The History of Biblical Financial Planning with Ron Blue

In our first episode, we interview Ron Blue, the founder of Ronald Blue Trust, the National Christian Foundation, Kingdom Advisors, and the Ron Blue Institute.  He is the author of 17 books on personal finance from a biblical perspective, including the bestseller, Master Your Money.  In this podcast, he discusses his journey with Ronald Blue Trust and offers inspirational advice on stewarding money.

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The information in these podcasts is provided for general educational purposes only.  It is not intended as specific individual advice. The clients’ experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients and they are also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions expressed may not be those of Ronald Blue Trust.

Trust and investment management accounts and services offered by Ronald Blue Trust, Inc. are not insured by the FDIC or any other federal government agency, are not deposits or other obligations of, nor guaranteed by any bank or bank affiliate, and are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of the principal amount invested.

Transcript

Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth. For Life Podcast. Let's bridge the gap between your faith and your finances. At Ronald Blue Trust, we apply biblical wisdom and technical expertise to help you make wise financial decisions. Our goal is to help you leave a lasting legacy. In this podcast, you will hear inspiring stories, practical tips, and encouragement for the Ronald Blue Trust family with special guests along the way. Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth. For Life Podcast. 

The information in these podcasts is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not intended as specific individual advice. The clients' experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients and they are also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions expressed may not be those of Ronald Blue Trust. 

In today's podcast, we interview Ron Blue, the founder of Ronald Blue Trust, he's also the founder of the National Christian Foundation, Kingdom Advisors, and the Ron Blue Institute, and the author of 17 books on personal finance from a biblical perspective, including the bestseller "Master Your Money." In this episode, he discusses his journey with the company and inspirational advice on stewarding money.

Actually, what motivated me to start the firm was really several factors. One was that I had traveled to Africa frequently over a two-year time frame, and I saw kind of the need in the Third World and I had as a practicing accountant before I entered ministry, I had seen the affluence in this culture. And it dawned on me that we had enough resources in the United States. We should be funding what's going on in the Third World because they were so effective. That was one motive. 

A second motive was that I really wanted to get back into the financial world using kind of the education and experiences that I had. Third factor was that I was, while I was in ministry, I was traveling about 70% of the time. We had five children below the age of 12 and living in a strange city with no support system. Those were factors. 

Another factor was that Dr. Howard Hendricks was a friend and a mentor, and he had been asking me for some financial advice relative to his own situation. So all those things kinda came into play. And I decided that I wasn't gonna travel like I was traveling with five young children. I needed to do something different and wanted to use the financial experience that I had. Dr. Hendricks had asked me to do kind of an analysis of his situation. And when I did, I saw that he was doing just fine. But he didn't know that he was doing just fine. So I was able to say, "How, you're doing just fine." 

And coincidentally, I have over the years now realized that everybody wants to know the answer to the question, "How am I doing?" Everybody. And that takes an outside person to take a look at their financial situation who has some financial background also. So all those things came into play. And when Judy and I sat down, we went through a decision-making process with the napkins, which are now on the wall here, and came to the conclusion that going back to Indianapolis was the best choice given our criteria. But we went through a risk analysis and said, "If we do, we're apt to lose our children to the materialistic lifestyle that we had come out of when I left that accounting firm." We said, "That's too big a risk to take." And so we said, "Well, what should I do?" Basically, it was to create the right alternative. Rather than pick a job, it was to design a lifestyle and have my own ministry. Made the decision. 

Larry Burkett was a friend of mine, and he said, "Are you gonna be in business or a ministry?" Which was a great question to have to answer because I realized it didn't make any difference. Either we were a ministry that operated like a business, or we were a business that had a ministry purpose. And I loved the test of the marketplace. And I felt like in terms of working with individuals regarding their wealth management, they could afford to pay. And consequently, if I was not delivering value, they weren't gonna keep paying. So I had a built-in test of whether this was adding value to people's lives. And then when I saw that it was and I began to do financial planning, the mission statement that I came up with for the firm, and really for me personally, was to help Christians plan and manage their money so they had more to give away to help fund the fulfillment of the Great Commission. 

So I knew I was a part of the Great Commission, and my small role in that was to help people in their finances so that they had more money to give away. My purpose in life, that was in 1979, is the same thing today as it was then 40 some years later, 42 years later. That's still my purpose in life, but it's worked itself out through Ronald Blue & Co., now Ronald Blue Trust. And then I realized that to me it was the proof of concept that you could take biblical wisdom and apply it to the best of professional knowledge and come up with biblical financial thinking and decision-making. 

And it's interesting because it says in Colossians 2 that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That's what I was doing was combining wisdom and knowledge, and it worked. And we built a business. And really then the next step when I left was, could it be repeated with other Christians who were not a part of the firm? When I started, there really wasn't a financial planning industry. If that word was used even, it meant selling insurance or stocks and bonds. CFP didn't exist at that time. I didn't realize it, but I was kind of creating what became an industry of Christian financial wealth management. And it's become huge now. And that's the way God works. You plant the seeds, and He causes abundant harvest. And I had the privilege now after 42 years of kinda looking around and saying, "Wow, look what God's done." With RBT alone, what He's done, with Kingdom Advisors and with the National Christian Foundation and now the Ron Blue Institute up at Indiana Wesleyan and thousands, literally, of Christian advisors that are giving biblical advice in investments. The biblically responsible investing world has grown up. So that's kind of the background. 

All of that happened was not by design. It was by God's grace. The first client I had, I helped him give away a million dollars over five years, 200,000 a year for five years. And he's certainly still a client of the firm 42 years later. When I saw that he could do that, I thought there's a lot of people that can give a lot more than what they think they can give. And I've often wondered, "What if he'd only given 100,000?" My bar would've been 100,000, but because it was a million, I had no trouble at all in asking people to give away a million dollars. And Dr. Bright with Crusade asked me to come on staff. And I said, "Bill, I can do more good for you off staff than I can on staff." So they put me in front of all their donor events, and all of a sudden I was all over the country speaking to rich Christians. Okay? And I said, "If you wanna give away more money, I can help you give away more money." 

And so what happened not by design was I had clients all over the country. And so we had a national financial planning firm without trying to design a national financial planning firm. And that's when we opened up multiple offices around the country. And now I think there's over 10,000 clients and I don't know how many offices. 

That in summary is my part in the story. But I'll add one other thing to that. And that is that 2 Timothy 2 says, "You teach others to teach others to teach others." It was very much the idea that if I was gonna fulfill the vision, I had to teach others to do what I was doing. And so when I hired Russ Crosson and Erik Daniels before I really had hardly any clients, it was to teach somebody else to do what I was doing so they could teach others. And now it's down to, I don't know, 8, 9, 10 generations. But the consistency has remained the same. It's no different today than it was 40 some years ago in terms of the processes and the passion that's here. Russ is still here and Erik's still here and so many of those people that I hired in the early 1980s are still here. 

I got a call from one of the office managers some time ago, and he said, "How do you hire such good people?" And I said, "Don't you remember how I hired you?" And he said, "No, what do you mean?" I said, "Well, you were making $100,000 working with Arthur Andersen, and I offered you 60 if you'd moved to Atlanta. And you came." I said, "You came because of fulfillment of your mission." And the reality was the firm that has been created, it's there as a platform for others to fulfill their mission in life. So they come and they stay because they're getting a real sense of meaning and purpose in their lives by what they do. That combination of ministry and vocation is really, really powerful. Now I'm almost 80 years old and so I have an opportunity to look back. And when I do, I don't feel a sense of personal accomplishment. I feel a sense of awe in what God did. There's no way it could've been done by planning. It was all by grace. That's the story as best I can tell it. 

[Announcer] In this next section, Ron shares with us why it's so important to ask the question, "How much is enough?" 

I felt like there were really three questions that need to be answered by people. One was, "Who owns it?" And you can't be a steward if you own it. You're an owner. And an owner has rights and a steward has responsibility. So when I say God owns it all, then I have the responsibility to handle His resources. The second and biggest question was, living in America, it's kind of the American, more is the American dream. If I have more, I'll have happiness. If I have more, I'll have joy. If I have more, it'll be more fun to have a life and so forth. But I have observed that just the opposite is true. That the more I have, the more decisions I have to make because I've got more choices. Therefore, life becomes more complex. 

I like to show people where Judy and I started in a little trailer that was 28 feet long and eight feet wide and six feet tall, a little green trailer on the campus of Indiana University. And then show them a picture of my five children, their spouses, 13 grandchildren, two grandsons, great-grandsons. And so we got about 25 of us in our family. Well, that depicts the complexity of life. I went from a trailer to a really complex situation personally, and that's not unusual. But money is never the answer to happiness. 

What I have seen now is that living in the world's wealthiest culture, we have a tremendous amount of unhappiness. We have a lot of anger, we have a lot of disunity. America today is not necessarily a joyful place to live. When you watch the news, it's all conflict, or listen to the news or read the periodicals. There's a lot of anger out there. When you ask the question, "How much is enough?" what you do is you establish a finish line. And if I'm a believer and I answer that question, "How much is enough?" the next question is, "For what?” The Bible says, "Be content with what you have." So more is not the key to contentment. It's a spiritual issue, contentment is a spiritual issue. And Paul said, "I've learned to be content." So when we answer the question, "How much is enough?" then for what? If I answer the question, "How much is enough to live out the rest of my life and educate my kids and provide for the health care that I may need and so forth and so on?" I can calculate that mathematically, but I can never feel like I'm financially independent. I can feel contentment, but I cannot feel financial independence. I can see it and I can intellectually know that it's enough, but it doesn't do what God wants to do, and that is to give me a heart of contentment, joy. So setting a finish line helps me live purposely, but it also helps me live towards God's desire for me because He knows now that money is not gonna replace Him. And that's the real issue. 

And that's why the clients of Ronald Blue Trust are able to give as much as they do because spiritually they've set some finish lines. And the reality is that if I've gone beyond the finish lines, the best thing to do with it is to give it away. One of the experiences I've had is almost humorous. There's people who are fearful. They wanna know what the markets are going to do. And what I tell them is, "Well, they're gonna go up or they're gonna go down.  They're gonna go up, you should buy, they're gonna go down, you should sell." Well, that's of course a facetious answer, but their lives are dictated by fear. And so my counsel is, "Are you really afraid that you're gonna lose everything? Because if you are, I've got some great advice for you. Give it all away. Send it ahead." There it says in the book, in the good book, Matthew 6, "Set your treasures in Heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal." So if you really are afraid, give it away. And the reality is that makes a point. And that is, the only way to break the power of money is to give. It's the only way to break the power of money. Otherwise, I hold it like this, and it controls me. When I hold it like this, God's in control and not me. So that's why the "How much is enough?" question is really, really important for people to answer. Because if I don't know that, I'll never stop. And I will be deluding myself and I'll be spending a wasted life, quite frankly. So I think it's, "Do you work to live or do you work to give?" And there's a lot of people that have done very, very well financially in their businesses. Are they working to live or are they working to give? And I think working to give is a really good vocation. Okay.

 So that's the answer to "How much is enough?" It's really important. If you don't answer that question, you're never going to experience financial freedom. 

[Announcer] In this next section, Ron shares with us some inspirational stories from his time at Ronald Blue Trust. He starts off his story talking about his very first meeting with inspirational clients. 

I had a meeting with them. The first time I went to their home, and we didn't have GPS then, so I had a map or directions. When I got to their home, it was in a trailer park. It was a very nice trailer park and they weren't unusual, this was in California. And they lived in a trailer. It was big enough for me to spend the night there too. It was nice, but it was a trailer. And he was the CEO of a major grocery chain. What their question was, "Can you help us give more?" So when I did the financial plan for them, I said, "You can give away a million dollars if you want to." And I put the plan in front of them to give away a million dollars. Over time, I've moved out of client relationships and gave that client to one of the client managers in Santa Ana. And he handled 'em for years. And about a year ago, I got a call from him. And he said, she had said to him, "Would you tell Ron that when he said we could give away a million dollars, we didn't believe him. But over the years, we've given away several million dollars." 

They, to me, epitomized what I would wanna see in a client in the fact of who they were, their character, but the fact that they saw themselves as working to give. And they gave away millions and millions of dollars, apparently, because they set that finish line. The fact that they lived in a trailer was irrelevant. That's what they happen to choose. You don't have to live in a trailer to give away a million dollars.  But that was their choice for whatever reasons that they had. That story to me just resonates this, that's what I wanna see. 

I'll tell you what, I'll give you one more story as of a month ago. - Sure. - Okay. I was walking out of church one day, and somebody said to me, they said, "You're a financial expert, aren't you?" And I said, "Well, I guess." And they said, "Give me some financial advice." So I said, "Okay. Spend less than you earn and keep doing it for a long time." Last week I gave five speeches, and what I realized is that getting out of debt, living within your income, and giving generously are really the critical factors to financial peace of mind and peace of heart and contentment. And so this idea of living within your income, we don't get any reinforcement of that in this culture. 

And I've got several stories, but one of the most remarkable was my wife was in a gas station, there was a little girl in front of her who paid the attendant. She said, "I want $7 worth of gas on whatever pump." It was so unusual that Judy followed this little girl out to where she was. It was a van that they were putting $7 worth of gas in. The story was that this was an abused mother who had left in the middle of the night with her kids to escape the abuse. She had $7. And it was all she had. And everything they owned was in the back of that van. We helped her, got her into a homeless shelter. She did have a job, but my counsel to her was, "You've got to have some savings. Otherwise, every time an emergency comes up, you're gonna be trapped and you're gonna stay in this state of always being behind the eight ball." So over the last two or three years, she would call me periodically and say, "I've gotta get some new tires. I don't have any cash." And she couldn't qualify for credit. She said, "I hate to go into my savings." I said, 'That's what it's for." 

Okay? Well, she called me just a couple of weeks ago and she's getting ready to rent a home now. And she has a credit card. And she's worked to establish her credit. And she said, "I owe $800 on my credit card, which I just wanna know, should I pay that off before we make a move or will it hurt my standing?" And I said, "Well, what do you have in your savings account?" And she said, "$6,000." And it's been three years, I think it's been three years. By living within her income, she was able to save $6,000 over these years. So now when the books for her kids or whatever comes up that she needs, she's replaced her car, that to me kinda proves the point because now when that emergency happens she's prepared for it. It's a remarkable story. 

[Announcer] Thank you so much for listening to the Wisdom for Wealth. For Life Podcast. If you're looking for financial advice, please contact us. Please visit ronblue.com. That's ronblue.com. Thank you for listening. And please subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts. 

Ronald Blue Trust is a trademark used by Thrivent Trust Company, a federal savings association, and Thrivent Trust Company of Tennessee, Incorporated, a Tennessee public trust company, separate affiliated entities. Trust and investment management accounts and services offered by Ronald Blue Trust are not insured by the FDIC or any other federal government agency, are not deposits or other obligation of, nor guaranteed by any bank or bank affiliate, and are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of the principal amount invested.