The Daily Signal - How to Align Your Money With Your Faith

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

In this inspiring conversation, Bill and Dana Wichterman share their 35-year journey of aligning their finances with their Christian faith. From starting married life $13,000 in debt to becoming thoughtful stewards of all their resources, they reveal practical wisdom from their new book "Stewards Not Owners: The Joy of Aligning Your Money with Your Faith." Discover how the Wichtermans developed a unique approach to generosity, investing, and financial stewardship that brought them more joy, peace, and purpose. They share personal stories, practical advice on starting small, and insights on the difference between saving and hoarding. Whether you're just starting out or decades into your financial journey, this conversation offers valuable guidance on finding freedom and purpose through faith-aligned stewardship. Topics covered: - The concept of a "generosity fund" and how it transformed their approach to giving - Faith-based investing strategies that don't sacrifice returns - Practical tips for involving your family in generosity - How to find community support for your stewardship journey - The surprising benefits: less anxiety, more peace, and deeper joy Learn more at https://stewardsnotowners.com/ The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: https://secured.dailysignal.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to The Daily Signal weekend edition. I'm your host, Rob Blewey. Today we're taking a deeper dive and going beyond the headlines to discuss the issues and events that deserve more attention. At The Daily Signal, the news never stops. Each day, we strive to bring you analysis and perspectives you won't find elsewhere. That's why we started this weekend show and why we're grateful that you're joining us today. Our conversation is coming up next. We are joined at the Daily Signal today by a longtime friend, Bill Wichter, and his wife, Dana Wichterman. They are the authors of a brand new book called Stewards Not Owners, the Joy of Aligning Your Money with Your Faith. Bill and Dana, thanks so much for joining us on The Daily Signal. Thanks for having us on, Rob. Thank you.

I love this book as a Christian myself and somebody who strives to and has for years to strive to hit that tithe. You've given me a new concept to think about. And Bill, I want to begin with this because I think it would be helpful. for you to take a step back and explain why you embarked on this project and why you're asking us to kind of rethink stewardship in a different light. Yeah. So thanks, Rob. We've been married 35 years and the beginning of our marriage, actually before we got married, even before we got engaged, we started reading a book together by a guy named Larry Burkett, Christian financial concepts,

but it was really about aligning your money with your faith. And his focus was very much on making sure that you're keeping track of your money, you're tithing, of course, that you're saving appropriately, not overspending, those kinds of things. And that was hugely consequential for us. And I think that right in the beginning of our marriage, we started to see this as like an expression of our faith, what we've now come to call a love letter to God. And Jesus said that where your treasure is there your heart will be also. And so in many ways, money is the way you put legs to your faith, right? And so if you go look at your checkbook

or your credit card purchases, would the Lord be pleased, right? That would be kind of a question. So that's where it started. I think we've really grown in it. We started with just making sure that we were tithing, and then we added a generosity fund early on,

an additional 1% to be generous with people in our lives. And that was incredibly joyful. Then we really started increasing our tithe than growing into that as we saw the tithe is a floor rather than a ceiling. And seeing also that then God wants more than just a cut of your money, money, he wants all of your money. Now, that's not the same as giving away all of your money,

but he wants to be lord of all of it. And then as we leaned into philanthropy, we started to realize, wait a second, we're not paying any attention to the biggest pot of money, which is our investing, because over time, that becomes a larger, pot of money as you grow older and you've been saving up. And when you look at all the money in the U.S. liquid investable assets, you put on a pie chart and you just take out a little slice of less than

1% of a slice of a pie, that's charitable in terms of the U.S. And we spend a lot of time thinking about charitable and ignoring what are we doing with our investments. Are they actually aligned with our fate, or are we investing in companies that, frankly, don't share our values and further a worldview that we don't agree with? So that's come into kind of our progression. Well, thank you for that, Bill. I appreciate that. And Dana, let's bring you into the conversation here. You know, as your family decided to make this shift over the years and embrace, you know, so many of the different ideas that Bill just articulated, what kind of advice do you have for others who either might be listening to this or you articulate in the book to help them?

Because as you know, I mean, families with kids and so many demands, I mean, they might be overwhelmed at the notion of doing this. But at the same time, you've been successful. So what worked for you? Yeah. Well, there were a couple ways we tried to enliven our kids' moral imagination around generosity. One was just talking around at the dinner table because, like, I grew up in a generous family, but we never talked about specifics or it was kind of at the end of the year. I knew my dad was sending money out to support people. And so we really didn't discuss it and make it a family project. So we made it more of a family project. We did things like at Christmas give them a certain amount of money for them to give out to others. And we even said, you can't give it out right now. You have to think about it and kind of assess the needs around you. Be aware of people's needs around you and then determine where you think that should go. So that was one of our family practices. But I also think the way you tie this into families and motivate people is to talk about their impact in the

world. Kids these days and all of us want to leave a legacy, want to make the world a better place. And part of our way to do that is where we direct both our time, our talent, and our treasure. And so try to help people think about all those things and where they're directing and what kind of positive impact they can do in the world because of that. No, that's great advice. And I think that those conversations around the dinner table are critically important to this. We are in our busy lives, particularly, you know, having a teenager myself and one who's about to become a teen. You know, there are so many different things calling their attention, but there's nothing more important than spending that quality family time together and having these types of conversations. Bill, I want to go back. You talked about the generosity fund.

Can you offer a few more details about that? I mean, Dana gave us a bit of a sense. of how it works with your kids. But what are some of the different ways that you've utilized that to enrich the lives of perhaps other people in your life? Well, we started in our marriage by keeping track of all of our expenses, which, by the way, I think is a superpower.

Because if you actually keep track of your expenses, you can build a realistic budget, and you can also then examine, where's your money actually going? You know, it was, I think Socrates, who said the unexamined life is not worth living. and it's hard to live an examined life in your finances if you don't really know where your money is going.

You just have this vague sense. So that was number one. But an unintended consequence of that was we didn't, to begin with, have a place for generosity. So if we were out with a friend and you wanted to pay for their meal or their coffee or something, you're like, oh, where's this money coming from? Because we had everything budgeted.

So we thought we need to free ourselves up to do that. And what we did was we made it kind of a revolving fund, like a fund that would just build over time. So if we didn't spend all the generosity in January, then we would have more in February. And it became a part of our budget. It was just so fun. Because you're not giving to somebody necessarily homeless person,

your church, a ministry. You're just given to a friend. And it kind of gets your mindset of thinking, where can I go spend this money? I have this pot of money that's going to be going. And so that became really exciting for us. We loved that pot of money. We learned to love generosity, is what I'd say, and grow into it.

I think I have a generous tendency, but it was definitely one which developed, a la Dana speak to her own tendencies in that space. But then it grew farther. So now there's a whole issue of a finish line, and there's a whole movement. There's even a group dedicated to setting a finish line. What is a finish line? When people retire, they're essentially saying, we've here. our finish line. We've earned enough money. We don't need to earn any more money. So one of the

things that we've been encouraged to do and from hearing from other friends is say, you know, we could retire now. Let's keep working and let's just give away all of our money after we pay our taxes. That is totally fun. It's like going a kid going into a carnival with a bunch of free tickets because it totally changes your way you look at money. So growing into generosity has been a progression for us and incredibly joyful. That's the only way I characterize it. By the way, we have 24 stories in our book. Yes.

Because we wanted to make sure that narrative has been important for us and hearing people's stories. And these are not made up stories. These are real live saints alive today, not famous, who are incredible stewards. And a pervasive theme that we hear from all of them is the joy that they get out of generosity and stewardship. Absolutely.

Well, I concur with you on the, important storytelling and appreciate you bringing that perspective. Dana, you know, you also talk about the difference between saving and hoarding. And I'm wondering if you could bring in some of the biblical principles behind this and how your faith has guided a lot of these decisions that you and Bill are talking to me about this morning. Well, I think, first of all, we can't judge from the outside someone else's relationship with money. But we can say and discern maybe our entire cultural way of dealing with money and say that there's something off, right? There is something off when people care more about success and money than they do about being a good person, a good citizen,

you know, that kind of thing. So we do know there's something off in the society. And so the first place, of course, is to examine your own heart. And to think through, though, I think that you balance the various wisdom in the Bible of being prudent, we're to, told to plan, we're told to be like the ant and store up for the future. At the same time, we're not supposed to hoard. We're not supposed to build barns and excessive, just, you know, keep everything for ourselves and say, I trust in my barns. I trust in, you know, the chariots as opposed to God. Because everything, as we know, can be wiped away in a moment. And so the way we've done that is to try to balance it so that we have some safety nets. We have some reasonable

you know, insurance or this and that. But then if you have too many safety nets, you know that it's become inordinate and that your trust is not in the right place. And I think one way we learn to do that is by opening up our books to other people, other couples that we feel safe with, that we can talk real practical things. Like, what do you think we should do about the spending on vacations? What do you think we should, are we doing too much here? Are we doing too little? And so just having an accountability partner, it's scary to open the books to others, you know, but it also, we do it in other areas of our lives when we want to be more transformative. So I think people should be willing to do that. Find the right person, safe person, you know, that kind of thing.

Well, thank you for that. And Bill, I want to go back to something that you mentioned earlier, and that is the investing piece of this. Obviously, you know, that is such a huge component of the overall economy and already. retirement and everything else that goes into life these days. But at the same time, it might be daunting, you know, to think about this. I mean, it's quite easy to invest in the S&P 500 index fund and forget about it. And, you know, when you're ready for retirement, cash out. But what are some of the things that you and your family have done to make sure that you are supporting and in alignment with your own faith when it comes to that area? You know, it's a great question. By the way,

people sometimes get scared of this because they assume that to invest in the line with your faith is another word for making less money. And that's not necessarily the case. There are all kinds of market rate and better than market rate investment opportunities for Christians who want to align their investing with their money with their faith. And there are actually 250 funds in the U.S. right now that are Christian funds where you can do this. Lots of individual businesses. And at first when we looked at it like, wait, how are we going to do this with public equities on the stock market. Well, there's even now funds for that. A group called Sovereigns has a fund that you can invest in. And I know that one of the sovereigns guys is on the

Heritage Foundation board, for instance, and that these are guys who are like thinking critically about where are the companies that are good or bad. So other people can do that work for you. It's not like you have to become a stock analyst if you're doing public equities or have to start looking for private investment opportunities that are faith aligned, although there are a bunch of those too. And we do angel investing, venture equity, private equity, and there's a whole ecosystem in a community around this. So if your listeners are looking for that, they'll see in the back of our book a list of resources of places that they can go for that. So yeah, it's become something which maybe 10 or 20 years ago would have been much, much more difficult than it is today.

by the way, a lot of foundations have started to rethink their endowments because you have foundations dedicated to one thing that have been investing in things that are exactly contrary to that. Dana likes to say, you know, we want no ill-gotten gains. If you knew that the best investments today would be strip clubs, would you do it so you can give more money to your church? Well, of course not, right? And so the theory of this is let's find things which actually both have a negative

screen that screen out things that you don't believe in and then a positive screen screen so that they have what we call a redemptive edge of actually helping to make the world flourish. Dana, Bill mentioned earlier the 24 stories that you feature in the book. Is there a particular story that stands out in your mind that you'd like to share with our listeners? Sure. Well, one of my heroes is my boss. I work for a place called Impact Foundation. So we are a foundation where you can use your charitable capital.

It's a donor advice fund. So you put your money in a donor advice fund. You get your tax deduction. But then you can send it out to nonprofits anytime you like. And my boss, Amy Minick, created a donor advice fund that's very unique that allows you to invest your donor advice fund money into for-profit companies that are doing good in the world. world. So you can do these kind of investments into companies, into funds with your charitable capital. And a lot of people say, wait, that doesn't sound legal, but it is and it's being done. And so, yeah, the Amy figured out how people can do that and expand their impact in their charitable

work was to me just a phenomenal thing. Excellent. Thank you for sharing that example. Bill, you know, Dana mentioned. earlier that your family still goes on vacation, you still do fun things. I don't want anyone to come away from this thinking that all you have to, you work, you invest, and all the money goes to faith. So how has it been, how have you found that balance, that right balance? And even when you do do those fun things to making sure that they're aligned with the values that you have as Christians as well. That's such a great question because it's going to be different for each person, right? I mean, I don't feel the liberty to drive a luxury car, and I have friends who do.

And that is not for me to judge, but we do have liberty to have a boat. And that's not part of people to judge. So ultimately, this is a conversation with God. This is thinking, obviously, using your brain, because if you're going to have to, like, go into debt to do something for a depreciating asset, that's not a good idea. but if it makes sense fiscally financially for you, then it's really also a question of, well, where do I have liberty to do this? Because, you know, the scripture talks about in 1 Timothy 6,

Paul writes how he gives us everything for our enjoyment and he's referring there to money. So God loves us more than the person who loves you most in this life. God loves you more. So he celebrates with those things. He is not dour. There are so many. conversations and illustrations of scripture about like the feast that takes place in heaven.

This is, God is not like a killjoy. On the other hand, James, the book of James talks about warning those who are wealthy who are hoarding wealth and exploiting workers and not sharing what they've been given. So this is a balance. Think about Aristotle's golden mean, if you will, and ultimately, how do you hit that balance? It's really a matter for us. It's a conversation with the Lord. It's reading scripture. It's in community with others like Dana talked about.

It's not a bright line. This is a journey. And we just want to grow into this journey. But ultimately, when we stand before the Lord, we want to hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant. Absolutely. Absolutely. Dana, you know, following up on that and something that you mentioned earlier,

You said that you have friends and others that you trust and you share information with. What are some practical tips and advice that you can share with listeners about how, if they want to embark and take your advice and proceed down this path, that they can do to make sure that they have that support community and it's not just a husband and wife alone, but they really are leaning into others who share their values? Well, I recommend going to a place called generousgiving.org, and they provide journeys of generosity, and it's kind of walking you through

this lens of how to go deeper into generosity. You usually do that either online or in person, and so you'll meet people that way. We've met some people that were really great that way. And then also, if you have folks in your church, I think sometimes it's harder to do it with people that live right next door or like family members who are going to try to tell you how to spend the money, you know, so you do want to have people that have some objectivity

and don't have a, you know, some kind of stake in how you're directing your money. But I would, that's one place I would recommend. Bill, do you have ideas? Well, also, I would be remiss not holding up our books, stewards not owners, which you can get Arns and Noble, Amazon, anywhere you buy books. you can find our books. And if you're foolish enough not to buy our book, Rob, you can go to our website for free. Stewards.0.0.com. Stewards notowners.com.

And we have all kinds of resources on that. Video clips, conversations with people about this. So that's another place for people to go. Bill, we'll make sure we include links to all of them in the show notes and the description. and the story on the Daily Signal, you clearly want to see, you know, have this book make an impact and change people's lives.

And so what are some of the tangible things that you hope to accomplish now that you've published? Yeah, it's a great idea. You know, first of all, everything we earn from the book, we give away. So we're not, this is not about us getting rich on this book, that's for sure. But, yeah, we really hope that people will find out the joy of generosity and of stewardship,

is why we put it in the title, the joy of aligning your money with your faith. Because it is counterintuitive for a lot of people. They think this is scary. This is about having no fun. And that is not our experience. And that's not the experience of the people we know. It's really like that kid in a carnival with a bunch of free tickets. It's incredibly exciting.

I think, we think, and this is, we're going to take a shot at a sacred cow, that when you retire, if you just become one giant stomach thinking of it, your next meal and your next golf round and what your lawn looks like, it's actually, it drains your life of meaning and joy. And when you're instead thinking about how you can share and empower others, wow, we have found it to be so life-giving. And I would add to that, that the benefit also is less anxiety, less stress, and more peace. So not only is their joy, but there's been peace and even just a calmness when normally I would have experiences that would have made me stressed or anxious.

And I've just learned to be very calm in those situations. So that's another benefit. So I see all of the benefits, but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you. So what are the barriers or the resistance that you, the both of you hear about when you share your ideas? I mean, do you get pushback? or is everybody just fully embracing of what you talk about? Well, no, and I would say people have different responses

because they're wired differently. So I am not naturally generous. I'm generous with my time, but not with my money or my possessions. Bill is naturally generous. So we had to work that out in our marriage as well. But what I came from it with more of a duty mentality, that that's what a good citizen does and a good person is generous. That's one of the virtues.

So I started out with maybe not a joy, okay? But over time, I learned to exercise those muscles to where, first of all, they just became habitual, but then they became joyful and relational and gave me deeper meaning and purpose. So I would say don't think the joy necessarily is going to come the instant you're involved in things. Sometimes it's sacrificial. And that's pleasing to God too, and it's good for our souls to, you know, give back. and to not expect that everything is about us. Bill, how about for you? Do you hear resistance from those that you share these ideas with?

Yeah, I think it's people who are afraid of guilt and fear, and they assume that we're going to be judging them and telling them what they should do with their money and that they shouldn't be eating in nice restaurants, they shouldn't be buying Starbucks coffee or whatever it is, right? That is not our role. This is between you and God. Now, is God?

Can God be scary? Definitely. But the frightening part is only in the beginning. Once you get over that and you actually surrender yourself to God, you're like the kid on the high dive who's scared to death to take that leap. And then after they have, wow, they find that there's so much joy in that. And they'll want to go back and do it again. So, yeah, this is the same thing was the Garden of Eden. This was the problem.

The serpent is telling Adam and Eve, essentially, God's a kill joy. He just doesn't want you to have fun. That's why he doesn't want you to have that fruit. Of course, that was a lie. And so that's the way it is with God. You've got to trust him, and then you get to the other side and find that joy.

That's so true. Well, I want to thank both of you, and again, we'll make sure that we include all of the links to purchase the book and your website and everything else. Dana, Bill, any closing words of wisdom that you'd like to share with our audience today? I would just say start with baby steps. Don't feel like you have to look at every single part of, you know, just the baby steps.

And yeah, but that's where I would start. Good advice. Bill? Same thing. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step or how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Don't be overwhelmed by this. Just start thinking about it. I think it does begin with surrender, though, with a simple prayer. Say, Lord, I want to please you with my money.

If you don't really want to please it with your money, then that's a whole different story. But if you start there, then you just take step by step. And I think you'll find it to be a joyful journey with a lot of other joyful people. Absolutely. And I think it probably, if you'd agree with me on this, that it doesn't matter what stage in life you're at. I mean, you could be a young person newly married, or maybe you're somebody who's 20 or 30 years into a marriage and you pick up the copy of the book. and you want to start now. So, I mean, it's one of those things

that I think brings great fulfillment when you embrace this lifestyle. We had, we were $13,000 in debt when we got married. We lived in a house with, we had no car, we had cockroaches, and we started the joy of financial stewardship right at the beginning. And so poor, rich, et cetera,

it's for everybody. Excellent. Well, congratulations, and thank you for writing this book. It, again, it's called, stewards not owners, the joy of aligning your money with your faith. And Bill and Dana Wichtermen, I appreciate you joining the Daily Signal. Thank you, Rob. Thank you so much, Rob. We are going to leave it there for today. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new shows from the Daily Signal. Every weekday catch top news in 10 right here in this

podcast feed. Tony Kinnett helps you keep up with the day's top headlines in just 10 minutes. And every weekday afternoon, catch Victor Davis Hanson. thoughtful analysis for the Daily Signal. He picks one big news story or policy issue that's driving the day and offers his take. And stick around for the weekend for the Daily Signal's featured interview. If you like what you hear on this show, what you take a minute to leave us a comment? We love hearing your feedback. Thanks again for being with us today. The Daily Signal podcast was made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Bluey and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen and Tyler O'Neill.

Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geine, John Popp and Joseph Fons-Bakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.