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5 Reasons You Need A Christian Financial Advisor
Learn why you need a Christian financial advisor vs a financial advisor that happens to be a Christian.
Bob and Shawn present just 5 of the reasons that it is so important to work with a Christian financial advisor. A Christian financial advisor differs from a financial advisor that just happens to be a Christian. They may sound the same, but they indeed are not.
A Christian financial advisory firm believes in Biblically responsible investing and looking at investing in companies that make a world a better place. These morals and ways of investing are integrated throughout the company and how they operate.
A financial advisor that happens to be Christian may not be implementing these biblical guidelines into the way they invest. As a person, they are Christian, but how the company operates may not be. So, listen in as we complete our 3 part series on, “Why You Need…”
HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode
Christian Financial Advisors
Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
Shawn Peters
Kingdom Advisors
Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[INTRODUCTION]
Welcome to “Christian Financial Perspectives”, where you’re invited to gain insight, wisdom and knowledge about how Christians integrate their faith, life and finances with a Biblical Worldview. Here’s your host Christian Investment Advisor, Financial Planner, and Coach, Bob Barber.
[EPISODE]
Shawn:
Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. Whether you are watching us or listening, we’re really glad you virtually stopped by. And today, we’re gonna be continuing in our final of a three part series we’ve been doing for needing financial advice.
Bob:
I need financial advice, I tell you. And I think everybody does. And Shawn, I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and it never ceases to amaze me things that I learn every day.
Shawn:
You’re still learning stuff after 30 years?
Bob:
Yes, here I am 60. And I’ve been doing this for all these years. So I tell you, the last two episodes were great. If you haven’t had a chance, please go back and listen to them. I’ll tell you the first couple ones that we covered, and then we’ll tell you what we’re gonna cover today. So in part one, we covered five reasons you need a financial planner. We went a lot into detail about that. And then part two, we covered five reasons you need an investment advisor. Now a financial planner and an investment advisor should go together.
Shawn:
Right. They can be two separate or they could be the same.
Bob:
They could. Yeah. Because you could have an investment advisor that doesn’t do financial planning. And then today we’re going to cover the five reasons you need a Christian financial advisor, especially if you’re a believer and you love the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. We feel that you need a Christian advisor. So we’re gonna cover those five reasons why.
Shawn:
I agree. So Bob, what is reason number one that you need a Christian financial advisor.
Bob:
Well, I believe the first reason, Shawn, that you need a Christian financial advisor is because if you are gonna call yourself a Christian financial advisor, you better be focused and believe in biblically responsible investing. And we’ve had a lot of programs about biblically responsible investing. Another thing that is called nowadays is faith based investing or it can be called values based investing. They all point back to the same thing, but because our industry is so focused and kind of circles around your investment portfolio, I think a Christian financial advisor should focus on biblically responsible investing. Now, if you’ve not heard of that, what do I mean by that? Well, we believe that a Christian should never knowingly invest in companies that are violating biblical principles. This doesn’t mean that the company happens to be a Christian company, because there’s a lot of them on Wall Street that are not. But if the companies are involved in agendas that violate biblical principles, we think you should steer clear of them. And we think you should look for companies that have good biblical principles, like companies that care about their families, their employees and their families like that, they approve family values.
Shawn:
So I guess we kind of break it down into like what you were saying, Christians should not knowingly own companies that violate biblical guidelines And that key there is the ownership. So we basically have two different types of screening sides. There’s kind of a positive and there’s a negative type of a screen. I’m gonna quickly go over some things on the positive side and Bob, maybe you can address some of the negative ones. So you’re looking for biblically responsible companies. Again, they’re not necessarily Christian, but the positive side is that they have pro family values. They treat their employees well with fair pay, good health insurance, retirement plan, time off for family. They provide a safe working environment for their employees, not just minimum requirements from OSHA, you know? They have good employee training programs. They’re compassionate towards their employee’s needs. I mean, you might have a policy, but it’s like, how do people get treated?
Bob:
it’s just not all about the profit.
Shawn:
Exactly. And then the last one is cares about the environment, God’s creation.
Bob:
That’s exactly right.
Shawn:
And that’s not a worship of nature. I always like to clarify with people that. That is because God created and owns everything. When we take care of the environment or animals, things like that. It’s not because we think it’s somehow more valuable than human life. It’s because we’re doing that as an act of worship. We’re taking care of something that belongs to God as a way to honor him.
Bob:
I saw a bumper sticker one time that said, if you love the Creator, take care of the creation.
Shawn:
I love that. That’s a succinct way to say that.
Bob:
And the companies we try to avoid are companies that support destructive behaviors and lifestyles. And I don’t think I need to go too deep into that. Cause I think people understand that today I will say we’re referring to the LGBTQIA+.
Shawn:
Whatever letters they have now.
Bob:
They keep adding more letters to it. But many companies support those lifestyles. So we steer clear of that and we believe that as a Christian financial advisor, we should not be investing God’s money in those companies. If the company makes money on gambling, tobacco, alcohol, pornography, or abortion, like pharmaceutical companies could be getting fetal tissue research and using that. We do not wanna invest in those kind of companies. Or if they support organizations like Planned Parenthood that take away human lives in their most vulnerable state or even the liberal causes. One of the episodes we have coming up is I’m gonna be talking about voting right, but investing left. So, that’s gonna be a good one.
Shawn:
So Bob, what is reason number two that you need a Christian financial advisor?
Bob:
Because a Christian financial advisor, if you believe in the Bible and you believe in biblical values, a Christian financial advisor is gonna use biblical guidelines for finance and planning?
Shawn:
So using the Bible actually in how you’re doing the advice planning?
Bob:
Yes. That’s correct.
Shawn:
That’s a concept, right?
Bob:
And many scholars believe that Jesus, he spoke more on stewardship than he did on heaven and hell combined. You’ll get different scholars saying different amounts, but they’ll all agree that there’s at least 1500 scriptures on stewardship.
Shawn:
Which is not on directly money, but it does include…
Bob:
How we handle it.
Shawn:
How you handle it. I think of it as how you handle the resources that have been entrusted to you. Might be money. It might be talent. Might be your time you have on this earth and that’s something we need to be accountable for.
Bob:
So we believe that the Bible teaches that God is the owner and we get this from Psalms 24:1 and it says that, “The earth is the Lords and everything in it.” So God is the owner and we’re managers, not owners.
Shawn:
That next one is debt presumes upon an unknown future and can even jeopardize it. Proverbs 22:7 says, “A borrower is a slave to the lender.” And then the next one is that wealth is accumulated slowly, not by gambling. You can reference Proverbs 13:11.
Bob:
And that one says, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.” So I wanna talk about the debt thing just a minute. Because the debt, we’re not saying that that debt is a sin by any means. It’s hard to buy a house with cash now. You can as you get older, cause you’ve been saving a long time, but you take somebody – and you’re in your thirties – it would be very difficult for you to go pay cash for a home. Somebody, my age sixties, and seventies, that’s pretty much what we do. We pay cash for our homes. Okay. But debt can become overwhelming, and you can become a slave to debt if you’re not careful. And that’s what that scripture says, Proverbs 22:7.
Shawn:
I think that scripture also goes right into sound financial planning where just because you technically qualify, say for a loan to buy a home, doesn’t mean that it’s a good decision if what you’re paying for that loan to buy that home is too high of a percentage of your income. Because you want to have some grace. You have emergency savings and if you’re at 50% of your income is just going to your housing, it’s kind of a dangerous situation to be in.
Bob:
So a Christian financial advisor is gonna make sure you don’t get yourself in that situation. Also Ron Blue, a very well known writer and the founder of Kingdom Advisors, which will be covering next week, a Certified Kingdom Advisor, I love what he always says, “Debt presumes upon the future.” So, we really don’t know what the future is. So we take out a lot of debt. We need to be careful cause we’re thinking like, well I know the future. No. No one knows the future. And another reason to use a Christian financial advisor and reason number two is that they talk about giving, and they understand that giving releases selfishness, and it should be part of a plan. And we get this from 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each of you should give what you’ve decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
Shawn:
Another one is that a person’s self worth is not tied to their net worth. Therefore, more is not always better.
Bob:
That’s a biblical worldview right there, for sure.
Shawn:
I remember you said something before, even for your own personal planning, how much is enough? And when you’re doing your planning, it’s not always about just getting more. You may get to a point and realize we have everything that we need for retirement. And if you’re still earning more assets, well maybe you should consider giving it to charity or passing it down to the grandkids. You don’t need it now..
Bob:
It just reminds me of the scripture about building the bigger barns. Do you really need to go build the bigger barns.
Shawn:
So what is reason number three that you need a Christian financial advisor?
Bob:
A Christian financial advisor should, and they believe, that a biblical worldview is what you should follow versus a secular worldview. And there is a huge difference between these two worldviews. The secular worldview is all about me and my stuff and selfishness, where the biblical worldview should be about others and not about me and serving others and helping others. So, one of the things we believe, too, for Christian financial advisors is they should know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior. Okay.
Shawn:
Kind of important for that, if they both believe and follow biblical worldview.
Bob:
And they should believe in the inerrancy of scripture. We’re not gonna tear this page out and tear this page out. They believe in the wholeness of the Bible and that they have a heart for teaching others. I think that’s a very important thing. And shouldn’t be offended that when somebody says, I don’t know what that means. They should not be offended. They should have a teacher’s heart.
Shawn:
Yeah. They have a like mindedness with fellow believers. They believe that truth is absolute, based on God’s word and not relative.
Bob:
And that’s a big word today.
Shawn:
I’ll tell you what, this is a hard one when you’re on social media, people seem to be getting more and more confused with the difference between an opinion and facts. And people seem to think that just because they have an opinion, that it’s just as valid as facts, and that’s not how the world actually works.
Bob:
Truth is not relative. Truth is truth. It’s the same as it was a thousand years ago as it is today and it’ll be the same a thousand years from now if we’re still here and Jesus hasn’t come back.
Shawn:
Amen. Another one is the Bible is the guidebook and ultimate authority for all financial decisions. Like we said earlier, there’s on the low end, at least 1500 scriptures talking about stewardship. So when it comes to money and finances, why would that not be part of our decision making? And how is this gonna honor God?
Bob:
I can have somebody sit in front of me and just open up to Matthew or Mark or Luke or John or Philippians, wherever. I like Matthew, because Matthew was a tax collector, as we know. So he wrote a lot about this. And you can open up literally in the book of Matthew and just go from page to page and see what Jesus is saying about stewardship. A Christian financial advisor should believe that financial decisions are spiritual decisions because it belongs to God. It’s not ours. You shouldn’t be offended that a Christian financial advisor wants to pray with you, and let’s pray about these decisions.
Shawn:
Yeah. That’s kind of funny. This past weekend, my pastor was specifically talking about no one is going to get mad at you. If it’s someone that you know, it’s someone you care about, of just saying, can I pray for you? Well thanks. And you know what, they might say I’m so glad you said that. I don’t know if you realize it, but I’ve been going through something. So, I mean, when you’re talking about big decisions coming, as far as finance, we definitely should be praying.
Bob:
You know what’s so funny. There’s that vacuum within all of us to know God. I’ve said this to people I don’t even know and some said, well, I really don’t believe, but I guess if you wanna pray, you can. Interesting, isn’t it? Yeah. So, they’re not against it. They’re like, well just maybe, in case I’m wrong.
Shawn:
So what is the fourth reason you need a Christian financial advisor?
Bob:
I believe a Christian financial advisor, number four is he or she is accountable. They’re accountable to God and the Bible and his word. They’re also accountable to the Christian community, to the church, and other fellow believers and to their spouse, if they’re married.
Shawn:
Right. They’re also accountable to their family. They’re accountable to the governing authorities that have been put in place. So for example, the SEC, FINRA that definitely holds us accountable.
Bob:
Well, as it says Romans 13, we are to follow the authorities.
Shawn:
That’s right. Yes. They’re also accountable to the secular community as a witness to abiding by those Christian values.
Bob:
You like that one?
Shawn:
I do.
Bob:
Yeah, because we are a witness to all believers and non believers in all of our actions and what we do.
Shawn:
We’re supposed to be in the world, but not of it. If we’re not in the world and acting differently than the rest of the world, how is the gospel gonna be shared? How are people even gonna know that there’s a different way to live?
Bob:
And they should see us as salt and light. So that’s gonna take us to reason number five, our final reason for today, of why you need a Christian financial advisor.
Shawn:
And that fifth one is a Christian financial advisor is a calling from God. It’s not just a job. It’s a ministry.
Bob:
I feel that every day, Shawn.
Shawn:
Amen. I mean, there are times we have meetings with clients that out of an hour, 5-10 minutes, maybe, is actually talking about finance and the rest of it is life and praying, praying for each other, sharing scripture, just talking through stuff.
Bob:
Because that ultimately all goes back into finance, too.
Shawn:
A Christian financial advisor has a servant mentality to serve others, not to be served.
Bob:
Amen. That’s what we want to be.
Shawn:
They say not my will, but God’s will.
Bob:
And a Christian financial advisor should exemplify the fruits of the Holy Spirit as found in Galatians 5:22-24. So, I’m gonna read that here. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh and its passions and desires.”
Shawn:
That’s a good verse.
Bob:
Yes, it is.
Shawn:
A Christian financial advisor is called to be different than a secular financial advisor. As you said earlier, to be salt and light in this world. Matthew 5:13-16, “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.”
Bob:
Well, there you go. There’s five reasons I think that Christians need a Christian financial advisor.
Shawn:
Not just a financial advisor.
Bob:
Exactly. And not a financial advisor that just happens to be a Christian.
Shawn:
There should be a difference in how they operate.
Bob:
They should operate from a biblical worldview, and we’ve discussed that today. If you’re looking for a Christian financial advisor, visit www.christianfinancialadvisors.com on the web or call or text us at (830) 609-6986 during business hours. And don’t miss our next episode where we’re gonna be talking about why you need a Certified Kingdom Advisor and what a Certified Kingdom Advisor is.
Shawn:
Thanks for joining us. God bless.
[CONCLUSION]
That’s all for now.
We invite you to listen to all of our past episodes covering many financial topics from a Christian Perspective. To make sure you don’t miss any of Bob’s upcoming episodes you can subscribe to Christian Financial Perspectives on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, or Stitcher. To learn more about integrating your faith with your finances, visit ciswealth.com or call 830-609-6986.
[DISCLOSURES]
Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.