We all long to be generous people, and for some of

us, that comes really naturally, really easily. Maybe you have the gift

of generosity and it's easy for you to give away your time or your resources.

For others of us, myself included, and me, that generosity

is much more of a journey. But again, when we think about who we long

to be as people and who we are designed to be in God's image,

we want to be generous us. And so today on the episode,

we want to talk about how can we become the generous people that we long

to be, that we long to be remembered as and known as in

our families and among our friends. I'm Bill Gorman and I serve

as the campus pastor at our Brookside campus. I'm Paul Brandis

and I serve as the campus pastor at our Shawnee Campus. And welcome to the

Form Life podcast, where we are all about helping

you grow in your following of Jesus in all of life.

And I can't think of many other topics than finances

and financial generosity that impact every nook and crannies

of our lives. And so that's why we're engaging this conversation today on the podcast.

We're also plugging in with something that we've been exploring and journeying

along in the Form Life. And so if you go to theform

Life www. Dot theform Life, you're going to find a lot

of resources on that website for this spiritual

discipline, which really is what it is. And so it's fun to

be able to plug in with that ongoing conversation and to help

lead us in our time. Today, we had an awesome guest on the podcast.

Bill, can you tell us a little bit about who that was? Yeah. Our guest,

Paul Forbes, is vice president and national relationship manager for the National

Christian Foundation, based here in the Kansas City area. He partners with givers

and business owners and leaders and their families to explore their calling as

well as to help them create generosity strategies.

We had such a great conversation with him. Yeah, we really did.

We didn't invite him on just because his name is Paul no.

He's an expert. He's worked with the National Christian Foundation for 16

years and then also has experience on local church staff as well

in the marketplace. And so he just brings a wealth of experience over the course

of decades, and that really is evident. The conversation

goes in a lot of different really fun directions, really great frameworks

for financial generosity, as well as practical

next steps. We even get a little bit at the very end. He has some

helpful thoughts on prosperity theology and where that falls short.

And it just was a really awesome conversation. So we're excited

for you to listen or watch, if that's how you're engaging.

And thanks for joining us. We're going to dive right in.

Well, Paul, we're so glad that you are with us. And thanks for taking

the time to have this conversation today. And as we begin our time

together in this conversation I would just love to hear a little bit of

your story. You went to West Point

and you studied engineering. So how did you go from

that work to what you're doing now and even

maybe just how does sort of generosity even play into that

journey? But I just would love to hear that story. Oh sure,

we don't have enough time. Grew up

here in the Kansas City area and through

actually a generous family that just connected me relationship wise.

I had a heart to go to one of the academies

and they just came alongside me and introduced me to a

lot of key people and helped me get there.

Studied engineering, did all that and had

no idea about what I'm doing now, but served as an

army officer, flew attack helicopters for a number of years,

had a great time doing that, but also had my

wife, who was my high school sweetheart, and doing the

Army GI joe life. And it was all in peacetime, but wasn't

what we really envisioned for us as a family. And that

so felt led to get out. Ask God where

he wanted us to go and he actually ended up bringing us

right back here. I worked for Hallmark Cards for a number of years.

Great time, great company at the time,

doing wonderful things and actually was on an

international assignment with them in Mexico and

working down there and also started kind of an English work

down there for all the expats going on and facilitating

mission trips for my home church which happens to be Pleasant Valley up

in Liberty. And through that I call it

my drug problem. God drugged me kicking and screaming

off the corporate ladder. Was having a

great time and still impact on my walk

but became the executive pastor at Pleasant Valley

during that time, stayed engaged and it was there that

I got really introduced to. I'll say more of

it's going to make it sound more formal than it is. But the partners

around just the generosity movement generous giving the

National Christian Foundation and started seeing

some great things happen in our church by

doing that and practicing generosity, and then was

able to join the National Christian Foundation staff about

16 years ago. Wow. Love that story,

Paul. Thank you for sharing and part of

why we invited you to join us here and are

so happy to have you is because we have a similar passion for

God's heart and design in giving and generosity

and we've done a lot of our own work in that led by

Tom, our lead senior pastor. But there's so many awesome people

across the whole globe and across the whole kingdom of

God engaging and leading in such great ways. And so I

love to hear about God's creative way of angling

us toward his callings on our lives, and so grateful

to have you help us as we look at some more specific

questions that we've got for you, kind of with that backdrop of your story.

So the first one of those is sometimes I know Bill and I,

and I'm sure Paul, you as well as a former pastor and

in your current role kind of hear about this tension.

There's lots of good things and even hard things that we

have to spend our money on and it can be really easy to slide into

this mindset of maybe use the phrase waiting to give.

You got to fix the car or obviously the mortgage payment every month or

got this coming up for the kids or saving for school or

whatever it might be. Student loans. Yes, paying for student loans for

school that you already went to. And so it's very easy.

This happens in my own life and family and story is this sense of

wait to give or I have to wait to give. And so wonder if you

could talk us through your viewpoint on that and even just some of the differing

viewpoints that you've heard and engaged over the years on that kind of an

idea. Oh gosh, that's a broad question but glad

to and great to join you all as well. And that is

a tension that we all feel and all deal with and so

much of it has to deal one with who

we are just as fallen beings. But second of

all, in our culture we literally receive,

this is decades old information but at

that time it was like over 5000 Ad impressions

a day telling you you need this, you deserve this,

get a break today. And we're just pounded

with our consumer society which feeds our economy.

So that's not bad. But we just get caught

up in that and you see your friends, your neighbors, your other family doing

it and it's like gosh, I need to have this, I need

to spend that. And it's just so hard

and yet breaking out of that and inviting God

to be a part of your financial life, which actually is

part of your overall life and letting

Him, inviting him into your finances.

He is the greatest economic engine out there and

does things that don't make sense from

an accounting standpoint. My wife is an accountant but

doing the giving, doing the tithing and then we probably

all have stories of just that check showing up out

of the blue or money showing up just because

you're being faithful back to God and he does make

things happen if you include him in that. Yeah,

I love that phrase, god is the greatest economic engine

there is. You use just a phrase

there and I loved it. You said inviting God into your finances

and I'm just curious for you

and your wife and even as you've worked with other people, what does

that practically look like to say, okay, I like that idea of inviting

God into my finances. But when you're sitting down and paying the bills

or you're making your budget, what does that actually look like to invite

God into that space? It's scary

actually. I grew up in a Christian home,

great parents going to church and so

was, I'll say used to tithing. But that

was just kind of an expectation that you do in

that but newlyweds and

low army income and that sort of thing.

And again, it's just so easy to bite off more

than you can chew to end up spending more than you make.

And so that just important

discipline in life and for your anxiety to

get in the practice of spending less than you make,

starting to save, but also starting to give.

To do that and gosh, I don't know how many times early on

in our marriage it's like we were committed to give and

did that but it was like gosh, there's not enough money here,

how do we do this? Yes,

I'm going to trust him. I'm going to give and

then again a check would show up or the

car that was about to break down didn't tires

went farther. And we see that in scripture when

the Israelites are out in the desert, it's like their shoes didn't wear

out, their clothes were fine. He obviously provided food for them.

And so very biblical that it happens. And again,

we don't tend to trust that in our society today.

But from those training wheels

of baby steps early on of trusting him

and then growing in our giving and glad to talk about that over

time, he has just been faithful over and

over and over again. And that's not prosperity theology,

that's just him being our God.

Yeah. Paul, you mentioned the

goodness around saving, which we 100%

affirm Christ community that there is a need

for wise saving. But we also know that it can happen

where wise saving, if we're not careful,

tips into fearful hoarding,

which I don't think is something that is in God's design forgiving

and generosity. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about

that and maybe what are some practical ways to

determine if we're crossing over that line.

Great question, Paul. And the interesting thing is it's

like oh hoarding so much. It's like that's got to be

tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions. It's like,

no, we can hoard with our twenty s and our hundreds.

Yes, that's true. Yeah. And it's more of a

heart condition than anything. Wow,

God checks our heart. Tim Keller at

a redeemer in New York has

a great talk. It's out there on YouTube or on generous

giving with that. But he talks

about how looking at what it is

that you can effortlessly spend money on and

money itself is not an idol, the love of money is.

But he said, says it so well. He's like what

you can effortlessly spend money on probably reveals

what could be an idol. And it's

not that anything in itself is specifically bad.

Obviously there are some bad things, but it's like if you're spending money on

clothes and your looks, the question is why

do you enjoy that? Or are you trying to portray a certain

image if you like to buy stuff or you always like

to pick up the check, which I used to have a tendency

to do, I probably still do. Am I trying to make myself

look more important than I really am in that regard?

For people that are trying to save,

it's like, why are you doing that? Why is

saving so important to you? Is that because it's

a security element and you're questioning

whether God is going to show up? Again,

there's prudent savings. I'm not saying that. But is it also

a control element that it's like, if I have money,

I can control my situation? And so

just being careful of what that heart motivation

is about money tells

a lot about the journey that you're on individually. Yeah,

I appreciate, again that phrase from Keller effortlessly,

because that's not within me related

to saving, just to be transparent.

But I know of people, I would

describe it that way, it's effortless for them to

save, which is not in and of itself, as you've already said, a bad thing.

We want to be wise in our saving, but to ask that deeper,

heart motivation question, yeah, that's really helpful. And just

aside, if you want to take us out to a nice lunch,

we would not that'd be fine. You could go ahead and do that sometime.

Paul so we'll let you pick up the tab with us. I was going

to say there's a barbecue joint near you. That's right.

We'll meet up sometime. It'll be great. We'll do it.

And this is always a hard one, too, because each

person's story and moment is different. But I do

wonder, as we're talking about giving and saving

with this as well, do you have any rules of thumb?

There's the Dave Ramsay, and you got to have your three to six month emergency

fund out there. And Dave Ramsay also is big on generosity,

too, which I love about his teaching, is kind of puts that as the

first line in your budget. But as you've helped people walk through

that journey and you're helping them maybe think through their finances, do you have a

rule of thumb of what should that cushion, that minimal

cushion of savings be? Or I'm just I'm curious. Or and

you might say that's that's too narrow of a question, but yeah.

How have you helped people think through that? That's too narrow of

a question. Okay, yeah, totally joking.

I think first and foremost comes to the fundamental

hard issue, again, is like, whose money is

it?

And that's something that each person's got to wrestle with.

I was brought up again, Kansas City stock,

great moral family, you work hard, you earn

it again, faith, family,

but it's like, this is yours. And so when got caught in the

whole tithing thing, it's like, oh, 10% is God's,

90% is mine. And as

I've grown and it's like, none of it

is mine, 100% belongs.

To God, 0% is ours. Yeah,

I'm in the negative category. Exactly. We are indebted

to him. That's right. But God is so good that

he provides and he provided an amazing education

for me, thanks to all the taxpayers and

everything, but no student debt on that

completely free. The ability to learn, the ability

to work, everything we have comes from God.

Everything is his. And so just recognizing

that and ultimately coming to a point asking

the owner, what is it you want me to do? Come on.

And again, that's a question. And just wrestling,

is it mine or is it his? And I'll

give an analogy of that in

just a moment. But with that,

the second key thing is then what I already said is

you've got to spend less than you make, because when you're

upside down and trying to get

rid of the debt snowball and I think Ramsay does a great job on

that. Just the anxiety,

the stress,

you don't want to do the bills, it causes problems with all your

relationships. It's just not a happy place to be.

So it's like you've got to get to the point where you're spending less than

you make and starting to save and part of that savings,

part of that's getting rid of the debt and that sort of thing.

But again, in my experience,

and I've seen this bore out time and time and time again,

that first check you need to write needs to be to God to

do it and then build up your savings. And just

like, oh, we've got great Christian financial professionals out

there. We've got a number of them in the Kansas City area

that can help with that. But, yeah, getting to the point,

a one month emergency fund first straight out of

Ramsay, then get to three, get to six, get to a year, get some

cushion in that. But at the end of the day, make sure

you're asking the owner how much he wants you to have.

So good. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, in a similar vein,

too, because this, I think, comes in to the conversation

God has, because you're talking about how he hasn't just given us

dollars, money, finances, but he's given us everything.

And so all of the good bits of God's creation are

for his children to enjoy. And enjoying them

is not bad. But we would also

want to keep an eye on when our consumption could

cross over into kind of too much

or we're being driven by our heavily

weighted consumer society. You mentioned that earlier. So how about that line?

The balance between receiving and enjoying the good gifts of God's

creation but then maybe stumbling when we could stumble into

consumerism. I wonder if you could speak to that a little bit. Sure thing.

Glad to. And a little bit of context too.

It's interesting in our context

it's like we're always looking and

seeing there's somebody else ahead of me that has more, that has

more, that has more. Ship Ingram, I believe,

says it this way. It's like when we look at finances we always look ahead

and then if we look at morals, it's like we look down. I'm not as

bad as so and yet there's always somebody

worse or somebody better. But the fact is,

in different contexts, I've lived in developing

countries so I've seen it firsthand. But when

you look at who we are in the United States,

we are up in the upper echelon, we are in that

top 10%, we are in that top 1% in

the world. If you have a car, one car,

that places you in about the top 6% of wealthy

in the world. If you've got two,

you're in the 1% or less. And so just recognizing

the fact that we have been given much in this

country and that is such a distraction

because when you don't have as much and you're thankful

for what you've been given in a shorter realm,

it just has a whole different paradigm that way.

But first, Timothy Six says, command those

who are rich. That's all of us.

Not to be arrogant I'm reading, sorry. Or put your hope

in wealth, which is so uncertain, it's like anybody been through the recession

or the stock market lately. But to put

their hope in God who richly provides us

with everything for our enjoyment.

So good. And so again, the Heavenly

Father is giving us stuff to enjoy

and to have. But the question is, how much

do we enjoy it? Which is the crux of it.

Now, Joe is going to share. Just think about your hands

and Bill Paul, if you were to

hand me something, or if I were to hand you something, what do we normally

do with that? Yeah, we grab

onto it and God's given us

so much, but we tend to grab and ultimately what

we need to do is just hold it open again,

enjoy what he places in there, but ask the

owner what he wants us to do and

that's going on. Command them to do good, to be rich in

good deeds and to be generous and willing to

share. And doesn't mean that he's always

going to have you share, but at least be willing to

share again. It's that heartbeat.

I get to work with some amazing families and two

key guidelines in their realm is,

one, a finish line, it's like how much is enough?

And establish like I am comfortable god's calling me

to this level of lifestyle and that's all I need.

And so anything I get above that is

all being available to deploy to his.

Everything I'm keeping is still deployable for him. But just having

that finish line in mind, to the extent

I know in a lot of families, it's like not how much do

I keep, but how much can I give? Wow.

And they try to just stretch themselves that

way and some even to the point where they're reverse tithers,

they live off a ten and they're given nine. I've heard of that,

yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's incredible.

What's interesting to me about someone like that though, and I think

maybe the situation that I see in my

own life or in lives of people I pastor is it's always easy to think

when it's kind of way going back to the question we started with. But it's

sort of like, I'll be generous like that when I get

to a certain once I've finally gotten to this

level of income or once I've gotten to this level of promotion,

or once I've paid off this bill. But what I suspect, and I'm curious

for you to speak into this, Paul, is that that's

been a posture of heart and life that's been cultivated because

I see the dynamic in my own life is it so easy just to spend

up to or bring my lifestyle up to whatever the

next raise or whatever it is. It's like,

well, we got that cost of living increase and everything

just rises to that level. And so what felt like enough

last year or five years ago now

doesn't feel like enough anymore. And so I wonder, for those families that you've talked

about who are able to kind of establish that finish line,

how did they cultivate a posture?

There's always someone who's willing to take your money to buy you some extravagant thing

at any income level. So what does that posture cultivation

look like? Well, yeah, I wonder another

word to add to that posture. But I'm wondering if there were practices

that these families also put into play that shaped

the posture and allowed them to grow in those ways too.

Great question. And I'll tee it up this way. So it's

like once you get out on your own, most people

probably ended up in an apartment and it was small and it's like,

if I just get that first starter home, I'm going to

have so much room and that and closet space and everything.

And to your point, bill, and you fill it up and

then it's like, oh gosh, we need another one. And house

I was able to build it's like I built closets. It's like

there's never any way to fill up all this closet.

Guess what? They're full.

You fill that up, that posture, that mentality,

is like, how much is enough?

And that can be an ultimate finish line on lifestyle

for me. How many iced lattes do I need a week.

It's like do I really need that? No. And just

starting to restrain yourself. And for

those of you who are parents out there,

we'd never say yes to everything that our kids

want. It wouldn't be in their best interest. And it's

kind of that same thing. It's not in our best interest to

always get everything we want. And so God's watching

that. But it's like the more that we can, I'll say

self regulate again asking the owner where

do you want me to be? And what does that look like? And building

in that margin financially. So say

it an uptieth time here, spending less than you

make so you then have margin to go have impact

on others to do that. So the cost of living is a

great example, a very practical

way to do that. Say you get a 3%

raise. It's like you

can increase your living by 1%, pay off debt

or do savings with 1%, increase your giving by

1%. And as you keep doing that,

if a bonus happens to come in or a commission check or whatever it is

you're active on ebay or whatever, it's like

think about starting to use that money to

build margin not only in your financial life, but also

in your charitable your giving life.

And one other practical example,

got it from Andy Stanley. It's like there are

always needs around us. And when

I was trying to do that just off my checking account,

I wasn't very good at doing that. He's like

have a systematic way to build resource

for spontaneous giving. And so my wife and

I have started did this a number of years ago as we learned that

as we just start increasing our giving so that we

have money available for those needs that come

up that we weren't good at budgeting for. But it's like,

hey, there's a tornado next door or single

mom in the congregation needs help buying tires or

whatever it is that you've got the

money there to be able to respond to it. And that is some

of the most fun giving you can do, I can tell you. Yeah, so what

I'm hearing in that you're tithing to your church

or you're doing and giving to organizations, but it's almost like you have your own

little generosity line item in your budget that you're

putting money there, that it's just sitting there in your bank account

ready to be deployed when there's this moment. Am I understanding that

right? Yeah, absolutely.

I've known it as far as people actually opening up a second checking

account or savings account for that at the National

Christian Foundation shameless plug. But we do donor advised funds

which help our giving accounts to help people do that.

And again, not plugging that, but just another vehicle

that a lot of people use to do that sort of thing.

No, I actually don't mind you mentioning the National Christian Foundation at

all. Because one of the questions that's occurred to me is resources

that we can point people towards. And you've mentioned several already,

and we will absolutely make sure to link those in the show notes. But I

just want to ask that question more directly to say what

resources, organizations, thinkers, authors,

podcasts, whatever might you offer to our listeners

that they could go explore more? Oh, sure thing.

I mentioned it already. Generousgiving.org,

great organization that just helps encourage

and inspire generosity. No solicitation.

You can't even give them money. But they've got some great videos and

stories, some resources out there.

They also do events. In fact, I just facilitated one

last week called A Journey of Generosity. A jog,

no running required, so it works, but a

24 hours experience just to start unpacking generosity

that way. One quick note and then I'll get back

to your question too. It's like and so appreciate

you guys bringing up this topic because still

in our society, when everything is out open,

can find it on the web, out of the closet,

whatever, the last remaining taboo is

money. And it's not something that we typically talk

about, even in church,

in small groups, community groups, that sort of thing.

When was the last time you asked somebody, hey, how's your giving going?

Or hey, how do you do this? We don't.

And yet it's such an integral part of our Christian

life that we should. So generous. Giving is great.

National Christianfoundation Ncfgiving.com

we have a resource library with a myriad of just

great books and videos compiled

from a lot of different places. Not our internal

things. Compass Studies, another great

one if you are upside down financially. Dave Ramsay,

FPU another good one. So those are just some great starters.

That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Just as we kind

of begin to wrap up, is there anything else that we haven't talked

about yet that you're like? Before we wrap up a conversation

on generosity, we just have to have this question or

talked about this. Is there anything we haven't covered yet that you think it would

be vital for us to add here?

I would just invite you on the journey.

You heard from my wife and I starting early on and

that and we still make mistakes and don't do it

right. But we're getting better again about asking God

about it. But when

you take this journey and start trying

to intentionally be generous, the joy

that comes with it, the fun that comes with it, is just

amazing. And one good friend of

mine has shared, he's like you've talked about a runner's

high. You've heard of that?

There's also a giving high. When you get

to speak into people's lives and just do that and then see God's

blessing.

Two corinthians nine. I believe it is God talks

about God is able to provide

for you every situation, every need,

so that you can be generous in every occasion and.

Just key call out disclaimer. That is

not prosperity theology. Prosperity Theology

is that you give to get, and God's

not in that. No, but if you give to give

and to follow Him second Corinthians

Nine is a promise you will it may not always be financially,

but again, the tires won't wear out, the refrigerator

will keep working. People will show up with food.

It's just an incredible ride. I encourage you

all to jump on it. It's fun. That's wonderful.

We always ask our guests one kind of final bonus question,

and always the same. We love to close with this. And it's

this if you could do something else for work besides

the amazing work that you're already doing,

what might that be? So, for example, I love getting to serve as

a pastor, but my answer to this question is that I would design escape

rooms. So I don't know if you've ever done one of those, but I love

them. And yeah, that would be my kind of alternate career

path if I could choose it or something in sports as well.

But yeah, for you. What about that question? If you could do something else

besides the amazing work you do, what would you choose? That was

a great question, a tough question, because I just literally get

to do this all day long and help people do it.

It's like I get paid for this. So incredible.

I do miss flying my helicopters, and I

flew attack helicopters and I'd blow stuff up. So I do miss that

just for fun. That's awesome.

Wonderful. That's amazing. Well, Paul, thank you

again so much for the generosity that you've shown us with your time and

your wisdom. Again, as we've mentioned, all the resources

that we've named here will be in the show notes, and you can find those

there. And we're again here at theform Life podcast,

all about helping us follow Jesus in all of life. And our finances

are such a big part of that and an index of our

relationship with Jesus in so many ways. So thanks for helping us in this,

Paul. We're really grateful that you took the time. Thanks for letting me be a

part of it. Enjoy. Thank you. Thanks.

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