How do we think about our money and resources as Christian disciples? Yoel Frank has written a book to help us practically think through what it means to be a disciple with money.
1. Live Simply
2. Give Habitually
3. Spend Missionally
4. Invest Impactfully
5. Steward Wisely
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TRANSCRIPT:
Scott:
Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network. I am Scott Sanders. Welcome to the one Thing a podcast is going to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry. Every week. The one things brought to you by Reach Australia. We’d love to see thousands of healthy, evangelistic and multiplying churches. Now we’ve been reflecting on money, generosity and support rising in the Christian community.
And today in the studio we have the Yoel Frank. He’s going to probably help me pronounce his name better. Yoel. Frank Now Yoel Frank is a former accountant turned entrepreneur and Christian content writer. He hails from Western Australia and he’s sold side hustle as an overseas mission worker, local church leader and amateur offroad adventure event. That is a long list of things.
And as an aspiring barefoot disciple himself, you’re hell gets a kick out of helping others find the same narrow path. Welcome.
Yoel
G’day, Scott. Thanks for having me.
Scott
I would’ve been expecting you to speak in sort of Yiddish or some sort of Hebrew. What an.
Yoel
What an introduction. I’m not sure I can live up to that.
Scott
But you have clicked on another episode of The One Thing How Barefoot is the Barefoot Disciple.
Now, for those of you Yoel has written a book, The Barefoot Disciple. It’s a book about helping Christians think about money. Why did you write this book?
Yoel
Yeah, well, Scott, we all have money, personalities, good or bad, whatever they are. Some of us are spenders, savers, impulse spenders, lots of different. We all have different investing personalities. But I think the important question for us as Christians is what is the money personality of a disciple, of a follower of Jesus? And that is really the reason why I’ve tried to put into, I guess, some simple actionable steps how somebody, a modern Aussie, could do that.
Scott
For sure as well. And so in terms in terms of thinking about your experience of not only the church you grow up, but just generally as you as you visit churches, as you talk about your book, how well do you think churches do sort of talk about money?
Yoel
Yeah, I think lots of churches do a great job of explaining the theology of money to their people, and that’s, I think, really well taught the concepts of stewardship that we see from the scriptures. But where I see this sort of a gaping hole is what do you actually do with that in practice when you go out to the supermarket or when you make a decision about what car you buy?
When you look at what kind of investments, what super do you go into? How do you practically work that out? As well as giving churches talk a lot about giving typically, but what are the types of giving that are good for somebody who’s just getting started? And yeah, so so yeah, great, great that we have awesome theology of money being taught in churches and I’m trying to, I guess, help church leaders and people in congregations with the practical outworking of that.
Scott
So so what I’m hearing you say is we’re helpful on the on the theology. All money is God’s. He’s the one who gives us the wealth. Yeah. We’re not great on it. On actually applying that truth and and actually helping people make, you know, real concrete decisions as well. What is it that stops church leaders from, you know, talking, talking about it, you know, say should you buy a Lexus or should you buy a second and Toyota Camry type thing? Should you go on an overseas holiday? Yeah. Should you just head down to the Margaret River? Yeah. You know, should you invest in a in a rental property. Yeah. Negative. Negatively geared.
Yoel
Yeah. Well, I, I guess one of the reasons why I’m interested in this topic is that I find that often people’s decisions flow more out of their habits with money or their whatever their money personality would be than what they would say they necessarily believe. And so, yeah, I guess most church pastors haven’t necessarily done a deep dive into how, you know, they’re not financial planners, they’re not necessarily personal finance people.
A lot of pastors and ministers have a background where, you know, for a certain extent maybe that the housing paid for them. So they’re sort of less focused on some of those decisions and maybe other people in their congregation. So, yeah, it’s just trying to equip them to. Yeah. And then people to be able to have meaningful conversations about.
Scott
Well, let’s put let’s put you need five habits in your ten steps. So I talk especially sort of the five habits. Yeah.
Yoel
I guess talking in that book before getting into the habits, we’ve got to sort of understand the landscape of where we are and and we’re pretty deep. I argue in, in a consumer culture, an example that I did at St James Croydon on Sunday night in a little workshop is I said, I just want everybody to get out your phones and go to Compassion dot com.
And then I want you to select a child who’s been waiting to be sponsored and it has been on their website. It has a little red dot on the top right about how many days they’ve been waiting. I said, Can you take a screenshot of that? And I said, I’m not going to ask you to do anything. And so the public asked listeners, I’m not going to ask you to do anything but I said, How long do you think it would be before you would be led to sponsor that child? How long could you hold out looking at that child as your mobile phone background? You know, would it be minutes, hours, days, how long it would be? And nobody said long within a week. And I sort of use that example to say that’s, you know, that’s with that. That’s just because that need has been made visible to us.
But we’ve got that same effect. Marketing is advertising through us, through our devices and a lot of other ways through our culture in ways that are invisible but invisible ways for more hours a day than we look at our mobile phone background and just just the power of that. So before I sort of get into that, I want to, I guess, sympathize with one Aussies out there.
It’s actually not easy. I say it’s harder. Jesus said, you know, it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Well, I reckon that was 2000 years ago.
Scott
It’s even harder. Yeah. The needle smaller in the camels. Big.
Yoel
Exactly. So that’s sort of before I get into the steps. But it’s just assuming that basically our main identity that our culture gives us is that of a consumer.
Scott
And, and we’re given that value, you know like we’re an economic. Yeah. You know GDP producer Yeah.
Yoel
Homo economicus the economic person that’s primary purpose in life is to consume as much as they can. And a lot of there’s a lot of, you know, policy is that are built around that a lot of businesses that are built around that. So the first step is to go just to recognize that that’s, you know, the primary identity that we’ve been given.
But we might want to push back on that as disciples and go from that to be a minimalist. So a minimalist is somebody who tries to live lot with their possessions. And this stuff. Jesus said life is not in the abundance of possessions. It’s trying to sort of embrace that ethos, but with a lot of practical steps. But once you become a minimalist, you realize that it’s not yet really a disciple.
You’re just spending less, hopefully. And incidentally, sort of most personal finance books will tell you to, you know, straight back.
Scott
Don’t buy the coffee. Yeah. By the home brand goods.
Yoel
That’s it.
Scott
Don’t go on holiday.
Yoel
Yeah. So sort of it’s just a stripped back so that to change your habits a bit and then.
Scott
By you’ve you’ve devalued for a living simply yes Yeah. Living minimally you know a kind of road tested with my team earlier today just to say well what does minimal look like for you. Yeah. You know, it’s very different for someone down here. Yeah. Than it is down here in terms of what a minimal Yeah.
Yoel
Looks like. I guess I encourage because of we obviously live in different parts of the world, we have different cost structures. But to set an objective benchmark to try and shoot for. Yep, I think is really helpful. But sort of going from minimalist, I guess the unique thing in some ways about the disciple is they’re, they’re a giver.
And I argue for not just a given, not a spontaneous once off, they’re an intentional habitual giver. So going from minimalist, habitual givers is sort of.
Scott
So lives simply give habitually.
Yoel
Correct and the third one is spend missionary.
Scott
Okay, what do you mean by that?
Yoel
Yeah. So most people spend most of the money that they earn in their lifetime. So spending missionary is thinking about who you’re spending with primarily. And do you want to support the people that you’re spending with? So sort of talk about if you imagine if you, you know, at the bottom of, you know, your street, there’s a coffee shop in that coffee, owns a Christian business owner, and they’re doing mission through their business as well.
Yoel
They’re shooting their wealth and how they interact with their staff, their supplies. If you can direct money to that organization, they then shoot that into, you know, how they use it. And you can create a multiplier effect when you spend missionary. But it is not just with Christian businesses, but it could be with your with your local spending, local or just a number of other ways as well.
Scott
So thinking about how how your money can have a multiplier effect, but also think about the way the question of.
Yoel
Yeah.
Scott
Spending as well. Yeah?
Yoel
Part of that is even talk about changing the way you gift so just trying to not further consumer culture when we give gifts to people to think about things like I gift I like compassion I act gifts of compassion tears useful gift catalog those things practical gifts wash somebody’s car, give them tech support, do something that doesn’t bind to this consumer culture. I give says lots of lot of little happening. Yeah. Okay.
Scott
Fourth habit investing impactfully.
Yoel
I mean, it sort of came from part of my personal journey that I ran a startup, raised capital, talked to a bunch of Christians about potentially investing and found that most of them saw only two variables when it comes to investing, risk and reward and sort of investment was just about how do you get the most reward for let’s do that?
Any business school or economics student can tell you that that impact investing is introducing. And that’s sort of just a purely secular way of looking at investing. I think a lot of Christians only have a secular lens when they come to investing, but it doesn’t have to be like that impact is that other tangible things that that the organization for which you’re investing with what they are going to go and do with that. Now there may be a spiritual upside or positive social upside.
Now the last one Steward wisely.
Yoel
Yeah. So that’s taking some of those principles, principles and sort of extending them. So to talk about even with stripping back initially on spending, but then sort of pivoting to missional spending similar with giving, starting with just just start giving as a habit, don’t worry too much about refining it, about optimizing it. But that last step is thinking about optimizing some of those previous steps.
Really, and also give some sort of detailed discussion for churches talking about, you know, being capital light or capital heavy church leaders. And so that’s a bit more bit of a narrower audience. But I go into that in stewarding wisely.
Scott
You talk about having a spiritual accountant. Yes. Now, that sounds a little bit self-serving. You know, you’re an accountant. You boil it down to the boys. But but in some ways, you know, money is one of those areas. We don’t want to we don’t like to talk about. Yeah. You know, when we need to talk us through the spiritual accounting.
Yoel
Yeah, I guess the heart is deceitful and, you know, accountability generally leads to better outcomes. And so, yeah, for me, you know, I have a relationship with my cousin and it goes both ways where I’ll use his example, where he’ll call me or say, Hey, cars are thinking about getting this new sick phone. And I say, Oh yeah, great.
Scott
Or what bout getting refurbished one.
Yoel
Something like that? But sometimes it’s one of the other principles is love your neighbor as yourself practically with money. So. So sometimes maybe you might have a splurge on yourself, but how you making sure you also, you know, splurge on your spiritual family. Yeah. At the same time.
Scott
Having that accountability. But again, money is one of those areas that we don’t talk about. I mean, in our marriages, the health of our marriages, our you know, the things that are looking at things are sort of pouring into. Yeah, you, ourselves, we yeah, we, we need to have that sort of level of openness. So in some ways you’re saying you’re saying find someone who can keep you accountable.
Yoel
You’re also measuring it. So I think what we find is what we don’t measure. We often drift on and we don’t focus on or we don’t pay attention to. So, you know, having a spiritual account in is sort of a why, it’s not just that, but it’s just measuring your money, which, you know in a in a new way. Yeah. Which can really put it make it a focus what you really want to put your money into.
Scott
Okay so I’ve got three quick rapidfire questions and then I’ve got one question for mine that I’ll ask you about. So so in all these five habits, ten steps, where do people start?
Yoel
Start, start by finding a friend or messaging a friend who you think might be interested in changing their money habits as well and listen to the audiobook together or read the book together or do it with people at your church. Yeah, just start getting into getting into the content and question.
Scott
I reckon a lot of people think is how have you actually lived out these principles?
Yoel
Yeah, most of these, a lot of these come from what I was doing and not too I don’t want to hold myself out as the gold standard. There are a lot of people that live way simpler than me. A lot of people give more habitually or more generously than me, but these are pretty much all of them are things that I do, and all of them are things that I aspire to.
So I live by these principles. For example, the love yourself is your neighbor rule. I do these things when I splurge on myself. I do those. I change the way you gift every person in my organization at Christmas time will be getting a a useful gift card as well as and will gift match 100% of of the gifts that we give out. So yeah.
Scott
You do as you say.
Yoel
Yeah, I aspire to.
Scott
I aspire to do as you say. Yeah sure.
Yoel
Yeah absolutely.
Scott
Yeah. So what’s the one thing you want us to know about being a barefoot disciple?
Yoel
That your money habits will drive your behavior with money more than your theology can.
Scott
Be habitual..
Yoel
Habitual if you can habitually change your interactions with money, it kind of goes into autopilot. Sometimes. And hopefully you can find the narrow path that leads to life. Yeah, with your finances and thread that offers the needle.
Scott
Well, you know. Hell yeah. All Yokel, yokel. It’s been good having you. Thanks for writing this resource. Yeah. Praying that it’ll be used by many people to think thoughtfully and biblically about their giving and a useful discussion. This out of here for your home group.
Yoel
Thanks so much for having me.
Scott
Well, the the book, the audiobook and a bunch of tools are all available at the Barefoot or at Barefoot Disciple dot com Barefoot disciple dot com. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that. Now, if you’ve got a topic that you’d like us to cover, please email us at resources@ Reach Australia.com.au resources@ Reach Australia.com.au.
Scott
We love getting questions we love getting topics we want to hear from you so sharing your questions and will aim to to find some people to speak on it. I’m Scott Sanders chat soon.
