First & Focused
Join host Mark Greaves as he sits down with current business owners, nonprofit directors, and industry leaders to discuss how they place Christ at the center of their calling. With guests from multiple industries, including music industry CEOs, leaders in Christian education, pioneers in the medical field, and more, Mark takes a holistic view of how to honor God regardless of one’s profession.
Each episode is packed with wisdom, honesty, and encouragement, covering lessons learned, challenges faced, and victories won while showcasing real stories and faith in action. Tune in and be inspired to live First and Focused, putting God first in your life, leadership and daily walk.
First & Focused
What It Actually Feels Like to Work Inside a Christian Business with Steve Greaves & Stephen Coan
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What happens when a business puts faith at the center — not just on the wall, but in the way they work, pray, and serve? Steve Greaves and Stephen Coan, both mortgage professionals at Tithe Lending, flip the script on today’s episode. Instead of leaders in ministry or a Christian business owner, we’re going inside a Christian-led business to hear what it actually feels like from the inside. Steve Greaves made two massive career leaps — both toward companies that barely existed yet. Stephen Coan left full-time missionary work with CRU to enter the mortgage world, and now serves families through both Tithe Lending and My Village Ministries. Two different roads. One shared mission. This is one of the most practical faith-and-work conversations we’ve had.
Key Topics Covered
• Steve Greaves’ two major leaps of faith — joining startups before they were 90 and 30 days old
• Stephen Coan’s journey from CRU missionary to mortgage — and what stayed the same
• What’s genuinely different about working inside a mission-driven company
• How prayer before meetings shifts the team dynamic and culture
• How the Tithe Lending mission changes relationships with customers
• Steve Greaves on faith integration and his work with Friends of the Josephinum
• How God’s relational gifting in Stephen Coan shows up at Tithe and My Village Ministries
• The most rewarding things made possible because they’re open about faith at work
• What they wish they had done differently in past secular roles
• Practical advice for Christians in the workplace who want to live more integrated lives
Connect & Links
Tithe Lending: https://www.tithelending.com
My Village Ministries: https://www.myvillageministries.org
Friends of the Josephinum: https://www.pcj.edu/friends-of-the-josephinum/
Connect with Mark Greaves: https://www.markgreaves.com
First and Focused on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@firstandfocused
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-focused/id1871452482
You're looking at a a path and you're saying, What's the next step? And if a if a step is is appearing and you feel at peace with it, it's almost like, okay, I'm gonna trust God that He's He's putting this here for a reason.
SPEAKER_04At first, sometimes you can't see where it's gonna go. You don't even notice it. Yeah. But then in hindsight, is when you can really notice it when you look at the timeline.
SPEAKER_00I would encourage anyone that's listening to this to look back at some of the moments in your life that you thought were dark moments. And you can always find, it seems, you can find a path to if it wasn't for that, then this next step couldn't have happened.
SPEAKER_01One of the reasons I kind of left full-time ministry was like, I I want to be a part of God's kingdom, maybe not having it as a job designation, transitioning careers doesn't go well with a resume.
SPEAKER_04For leaders who are listening and you're thinking about, like, hey, if I want to go incorporate a mission that, you know, has more to do with just my product or service, when you go out and you're doing it and doing it differently, sometimes employees are gonna want to know, like, how true is this? Because if it's just something that's surface level and it's used for marketing, like, oh, I want Christians to do business with my company because I'm Christian too, a lot of times you're gonna see people run from that. Welcome to First and Focused, the podcast where faith meets leadership. I know you're gonna put me on the spot. I don't know what you're gonna ask him to say. I'm Mark Greaves, and in each episode, I sit down with business and industry leaders who put God first in their work and stay focused on building his kingdom through their calling. I could sit here and and talk with you all day. Keep up the great work, brother. Lord is using you powerfully. I love you. I love watching what Jesus is doing in your life. Well, welcome to the First and Focus show where we interview leaders from various industries who are putting God first in their work and pursuing building the kingdom through their callings. And today I'm really, really pumped about this. I've got two of my favorite people on the planet uh right here at the table with me that work inside uh of our business at Tith Lenning. So I'm joined by my own brother, Steve Greaves, and by the other Steve that happens to work for Tith Lenning, Steve Knife Cone. So, guys, thanks for being here. Like butter knife, spread, don't cut. Spread, don't cut, that's right. Yeah, great to be here.
SPEAKER_00Two Steves in one room. It's it's a lot of personality. I don't know how we're gonna contain it.
SPEAKER_04I know. Yeah, like we're this, it's just gonna be way too much, Steve, just bursting out of this room. It's gonna be great. Let it flow. Let it flow. I'm ready. All right, we're ready. Um, so here, let me let me get your guys' intros. Everybody gets an intro, and then I'll kind of uh tee you guys up. But we're gonna tell some good stories today. So all right, here we go. Steve Greaves, you are a top-producing mortgage veteran with tithes lending. You're entering your 12th year in residential finance. That's kind of hard to believe. Uh, you began your career as an inside sales rep. You grew to managing large teams within a national retail lender, and now work in local markets as an expert for real estate agents and clients navigating home ownership. You sit on the board of the Friends of the Josephine, a group dedicated to supporting seminarians for the Catholic Church. You are a native of St. Louis, Missouri, a husband to Lynn, father to Emma, and about to be a father to another baby girl here in July. And pivoting over to Stephen Knife Cohen. You are also a mortgage guru with Tith Lending. We should put that on your on your business card.
SPEAKER_01Therapist, mortgage therapist, too. Uh-huh. A lot of things.
SPEAKER_04You began your career several years ago after stepping out of full-time ministry. You spent nearly a decade with crew working on college campuses and internationally in South America, spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ as a missionary. In addition to your role in mortgage, you serve as a local development leader for My Village Ministries, an organization dedicated to family preservation and solving issues related to our foster system. You are also a husband, a father of two young daughters, avid volunteer, and most importantly, you guys are both lovers and followers of Jesus. Amen. Correct.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Awesome intros. That's why I love working with you guys every single day. Yes. So really cool. As long as that wasn't written by AI. I I don't use AI anymore. I I committed to that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I never really used it for anything that I write, but I did run it through for grammar. So like all the things that I write are original, but then you do it's it's tempting to not run it through and say, like, hey, can you correct any grammatical errors and make this you know flow correctly? I'm not gonna do it anymore. After a conversation I had with Steve earlier, it's like I think people want authentic, real human touch.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So Yeah, it's it's fine if it doesn't flow sometimes, you know.
SPEAKER_04You don't use AI for anything, do you? I mean, for mortgage-related stuff?
SPEAKER_00No, not really. The only time I use it is uh United Wholesale Mortgage, one of the things we plug into. If I want to know a specific, you know, overlay for them instead of rummaging through all their documents, I'll just I'll use their AI thing to just say, hey, you know, what do I need to do for this, you know, or that.
SPEAKER_04I mean it comes in handy, but I think that one of the things that you were saying the other day is a lot of companies out there now are saying, Oh, we're leveraging AI for this and we're leveraging AI for that. And you're like, well, I kind of want customers to know when you come to me, like you are getting me, and you're getting 12 years of experience and my know-how.
SPEAKER_00Yep, yeah. I mean, obviously you can use the use it as a tool and not as a crutch, you know. So that's kind of what we need to do. But yeah, I think overall just the thing that I don't like about it, I guess, is the follow-up being fake, you know, being a robot. So that's true. That that's the main thing I'm against, I think. It's not not necessarily maybe using tools to, you know, get better at making things more efficient, but more fake, you know, it's pretending to be me, but it's not me. I I just don't like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. You don't want to impersonating you. Well, let me tee up what what this show is going to be about, because what I said in the intro, we do interview a lot of leaders who have put faith first and they're operating by Christian principles within their business or using their business to advance the kingdom through their mission or through donations monetarily. There's a lot of cool things going on. We haven't interviewed anybody yet that's working inside of a Christian business. So what I'm hoping that we can get out today is you know some of the differences you guys have seen, some of the things that, you know, whether it's working with customers or third parties or the ways that you've are able to have influence um through our mission and really what that's what that's like. So Steve, I'm gonna tee you up. Well, Steve Greaves, I'm gonna tee you up with the question first. Sure. Um before we get into that, I've known you your entire life, so you're one of the few people that I can say that about. You took a couple big leaps just to even do mortgage. So if you go rewind the clock back to 2014, you moved away from our hometown in St. Louis, you know, and came up and you joined a company at the time that was 90 days old that I was at to take your first, you know, role in mortgage, and then if you go rewind the clock back to 2023 in April, you joined tithe lending when it was only 30 days old and just in its infancy stage. So what role did your faith play in those decisions? You know, what made you want to take the the risks that you've taken with your career so far?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um I I would say, you know, faith plays a huge role in every decision that I make, and I think um the biggest thing is just trusting that the the things that are coming your way, that the you know, like you're looking at a a path and you're saying, what's the next step? And if a if a step is is appearing and you feel at peace with it, it's almost like, okay, I'm gonna trust God that He's He's putting this here for a reason. So like back in like you said, 2012, when I was first kind of deciding, hey, what career path do I want to take? Um you guys were hiring aggressively, and a lot of the places around St. Louis weren't. And I just thought, even though I'm gonna leave behind, I had a ton of friends, and obviously a ton of family. You know, we have what, a hundred cousins. A lot of a lot of family. Yeah, a lot of family, a lot of friends. We're Catholic. Yeah, and and then you go to um a place where you don't know anybody, right? But you feel like, okay, there's a bigger plan here. And at the time, like looking back now, I didn't know what that plan necessarily would become. But I almost feel like, you know, slowly God was leading me to this company, even though this company didn't even exist yet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you look at the things that happened at the last company, like the growth that I had and really being thrown into the fire in a lot of situations where you're like, hey, I just have to figure this out. I have to grow immensely to learn. I have to learn so much. And that and sometimes you're like, man, I don't want to do this. This this is uncomfortable, this isn't fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but then you see, okay, well, it all worked out to where I got really good at figuring out, you know, solutions. Like most people don't know mortgages are kind of like a giant puzzle a lot of times. And if you don't know how to put it together, uh you're not gonna be you're not gonna be able to figure out how to get things across the finish line. Or, you know, somebody who wants a loan, someone who wants to buy a house might be told they can't unless you have the expertise, you know, that I was able to get by having all the things.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's like a puzzle, but you don't even know what all the pieces are unless you know what they are. It's like, hey, here's a puzzle, but like um you have to go figure out what the pieces are. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Before you can even put it together. So if you don't know the questions I ask, if you don't know, yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So, you know, that that played a big role, um, I would say in starting there. And then, you know, when we you know, we were kind of talking about the concept of what this company would look like, you know, before it was named tithe lending. And um I think I was just again at at peace with knowing that, hey, I'm gonna trust that God's gonna help help us make this work. And then at the end of the day, you you have to be really humble. You have to just you know, hey, I'm not gonna have expectations of this is if this doesn't happen, then it's not God willed, because God knows better than us, you know, how how to make everything work together. You know, God pulls everything together in history for the greater good. So that that's kind of been the faith that I've stood behind is just trusting God is is the biggest thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I mean, did was it hard at first, or did did you feel like, okay, once I took the step, you got confirmation from God along the way that, yeah, this was the right path.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think there was a lot of things that happened early on at tithe for sure, um, that made me feel like this is the right path. I mean, some of the stuff that happened to you guys obviously was was proof, and we can talk about some of that. But for me specifically, I mean, one of the things that happened early on was um the guy that we signed up with, uh Jeff Murz, signed up for HR services, invites us to a prayer breakfast. I go to that prayer breakfast and I'm sitting right next to Jim Gernetzky, who is a guy who started uh Nose Illuminae, which is a Catholic men's group. Their whole focus is how can you weave your faith into your work, you know, exactly what what we're doing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, sit next to him, and then within a week of that, I met one of the best realtors in the city, Dan Cleary, and meet him and his wife, Michelle, who are amazing people, and they've been a huge part of my success here, uh being able to work with them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that all came from I don't know how how did you get I don't even remember how you guys got introduced to Jeff uh Murray.
SPEAKER_04Jeff was just uh the guy who randomly got assigned to us when we first started out, and we said, Hey, we're gonna go out, we want to offer fantastic benefits as a small company, and you can do that through a PEO, and Insperity is one of those. And uh we chose Insperity because of just the suite of services and stuff that they had, and Jeff was just our rep. So that that was placed there. It wasn't like we sought him out, it was just that all happened quote unquote randomly. We know that nothing's random, but yeah, that's how it worked.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. And and that was one of the things that early on I was like, wow, if I never came over here, I would have never met those people.
SPEAKER_04And now, as you know, they're they're some of my my best friends, and they and I think that's why you're on the board of the friends of the Josephineum.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that that's another connection that happened through that whole thing was um Dan and Michelle were on the board of the Friends of the Josephineum, which is an amazing group, it's been around for a long time. Um you know, just a group of lay people that volunteer to say, hey, we think that the seminarians need our help, obviously. Like you as people know, they don't make any money, you know. A lot of people uh it costs money to go to college, obviously. So they're in formation for eight years before they can join the priesthood, which is you know a huge calling. Um, they they give up their whole lives for that. And so what can we do to serve them? And that's been an amazing organization to be a part of. Uh, everybody who's in there, um, you know, just great people who who love the Lord and and love the the mission of helping the seminarians. So yeah, that's that's been really cool.
SPEAKER_04You know, I I never really even thought about like the the trail of things that happened there, but because we chose Insparity and you met Jeff Murrers and he invited you and you meet Granatsky, and then Granetsky introduced you to the Cleary, and not only is Cleary, you know, you we're serving the kingdom together through real estate and mortgage finance, yeah, but now you're serving on the board of something that's near and dear to your heart because of the invitation from him. I mean, uh kind of cool just how God places things in our path that at first sometimes you can't see where it's gonna go. You don't even notice it. Yeah, then in hindsight is when you can really notice it when you look at the timeline. It's pretty sweet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I and I think I would encourage anyone that's listening to this to look back at some of the moments in your life that you thought were dark moments, yeah. Or I was unsure or I I don't know why I did that or why I went through that. And you can always find, it seems, you can find a path to if it wasn't for that, then this next step couldn't have happened, you know. So it's it's kind of cool to look back at that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. All right, Cone, we're we're pivoting over to you real quick because Pivot. Well, you've had a journey that's been obviously very different than Steve's, yeah, but also uniquely interesting. So you spent, you know, the first basically decade of you know your career after college in full-time ministry on college campuses, advancing the gospel. Yeah, and then I don't know if we'll get into it. Maybe we will if you want to, but like you you you were in Venezuela during the currency collapse, which is kind of crazy. Yeah. Um then ended up in Geomaica. But here's kind of the interesting uh turn that I've seen happen with your career. You started off purely ministry, then you pivoted into mortgage where we met at our last company, which was purely secular.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And now you kind of blend secular and ministry through our work here at Todd. So it's kind of cool how that all came full circle and now it's come back together for you. But yeah, um, kind of give us some of the journey of what you've learned of going from ministry to secular to now blending the two. What was your background? How does it feel?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, um, one of the reasons I kind of left full-time ministry was like, I I want I was also a part-time staff at a church as a youth director while being on crew staff. Um and uh yeah, turning 30, didn't have kids at the time, and I'm like, you know, working with 10-year-olds through you know, 60 plus parents kind of thing. I was like, I want to be a part of God's kingdom, maybe not having it as a job designation. That's all you'd ever known, yeah. Yeah, and I was like, okay, we're gonna take a we're gonna take a leap of faith, and you know, maybe one of the um things that allowed me to pretend like I had some security and it was like I had this invention idea on the side. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna use that and I'm gonna take a step of faith. And then um, you know, getting a job was a little more interesting than I thought in the the humbling way because transitioning careers doesn't go well with a resume. So it Yeah, I was working some connections, but it was slow moving. But I'm like, yeah, my my friends have had you know almost a decade of experience building their careers, and I'm like, okay, this is uh not what I have uh because ministry translates only only so well. Yeah. Um it's relational skills, yeah, yeah. So many relational skills. And so ended up at lower.com where they were where they were booming, they were higher end. Maybe the quickest to get back to me a little bit. And I was like, all right, it knew some people and talked to them.
SPEAKER_04And um mortgage wasn't the thing that you were pursuing originally. You're like, you know what, I want to really want to break in the mortgage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, no, it was more no, I need a job. Yeah, I need to start somewhere. Yeah. Um, and then I knew some people who spoke well of on the inside with lower, and I think they spoke well at the time because everything was great, right? The mortgage industry financially couldn't have been better, yeah. Um, and kind of more lucrative at the time. And I was like, oh, it seems like things are popping, I'll be around people. And so it was interesting actually joining lower.com and uh getting it through everything, and and I was like, wait a minute, this is kind of interesting because I'm actually around just the age group of what I was kind of ministering to, but just like a little bit older. Um, graduated, yeah, yeah. So I was like with people, um, and that was actually very, you know, praise God for it, very refreshing in a way of like I was just their coworker. And by being their coworker, you were able to have really uh really uh personal uh uh relational interactions. And then I was like, I would just not up. Yeah, I'll just speak out of my honest experience. And then I didn't feel pressure to be like, oh, this is my job. I need to direct conversations a certain way or or make them realize certain things about God.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, where really it was a great time of like offering my presence to them and and uh some really sweet stories and friendships that I mean are so long lasting and still to this day happen. Um and I and I love the environment too, because it's it's a wild, crazy environment. Sales, you know, we know. Oh yeah. So well sales, happy hours, sales, happy hours. I mean, it would be long hours, crazy, yeah. And then when people were making good money too. Like, I mean, so it was really interesting to be there when things really started to to dry up. Yeah. Um, but I think uh yeah, it was it for me, it was enlivening. And then um, you know, it's interesting where I yeah, I went to another mortgage company after because I'm still almost like pursuing this invention idea on the side, so I still haven't even like fully committed to mortgages yet. I'm like, oh, I'm kind of getting to where I am next. And I remember when Mark was starting up tithe. Well, so actually at lower.com, yeah, my first two interactions with Mark a little bit where uh we uh a bunch of us new hires introduced ourselves at the time, and I I mentioned what I did, and he's like, Oh, selling for Jesus. And I was like, Yeah, maybe never thought of it that way. But um, I was like, Oh, maybe he's a friend, you know, maybe he's a brother. Um, and then we kind of interact, and then I I gave you a book, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit. I remember by Jack Deere. Yeah, and I was like, uh I feel like he would like this. Um whether he did or not, who knows? But at least it was memorable. And so when you were starting tithe, you kind of reached out to me. Yeah. And then I don't know if you remember this, but our first meeting that was supposed to happen, I ran over a muffler on the highway. So my tire was shredded. So that meeting never happened. Yeah. Um and then and then we met, and then I actually was like almost like, I don't know if I want to join a Christian company.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um I remember. I don't know if I trust you know, yeah, maybe we'll get into this, but when you throw the term Christian on something, yeah. Yeah, well, a little has it just a marketing tool. Yeah, yeah. Um and so and so even wasn't totally committed to mortgages at the time. So I I said no, actually.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then I I remember you said like I'm I'm actually trying to like not work in a strictly Christian business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So um And it was like a year later, yeah. You call and said, Hey, let's let's take a look at how this would go.
SPEAKER_01I was like, hey, yeah, I wasn't really working out at the company I was with, and you know, in in a great way, still developing a lot of relationships and different things, but I was like, all right, you know, I saw you guys from afar, like, okay, they're at least doing it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think you know, it's such a good point because talking about this, like if you're an employee and you're and you're looking around, like I I do think at the time we were a new Christian company.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So we had a mission statement and we had intentions that we wanted to go do what we were gonna do, but there was no track record. We hadn't had an opportunity to put our money where our mouth was yet. Or if you say put our mouth where our money is. Yeah. Yeah, put our mouth where our money is. You definitely don't want to reverse that phrase. No, but no, I think that uh yeah, we hadn't had the mission play out. There wasn't a lot of evidence. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm like, I you know, and I didn't even know you and your background much at the time and different things because I think that's employ uh important, like if for leaders who are listening and you're thinking about like, hey, if I want to go incorporate a mission that you know has more to do with just my product or service, as opposed to like a you know, our mission doesn't read that. It reads to honor God with our work and love our neighbor with the proceeds.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Most businesses, when you read their mission statement, it has something to do with their product or service, and it says, like, hey, we want to do this for a really long time and satisfy customers doing this thing that we do for as long as we can. That's kind of what it says. Yeah. Um, but when you go out and you're doing it and you're doing it differently, sometimes employees are going to want to know like, how true is this? Because if it's just something that's surface level and it's used for marketing, like, oh, I want Christians to do business with my company because I'm Christian too. A lot of times you're gonna see people run from that. But when there's evidence and it's true and it's a it's deep, yeah, and it's like a conviction that's held from everybody that works within it, then it can stick. So, I mean, I'll throw it back to you, Steve. I mean, uh what's different about working with a mission that is like ours is, uh, where the service and the product that we provide of mortgage, obviously that's the tangible thing that we do, but the reason why we do it and what we use it for is different. How's that different from what you've experienced in the past?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I th I think it it all just boils down to, you know, you want to be part of something bigger that is, I guess the way I would phrase it is it's rightly ordered, right? So, like for us as as individuals, you know, no matter where we work, we can be rightly ordered where we say, Hey, God, God's first in my life. Yeah, there's different ways of proving that to yourself or to, you know, to to put things in place to make sure that you're actually doing that. And for our company, like you can say, hey, we put God first, and then there's no evidence, right? You could that that could be something that someone could do. Well, for us, I mean, the evidence is I mean, obviously the the way that we handle the finances, yeah, there's evidence right there. Um, and then you know, just incorporating prayer for you know into every meeting, like that, that's huge. You know, before you start the meeting, you start with prayer. That's putting that God comes first before the meetings. So I think that helps keep keep you grounded as as someone who works for a business like that. Um, so like for us, it's easier for me to feel good about what I'm doing. You know, I can always love my neighbor as far as, hey, I'm gonna give the best deal and the best service to every client, but then knowing that the finances of the company are are rightly ordered, that that's huge.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, you mentioned prayer before meetings, which is kind of crazy because it's my next question on here. Like we we do that, and I wanted to see from your guys' perspective, how does that change the nature of like any of the goals that we're trying to pursue or any of the the conversation about whether it's customer pipelines or whether it's you know referral partners that we're trying to influence and assist. It changes the nature of how we look at people when we start with prayer. And I know prayer is big with you, um, other Steve. Um give me your guys' perspective on what has that done to kind of shift your mentality around the focus of our work, and then what does prayer really specifically mean to you guys in your life? And maybe how do you how do you put it in play? We'll start with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think you know, we uh we even hit on maybe AI in the beginning, and maybe the the worst of it is like you know, you get in the assembly line, bottom line, simply being productive. You your soul almost wants to like rebel from that because the two things that bring you to life are connection with God and connection with others. Yeah. Um so you're like, oh, by praying, like connection with God. And then in a sense, like hopefully our job brings us into connection with others. And I think in any job, there's a temptation to you know, yeah, uh forget maybe maybe even the connection with others. Um bottom line driven, different things, expansion, um, in a business sense, there's always a tension maybe between, well, if we don't make money, we won't exist. But then if we do things a certain way to make money, we maybe lose integrity. Um that's true.
SPEAKER_04And that's a beautiful tension of a place that that brings you to prayer because it's like you know, that like I want to uh do the best by my customers, and sometimes it's like it's it's at the cost of yourself a little bit, where I think we can say in this industry and maybe any any kind of thing is trying to if you're protecting the bottom line at the expense of the uh client, yeah, then well that's what it is, is like you you're mentioning connectedness, and a lot of times there there's another word leverage, like so instead of connecting with customers, each other and and partners, it's like, hey, how can I leverage these partnerships and leverage my employees and leverage my customers to get the maximum bottom line? But I feel like when there's a real relationship and you're connected to people, that feels a lot different than when you're being leveraged. Like you can just tell. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that uh as far as McPrayer goes, when you're connected to God first, yeah, it's it's a lot simpler to connect with people because we see them as having real value as God does.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So it's uh, I mean, at least like when I experience that when we do that as a team, the way that you guys talk about your referral partners and the way that you guys talk about your customers and just the general joy and happiness you feel when they succeed, that comes out in the meeting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because you're like, how do I will the best for the other? And then I think, you know, along with with tithe lending, the tithing costs the company. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. Um, and and so you're like, okay, and in some ways connection hinges upon like how much am I willing to, in a sense, forego my gain for the betterment of somebody else, but then you realize like seek first the kingdom and everything else is thrown in. So you're like, actually, like you you get everything you need. Yeah. Um, and they can yeah, look different in different scenarios and um all these things, but hopefully you're praying even throughout the process of engagement, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04No, I appreciate that because it's like uh none of us that are here are in it for the maximum earthly gain. We need earthly gain because we're participating on the earth as we speak. So like money is the thing that comes in handy to go fuel our lives, but um, there is a line, and I think we're all here pursuing something very different. Yeah. So I think that it's a unique piece of our team.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think in any job, it's easy to be like, you know, I really want something easier that makes more money, and those are our times to pray. Yeah, to be like, oh Lord, that's not what I really want.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and so a company centered around fostering that sense of not having to want that um is is big.
SPEAKER_04Before I kick it back to Steve, what's your personal prayer life like? How do you do it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Um been been loving this um Romanian Orthodox nun. I was wondering if you're gonna bring her up. Mama Silwana, um, you know, and it and and and really it's like maybe like God doesn't go where he's not invited. Yeah. And so usually the places I don't want anybody is in my fear. Um, and so because I don't I don't want to experience my fear, um, and fear, fear can even be stress, anxiety, different things, like um worry. Even worrying sometimes feels good because it makes you feel like you're in control. And so I keep like even even my spouse out of that, let alone like God. And so it's like God doesn't really go where he's not invited. So it's like, oh Lord, like um what what kind of mother Silwana says is like it doesn't matter what we do, think, feel, or experience, it's whether we do think, feel or experience with or without God. Yeah. And he doesn't want to annihilate our desires and impulses, he wants to restore them and bring us about. Um, and so that's almost been like, oh, I I I invite God in everything. I pray, I um, in a sense, interact. Every opportunity is interaction, especially with with deep, deep feelings. Those are maybe the the greatest places to for for God's healing and light to get into, in which I almost want to keep dark. So talk about yeah, so yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's good. I'm kicking it over to you, Steve. What about personal prayer life?
SPEAKER_00Personal prayer life. I I think um, well, lately one of the biggest things I've been trying to focus on is uh humility. So, and I say that meaning, you know, I I always used to hear people say that, you know, oh, humility is one of the virtues that you get from the Holy Spirit. And, you know, I think of humble as like, oh, you know, don't think that you're so great, you know. But what I've found is humility really is just reliance on God, full reliance on God, and knowing, okay, there is a God who's all-knowing, uh, you know, everywhere, all powerful, and it's not me. So and so, you know, instead of expecting like, oh, I need to, I need to pray a certain way, it's more, God, I trust you, and I want you to be, I want you to be living in my heart, you know. And that was something that kind of crossed my mind when I was reading uh St. Augustine. I was reading some of his writings, and and he said, if I could choose four virtues, he said humility four times. Humility, humility, humility, because that's the thing that everything else hinges on. Like until you recognize that like you fully need Jesus, you fully need God, there's nothing you can do without without him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we don't breathe without him. We don't breathe without him, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like you can put it that way, yeah. But to grow in holiness, you know, you want to walk like Jesus did. To be able to do that, you really need him in your life. So I've been just inviting, you know, hey God, you you know better than I do what things you know I need. Just please allow me to be open to it, you know, open my heart, just inviting him in. And then the other thing that is huge in my life is um just being thankful. I mean, every pretty much every day I I look at okay, what can I be thankful for? And I mean, every day obviously I'm thankful for my wife, she's amazing. Every day I'm thankful for my daughter, you know. But what other things can can you be thankful for just to keep your your head in the right space of, you know, God has given me a wonderful life and and he can do that for everyone who who puts their faith in him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I think um a couple of like really, really good points. And as you were just talking, I think one of the one of the unique things about the way that we've operated as a team is some of the goals that we have each quarter that we kind of bring up every meeting and we hold each other accountable for, you know, from time to time, is it they're not just production goals and volume and sales, and a lot of them are on the personal side. So whether it's you know being in scripture, whether it's like a deeper prayer life or things like that, you guys have brought it up. One of the cool things I remember from last well, a couple summers ago when you guys had Emma, which you would say, like, hey, I'm up early in the morning and I'm I'm feeding her, so I'm just gonna pray a rosary every day. I mean, just those little things. It's talk about that. Like you're we have a whole separate show on this, but you're a top performing loan officer. I think you're probably top 1% in the state. So it's little habits, but it's not just little habits that make you go to business. It's like these little habits that deeper in your actual prayer life. What did that do for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh really again, it comes back to being rightly ordered, you know. You want your flesh, you know, you want your body to serve the Lord. You don't we want don't want it to be the other way where your your fleshly desires are um ruling your life, you know, and and ruling your mind and the way that you think. So um a lot of people don't know what the rosary is all about. It's it's it's meditation on the life of Jesus. So like every every decade you're you're thinking about something else. You could be thinking about the crucifixion, um, you could be thinking about um transfiguration, you know, those different things. So you're really supposed to be meditating on the life of Christ and just trying to get to know him better through through meditation. It's a meditation prayer. Um, and so that was something that I did when she was uh a baby. It was easier to fit that in with, hey, I have to be holding her, you know, babies feed for 10, 15 minutes. You know, she she was a slow drinker. Now she chugs her milk really fast. But at the beginning, that was something that I thought, oh wow, I can take advantage of this. You know, God's slowing me down, yeah, because I have to be slow to serve this child. But the other thing is uh having a kid, I think it opens your eyes to how God views us as his children and how we should view him as you know a child. I was I was actually listening, I listened on Spotify to uh Gospel of Matthew on the way here because I had an hour and I thought, well, uh, why not listen to it? Um and it was Jesus saying that you know you should be like a child and seek the kingdom of heaven like a like a child. And and I think about that when I s when I watch her grow and how she's so innocent she doesn't really know pretty much anything. I mean, you you look at kids, they they would walk right down the stairs and fall down the stairs because they don't know any better. So you but they trust you to guide them as as the father.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um me and uh me and Andy Whiteman, who's also he's actually in the seminary, um Andy's a realtor that we work with, which is great. He always talks about that the heart of the father. You when you love your kids and you look at them, you can you can learn the heart of of God as father, which is cool.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's really, really cool. And I think it's so you just kind of brought up Andy, so I'll kick it over to both of you guys to answer this. Is um, you know, because we have a component to our business, a depth in our business that is a mission that's beyond just the product and service. I want to know how that helps potentially connect with customers who our heart and their heart are united. So like when we know that we're united over the the central focus of our lives, the thing that's the most important to us, what does it do to the relationships that you can form with customers? Do you guys have any stories or examples of that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, uh hopefully like well, I've I've actually seen people who don't uh maybe identify with being a Christian in our mission and or Catholic and the and things, and but almost like they s they sense the integrity maybe that I have um hopefully bring to it or like even even hopefully it's the life of Christ um that I approach it with to explain to them like all all costs involved in the time that I give. Um and I've actually had some good feedback on that to be like thank you.
SPEAKER_04And it's an interesting point you make because there's research on that that uh basically companies that operate with a a Christian or biblical worldview or perspective or mission or what have you, um most even if they aren't Christian, they're not worried about that. It's not like they're they're gonna deny using your company for business. At that point, they're evaluating based off of you know price, convenience, experience, things like that. But the genuineness and you know basically the integrity, I think that that does come out. Yeah. Have you experienced anything different?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a lot of the clients that I work with who understand what the word tithe means. Yeah, there's some people who, you know, when they get introduced to us, they don't really need to.
SPEAKER_04They don't know how to pronounce it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't know that that's a religious word. Yeah, you know, they don't know any better. But the ones who do and ask me what it means, it's cool to connect with them because um you you kind of see how they live their life and what's important to them. And you can kind of it's it's like an instant connection where you can almost be like, you know, we already we know each other because we know we both have the same faith. Yeah. You know, I don't sometimes it's like, hey, I know you because we both grew up in St. Louis, you know. This is a different uh angle of it where it's like we both serve the same God, we both uh trust Him with tithing. I mean, like that's a big thing. Yep. Um, so that's been cool. And then, you know, the the clients who then say, Hey, can we pray together about this? Um, you know, I'll I'll say I wish I could pray with every single client, but you know, with how sometimes with how busy it is, it's like it's not enough time to bring that into the conversation when when you're just trying to get them pre-approved and and and get their finances in order so they can buy the house. Yeah, um, doesn't always come up in the conversation. But uh the ones that do, it's it's it's a special moment to be able to pray together and and they say, you know, it's great that it's great that we can do that with our loan officer. You know, we would have never thought that that was something that we'd be doing.
SPEAKER_04No, I think it's a great point because the uh the trust is already there. It's like when when we are all on the same page, we're all in the same family of God, and we all understand, you know, who it is that we serve. It's yeah, it's an instant connection that's you can't really overcome. Yeah. So I think that's really cool. All right. So pivoting into this, we we carve out you know, specific time that we we all love to volunteer. We actually track it because we want to be out in the community serving. It's not just about the money, but we want to make sure that like boots on the ground, be in the hands and feet of Christ. There's something different that happens when you connect with people um that you serve, like on the front lines of service versus like from a distance just writing a check. And I know both of you guys are now involved in a couple of different things. You know, Steve, I'm gonna start with you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, most recently, My Village Ministries like you know is connected to your heart. That's how you introduce them to our company, yeah, which and and to a uh tithe foundation.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then also with Harambe Christian Schools, where you have a dedicated tutor down there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um speak to a couple of the volunteer things. Like why is it that you're working with these organizations and then maybe what's special about the fact that we encourage that, you know, from the company side.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, um, with Harambe, yeah, getting a volunteer and tutor for reading. Um, you know, maybe personally, like I I remember um I did really well when I would just have somebody kind of be there and sit with me and give me a presence. And um, it's amazing how much kids with certain backgrounds uh you just need somebody to show up consistently, and then all of a sudden, oh, you can focus because you have somebody who cares about you. Yeah. And so being able to provide this simple consistency um each week is is awesome. And then you know, it comes at a cost too, because you're like, well, it's not very productive. Um, nobody really sees me showing up to Harambe. Yep. Um and so but it's I mean the the gain is yeah, if for that it doesn't it doesn't cost it if you looked at it in a certain way, a certain perspective, maybe in the in the typical I think it's fair to say this, in the typical loan officer industry, like it wouldn't it wouldn't be seen as a good move.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um and then it's awesome, yeah, with my village ministries. That was one of the first uh connections I got the tithe foundation because it's like, oh wow, they're um you know you know the way the way I'm talking about them now is like they're almost like lead generation for the church. Yeah. Um where they've set up I mean so many relationships with the church to in a sense like tee them up to help vulnerable and needy kids and families who have experienced uh a crisis and are socially isolated.
SPEAKER_04And what I mean and there's some beautiful stories that have come out of that where you know a family in need, you know, where they just basically need temporary support where these kids would otherwise end up in the foster system long term.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so no melody's been on this. Over anywhere, yeah, just from a couple of days.
SPEAKER_04But um, but I think the the cool thing that you're bringing up though is those families that get assisted by the church a lot of times are then invited into that church where they are like, okay, well, I just got helped by these people because they love Jesus. Maybe I need to figure out who this Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it's so foundational to uh like they're willing to help me again, like sac sacrifice time, effort, whatever they could be doing to help me.
SPEAKER_04Um what a good point though, because that family didn't experience the love of Christ because someone went and told them about Jesus. It was they experienced it firsthand because someone participated in their struggle and got down into the dirt with them like Jesus would. Yeah. And just showed them, you know, firsthand, like tangible results. Yeah. So kicking it over to you. So I know you volunteered a bunch of different places, but with the friends of Josephine, I know that that's near and dear to your heart. You know, what are some of the things that you're seeing, you know, happen through that organization?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh mostly just trying to raise funds, you know, as far as get getting um different fundraisers. They they have um a couple longstanding ones that are are great. Um you know, the one that I'm kind of helping out with um is the well, they're changing it to the 5K. It was the four miler, now it's the 5k. They've they've updated the map. So what is that? The uh it's the Friends of the Joseph Fenham. No, but how much how much farther distance is that? No, it's less. 5K is 5k is 3.1 miles and the four milers, four miles. So they they they lessened it because um some of the revenue from the race was just secular people who like to sign up for races. Yeah. And it's like, hey, this one's in my neighborhood, I'm signing up. Well, they didn't like that it was as hilly as it is, apparently. This was the kind of the feedback we got from some of the race people there. Hey, I don't know if I want to do this race again because there's too many hills and it's making my time worse. I guess, you know, I don't, I'm not a I'm not like in the runner community like this, but I guess maybe they they do, you know, a race every month or something like that, a 5k, and they really like to see their time go up and be on the leaderboards and these kind of things. See, that's at least that's how I understood it. So we recarved the race. Um we get a flatter 5K? Yeah. So that's kind of the idea.
SPEAKER_04Um well now I'm more excited to run it this year, but it's not as far. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's the that's the one that I've been, you know, that we've sponsored and then we've we've you know helped out with certain things. Um so one of the big things that I'm you know that we're trying to do now. Now is just get more sponsors, you know, reaching out to businesses and trying to get more of that. Um, but we have a board meeting every month or sorry, every quarter where we discuss the different items. One of the coolest fundraisers that raises the most money is called the the clergy who cook, which is basically just a dinner where the priests from each parish come out and they have to cook the meal for everybody. So people pay money to have tables and have a priest cook for them. Is it like Iron Chef style? Yeah, yeah. I think they have to open the box.
SPEAKER_04They don't even know what the ingredients are. It's like, all right, open it up and it's the main course you have.
SPEAKER_00No, it's I pretty good cooked. It will be next year. To be honest, I I haven't I haven't gone to it myself. Um, but from what I understand, it's like the priest has their own recipes that they're like, hey, I'm good at this, and they that's what they're doing. So that next year is supposed to be bigger, and uh I plan on attending next year.
SPEAKER_04That's pretty that that's very, very interesting. All right, so I'm gonna pivot just to a couple of like quick rapid players. You love doing that, don't you? Yeah, that's why I love having you around. I do it a third time. I missed I missed one earlier and I was okay. So when you guys think about like your work, you know, at Tithelending over the last couple of years, like what are a couple of like the most rewarding stories that you can remember because our mission was able to go solve those? And they can be on the the nonprofit side or inside the the business of mortgage, but just give me kind of some of the most rewarding pieces that you can remember from your time so far.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, think about one, it's it's like half rewarding, half like intensity. Um because it was the night my wife went into labor, and like I had I had a file, like three files were dependent upon closing. Oh, like if one didn't close, like the train of closing scan like the dominoes fell. So it's like because this person's buying this person's house, who's buying this person's house? Oh, geez. And like this one person, the maybe the middle person, had just a wild tax situation that really needed a lot of documentation and different things. So things were coming down to the wire of just like this is this is really confusing, and like work, yeah, six six p.m. hit everything's fine, like we're good. Okay. So felt really accomplished um working through weird tax stuff. And then I was like, man, I really could use just one night's sleep, and uh because our daughter uh that we have was also not sleeping at the time, wife's gonna pop at any moment, and then I was like, I just use one night's sleep, and then we're good, we'll we'll just rock this. And then like 40 minutes later, Sarah's water breaks, and then you're going. So I just remember those files vividly. That was and you're like, let's go. So unbelievable. So it's like yeah, professional accomplishment and and then boot right into life.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's a funny story. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What do you think? Yeah. Oh, for me, the the most rewarding stuff in the company, well, you know, client-wise, is like I've had several people who come out, you know, reach out to me because you know, realtors kind of see me as, you know, this guy can figure things out. And hey, this lender told them they can't close anymore. You know, we got two, like this thing's been going on for three weeks now. We're supposed to close in two weeks. Like, can you help? One of them that comes to mind was a veteran who they were told that they couldn't qualify because their debt ratio is too high, whatever. Um, and it was just because the lender was charging a crazy high rate compared to what's available. So I got to not only save them from losing the house, losing their earnest money, not having a place to live, but I also save them a ton of money because we had a better product. And we've and we finished it way faster than you know. So like that feels good when you can, you know, buying a house is is something that's stressful for most people, but it's also really meaningful because that's where you're gonna raise your kids and live and sleep every night, you know, that have memories. It's so meaningful that if I can help them get one of those, you know, get a house, you know, that means a lot. But I I think on the um on the foundation side, I don't know, I've I've seen a lot of a lot of stuff that's pretty moving. I mean, you look at um some of the stuff that's helping homeless, you know, some of the homeless guys who've no one's ever given them a chance. Like you kind of you you learn from some of these people that they went through a pretty rough life where they didn't have someone that believed in them or gave them any kind of tools. And some of these some of these organizations that we support, you know, the people truly believe that like, hey, I if I give this guy a chance and trust that God can transform this person, then they can be better off. And and then you see these guys getting transformed. Whereas, you know, God sends us to do some of that stuff, you know, obviously in his name and with his power, but unless you actually have the ability to go out and do it, like some of these things require funding, right? And you need gospel patrons. Yeah, and it's cool to be a gospel patron. I like that.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's really, really cool. One of the things you guys are hitting on right now that is just the truth is that the mission that we run. So if there's other leaders that are listening to this that they want to go forward with a mission that's similar to this, where it's not just about the product, you got to remember a lot of that mission is gonna be for the people who work within the company. Because to the outside customer, they just they still want you to be really good at the job. So, like if we don't have sharp interest rates, if we don't have good turn times, if we don't have experts to guide and you know navigate some of these situations that are a little bit tricky and sticky, we're we're not gonna get business.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04No one's gonna be like, yeah, those guys stink at their job, but they got a great mission, so let's go use them for whatever that is that they're they're gonna that's not how it works. So we still have to be experts and be excellent at this and have our pricing and the experience and everything be correct. Yeah. But then the mission is something that's gonna connect us together that we get to go do together for Jesus. What were you gonna say?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and I I really like the sense of like where so so many accomplishments are where it's like if if people cannot qualify for a house, giving them a game plan to be like, this is what you would need to do. And then so a couple clients, uh having worked with a couple clients over two years um is always really rewarding because you're like, oh, you were able to help somebody in uh in a way that you didn't I don't know if it's gonna pay off, I guess, or yeah, um, but it's yeah, it's really rewarding to set people up so where it's like even if they can't qualify for a house, it's like okay, you know what to do. Or even a big thing is going through people's credit reports. Um, and like you don't you don't really look at those much until you have to normally. So it is, I mean, yeah, I don't know how many examples you want, but like people being alarm alarmed of like their credit. Yeah. Um, actually, yeah, my wife had a uh we have a funny story buying our house with with Sarah's credit. She didn't know that she had a Verizon collection from 12 years ago that was like taking her credit. So it's amazing, yeah. In those situations, it'd be like, hey, you know, it's not it's not the end of the world, there's some things we can do, and then specifically directing them to help maybe get some things off of credit, or yeah, here's what you would need to do, let's set up the next six months. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it makes sense.
SPEAKER_04So when you guys think back, there's two last two couple questions I've got is before starting at tithe, what opportunities did you have in the workplace as a Christian to go influence, you know, folks for Christ? I mean, knife, you've already hit on it for you know a little bit here, but what opportunities were there that you took? And then were there opportunities not now looking back that you know that you missed that maybe if you had this mindset before you could have put to work?
SPEAKER_00Um well just having conversations with people and and living your life uh you know in a way that that does serve God, you know, I think that's kind of what gets people curious about it. You know, uh that's what's funny about you know the country that we're in is pretty much it's not suppressed, like everybody knows who Jesus is, as far as like historically, like who that is and and who Christians say he is, and then they still, you know, some still choose to reject. So I think just opening people's mind to to kind of digging into okay, why, you know, why do you think that this isn't important? Um I could have definitely had more conversations like that. I've I've I had quite a few, I you know, with with people, and some of them were wanting to learn, others totally shut off, you know. But I think influencing people in the workplace is just really getting to know them and then introducing them to hey, this is who Jesus really is. And can that be something that transforms their life? You kind of let the Holy Spirit do the work for the most part, but I think giving them that seed that could grow. Could could have done that more, but I definitely did do it um before this, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03Makes sense.
SPEAKER_04Anything that you feel like that you could have uh expanded on or opportunities that you feel like are out there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, can you can you repeat the question a little bit?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like before when uh you know, yeah, prior to working at tithe, you know, working working in the secular world, yeah. Was there a way that you could have like opportunities that were missed to go share the love of Jesus or ways that you feel like you could have done it that maybe you would go back and redo?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, maybe because I have like the opposite experience of like going from ministry to secular, like you know, actually like at lower.com, I probably was known for maybe talking too much to my co-workers or other people a little bit because I wasn't used to the um uh advanced.
SPEAKER_04I'm sure that's probably not a bad thing, though.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it wasn't that I mean no, I hit all I hit all my numbers in different ways where you you know, so it's like um you know, maybe maybe there's like there was a high emphasis on just like being in your chair and grinding it out. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, because it's like the metrics are there and you chase them and it's great. Um so I would say I wouldn't I wouldn't change, I wouldn't change that. You know, so looking back, I'm like, I'm glad I actually kind of like kept my approach of like I want to get to know everybody on my team within reason and different things and set up lunches um and things like that. So maybe maybe it could be easy in a secular sense to forget that like you're around people you can be super relational with. Yeah. Um so I don't know if that's fair to say even more.
SPEAKER_04Well here's another question, and then put it another way, is what has working under this mission cost you? Is there anything that it's cost you and is it worth it? What do you think?
SPEAKER_00Um I don't think I don't think it has cost me anything. I mean it's kind of I don't know. I haven't really thought about that because I've been I mean, like I said, I've the the main thing I've been focusing on with my my own intellect and will is being like God knows better than I do. So if uh if this business opened its door to me and and it's doing it's doing things that are spreading the gospel and serving, like you said, loving your neighbor, if it's doing all that, then I don't ever think about the cost. So I'd I probably have to think about that a little bit. You know, but that's what people who follow Jesus have to not count costs because again over time everything works in the in the favor of God. I mean that's what that's how he operates. He's supreme.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. What about you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I th I think it is um easier than I would admit to be like, yeah, is it is it better somewhere else, or even you know, I was at another mortgage, two two other mortgage companies, and you're like, could could I go somewhere else to make more money? That thought's always there. I mean, there's always another bidder. Oh, there's you you know, it's like somebody did say I read recently that I really like it's like if um if you're looking at somebody else's grass, like go water your own. Yeah, um, yeah, and you're like, you know, in our context, you like, okay, if I'm not bringing things to the Lord, like you're constantly doing that. And then maybe, you know, in in a funny way with mortgages, you you see everybody else's jobs. And some days when things are hard, you're like, man, should I have taken that job? I see and maybe talk to them a little bit about their job and different things. So you're like, maybe, maybe.
SPEAKER_04I used to daydream all the time when whenever I was in like peak pressure and stress, I would look out the window and see whoever the guy was that was cutting the grass of the building I was working in and be like, I think I'd rather just be cutting the grass right now.
SPEAKER_01Well, and and and maybe that that's such a like foundational thing in like whether you're at a Christian company or not. Like, you're just like when things get stressful, when you're like, I don't, I don't want this hard. Like, where can I go to get out of this? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You would trade it for anything in the moment, potentially. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, especially things that maybe you don't know. Like, it's easier to imagine something you don't know going well than something you do know. So it would be easy almost to be like, oh, tithe is costing me this, or my job's costing me this, where it's like, it's probably usually it's not uh until until maybe it is.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, you're thinking, yeah, no, it's just life. Yeah, really that's what it ends up boiling down to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So talk about like needing prayer. It's like that's peak, peak stress, different things like that. You have to go back to prayer to really get a right, yeah, right ordered sense of flesh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's uh I learned that from Thomas Aquinas too. He's he's talking about it made it made a lot of sense to me. I thought, man, this is this is good stuff. Yeah, no, but um, you know, you some people have asked me, like honestly, early early on, hey, aren't you afraid that someone's gonna look at you and say, oh, you know, you're a Christian, you think you're better than everybody, or and it's funny when people say that because like when you really know what what being a Christian is, it's it's exactly what I said is knowing that like I I can't do anything good. It's it's this is all this is only only Jesus can do this, only the Holy Spirit can do this. And um I I honestly never thought of it. I doubt and and I haven't had any fear, thankfully, and I think that's a gift. I think it I think honestly it's the Holy Spirit's giving me that gift of not being afraid to be part of this. I do think that there is loan officers who have looked at this and thought, I would like to be a part of it, but they're too afraid to wear it. You know what I mean? Like being outwardly Christian, yeah bring people can judge you for it, but luckily, um I haven't.
SPEAKER_04You're under a microscope a little more too, because yeah, yeah, your your actions are you're you're trying to reflect the actions of Jesus. But I sympathize with those people because if you go rewind the clock just a few years on on even my life, I was afraid to hit like on a LinkedIn post that had anything to do with God. Like I was so afraid of what other people would think of me knowing that I was a Christian.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Looking back now, I see as those thoughts as like how ridiculous that is, but um it's where I was. So I I you know, I I get it. I get where people are. And it's just all in God's timing. But um I do think that like exactly what you're saying is it's not costing you because you fully embraced your identity in Christ. Correct.
SPEAKER_00And I've only had, I mean, I think it's only been one that I know of client who said, I don't want to work with them because I don't like you know their belief system. Yeah. I think it's only been one time. So I mean, maybe I'm just getting lucky or you know, I guess it wouldn't be called luck.
SPEAKER_04The data says that you're right on. It's um, I mean, because and then you probably have also had I don't know how many clients who have come be specifically because it, because when they when they do see it, they're like, hey, I want to work with them because it that resonates with me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Most people when they see it, if we have the lowest rate, they're like, Well, I'm not a Christian, but they got the lowest rate, you know, so like they're not gonna like deny the themselves the savings.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, and I think yeah, I just I haven't I haven't had anyone, I guess, be against it, yeah, aggressively against it. But I've have I have heard that from some of the nonprofits that we work with. You know, they've had experiences where people are uh really against them coming into a space for whatever reason. But yeah, yeah, luckily for us hasn't been too much of an issue. Yeah, well the customer has choice, so it's it's a it's like a mortgage where you're like, yeah, yeah, it's kind of interesting too, yeah. Cause I mean, product-wise, it's like yeah, you have your mortgage forever, but having the process of getting the mortgage, you know, it's only a 30-day thing. So that's true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well I you know, you know, part of it's like talking about what we're gonna tithe cost us. Maybe, maybe it's in a sense cost us a lot of I don't know, cool trips or swag or different things because because you know, to Mark's credit, like in a sense it costs but he he almost fronts all the cost of the tithing. Um, we don't maybe get maybe get as many perks. Perks, you know, I will say that that is the main dinners.
SPEAKER_04It is uh the one the one thing that comes along with if you have a mission that is going to be any piece of it is going to be substantially financial.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You're good, it's always a trade. So yeah, we haven't done presidents club trips and we don't have lavish offices and we don't spend money, in my opinion, like on things that the customer doesn't care about. Like it's there's no yeah, there's no margin for a lot of ego-driven spending.
SPEAKER_01Well, and and that's a good point, actually, because you know, savvy customers are kind of like, okay, you you tithe, but like if if they know anything about business, it's like, isn't that baked into the margin that it costs me and everything like that, where you're like actually No, it actually is a replacement for all those other things we don't spend money on. Yeah, and it's and it's cheaper than the things that we don't spend money on, too. So it's like it actually isn't really baked into the margins. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, if you go get a microscope out to a lot of like larger corporations, there's a lot of spending that doesn't, it isn't the customer. So if you think about like what does the customer care about in our business, and it's they want their money, you know, cheaper if they can and simple to get, right? So if there's spending that's going on that isn't doing it's not serving them and it's not making it any faster or simpler for the referral partners either, then it's like, okay, well, why are we doing it? Yeah. And I mean, you just gotta be honest with yourself about that question. Yeah. But yeah, that's I guess you're right. That's it, that is what it costs because we just don't have room for it.
SPEAKER_01And and and those things can be done super well, too. Like, so we're not, I guess we're not villainizing those kind of things as much as like it's just the choice we've made. Yeah, yeah. It's it's just our our model, you know, different different ways to go about it.
SPEAKER_04And yeah, yeah. It's true. Well, guys, um A, first off, I appreciate you guys you know being here and being willing to share all these different things because I think this this is great. I think the perspective on just the way that we operate internally and the way that it feels for you guys, how it resonates with customers, referral partners, and then just your willingness to be a part of this. Um, I mean, you you guys both have the biggest hearts that I know. Um, I love being around you every single week, and I just appreciate you guys uh being on the show.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Iron Iron Sharpens iron.
SPEAKER_00He's an iron knife. Iron knife.
SPEAKER_04He's an iron knife. I am iron. Oh my gosh. Well, um if you want more access to resources, books, hey, I'm closing us out here. Resources, books, anything else that you need, you can get it at markgreaves.com. But uh, guys, thank you very much. And we're over. Thank you.