The Dark Side of Church Finances Revealed | Chris Ayoub & Nathan Apffel DSH #541

6% of that 890 billion we talked about actually leaves the institutional walls of the church and almost half of it goes to salaries.

And this money is tax-free since it's part of the church, right?

Yeah.

So that's what's really interesting is when you look at this idea of tithing as cultural and not strictly biblical, then you say that was the culture then.

It's not the culture now.

You know, but if you say, hey, Sean, this is biblical, then I can leverage it against you.

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And here's the episode.

All right, guys.

We got two brave gentlemen here that are exposing a $1.42 trillion industry today.

We got Nathan Apfel and Chris Ayub.

Thanks for coming on, guys.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, what a journey you guys are about to embark on.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're well on our way, sir.

Yeah, you've already filmed the documentary, right?

Yeah, we're about 80% the way shot.

One of our biggest pushbacks from kind of our social media audiences was we weren't showing the opposite side of the coin, you know, the good side, the quote-unquote good side.

And so we threw a post up probably two months ago now or six weeks ago saying, hey, if there's any pastors or clergy that want to talk, we will come to you.

And we had about 250 reach out.

And so we split the U.S.

up into six different regions and we've just been pounding the pavement.

So

today, this podcast is the last of seven days on the road for me.

My eye is twitching.

I'm exhausted.

And so we shot nine large interviews over the last week and we were in five states.

And so we're basically just separating the U.S.

up and just getting really unique stories, which was a side of the show that I didn't see coming.

So we've got a couple more months of filming, but we have two editors cranking full-time on the show itself.

Nice.

The intention was always to get both sides of the coin.

It was really, really tough.

At one point, we sent an email out to 800 pastors to say, hey, we wanted to sit down and talk and learn a little bit more.

And we got two responses.

That's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then we, we, like Nate said, we got a lot of pushback.

And so we were saying, let's, so one day he just went out there and said, hey, like, let's talk.

And the next thing you know, he's got 200, 250 people wanting to talk, which is a beautiful thing.

Nice.

And then from those people you talked to, what kind of differentiated the good churches, the good pastors, from the bad ones?

It's usually scale.

And when I say bad, they all play by the same rule book, by the same IRS guidelines.

And this is where things get really gray and murky.

Very few people know anything about these guidelines or rules.

And these guidelines were, most of them were produced in 1913.

So they're archaic.

It was, you know, you were pulling up in a horse and buggy when these things were being written.

And so

there's just a lot of loopholes that technology has helped create.

And so you can be a pastor of a church of 10 and you play by the same rules that a Joel Osteen or a TD Jakes or a Creflo Dollar does.

So I wouldn't say there's any good and bad.

It's just, it's like, if you start abusing the system, these loopholes, your abuse is just going to get worse and worse as you scale.

Got it.

And so

it's a systemic problem, if that makes sense.

But now, you'd say like a lot of

the positive stories.

Nate's been working on this for over 10 years, and I'm one year into this.

And And so I still have a lot of like the aha light bulb moments.

And one really neat one recently was the concept of bivocational pastors, where that's not their full-time job.

There's a pretty substantial number of those that fall into the category of like, they're doing a lot of good in the community.

Well, like a bivocationality or bivocationalism means like you might take a little bit, you might take a part-time salary, but you have to have a job outside of your church or religious organization to sustain your life.

Like there's one bivocational bivocational pastor I met and he made $400 a month from his church.

So clearly he has to have a job outside.

But what it does is when you don't take a full-time salary and your financial success is not contingent on the success of that religious organization, you can teach more biblically or you can teach what you believe more, if that makes sense.

You don't have to say, dang, if these people don't give, my salary is gone.

It's like, nah, not really.

I only make 400 bucks from you guys.

So if I feel led to teach this, like, I'm going to teach this.

And so

it's almost like not taking that full-time salary relieves you from the pressure of having to cater to a very broad audience.

And you don't want to piss people off, you know, because then that's money going out the window, so to speak, or potential donor dollars going out the window.

Yeah.

So bivocationality is pretty, a, uh, a pretty cool idea.

Yeah.

Was there like a sweet spot in terms of members?

Yeah.

So there is a literal tipping point.

Um, so we're going to present this in the show, so I won't give the exact number, but think of it as when you think of Christianity and you think of like a religious organization where you go and worship together,

if you're a Christian, you lean on the Bible and what your Savior Christ said.

And he focused on depth, not scale.

You know,

I don't need 20,000 or 50,000 people.

I want, he picked 12 men and he poured into those 12 men, right?

So it was about depth.

Well, as your scale grows and as your congregation grows and your body gets bigger, you naturally have to dilute your message a little bit because you have different cultures coming in, different age brackets.

You have married, you have unmarried.

So you kind of, I don't want to say dumb down, but you simplify your message.

Well, what happens is when your congregation gets so big, you have to start thinking about scale because your building gets more expensive, your parking lots are bigger.

And so it's between 175 and 225 people where that...

that small little community now is exponentially expensive.

You had another 100, 200, 300.

The air conditioning conditioning units get more expensive.

The heating units get more expensive.

Got it.

Just naturally the cost grows.

And so you got to start thinking about where am I going to raise 5 million bucks a year or 10 million bucks a year.

Yeah.

And speaking of money, you guys track the flow and you got a percentages breakdown of how they're spending it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at, you mentioned the number 1.42 trillion, that number is derived of 890 billion globally comes in from donors to Christianity across the world.

And that gap, the 500 plus billion, goes to secular nonprofits within the United States.

The biggest difference between the two is a secular nonprofit files a 990 every year with the IRS, talks about revenues, expenses, taught people salaries and such.

On the religious institution side, there is no requirement for that.

So it's a little bit more of a black hole.

And we like to say humans will human.

Yeah.

So a lot of money that comes in.

Only

6% of that $890 billion we talked about actually leaves the institutional walls of the church are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest well click the application link below in the description of this video we are always looking for cool stories cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life click the application link below and here's the episode guys and almost half of it goes to salaries wow yeah

and this money is tax-free since it's part of the church right yeah the the donut yeah the donations that come in and that's the tithing that's what donations are yes Yeah, tithing is

an Old Testament term, or you find it in the Old Testament.

It literally means 10%.

Like in Hebrew, it just means a tenth.

And so tithing is a mosaic law that a lot of Christian churches leverage to ask or require.

In the LDS church, they demand it.

It's not a voluntary.

donation or gift.

It's a compulsory gift.

And so, yeah, and but when you look at tithing from a cultural standpoint, back in that time period, Judaism wasn't the only culture of tithing.

Egyptians were tithing.

There was tithing across that whole

geographical area.

And so that's what's really interesting is when you look at this idea of tithing as cultural and not strictly biblical, then you say, That was the culture then.

It's not the culture now.

But if you say, hey, Sean, this is biblical, then I can leverage it against you, if that makes sense.

And so that's a huge educational gap that we're trying to fill in

the docuseries is this was a cultural marker for basically taxation.

It wasn't biblical.

It wasn't this God-given law, if that makes sense.

It was cultural.

Polytheistic nations were tithing.

Lots of different nations were tithing at that time.

Yeah, I think back then it makes sense if that money goes towards community growth, right?

Like I pay an HOA, so I see it kind of similar to that.

But right now for religious, these churches are misusing the funds, right?

Well, you got to think of like, you know, in Judaism, those Mosaic laws, those laws you find in the Torah, were their literal legal structure.

It was their government.

It was religion and government combine.

You know, same thing with Egypt.

You know, you had the Pharaoh and their polytheistic religions were combined.

So when you were giving to these gods, you were giving to the community.

Like tithing was a form of taxation.

And so you come to America.

Separation of church and state is very clear.

So you pay your tithes technically to the government, but then the church also wants its quote-unquote tithe.

And so we're almost being

one, two punched, you know, from a title.

Yeah, because the tax is already insane in America, you know, federal, state, sometimes city, depending where you're at.

And now you got the religion, and that's 10% of your total, like before the tax, right?

Yeah, and that's where it's the show.

We speak with three,

I would argue, leading scholars, Old Testament and New Testament scholars.

One gentleman speaks ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek.

And these three individuals walk you through this whole historical timeline to where by the end of the docuseries we want you to be like i

am not required to give you a tithe

you know now granted the government or now granted excuse me christ if you if you follow jesus as your as your quote unquote savior gave very specific guidelines on generosity who to help and where to help right but for some reason no organized religion or organized institution was ever mentioned right in that wow now both your tick tocks have been banned and your business one banned

Yeah, that was very, very interesting.

So I had a personal TikTok account for about a year leading up to when we launched a religion business one.

And one interesting thing was, is we grew extremely fast.

We amassed over 100,000 followers with the religion business

within like less than three months.

Wow.

And along the way, started getting hit with some like ridiculous, like just ridiculous stuff.

We put a poll out there.

Who's worse at managing money, the government or the religious institutions fair question yeah

we got flagged for drugs and alcohol right

another one that was just absolutely mind-blowing i i'd like nate to touch on this one considering he's a two-time emmy award-winning filmmaker about uh what we got hit with about our uh our lack of originality yeah it was non-original content is what they said and i didn't even know that was the thing yeah yeah yeah no they just we we started realizing really quick they were trying to they or people that followed us that didn't like our material were just slamming every door they can.

But what was weird is I was driving to Zion and I'm like just refreshing TikTok, you know, driving and being safe.

And our TikTok just disappears.

And I'm like, whoa, that's crazy.

And so I click on my personal and boom, my personal is gone.

And I click on Chris's and boom, his was gone.

And that was three accounts like simultaneously wiped out.

But the ironic part is my personal one had 73 followers.

I had only ever posted two videos that had nothing to do with the religion business.

Crazy.

And so that's when I'm like, this is like a surgical extermination of anything that has to do with this topic.

This wasn't like a let's get rid of the religion business.

And they didn't even temporarily suspend us.

They just immediately permanently

suspended.

Oh, so you haven't gotten anything back?

No, nothing.

They won't even let us download our content.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

So, and on top of that,

the tagline these days to get you wiped out is hate speech.

So they said, I mean, I've asked numerous people, there's nothing that we're posting is even

is hate speech.

It's factual data and it's creating a community for people to come together and talk about a very serious topic, $1.42 trillion industry.

Like,

let's start talking about this and solving these problems.

They're uncomfortable discussions, but let's have them.

And we were just providing data.

And next thing you know,

hate speech.

And that was kind of the straw of Red Camel's bag.

Because you guys seem pretty logical.

You're not just throwing out conspiracies.

No.

No,

I've been researching this for 10 years.

Like, I've sat at Oxford, Yale, Notre Dame, University of San Francisco.

I've sat with top professors around the world to make sure we're on point here.

And we still get flagged as hate speech.

And I'm like, whatever.

Well, and I think when you look at social media, this is just a total sidebar, but they want to whitewash the population in regards.

They don't want controversial things.

You know, they want you to kind of enjoy music and enjoy film and enjoy those goofy dance videos.

But when you start pushing ideas that are counterculture or that do beg a question and really start a serious dialogue.

It's not good for the channel.

It's not good.

We've got certain topics, I agree.

Yeah.

Especially with medical and religion for sure.

Yeah,

they don't want that spark.

Which ironically is all the big institutions in America.

Government, pharma, religion,

food, education.

You touch any of those.

And the social media platforms make a lot of money off of

all those.

And so that was.

That was a real kind of shocking thing is around that same time, we grew on Instagram one point we're adding two plus thousand followers a day consistently wow and then now we're like getting like a net 20 or 30 a day and we're not shuttle banned we're not doing anything different definitely so if we get reposted 2,000 times we'll we'll get like um the equivalent of that of of new unique users so like one to one and a half

unique viewers will see it that haven't seen our content or you know that aren't following us so it's like how is that even possible someone reposts it and only one to to one and a half people actually sees that.

That's why I think this docu-series will be huge for you guys because you probably can't even post on traditional outlets anymore.

No.

Yeah,

it's interesting.

There's definitely

someone out there that doesn't want this content out there, which means you're, which I kind of take it as a positive.

It means we're doing something right.

We're asking the right questions.

And you've been doing that for 10 years?

I've been researching.

I shot the whole show 12 years ago.

Wow.

Yeah, and I just, we were in edit.

I went around the U.S.

when I was 28, filmed the whole thing, and I just started piecing it together, and I didn't really like the way it was going.

It was a little, it was more angry.

And I always tell people, like, I was young, I was frustrated with the church.

I was raised in a megachurch in Los Angeles.

Oh, Joel's?

No, no, no, Joel's in Texas.

I was raised at one in Burbank.

Got it.

But it was a six, probably 6,000-person church.

It was big, you know.

They got that big.

I sang in choir.

You know, I did choir.

My dad, did you?

My dad was the angel, you know, that came down during Christmas.

But I just got angry in my 20s.

I saw there was a couple personal stories.

My youth pastor ended up molesting and raping his adopted kids.

Dude.

And I just, there's things that happened where I'm like, this is wrong.

How could this dude be a pastor for 20 years and no one see this?

And his wife not speak up, you know, and then come to find out she knew.

And so I just was really angry in my late 20s.

And then in my early 30s, I.

you know, did what a dude does and got a girl pregnant and had a beautiful baby.

And it was when I had my daughter that I feel like my whole world transformed because I realized what, I really fell in love with something for the first time.

And

I realized, for lack of a better term,

what a loving creator father is.

And so through that, through raising this little girl, she's turning six, my anger turned more towards a love because I wanted to take her to church or this idea of going to a religious organization I really enjoy.

And so

I went back and I just, I dropped her off and the youth groups and they put her in front of a TV.

And, you know, she just watched TV for an hour and a half.

And then I went back and picked her up.

And I'm like, what am I doing here?

They just put her in front of a TV, you know?

And so it shifted my thought process of being angry to being loving.

Like, I actually love the institution and I love my upbringing, what I got to experience.

And I want my daughter to experience something like that.

But the institution and the legal architecture is so

broken that I won't take her back until there's reform in it.

And so we're here to reform that.

Yeah, so the legal architecture, that's where $160 billion plus investment fund registered as church.

Is that still accurate?

Yeah, so that's relating to the

Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, and

there's Ensign Peak Advisors and Investment Fund, as well as the institutional church for LDS.

The total actually is $265 billion.

So they

in assets.

So they could liquidate and buy every NBA team twice and still have money left over.

That's crazy.

So they have that in real estate and cash right now in the bank?

Yeah, and investments.

Nate, what's the stat on

the stocks, the top 100 stocks?

Yeah, the LDS church is a top 100 shareholder in the top 100 stocks.

Holy crap.

So if you think about that, that means the church can shift

the whole economy if they want to.

Wow.

And then the crazier part, though, and this one gentleman tore into me on social media saying we didn't know what we were talking about.

And I'm like, you are the reason why we're making this show.

He thought they paid gains on their profits.

Religious organizations pay no gains.

Really?

None.

They could sell a stock.

They can sell a stock.

They can make all the gains they want.

And then they pay no tax.

It's like a charity, but even better.

But even better.

Well, so the nonprofit sector, so even though the show is called the religion business, we're taking a snapshot of the nonprofit sector as a whole because a religious organization is a nonprofit, but it comes with additional exemptions on top.

And so we're just trying to basically lay this very complicated puzzle out for all our viewers to have educate people on the system because the system's over 100 years old and say, hey, this is a really weird gray system, and there's a lot of holes in it, and we're going to point those holes out.

And there's eight major holes.

And if we can close those holes, if we can educate about those eight holes with the show and then bring a technology that closes those eight holes, so it's not government because we don't, government's not very good at managing money.

So we don't think the government should come in and just tax religion just like any other nonprofit.

I'm sorry, for-profit.

But if we can bring a solution in, then we can really like, then the religious organizations could really do good in the world.

Because the capital they bring in is mind-numbing.

The Christian church generates more revenue than the U.S.

military budget annually.

That's crazy.

It is.

But

it also brings in this unfair competitive landscape.

So the LDS Church is the largest private landowner in the states of Illinois, Nebraska, Utah, and Florida.

They just beat out Bill Gates on a couple hundred thousand acres in Washington.

It's tough because let's say

the land is being like, it's out on the market for, I'm making the number up, $10 million.

Someone like the religious institution didn't have to pay any taxes on those donations coming in, right?

And then they're not going to be paying property taxes, and they're not going to be paying taxes on when it sells.

And then you've got.

You, Sean, want to come in and buy that same property as an individual.

You had to make a lot more than $10 million to be able to bid it by 2020.

And then on to, yeah, and then on top of that, you're going to be paying

all that good stuff.

So

that's how they beat out Bill Gates.

I make sense.

They're able to bid higher.

And they own all sorts of things.

I mean, they got a hotel in Hawaii.

They built a mall and they built the biggest mall in Salt Lake.

Yeah, Luxury Mall.

main mall the LDS church owns.

Yeah, I heard they own a bunch of real estate in Salt Lake, almost every major building.

Yeah, they are.

Yeah, that's a whole other rabbit hole that could take two hours to unpack.

But yeah, they're an extremely wealthy church.

And the craziest part is Enzyme Peak Advisors, which is the name of their investment arm, is registered as an auxiliary to the church, which means it is a church.

So let that sink in.

An investment fund is a church on paper.

Crazy.

Yeah.

That is nuts.

I mean, the money in this is just mind-boggling.

So if you have a church with a couple hundred people and they're all donating, you can make have a multi-million dollar business just from that.

Yeah, well, and the saddest part is what we're seeing now is, is as big, look at

when the nonprofit sector was defined in 1913, the government, Congress saw that these, there was 12,000 organizations were really doing good in building this thing called social capital in their communities.

They were focused on the ground.

building parks, helping the needy, you know, helping the immigrants coming in, opening up food banks.

They were doing really good.

They were doing amazing stuff for their local community that the government could not.

So the government said, we got to define this.

These businesses are going to be called nonprofits, and we're going to give them tax exemption because they're doing heavy lifting in their local community that we cannot do.

And so flash forward 101 years or 111 years, I'm sorry, most churches now are looking global.

So they're marketing on social media.

They're trying to sell their live streams.

And they've fully, and nonprofits have done this too.

They've fully neglected the local social capital of their area.

So as they drain, you know, as they're letting their local communities kind of crumble, they're focusing outward and focusing on why?

Because I can reach 5 million people on Instagram.

I only have those 300 people in my seats.

But so what these churches are doing is because there's these guidelines that we break down in the show, they have to keep a physical building.

And this goes back to that 200 people.

So, okay, if I have 200 people coming into my building, I'm not going to ask you for a tithe anymore because that tithe is actually not sound anyways, that concept.

So I want you to pledge.

So I'm going to say, hey, Sean, you love the way I preach.

I'm a pretty good preacher.

I can sing really well.

I want you to pledge.

You've been giving $5,000 a year.

I want you to pledge that $5,000 for the next 10 years.

Sign this paper.

Tell me you're going to pledge it.

You're going to sign that paper.

I can take that and bankroll it now.

Oh, you could get a loan off?

I can take a loan off of it.

Wow.

So now I've got 50 of those people who have said they'll give me that 10% as a pledge for the next 10 years.

So it's like the, it's as tech, that's why I say like the nonprofit sector was so beautiful

before the real advent of technology.

But since loopholes haven't been closed and Congress couldn't foresee technology, now the nonprofit sector is just starting to basically tear apart because technology is just creeping in.

Wow.

And we couldn't foresee it.

Congress couldn't foresee it.

So there just has to be reform.

Systems always have to reform.

It's crazy.

And we're aiming for non-governmental intervention.

So we're creating a software platform.

That flips it upside down a little bit.

It's all about transparency and accountability and getting an appropriate rating for that and an opportunity for donors to actually engage with the nonprofit.

So only 3% of donors actually ever follow up with, hey, how's my money being used?

And now you don't really have to, with the platform, you're not going to have to search for that.

So we go into beta

midsummer and we'll be going to market with the software platform around the time the film's release, which will be between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That's huge.

Yeah, I actually stopped donating because they just asked for more money.

They never show me any results

or opt you into the subscription.

Yeah.

It's not fulfilling at all, honestly.

No, well, and it's

a strong word.

Here's an interesting fact that'll probably frustrate a lot of people.

Your form of giving is consumption.

That is a consumeristic act.

So we work with three colleges, three universities here, and we work with some of the development economists, and they call it the warm glow effect.

So

I'm giving to you, Sean, but I'm going to get that dopamine kick because of that gift.

So I actually don't really care about the gift.

I want that feel-good moment where it's like, yeah, I'm giving.

Whereas one of the development economists, he's at the University of San Francisco.

His name is Bruce Weideck.

He talks about it.

He goes, we've lost identifying with the cause or individual we want to help.

So it's like if this homeless woman's outside, if I don't really care about her, I'll just give to a nonprofit, a homeless nonprofit because it makes me feel good.

But if I walk to the grocery store or to the gas station and get her a water, a juice, some chips, whatever, and leave her this package,

I've invested in her.

I identify with her.

I see the value in her, in her human nature, and I want to give to her.

But when we lose the identification of who we're helping, we don't care where our money goes.

Wow.

And so that's the problem is American giving has shifted to a consumerist transaction.

Definitely.

I get my dopamine kick, you get my gift, and I'm done.

And I can get that tax right off.

I'd rather see the results.

yeah oh yeah and i think a lot of people would too so that's where it's like i always say we're not trying to point fingers at anybody because we're all byproducts of this system you know and so it's it's how do we educate and we don't like sean you don't know what you don't know i don't know what i don't know and i don't i'm not a good i don't know about investments and all of this and so my reality is just mine so i have to be educated on things and so that's what we're here for we're here to educate and then we're here to bring a solution so we're pointing out some real big problems but we're trying to bring a legit solution without the government getting involved.

It's going to be tricky, right?

You're probably looking into this at this level, I'd assume.

Yeah, well, well, I sat down with, and this is a long title, and I always butcher it.

One of the lead lawyers to the former chief counsel to the IRS in Washington, D.C.

So, like the number three brain in the U.S.

government for religious tax exemptions.

His name is Philip Hackney, brilliant dude.

And he said, He's he's like, I always had a bad look.

Whenever I heard IRS, I couldn't stand it.

But he's

one of the heads of the IRS, where he was, and he's the sweetest man who's Catholic.

And he's like, Nathan, we want nothing to do with the religious sector.

Oh, yeah.

Nothing to do with it.

But he's like, you got to get your house in order.

Like, because he's like, there's only two types of reform.

Reform's going to have to happen because he says the system's so, there's so much capital coming into the system with so little accountability that it's going to buckle.

The system's just going to buckle.

And then something's going to grow out of it.

You know, there's going to be a solution.

But he's like, there's only two ideas for a solution: external or internal.

So you either have external government or internal,

get your shit together, for lack of a better term.

And so that's what we're here for.

And I feel like Chris and I are in this really small window where the system's corroded enough, but there's still time to salvage the good parts of it before the whole thing has to be torn down and rebuilt, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

So we're going to try to give it our best shot.

A lot of nonprofits that come into existence, I mean,

they're there to i'll just make something like an example we're going to eradicate malaria we're going to like we're going to solve for that

then by that being your mission your end game should be for your nonprofit to dissolve but you go in this and you have all that money flowing in and your identity and everything that people lose track of actually solving.

There's so many global social issues out there that there's no reason why they shouldn't get solved.

I mean,

the U.S.

gets $5 trillion in revenue a year.

They're not solving these global issues.

$1.42 trillion industry, we got people starving, people dying of things like malaria and tuberculosis that have been solved for in other nations.

It's just

something's missing.

And I know the answer, it's accountability and transparency.

And the power has to go back into the donor's hands.

Well, what's that Elon Musk story?

Oh, yeah, this is great.

You may have heard those said this

UN dev economist starts to pick on Elon.

Nice try, right?

Like, that's the last guy that you try to mess with.

He said, hey, Elon, for $6 billion, you could solve World Hunger.

He hits him up on then Twitter, and Elon said, okay, well, articulate to me on this thread how,

exactly how we're going to solve World Hunger with $6 billion.

And one more thing.

I will 100%

sell my Tesla stock and fund this.

One condition, open source accounting for the public to see.

And it didn't get done.

Cricket.

Because nobody wants accountability.

Right?

Like,

let's just be real.

How much of that money actually goes to feed people?

Yeah.

Like, the public, like, donors need to know that.

Look at the biggest charities, right?

Yeah.

Well, California is a great example, too.

Like, you know,

homelessness has only gotten worse, and they're just pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into that.

And like, some of these people who are here to solve homelessness are getting paid like $300 and $400,000 a year.

You know, and it's like, of course, you're not going to solve that problem.

That's a nice paycheck, you know.

I mean, we haven't we haven't solved world hunger hunger with the 1.42 trillion a year.

Like, why is Elon's 6 billion going to be any different?

Yeah.

Unless the accountability piece gets fixed, right?

Absolutely.

Only 6% of the money going to churches is actually used for impact purposes, right?

When it should be 100.

Yeah, or let's just like one of the development economists says flip the model.

You know, 94 cents of every, like, of course, there's overhead.

Of course, like those pastors should be getting paid, you know, but there's no reason why 94 cents of every dollar, 44 cents, you know, of every dollar goes to salaries.

I think it's 26 cents or 25 cents goes to buildings and overhead.

It's we've created these machines that are so big and so expensive.

And we call it religious economic theory in the show.

It's like if we have three churches in our neighborhood and Chris has the better lights, I got to buy those lights or my people are going to go to Chris.

And then all of a sudden you get that, you know, real hot young girl up on stage singing.

I got to have a hot young girl and young guy on stage.

And I need donuts.

And he needs donuts and I need coffee.

And you need a jet.

Yeah, and I need a jet.

And man, well, that's a whole different story because the jets and certain, so the certain states'

laws define air travel and private planes as houses of worship.

Oh.

So you can write off the jet and that's tax-free as well if it's a place of worship.

Yeah, 100%.

And all you got to do is pray on their wants and it's a write-off.

It's a write-off, yeah.

Holy crap.

And you don't pay tax.

You don't pay sales tax.

That is nuts.

So that's what the mega churches are buying.

Yeah.

And that's right.

So we're just presenting these loopholes and we're saying, hey, this is a problem or we think it's a problem.

What do you think?

You know,

I didn't say it.

Yeah.

You know, there's, there's, there's pastors, you know, there's this fun one called housing allowances or housing stipends.

You know, it goes back to the day when, when clergy was living on site, um, because why the churches were open 24 hours a day?

Yeah.

And, uh, and so these pastors and clergy wanted to have families.

So they're like, you know what?

Yeah, you can move off site and, you know, we'll give you a little money for your house.

And that idea has just stayed in this church ethos or this religious ethos, this Christian ethos till today.

But now you have pastors living in $15 million homes.

And

Copeland's property tax would be around $160,000 a year to the state of Texas if it was registered as a private home, but instead it's registered as a church residence.

Yeah, that is crazy.

He's got a nice private job.

And so

there were 12,000 nonprofits in 1913, and that includes churches.

Today there's 1.8 million.

And that exponential explosion in this sector, you can only

surmise that it's because it's fun to play in.

It's a good place to put money, time, and resources.

I could see why it's such an emotional topic because people are dedicating their whole lives to this.

And then they're being told something might not be right here 20, 30 years in, and their parents have taught them this.

Pour a lot of money into it.

And we're not trying to, like, that's the thing.

We are not trying to dissuade people of their faith or beliefs.

We actually want to encourage it.

But it's like the system built on top of those beliefs.

Let's, in faith, let's look at that.

Like, we encourage you to get into your Bible, you know, get into your Quran, get into your Torah, like get into the Septuagint, whatever you read, and

hold it up against our show

and try to prove us wrong.

You know, we're not going to quote scripture in the show, but try to prove us wrong is basically what we're saying.

You're just laying out facts.

It's hard to prove you wrong.

Yeah.

you know what I mean.

Um, so $53 billion is stolen internally by church staff.

Is that yearly?

That's annually.

That is crazy.

Yeah, so that's basically this is all voluntary data, by the way.

So we work with a think tank, a Christian think tank.

So they are all believers, but they poll and they poll churches globally.

And they release a poll, I believe, every four or an informational packet every four years.

And so that came from their 2022 deck, I believe.

But basically that's money coming in when you pass that plate around and people put dollars and checks and all that in.

And then what's deposited in the bank and that delta.

Wow.

So that 53 billion is just straight stolen.

That's not embezzlement.

That's not these cases where you get to go audit them.

That's just money that disappears.

Yeah.

And no one knows where it goes.

And we talked to them earlier this year.

And

the lead on it called and said that that number

is expected to jump to 86 billion.

And these are just self-reported.

It could even be

higher.

They will say off record that it's probably twice that.

Oh my gosh.

But they just don't have the data for it.

But they're like, yeah, because it's, but we would expect it to be twice that.

But that's what they'll say on paper.

So, Nate,

when the plumbers found that money in Joel Osteen's church walls, did you hear that story?

No, is that?

Yeah, so there was a plumbing problem in Joel Osteen's church, Lakewood, down in Houston, and this plumber comes up and tears the drywall off.

And I think there's something like 600 grand cash sitting behind the wall.

Holy crap!

So, somebody was collecting the money and then just dropping it into an air vent for a rainy day.

And this money was just stacking up for years.

Somebody, right?

So, would that be considered part of the that would be part of that money that goes missing because it hits that pot and they pool it, and then you know, oh, I'll take it to the bank.

I gotta pee first, you know, and then they just slip some money in.

Are you talking to people at these megachurches?

Like, what is the feedback you're getting from the members?

Uh, from the members, the congregants, just the people that attend the church, Are they starting to question this type of stuff?

Yeah, so I can only,

yeah, most people,

I'm trying to think of if there's a term for it, but basically think of if you've been going to a megachurch or any church and

you're going to watch this docu series and be really,

you're going to learn a lot and then you're going to kind of be frustrated.

You feel like the wool's probably been pulled over your eyes a little bit.

Yeah.

And that's what we want to encourage is it's like we've all been a part of the system, you know, but you kind of feel silly.

Like I tithe most of my life.

I gave 10% to my church most of my life.

And like I kind of felt silly after I started learning these loopholes and the lack of accountability.

And so a lot of people don't want to talk.

We had

one megachurch pastor who was very excited to talk.

And then I sent him our question list.

And they were just like the most softball question list ever.

This guy is a private jet.

He sued the IRS and won.

Like this guy's a big boy.

And he was so excited for us to come.

He goes, you could use our studio.

Like you could use our cameras.

He was pumped.

And I sent him the questions and his assistant got back and was like, oh, he's canceled.

Yeah.

And it was the most softball.

Like, should the church be, you know, should the church be held accountable?

Should they be the beacon of accountability and transparency?

Yeah.

And as soon as he read these very simple questions, he's, I don't know,

shame.

Because it's important to hear both sides.

You know what I mean?

But tomorrow we got a meeting with Omega Church down in Texas.

Oh, yeah.

With their elder board.

And so our goal is to actually have the good ones ones step up and be like, you're right.

Like we don't play by those rules, but the system is built for people to play in the dark, so to speak.

And it'd be nice, too, if

they haven't been being as transparent or accountable.

Like

they've been a part of a system.

Let's take that step forward and step into the light a little bit.

It's not too late to do that.

Like let's do that.

I mean,

they are a product of a system and let's just move forward and start being accountable and transparent.

And I think that donations are going to increase.

I think social issues are actually finally going to get solved.

Yeah.

And kind of like you said, it's going to be fulfilling, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's important.

Yeah.

It's just you two working on this, right?

Well, we've,

yeah, we have two editors, two full-time editors.

We're the only people, and we don't have any outside influence of the company whatsoever.

He and I are our board.

We make all the decisions ourselves.

We have zero outside influence.

Yeah,

we want to keep it that way for till both things hit hit the public at least.

No, that's cool because when you look at who funds some of these documentaries and then you're like, oh, that's why they funded it.

You know what I mean?

There's a hidden agenda there.

Oh, yeah.

We've been called,

someone the other day was like, you guys are funded by the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party.

We want to say your financials are like, it's a big L.

We're creating software and making a film.

How about it?

Yeah, but we've been called, you know, it's funny because Chris is like a retired military, very decorated.

And, you know, I come from a pretty conservative background.

And we're, we've been called socialists, communists.

We've been called everything under the sun.

Wow, that's wild.

So our skin's gotten pretty thick.

I can't wait to watch this thing, man.

So when does it air?

We're aiming between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And, you know, and that's another thing out there.

Like, we're looking at various distribution platforms.

So if you're in that space and in that business, yeah, we're happy to have a discussion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We want eyeballs.

Like our goal is we call it the chlorine shock.

You know, we want a chlorine shock, this dirty jacuzzi that's the non-profit space.

space.

And if we can do that right, then there's real chance for change.

And,

you know, one of the coolest things about the social at the app is

we have these things that right now we're calling missions.

And it's basically the 10 to 15 lowest hanging fruit global social issues that could be solved with very little money from a global Christian scale perspective.

And so the goal is really to pool millions of donors around the world and be like, let's go after malaria and deaths from malaria and tuberculosis.

Let's go after infant mortality rates in Africa and let's drop those rates.

And it would only cost, you know, I think for the 15, it would cost something like $45 billion.

So if you let that sink in, 53 billion is just straight stolen every year.

If there was accountability and that 53 billion dropped to 10 billion, the Christian church could solve the top 30 or 15 global social issues.

No, sorry, 30 global social issues.

But yeah,

it's just a communication breakdown.

It's education and communication that has to happen.

Absolutely.

Well, we'll link your socials.

Hopefully, they're not banned by the time this airs.

No way, yeah.

But we'll link your Instagrams and your website below.

Thanks for coming on, guys.

Awesome.

Thanks, Sean.

Thanks, John.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you tomorrow.