Where I Stand

I coach, I do not preach.

I stay in my lane, and my lane is money.

I hold my church's convictions on everything in that statement of faith. But holding a conviction and teaching on it are different things. I am not going to stand in front of your congregation and preach on sexuality, church governance, or denominational doctrine. Those belong to you and your elders. If somebody asks me a question in one of my sessions that is properly yours, I will say so and send them back to you.

Why this page exists

If you lead a church or a ministry and somebody has suggested bringing me in to teach your people about money, you are not really deciding whether I am good at finance. You are deciding whether to put your name next to mine, in front of people who trust you.

That is a fair thing to be careful about. So here is where I stand, in plain words, before you have to ask.

What I believe

I have been a member of Saddleback Church for fourteen years, and I hold to my church's statement of faith. You can read it in full here: saddleback.com/about/what-we-believe

I am pointing you there rather than writing my own version on purpose. Drafting a separate statement would only invite confusion about where I differ, and I do not differ. Those are my convictions, stated by the church I sit under and am accountable to. I am a member there and not staff, and naming them is not Saddleback endorsing me or my work.

That link answers who I am. What follows is what I actually teach, which is a narrower thing.

How I understand money

Everything belongs to God. You are a steward, not an owner. That is the frame underneath every single thing I teach, and it is the reason I do not teach money as a route to comfort.

Here is the difference between me and most people who do this work. They want you to get wealthy, want you to have a big house and a great retirement plan. I simply want you to be prepared so that when God taps you on the shoulder and says I want you to do X, you have got the finances for it. I want you to be a good steward, the same way Joseph was.

Preparation, so you are useful when you are called. Not accumulation.

On tithing and giving

I teach giving as the first 10% of what you earn, given to God through the local church you belong to. In my book it is the first of four buckets, and it comes before bills, before saving, and before spending. It is an act of faith and gratitude. It reminds you that everything comes from God and that you are a steward, not an owner.

Through the local church. I point people back to their own congregation. Not to a parachurch fund, not to a cause of my choosing, and not to me. If somebody sits in your pews, my teaching sends their first 10% to you.

Two honest notes, because I would rather you hear them from me.

I was raised on tithing, and I give more than 10%. I give what the Holy Spirit leads me to give, and over the years that has grown past a tenth. Some people would say that means I do not technically tithe, since a tithe literally means ten percent. I am comfortable with that. I call the bucket Giving and I leave it there.

I also do not teach a rule about gross or net, because I do not find one in scripture. Whether you give before or after the government takes its share is not mine to decide for you. What I know is that Jesus said to give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. Ask the Holy Spirit and let Him work it out with you. For myself, I give on the net. Everything that comes into my basket.

And I do not go into the nuances of offerings versus tithes. That is your teaching to give, not mine. Where somebody's convictions on the details differ from mine, I send them back to what they believe, not to what I believe.

What I expect because I gave

Nothing owed.

This is the question I most want to answer plainly, because I know what it is really asking. I do not teach that giving is a deposit that obliges God to pay out. I do not teach that a larger gift produces a larger return. I am not running seed faith. Giving is not a strategy for getting money. It is how you keep straight who the money belonged to in the first place.

I have written a whole book on this, and it is the closest thing I have to a long answer. It is called Leave Room for the Father, and its spine is a single idea: you were never going to earn what He already gave you. If you want to know what I believe about trying to buy something from God, that is thirty thousand words of me saying you cannot, and you do not need to.

On Malachi 3:10, since it always comes up

I do teach it, and I teach it as written.

"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse... and try Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven."

That is the only place in scripture where God invites us to test Him. He said it. I am not going to teach around it.

But being invited to test God is not the same thing as making a bargain with Him. When a parent says trust me, I will keep my word, that is not a transaction. It does not mean the parent will only keep their word if the child pays them. It means: do you believe me or not? Do you believe I keep my word?

That is what God is doing in Malachi. He is drawing you out into faith. He is asking whether you believe He is who He says He is. Money is simply the place He chose to ask the question, because money is where most of us are least willing to trust anybody.

So let me be as clear as I can be about the other side of it.

Giving God money does not make Him love you more. Withholding it does not make Him love you less. He loves you. Full stop. Your giving is not what saves you. You are saved if you believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, as Lord and Saviour. It is that simple, and nothing in my teaching adds a financial condition to it.

If you are going to trust Him, this is one way to trust Him: with your money. If you are not ready to, He has not stopped loving you and I am not going to tell you otherwise.

What I do expect is that somebody who gives first, consistently, ends up with their priorities in the right order, and that changes how they handle everything else. That is a discipleship outcome, not a financial one.

Prosperity, poverty, and the word I am not going to hand over

You are probably weighing me against two categories, so let me place myself against both.

I am not a poverty teacher. I do not serve a poor God. I do not believe there is anything holy about being broke, and I am not going to lead anyone there. Scripture does not treat lack as a virtue and neither do I.

I am also not a prosperity preacher in the way the world uses that phrase. I do not teach get rich quick. I do not teach wealth as the goal. I am not selling anyone a jet.

Here is the actual position. We do not worship wealth. We worship God, and the purpose of wealth is to serve God.

That is not a slogan, it is a job description. It means that when God says go and give to that person, you have it to give, and you are not borrowing in order to obey. It means that when God says go and do this work for a year, you can support yourself, and you are not begging your way through obedience.

Money is a tool, the same as any other. What matters is whose hand it is in and what it is used for. Not storehouses. Not a sixth car for the sake of a sixth car.

And God does want you to enjoy it. Ecclesiastes says He gives wealth and the health to enjoy it, and I teach that on purpose. In my own book, spending on something that brings you joy is a required bucket, not a leftover. Enjoying what God provides is not the opposite of stewardship. Worshipping it is.

Why any of this matters practically: being debt free is not about looking successful. It is about being free to obey. If God asks something of you, you should not be caught between obeying Him and answering to a creditor. And you should not be caught between obeying Him and protecting a retirement account, a second house, or a lifestyle you have quietly started serving.

There is one master who gets to say what happens to your money. Not the bank. Not your possessions. Not your pastor, and not me either. Whatever God tells you to do with it is what you do.

So if prosperity means my God is a God of wealth and He is able, then yes, I believe that and I teach it. If prosperity means give me your money and God will make you rich, then no, and I would ask you to hold me to that.

Marriage, and the one line I will name outright

This is the place a church is most likely to collide with me, so I would rather say it up front than have you discover it later.

If you have already filed for divorce, I will help you land. If you have not filed for divorce, I will help you save your marriage. To me, that is the line.

I am not in the business of separating anyone's marriage. If a couple is struggling and still in it, my work is to take money off the table as a reason to leave. If somebody has already made a legal decision before they reach me, I am not going to withhold practical help and call that ministry.

And to say it plainly, because it has been asked: I am neither a divorce attorney nor a financial advisor. Helping somebody land means helping them get their finances together as one person again. Their own numbers, their own accounts, their own budget, and a plan for a future they are now carrying on their own.

If your church would rather that second person be turned away, we are not a fit, and I would genuinely rather you know that now.