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Tell me more.

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And so she showed me a brochure, and it was the most fantastic,

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artistic, and being an artist myself, looked at this brochure and

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said, who created this brochure?

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And she says, well, Jenny did.

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I said, now, is Jenny your partner?

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She goes, well, yeah, Jenny's my co worker.

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He says, well, Jenny did.

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So, anyway, I, ended up saying, well, now who's Jenny?

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And she says, well, she's, a lady that came here from America.

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And, the lady that I was actually speaking with was Chinese.

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And she said she just had a passion to help these young ladies that are kind

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of caught in the sexual trafficking.

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So I made an arrangements and two days later, I went over to

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meet with Jenny and her coworker.

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And, we, met in this home and there were women sitting around table making jewelry

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and I said, Oh, this is interesting.

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So yeah, We started this company and These women make this jewelry

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and it's really high quality.

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And I said, yes, it really is in the brochure.

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It's fantastic Jenny now has a company that sells jewelry to some of the

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finest groups Including Macy's and Kohl's and places like that and even

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the Ellen DeGeneres show, which is no longer on TV featured it, and

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they sold 50, 000 units of jewelry.

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so Jenny went into the brothels and brought these women, out and

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asked them if they wanted to leave.

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And to be able to leave, these women have to have employment and housing

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and care, and Jenny provided all that.

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that is one of my favorite, stories.

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My wife, Marydell, and I capitalized Jenny to be able to, grow this

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thing, and then we recapitalized her.

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Again, several other times to allow it to expand, and now we

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have over 200 women that have come out of the brothels as employees.

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Even some of the madams have come out of the brothels to work for Starfish

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Project, which is now, a going concern.

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And it's profitable.

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It's a for profit.

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organization that's administering deeply to the least of these, these

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women that are caught into slavery.

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So that's obviously a big topic.

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A lot of people discuss, the sex trafficking and things like that.

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But I heard you correctly, correct me if I'm wrong on this, what you did was you

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funded a for profit business with capital.

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I'm sure you provided some communication also, you probably

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partnered like we discussed earlier.

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my guess is you also got some return on that investment because it sounds

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like it's a profitable business in multiple ways Would that be correct?

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Well, all the profits turned back into the company to build the company,

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so I do not receive anything back.

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And, when I talked to Jeannie, I said, well, you're, you're, we're

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funding, we're funding you to become a for profit Corporation in

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China, so it's not a hidden thing.

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It's a for profit paying taxes.

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Chinese corporation exporting to America.

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So it's a fully, it's a full thing.

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But, I said, Jenny, I don't feel like I need to have, ownership in, in with the

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stock certificate or thing like that.

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I said.

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How about if we just commit to ourselves that we are business partners, that

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we are actually partners in this business, but we don't have any

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documentation of this because the goal is for me not to get the money back.

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The goal is to have this money churn and become kingdom capital.

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she's done a beautiful job growing the company.

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I met her in 2011.

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And so it's 13 years of churning and an interesting side that I would never have

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been able to orchestrate or even envision is that most of the anti trafficking

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organizations in China have been kicked out because they're Christian oriented.

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Right.

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And since they are a for profit Chinese corporation, they

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continue to work unabated.

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So nobody's messing with them because they're a for profit company.

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So it's a beautiful, a beautiful thing that Jenny has invented.

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it was

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that we talked about earlier, you have to feel very comfortable with the leadership

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of Jenny and then also that relationship.

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To do that, don't want to call it a handshake deal, but it's

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it almost sounds semi handshake.

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The way you talked about it.

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Is that correct?

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a handshake deal.

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I just had to entrust her with the money because I just, I feel like

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that good stewardship is finding other good stewards to entrust to them.

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And so it's a Second Timothy 2.

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2 principle that entrust to faithful men or women who can entrust to others.

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And so it's really the Holy Spirit that has to bring us together.

Speaker: 00:54:30

the Holy Spirit brought us through a meeting and, she was a faithful person and

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I can entrust her with a handshake and not only did she do what she

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said she would do, but she exceeded at what she said she would do, which

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shows to me that it's a good steward because you get more to steward.

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So,

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Raymond, one thing that is intriguing to me.

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I do not know much about how the movie industry works.

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I don't even really go see a lot of them.

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I will admit.

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However, know if I'm sitting there listening and I know that there's

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someone here who's at least had some involvement with movies that are

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a popular in our current culture.

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I think I'd be remiss if I didn't at least ask one question on what can you

Speaker: 00:55:15

tell me about your involvement with, some of the movies, like I Can Only

Speaker: 00:55:20

Imagine, Jesus Revolution with a group, Irwin's, I think were their names that are

Speaker: 00:55:24

obviously red hot in the movie industry.

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Just, you know, a sentence or two or whatever you'd like to share with that.

Speaker: 00:55:29

And I've got one more, one or two more things before we wrap up here.

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well, I met John and Andy Irwin, who are brothers, 13 to 15 years ago.

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And I'm not in the movie business.

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I just invest in two young, talented men that are.

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And so, Mary and I were just the capital to launch them, get them started,

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walk beside them, mentored them and, loved them and so proud of them.

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And God has anointed them and brought us together.

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and um, we were just the, ignition to help them get started and

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they're knocking it out of the park.

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So,

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Yeah, that's such an interesting business, entertainment, and a lot

Speaker: 00:56:12

of people think Christians shouldn't be involved, but yet if we're not

Speaker: 00:56:15

involved, what's going to happen?

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Well, I I gave a little mini TED talk one time about movie investing because they

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thought that, you know, I knew a lot.

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I said, well, first thing is, Investing in a movie is a bad investment,

Speaker: 00:56:30

because it may or may not work.

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But if you invest in young men or women that make the movies,

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then you might have a chance.

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And that's what we did.

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We invested in them, not in what they did.

Speaker: 00:56:41

So, yeah, investing in media, I think, is good, because it's fighting the culture.

Speaker: 00:56:48

Because our culture has gone awry.

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Good media is a fight to give us something to watch.

Speaker: 00:56:56

And, I think it's a wonderful investment if you're investing in

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the bigger picture, not just in one particular movie or project.

Speaker: 00:57:03

Yeah, Raymond, we've just scratched the surface of your book, Enduring

Speaker: 00:57:06

Wealth, Being Rich in This World and the Next, but almost my last question.

Speaker: 00:57:11

Tell me who the book's for.

Speaker: 00:57:13

And maybe go ahead and where they could get it or connect with you or things like

Speaker: 00:57:17

that And then i've got one more question for you before we wrap up here, but we've

Speaker: 00:57:20

been talking about this all along the way go ahead and tell us who it's for

Speaker: 00:57:25

and uh, and and where they can find it and all of those and all those things

Speaker: 00:57:30

Most authors write to a specific audience, and I have basically three

Speaker: 00:57:35

audiences, which is kind of weird.

Speaker: 00:57:37

One is to the wealthy, older person.

Speaker: 00:57:40

That might have accumulated wealth and what I want to do is encourage them to

Speaker: 00:57:43

deploy their wealth into the kingdom as soon as They can while they still have

Speaker: 00:57:47

a chance because not only will they get a blessing But it will have time

Speaker: 00:57:51

to grow at a much higher rate in the kingdom than they would ever in their

Speaker: 00:57:55

own investments with a 10 Secondly, it was written to young men and women

Speaker: 00:58:01

because I want to encourage them to build economic engines So that they

Speaker: 00:58:04

can generate capital and wealth so that they can take care of God's kingdom.

Speaker: 00:58:08

And then the third person is the ministry or the not for profit leader

Speaker: 00:58:12

who can become the partner that can actually deploy that capital Better

Speaker: 00:58:16

than what the individual can on his own.

Speaker: 00:58:18

So the book's available anywhere you buy books, amazon christian book distributors

Speaker: 00:58:24

Barnes and noble hopefully it's in the choice kiosk in the airports and

Speaker: 00:58:30

hopefully, Broad Street, which is a great publisher, has put it in a lot of

Speaker: 00:58:35

private bookstores and that kind of thing.

Speaker: 00:58:37

So

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it's why we

Speaker: 00:58:39

I enjoy it.

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We'll include some links down in the notes raymond.

Speaker: 00:58:42

We are seek go create Those three words.

Speaker: 00:58:46

I'm going to allow you to choose one of those over the other two

Speaker: 00:58:49

that just resonates more with you means more to you currently.

Speaker: 00:58:53

So seek, go or create.

Speaker: 00:58:55

Which one do you choose and why?

Speaker: 00:58:57

Oh absolutely create because as an architect we created a lot

Speaker: 00:59:02

of things and I love creating businesses, to build guys kingdom

Speaker: 00:59:08

So, I highly recommend I've enjoyed this conversation, Raymond.

Speaker: 00:59:11

I knew that we would.

Speaker: 00:59:12

I highly recommend people pick up the book, enduring wealth, being rich in this

Speaker: 00:59:18

world and the next by Raymond find it.

Speaker: 00:59:20

I've enjoyed reading it here over the last few days.

Speaker: 00:59:23

I appreciate Raymond taking the time to talk.

Speaker: 00:59:25

And you know, with this conversation, we could have had it for days, but.

Speaker: 00:59:29

But, go pick up the book and get the rest of the story.

Speaker: 00:59:31

We've got new episodes every Monday.

Speaker: 00:59:34

We're on YouTube.

Speaker: 00:59:35

We're on all the podcast platforms.

Speaker: 00:59:37

Make sure you listen, like, share, comment, all of those things.

Speaker: 00:59:41

It's kind of how people get more of these messages.

Speaker: 00:59:45

until next time.

Speaker: 00:59:46

Continue being all that you were created to be.