Are you trapped in a cycle of financial stress, feeling like an orphan in a world of wealth? In this thought-provoking episode of Seek Go Create, we sit down with Stephen De Silva, former CFO of the renowned Bethel Church and founder of Prosperous Soul Ministries. Dive deep with us as we explore overcoming the orphan spirit, the biblical approach to wealth, and how to shift from a mindset of lack to financial health. Join host Tim Winders and our insightful guest on a journey of transformation that will challenge how you see money and your purpose. Tune in to discover the spiritual keys to unlock a prosperous soul!
"When we understand that our identity comes before our purpose and vision, we begin to operate from a place of wholeness rather than lack." - Stephen De Silva
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Stephen De Silva is a seasoned financial expert and visionary leader known for his transformative work as the Chief Financial Officer at Bethel Church. With over two decades of experience managing the church's substantial growth, Stephen has honed his ability to blend spiritual wisdom with practical financial oversight. He is the founder of Prosperous Soul Ministries, a program dedicated to instructing individuals on biblical financial principles with the aim of eradicating poverty, greed, and fear around money. Renowned for his contribution to faith-based financial health, Stephen is also the author of "Money and the Prosperous Soul," a critically acclaimed book that sheds light on the complex relationship between spirituality and financial well-being. As a "recovering accountant," Stephen's journey from a traditional corporate environment to a spiritually-enriching role has positioned him as a unique and respected voice in the intersection of faith and finance.
1. Uncover the Spiritual Aspect of Finance: Dive into Stephen De Silva’s transformative journey from a traditional accountant to a champion of financial health and spiritual freedom, uncovering the powerful connections between money, identity, and faith.
2. Challenge Conventional Wisdom: Explore thought-provoking discussions on challenging the Babylonian system of wealth, the deep-seated orphan mindset, and the adoption of a new perspective on prosperity that could revolutionize your personal and financial growth.
3. Gain Actionable Insights: Learn from a former CFO's top-down approach to vision and decision-making that extends beyond the business realm into personal life, offering a unique opportunity to reshape your understanding of purpose, identity, and financial strategies.
### Resources Mentioned:
1. **Book**: "Money and the Prosperous Soul" by Stephen De Silva – This book was highlighted by Tim Winders during the episode. It covers the concept of financial health and spirituality, diving into the four levels of purpose, identity, and meaning in life.
2. **Prosperous Soul Ministries**: Founded by Stephen De Silva, this is a financial program based on biblical principles designed to address issues related to money, such as poverty, greed, confusion, and fear. Details and resources provided by this ministry could likely be found on a corresponding website or through associated workshops and courses.
### Action Steps:
1. **Reflect on Your Financial Health** – Consider your relationship with money and how it may be connected to deeper spiritual beliefs or an orphan mindset. Spend time contemplating how this relationship might be influencing your sense of identity and purpose.
2. **Seek and Prioritize "Being" Time** – As Stephen De Silva suggests, make it a priority to spend time in stillness, seeking God, or engaging in personal spiritual practices. Create a daily or weekly routine that allows you to listen and reflect, helping you align closer with your identity and purpose.
3. **Educate Yourself on Financial Principles** – Start by reading "Money and the Prosperous Soul" or exploring the resources offered by Prosperous Soul Ministries. Engage with the ideas presented and begin to apply them in a practical way to your personal or organizational financial strategies.
🔹 Unlock Your Potential Today!
1. Overcoming the Orphan Mindset: Stephen De Silva shares the crucial lesson of moving from an orphan mindset, characterized by feelings of abandonment and a poverty mentality, to an adoption mindset where individuals realize they are children of God. This transition is essential for personal and spiritual fulfillment and is central to adopting a healthier relationship with finance and life in general.
2. Recognizing the Deception of Mammon: Tim Winders and Stephen De Silva discuss the deceptive power of the spirit of mammon—a biblical term for wealth that can become a master other than God. Understanding that mammon represents more than money, but a mindset and false worship that competes with one's loyalty to God, is crucial in aligning one's financial and spiritual life with biblical teachings.
3. The Top-Down Approach to Purpose and Vision: Stephen illustrates the importance of the top-down approach—starting with vision and hope, before moving to strategy, assignment, and tactics—when making decisions and building a successful life or organization. This approach ensures that actions and plans are aligned with a higher purpose and identity, creating a more impactful and coherent path forward.
4. The Four Levels of Purpose and Identity: Delving into content from his book, "Money and the Prosperous Soul," Stephen explains the four levels of purpose, identity, and meaning in life. This framework helps individuals place their financial goals within the larger context of their personal meaning and purpose, facilitating a more fulfilling and intentional path to financial health.
5. Shifting from Poverty to Financial Health: Stephen's personal story of growth and his professional experience emphasize the need to shift from a mindset of lack (poverty) to one of financial health by healing the "orphan wound." This profound shift can realign an individual’s approach to money, allowing them to break free from cycles of financial insecurity and fully embrace their God-given identity and purpose.
00:00 Navigating finances and faith with Steven De Silva.
06:59 Discussion about poverty mindset and societal perspectives.
13:12 Transition from non-believer to Christian in thirties.
18:50 Shift from mechanics to supernatural accounting at Bethel.
23:44 Surviving challenges, dissatisfaction with accounting profession.
26:48 Mechanic's intuition, ministry leadership, Bethel's music and supernatural.
34:26 Curiosity about Steven's lack mindset and growth.
41:06 Learning to close the gap with God.
45:26 Transform orphan identity to wealth for good.
49:04 Acceptance of identity, struggle with spiritual conflict.
54:55 Struggle with serving two masters and money.
01:01:27 Encourage daily practice of being, not doing.
01:05:32 New episodes every Monday, support our content.
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Mentioned in this episode:
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Stephen De Silva: Purpose is not the top floor or the key to a life well
Speaker:lived There's one layer above it.
Speaker:And that's identity.
Speaker:We need to know who we are.
Speaker:And there's only two choices.
Speaker:You're either.
Speaker:adopted or you're orphaned.
Speaker:You're either comfortable in your own skin or you're not.
Speaker:You either belong or you don't.
Speaker:And once we fundamentally understand that in context of God, then our
Speaker:purpose, vision, and strategies and tactics flow from that.
Tim Winders:In a world where financial challenges often lead to spiritual
Tim Winders:and emotional strain, how can we navigate our finances in a way that
Tim Winders:aligns with both our values And our aspirations today on seat, go create.
Tim Winders:We're diving deep into the intersection of faith and finances with Steven
Tim Winders:De Silva, the visionary founder of Prosperous Soul with a rich background
Tim Winders:in accounting and a transformative career shift from traditional CPA.
Tim Winders:To the chief financial officer at Bethel in Redding, California,
Tim Winders:Stephen has experienced firsthand the dynamics between spontaneous
Tim Winders:fate and practical financial demands.
Tim Winders:We'll probably have fun with those conversations.
Tim Winders:Stephen's journey has led him to create prosperous soul ministries.
Tim Winders:A unique financial program inspired by biblical principles aimed
Tim Winders:at eradicating poverty, greed, confusion, and fear surrounding money.
Tim Winders:Through tools like Financial Sozo, Purpose Train, and Prosper Soul, he empowers
Tim Winders:individuals, families, and organizations to transition from financial disease to
Tim Winders:health, ensuring their monetary decisions enhance their spiritual well being.
Tim Winders:Stephen, welcome to SeatGoCreate.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Thank you so much for having me, Tim.
Tim Winders:It's great to be here.
Tim Winders:I'm
Tim Winders:I'm glad you're here, and this is a bit of a reconnection for us
Tim Winders:because we have spoken before, and I've been through one of your Zozo sessions.
Tim Winders:We'll talk about that later, but let's do this first.
Tim Winders:If someone just meets you, you're on a plane or something, and they ask you
Tim Winders:what you do, what do you tell them?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Well, in my mind, I tell them I try to do as little as
Tim Winders:possible, but on the outside, I tell them I am a recovering accountant who
Tim Winders:helps people heal their financial wounds.
Tim Winders:Why would a count it need to recover?
Tim Winders:What would a count it need to recover from?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Well, I I often went to training.
Tim Winders:It's funny.
Tim Winders:I get this picture of walking into some, you know, income tax training
Tim Winders:or some auditing training event.
Tim Winders:And there's two or 300 people like me in there.
Tim Winders:And I realized, Oh, my gosh, this is not my tribe.
Tim Winders:I'm surrounded by accounting nerds.
Tim Winders:And although I was one, I think it was an adapted lifestyle.
Tim Winders:I picked up, I picked up this career to make ends meet and I, I enjoy it, enjoyed
Tim Winders:accounting and being an accountant and a CPA, but, I'm a much more creative
Tim Winders:individual, so accountants tend not to be creative or have much of a personality.
Tim Winders:So I like to tease that that part of my brain had to grow back after the career.
Tim Winders:So then, so, so, so this is the curiosity in me that
Tim Winders:I'm always fascinated by, why did you go into it in the first place?
Tim Winders:Was it, that's where you thought some money was, this is going
Tim Winders:to, this is probably going to get our money conversation started.
Tim Winders:Did you think
Tim Winders:that's what you needed to do to bring in money into the account?
Tim Winders:Did, did, were you groomed to be an accountant?
Tim Winders:Why, why did you become an accountant in the first place?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Oh, that, wow.
Tim Winders:That's a great question.
Tim Winders:I.
Tim Winders:I can remember I was, actually I was on a, mechanic track in those days.
Tim Winders:So I was probably, I worked in a Honda motorcycle shop from
Tim Winders:maybe age 15 until probably 17.
Tim Winders:And I planned to go on with my career in mechanics.
Tim Winders:And, what happened is I met this beautiful woman who I'm still married to.
Tim Winders:And she was on a education path.
Tim Winders:She's brilliant.
Tim Winders:I'm not sure how she succumbed to marry me, but I'm so glad that happened.
Tim Winders:And, she was on her way to college.
Tim Winders:So I thought, well, I guess I could try college.
Tim Winders:So to my surprise in the basic classes, I took a basic accounting
Tim Winders:class and I really liked it.
Tim Winders:I thought.
Tim Winders:Oh, my gosh.
Tim Winders:I didn't think I had enough brains to do this.
Tim Winders:And, it was so exciting for me to realize I might actually be able to be
Tim Winders:a professional more than, a blue collar.
Tim Winders:Maybe I could be a an expert in something.
Tim Winders:Anyway, I was so, I had a real poverty mindset in those days.
Tim Winders:Just, I could never imagine being anything more than a mechanic.
Tim Winders:And so this was a real journey that stretched me and that's how I ended
Tim Winders:up in accounting and I went on and.
Tim Winders:Kept taking classes and kept doing well.
Tim Winders:And, the rest is history.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:It's interesting.
Tim Winders:There's so many great stories that start with something like, I met a
Tim Winders:girl, there was this woman and, and you know, especially people in the
Tim Winders:spiritual arena where we like to say, Oh God did this and all that.
Tim Winders:I'm pretty sure, gosh, I hope this isn't blasphemous, pretty sure
Tim Winders:God says, all right, for Steven and Tim and probably, you know,
Tim Winders:80 percent of the guys out there.
Tim Winders:I am going to send a woman into his path to get him going where he needs to go.
Tim Winders:Is that, I don't know, we're not gonna make a doctrine out of
Tim Winders:that, but does that make sense?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Oh, it totally does.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:I, I, ended up realizing later I married a really powerful
Tim Winders:woman and, that called me up.
Tim Winders:I, I, I spoke a message years ago.
Tim Winders:I don't remember the title exactly, but it was about being married
Tim Winders:to a woman who is like a kite.
Tim Winders:And I'm holding the string, and she's burning my hands.
Tim Winders:The string whipping through my fingers is burning my hands, and I'm
Tim Winders:asking God, Do I let go or do I hold?
Tim Winders:And his answer was, you need to grow.
Tim Winders:Oh, I can't hold her back.
Tim Winders:So, you know, I have, I, I have many positive things I would say about my wife.
Tim Winders:She's, she's obviously not perfect, but she is perfect for me.
Tim Winders:And I give great gratitude to God for that.
Tim Winders:It's, it is a gift in our lives.
Tim Winders:Our wives.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:Yeah, I I totally agree.
Tim Winders:And, you brought up that you.
Tim Winders:Had a poverty mindset, which leads into really our big topic.
Tim Winders:We've got some big topics and then I've got some more micro topics
Tim Winders:that I want us to discuss today.
Tim Winders:If we are able to stay on track and, you know, let the Holy Spirit take us all over
Tim Winders:the place, which we're open to that truth truthfully, by the way, but I believe,
Tim Winders:I believe, we're going to be guided.
Tim Winders:And you mentioned poverty mindset and you know, I do want to say
Tim Winders:that being a mechanic, you know, my, my grandfather was a mechanic.
Tim Winders:My dad was a mechanic.
Tim Winders:I didn't get that type skill, but I, I've always considered there to
Tim Winders:be an art and a creativeness to that ability, but our culture and our society
Tim Winders:doesn't really put them in high regard.
Tim Winders:I just, I think I saw a headline recently where plumbers are like the
Tim Winders:new, you know, Wealth creation because we're in such shortage of people that
Tim Winders:are doing things with their hands.
Tim Winders:But back up
Tim Winders:and tell me about how in this, I don't think this will be like a, you know,
Tim Winders:bash our parents or anything like that.
Tim Winders:But how, how did you develop the poverty mindset?
Tim Winders:Where were you at spiritually and all that kind of stuff?
Tim Winders:Maybe when you got to that collegiate level and the Lord started working with
Tim Winders:you on things, because I, you and I were talking right before we hit, Hit
Tim Winders:record about just people now and some of the struggles they may be going
Tim Winders:through just with practical finance.
Tim Winders:Just the Babylonian go ahead and throw it out here.
Tim Winders:You know, the Babylonian system financial structure is really challenged right now.
Tim Winders:So.
Tim Winders:Anyway, that's a big question, but go back and tell me what was going
Tim Winders:on with that poverty mindset with Stephen, you know, back the early years.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Wow.
Tim Winders:Well, I, I have to say the mechanics is an art.
Tim Winders:So my, my context was.
Tim Winders:Growing up on as a boy on a ranch, and I worked with my uncle who ran the ranch.
Tim Winders:And when you're an independent rancher, you have to solve every problem possible.
Tim Winders:I remember as I got old enough to realize how brilliant my uncle was
Tim Winders:from how much seed to sow in the ground to what's wrong with this garden.
Tim Winders:You know, this cow and what vaccination to use and how to administer it.
Tim Winders:I mean, it was staggering to me to realize how much he knew.
Tim Winders:And, the, to the, to the poverty question.
Tim Winders:In that environment, there was constant limitations.
Tim Winders:So I grew up in an environment of the answer was likely no.
Tim Winders:There was never, you know, if, if positive things happened, praise
Tim Winders:the Lord, an accident just happened.
Tim Winders:You know, our beef prices were good the day we went to auction or, the
Tim Winders:rains didn't come when we had the tractor in the field or, you know,
Tim Winders:whatever the circumstance, it was, accidental if something good happened.
Tim Winders:So my, my paradigm, and I don't need to put my family under the,
Tim Winders:under the bus for this because it, it really wasn't their fault.
Tim Winders:I took ideas, and I think we all do this.
Tim Winders:We, we experience the world and we sort.
Tim Winders:I've decided it's the soul part of us.
Tim Winders:body, soul, spirit.
Tim Winders:It's the soul's function to sort through all the noise coming at us constantly,
Tim Winders:especially when we're tiny and young, sort through and find something
Tim Winders:that's true and, and place that in our heart as a treasure item for us
Tim Winders:to hold onto because those treasures are how we make sense of the world.
Tim Winders:And when you're constantly facing now, this is back to me as a child, when it's
Tim Winders:constantly, it's basically no, you know, is there, you know, can I go to town?
Tim Winders:No.
Tim Winders:Can I have that comic book?
Tim Winders:No.
Tim Winders:can I, you know, whatever.
Tim Winders:with limitations, my answers was, were no.
Tim Winders:So my truth became, let's not disappoint myself.
Tim Winders:Let's just expect lack.
Tim Winders:and so that, that was a idea that landed, that I planted in my heart.
Tim Winders:I believed it to be true, and it actually helped me.
Tim Winders:It protected me from something, disappointment.
Tim Winders:Of course, the nature of that idea operates like a seed and
Tim Winders:grows, and then you later see Oh, that was a thorn bush I planted.
Tim Winders:I thought this idea was good and rich and going to protect me.
Tim Winders:It turned out to be actually a very prickly problem.
Tim Winders:And that's, that's where some of my other tools come in is sorting what
Tim Winders:we believe between what's really true.
Tim Winders:I call it capital T truth.
Tim Winders:And what's experiential and sometimes just not sufficient to carry responsibility
Tim Winders:or burden or wealth or dreams or, you know, all the things that we carry
Tim Winders:as adults, they have a burden or a weight and little t truths like my
Tim Winders:idea I just gave is it's insufficient to carry the burden of responsibility.
Tim Winders:So how does that impact your relationship with
Tim Winders:God, with your heavenly father?
Tim Winders:If you are constantly, if if there's lack, if, if you're avoiding disappointment, my
Tim Winders:wife and I've had this discussion recently and we realized she probably was raised
Tim Winders:because of some things in her family.
Tim Winders:She had a sibling that died when she was eight.
Tim Winders:She had her family divorce and, and, and we've kind of discussed this.
Tim Winders:We've been together 35 years and she still somewhat works with this aspect of
Tim Winders:She's afraid she may be disappointed and she's realizing that has relationship
Tim Winders:with her heavenly father's relationship.
Tim Winders:How did, how did
Tim Winders:that manifest or what, what did that do for you?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: wow.
Tim Winders:I, I think the answer probably is best explained.
Tim Winders:I had a, an old version and a newer version.
Tim Winders:my older version, my first version was, a, a paradigm about God.
Tim Winders:Now, when I was a child, I wasn't raised.
Tim Winders:with any theology or, or reference to God, except, Oh God help.
Tim Winders:Or, you know, some certain phrase I would not want to repeat here, but it wasn't,
Tim Winders:I wasn't in a Christian environment or any faith environment at all.
Tim Winders:and so as I later became, I became a Christian when I was 16
Tim Winders:because of a crisis in my life.
Tim Winders:And so I worked through that scenario.
Tim Winders:and began a life of faith as a young adult.
Tim Winders:And until that time, and probably into my, to be honest, I'd say probably into
Tim Winders:my thirties, maybe my early thirties.
Tim Winders:I, my reference from that lack is I, I protected myself from disappointment.
Tim Winders:I look back now and I realized there was a gap.
Tim Winders:I perceived a gap between myself, And God, I could worship God.
Tim Winders:I could understand that God is, is good and is love.
Tim Winders:And I can, you know, intellectually agree to all of those things.
Tim Winders:But he wasn't safe.
Tim Winders:There was, there was this gap of like a bumper of protection.
Tim Winders:And so to your question, that's one of the outcomes of my little tea
Tim Winders:truth is I assembled a theology that just isn't biblically accurate, but
Tim Winders:it was functionally powerful for me.
Tim Winders:It kept me safe.
Tim Winders:And, of course there are some problems when you have that gap that
Tim Winders:we can talk about if you care to.
Tim Winders:But.
Tim Winders:I, I would say that's when I learned the transition.
Tim Winders:I realized, Oh, that is actually not working for me.
Tim Winders:And that's when I began to understand more about adoption and identity and purpose
Tim Winders:and some of the things that we may get to,
Tim Winders:Yeah, absolutely.
Tim Winders:Is it, is, is what happened at 16 something you can share?
Tim Winders:We don't, we, we, we, we go deep here pretty quickly.
Tim Winders:Is it something that's shareable or, or what happened at 16?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: you know, I can share.
Tim Winders:Um, so I was the, I was with some boys we were, so I was not a bad kid, but I was.
Tim Winders:a bit wild.
Tim Winders:Um, and, and consequently me and some friends were out just
Tim Winders:being friends and goofing off.
Tim Winders:And I was, 16 at the time, a late 15, late age 15.
Tim Winders:And, we, we were goofing around and I ended up finding a handgun
Tim Winders:and showing off with the handgun.
Tim Winders:And I ended up shooting one of the two boys.
Tim Winders:So, the boy that was shot was a beautiful person.
Tim Winders:Just, you know, just thinking it recently, I've been thinking about him.
Tim Winders:I really regret now in my lifetime.
Tim Winders:Of course, then it was an absolute terrible crisis, the worst hell I've ever
Tim Winders:gone through because that boy perished.
Tim Winders:He died from that.
Tim Winders:And, I was responsible, you know, there's, I mean, I didn't, obviously it
Tim Winders:was an accident, a gross, gross error.
Tim Winders:And I, I have a lot of stories about how God, I didn't even know God at the time,
Tim Winders:but he walked me through that horror.
Tim Winders:And I believe and pray that God walked the family through the horror.
Tim Winders:So that's, that was the terror.
Tim Winders:I, went through this by the time I was, had had my birthday and was early age 16.
Tim Winders:I, learned that the boy that was killed.
Tim Winders:Had just given his heart to Christ and I was like, what what is that?
Tim Winders:What does that mean?
Tim Winders:The person that told me her name's Patty.
Tim Winders:She's a to this day.
Tim Winders:It's just a dear dear friend of mine and Childhood friend and so yeah, she
Tim Winders:she taught me about the gospel in I'm sure her young And in my crisis, I
Tim Winders:gobbled that up with the hope that I get to see this friend again in heaven.
Tim Winders:so that there's a Psalm of David, I think it's Psalm 32 where he, he says that
Tim Winders:a contrite heart God will not despise.
Tim Winders:And.
Tim Winders:Unfortunately, I learned the lessons of a contrite heart early in my life.
Tim Winders:I guess It was good for me.
Tim Winders:It was terrible in circumstances, you know, I
Tim Winders:Yeah,
Tim Winders:those are, those are the situations I appreciate you sharing that.
Tim Winders:And, and I, I think, We become a product.
Tim Winders:I think it impacts our soul.
Tim Winders:I mean, something you just brought up, you know, we're talking
Tim Winders:about the prosperous soul here.
Tim Winders:And, and I'm sure that's something that was damaging to your soul in many
Tim Winders:ways, but yet it also was part of the.
Tim Winders:The process that we're going through.
Tim Winders:I mean, and, and so your, your, your process continued on.
Tim Winders:And so if I'm understanding correctly, so from there you decided later to, you
Tim Winders:know, not become a mechanic, you went to accounting and you went into what
Tim Winders:many would Say, I guess, traditional accounting world after that it, and here's
Tim Winders:what I'd love for you to, if you want to say anything about that, but at some
Tim Winders:point, Steven ended up in the spiritual environment that is, that is Bethel.
Tim Winders:Which is supernatural.
Tim Winders:It's kind of the opposite of mechanics and, and accounting.
Tim Winders:See you.
Tim Winders:And so I don't want to spend a lot of time on it because, but I think this
Tim Winders:might be part of the prosperous soul, because that does not sound like someone
Tim Winders:who's going to teach on the prosperous soul at age 16 or even early on.
Tim Winders:So how, what, what happened along the way that you ended up moving
Tim Winders:from regular accounting to.
Tim Winders:In the Bethel world of supernatural, that's, you know, signs and miracles,
Tim Winders:which is not really where an accountant would typically end up.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Well, yeah, that's, that's, you're spanning a lot of years
Tim Winders:there, coming out of that tragedy.
Tim Winders:my spirit was broken.
Tim Winders:I think that would probably be the soul damage that you're referring to.
Tim Winders:My spirit was broken and I had to learn, relearn myself.
Tim Winders:What is it like to live as a broken spirit?
Tim Winders:out of that, obviously my life changed.
Tim Winders:I was still in high school.
Tim Winders:I navigated those last few years and I graduated from high school thinking,
Tim Winders:okay, I'm just going to go be a mechanic, go quietly, do what I can naturally do.
Tim Winders:I did think, you know, I'm grateful to God.
Tim Winders:I did have a, a aptitude for that.
Tim Winders:but I thought I'll just kind of disappear into that space.
Tim Winders:Around that time, I met, my wife and, she was college bound and
Tim Winders:she had some, academic ambitions.
Tim Winders:And so I, I thought, well, that's interesting.
Tim Winders:And that part I told you about in the beginning.
Tim Winders:So I started through the, through the education process ended up.
Tim Winders:I remember I was working for an accountant.
Tim Winders:As a bookkeeper.
Tim Winders:So funny.
Tim Winders:I was in, it was in college and this, this accountant hired me just as a clerk.
Tim Winders:And so I'm in there clerking.
Tim Winders:And he asked me one day, he was an older man at the time.
Tim Winders:He was probably in his, probably late fifties is a beautiful guy named Jim.
Tim Winders:He asked me, so what do you want to do in your life?
Tim Winders:And I responded, it's so funny.
Tim Winders:I said, I want to be a para accountant, a para accountant.
Tim Winders:He said, what is a para accountant?
Tim Winders:And, what I was.
Tim Winders:Assembling was these, was this through the lens of this broken spirit, this,
Tim Winders:this poverty mindset, those things that we were talking about, best thing
Tim Winders:I could dream of was like, you've heard of a, what do they call it?
Tim Winders:An attorney, a legal, like a paralegal.
Tim Winders:Okay.
Tim Winders:So I come up with, I could never aspire to be an accountant.
Tim Winders:Like you, Jim, I'll be a para accountant.
Tim Winders:He looks at me like, he didn't say it, but I'm sure he thought, That's gotta
Tim Winders:be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Tim Winders:It reminds me of like, I don't want to be a full accountant.
Tim Winders:I want to be almost an accountant.
Tim Winders:Or
Tim Winders:I
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: I want to be a half.
Tim Winders:I think the all Austin powers thing is like, you know, it's,
Tim Winders:you're going to be the diet Coke of accounting, you know, just one calorie.
Tim Winders:I'm not, not quite an accountant
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: That's perfect.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:I just want to be the one calorie version, you know?
Tim Winders:Oh
Tim Winders:aspire to the full accountant.
Tim Winders:I just want to be a mini accountant, you know, mini me.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: no, no, that's outrageous.
Tim Winders:I would never risk my heart to go do that.
Tim Winders:So, yeah.
Tim Winders:Well, What he did is he, gently said, I think you should be a CPA.
Tim Winders:I think you should go for the test.
Tim Winders:I think, okay, so I, I did that.
Tim Winders:I, went through the academics and I finished my exam and I worked very
Tim Winders:hard because remember my, my, fear of success was terrifying to me.
Tim Winders:And, so my study habits were ferocious.
Tim Winders:I remember I, well, I won't tell the story, but I just studied.
Tim Winders:I, I'm sure people have studied harder, but I studied hours and
Tim Winders:hours and days and weeks for this test and went in and just nailed it.
Tim Winders:So now what do I do?
Tim Winders:Well, I guess I'll go apply for a job.
Tim Winders:So I ended up with a job.
Tim Winders:In accounting and of course, you're just a mill coming out of the
Tim Winders:university system as a CPA, candidate.
Tim Winders:And so I went in and they, they ground me up and I, I, I survived it and
Tim Winders:there's a lot of funny stories there.
Tim Winders:But when I got through that, I, during that time, my wife and I had
Tim Winders:our first son and, we were in a city.
Tim Winders:I won't name that was just not, it was not.
Tim Winders:Working for us.
Tim Winders:It felt scary and there was some dangers around that we thought
Tim Winders:we're going to get out of here.
Tim Winders:So we moved back to our hometown to a different accounting firm, which
Tim Winders:I, you know, I love this little firm.
Tim Winders:But I began to, I was, I was growing in dissatisfaction because the
Tim Winders:thing about accounting, is it's all.
Tim Winders:it's all rear view mirror view.
Tim Winders:You know, you're always fixing last year's, you're auditing last
Tim Winders:year, you're preparing a taxes from what has happened behind us.
Tim Winders:And I thought, gosh, I'd really like to be involved in the
Tim Winders:steering of an organization.
Tim Winders:And that, that idea, I'm not sure where it came from.
Tim Winders:I hope it was the Holy spirit, but it grew in me to the point
Tim Winders:where I was really dissatisfied.
Tim Winders:not, not in circumstances.
Tim Winders:I had a beautiful job, great people I worked with.
Tim Winders:And, I was succeeding.
Tim Winders:I was, I was climbing up the corporate ladder, so to speak, but
Tim Winders:there was this dissatisfaction.
Tim Winders:A job opened and a friend called me and another accountant said, Hey, I think
Tim Winders:you'd be perfect for this job because you're a really, you're a strange
Tim Winders:version of Christian that I've ever met.
Tim Winders:And there's this.
Tim Winders:Equally strange church.
Tim Winders:I think you ought to go check it out And they're looking for an a
Tim Winders:and a comp troller was the title.
Tim Winders:They were looking for a their lead accountant So I thought I
Tim Winders:remember my reaction was no way no way am I going to ever take that?
Tim Winders:That would be career suicide and during the night I feel this This is metaphor a
Tim Winders:tap on my shoulder from the holy spirit.
Tim Winders:Hey, that's what you've been praying for to silva Open your
Tim Winders:eyes and go check that out.
Tim Winders:It was so, Oh, Oh yeah.
Tim Winders:So I, I went and applied and a lot of fun little stories.
Tim Winders:I'll lead out, leave out here.
Tim Winders:But yeah, I ended up accepting that job.
Tim Winders:And within two weeks of taking the job, the church leader leaves and
Tim Winders:the whole church goes into a crisis.
Tim Winders:And I find myself untrained, no lead, no guidelines in a position as the
Tim Winders:lead accountant in a church that was struggling with no leadership.
Tim Winders:This was 1996, 1995, and it was the most fun I'd ever had as an accountant
Tim Winders:because I got my, my wish came true.
Tim Winders:I wasn't the lead, of course, but in the accounting space, I got to steer and
Tim Winders:it was hairy, man, and I just loved it.
Tim Winders:I thought it's like a ship on fire and I'm the fireman on board and I love this.
Tim Winders:So I found a part of myself that I, You know, didn't know existed.
Tim Winders:That was my, my beginning.
Tim Winders:I was there for 21 years as their CFO, and it was a wonderful season of my life.
Tim Winders:Well, the, the cool thing is, is that.
Tim Winders:You know, the mechanic goes in and diagnoses the problem and does all
Tim Winders:the, now they've got computers that do it, but you know, we're of the
Tim Winders:age where we remember where you just have to listen and hear and
Tim Winders:use intuition and things like that.
Tim Winders:It sounds like, especially early on, and I'm guessing the nature, I'm going
Tim Winders:to ask a couple of questions maybe about being in that role in a ministry.
Tim Winders:situation because we have a lot of ministers and people
Tim Winders:that are leaders in ministries.
Tim Winders:I'm on the few boards of ministries.
Tim Winders:We have a nonprofit and things like that.
Tim Winders:I know you do also that, You know, sometimes they don't even think about
Tim Winders:any control, you know, comptroller or anything over the money.
Tim Winders:I don't think that's good But then there's some and we know how this
Tim Winders:works and i'll maybe even pose this as a question that that money leads
Tim Winders:and controls in the situation.
Tim Winders:And, and listen, for, for those that do not know, most people do, I think at this
Tim Winders:point, because of the music and, and, you know, all the cool things and, you know,
Tim Winders:all the stuff that's come out of, out of Bethel, give everybody just, I hate
Tim Winders:to say a brief description of Bethel.
Tim Winders:You know, every, every time I hear the word, I think of music and supernatural.
Tim Winders:That's what, that's what comes to
Tim Winders:my mind, but anything else that would characterize that for someone who's maybe
Tim Winders:even not in spiritual circles, but even the spiritual circles, but aren't familiar
Tim Winders:with Bethel to just kind of help frame the next question or two, I might ask.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Yeah.
Tim Winders:so through my lens, Bethel was a established church.
Tim Winders:it was an assemblies of God church, which is just a huge denomination
Tim Winders:with very, very formal church.
Tim Winders:and, in 1995, it represented one of the larger, I think one of the two largest
Tim Winders:churches in the city there that, that it is in Reading and, the other was a
Tim Winders:Baptist, a beautiful Baptist church.
Tim Winders:I was not a church goer in those days.
Tim Winders:My church experience was, the small home group, worship with a guitar, intimacy,
Tim Winders:you know, worship and intimacy, loving God and just not structured religion.
Tim Winders:So, what happened is Bethel, as I said, their, their senior leader,
Tim Winders:who was a terrific man, he, retired and moved off to a different career.
Tim Winders:If I believe is where he went and, the leadership in this church, this was
Tim Winders:right around the time that I was hired.
Tim Winders:And so I feel like a fish out of water in this environment that's
Tim Winders:structured, but they're, they're, they're looking for, what do we do next?
Tim Winders:Wow.
Tim Winders:Our senior leader's gone, people have followed and left.
Tim Winders:And so the church was kind of.
Tim Winders:I imagine a lot of the members were really scrambling and really trying to find out
Tim Winders:who are we and what are we going to do?
Tim Winders:Well, what happened is, We began to accumulate a bunch of hungry people for
Tim Winders:authentic, authentic connection to God.
Tim Winders:It wasn't a religious hunger, like, liturgy.
Tim Winders:It wasn't, you know, let's, let's go find, a structure that we can live inside
Tim Winders:that is, religious frame, framework.
Tim Winders:It was, we really want to find God.
Tim Winders:We have needs in school.
Tim Winders:Things that scare us in our lives and we think God can help.
Tim Winders:How do we find him authentically?
Tim Winders:So what happened?
Tim Winders:This is 1995 is, the nucleus began to accumulate of people who really were
Tim Winders:just not interested in pretending.
Tim Winders:my wife said it best.
Tim Winders:She said, I'm so dried out inside.
Tim Winders:She said, if, if, if God isn't real, let's, let's, Forget this God thing.
Tim Winders:Let's just, let's not do it.
Tim Winders:You know, we're not looking for structure and rules.
Tim Winders:We we're looking for, we need, we need to meet this person.
Tim Winders:If this person exists, well, that represented this core nucleus,
Tim Winders:this core nucleus, grew slowly.
Tim Winders:And I have to say from my perspective, from 1995, where I first engaged
Tim Winders:this up until, I don't know, mid, mid, 2020, somewhere in there,
Tim Winders:2010, 2005, somewhere in there, the organization was naive and beautiful.
Tim Winders:It was just innocent.
Tim Winders:You know, we, we were messy.
Tim Winders:We, we made mistakes.
Tim Winders:We would admit that we're not, we're not, you know, the smartest
Tim Winders:people, the sharpest tools in the shed, so to speak, but, but we loved
Tim Winders:God and God started showing up.
Tim Winders:And what happened is, God showing up looked like people changing.
Tim Winders:I remember this one board member, I, of course, she's a
Tim Winders:beautiful, beautiful person.
Tim Winders:I would never mean disrespect, but she was a grouchy, grouchy person.
Tim Winders:And, throughout this process, we watched this person's heart turn and soften.
Tim Winders:And she just became so different.
Tim Winders:It's just one of those things.
Tim Winders:Literally thousands of examples of, of what appeared to be miracles
Tim Winders:around us, people's hearts changing, people's diseases shifting and healing
Tim Winders:and, prayers asked and answered.
Tim Winders:It was, it was incredible.
Tim Winders:So what happened is people, outsiders began to hear this
Tim Winders:and accumulate and visit.
Tim Winders:And those were the years that I was the accountant.
Tim Winders:So my, my job on the wall, I'm, I'm not a teacher or a preacher at all.
Tim Winders:I'm the accountant in the back office, just trying to manage the growth
Tim Winders:in the, in the organization grew about 20 to 25 percent every year.
Tim Winders:So if you figure that, Oh, that sounds nice until you do that for.
Tim Winders:You know, 20 years straight and you've gotten, you've gotten an
Tim Winders:organization that's, you know, four or five times as size, it's staggering.
Tim Winders:There was, this is one of the beautiful parts.
Tim Winders:Like you said, the mechanical part for me was how do I solve this problem?
Tim Winders:and not, to your point, not kill the movement.
Tim Winders:How do you do that?
Tim Winders:And so I can talk about that if you care, but I do think there is a, an
Tim Winders:important role of administration.
Tim Winders:It's a gift, a biblical gift of administration.
Tim Winders:It's like the bottom scissor of a pair of scissors.
Tim Winders:You know, the top part is the devotion and spontaneity and the And, and
Tim Winders:really spirituality of an organization.
Tim Winders:And the bottom is the, the clean lines, the, the systemization,
Tim Winders:the integrity, the character, and my job was the bottom scissor.
Tim Winders:and the, you know, the leaders of the church were the top scissor.
Tim Winders:And for any pastors who are listening, I think the key is to
Tim Winders:not get the scissors upside down.
Tim Winders:They both cut.
Tim Winders:And even with the scissors upside down, the system will work.
Tim Winders:In other words, if administration is the leading controlling decision
Tim Winders:maker, that will cut for a while, but that's, it's upside down.
Tim Winders:You need it the other way to keep that.
Tim Winders:that devotion and that naivete, that beautiful innocence in an organization.
Tim Winders:Otherwise it gets, it chokes off.
Tim Winders:It calcifies.
Tim Winders:Yeah, so what?
Tim Winders:It's interesting the thing that came to me, Stephen, while you were saying
Tim Winders:that when you mentioned 20 to 25 percent growth kind of year over year,
Tim Winders:which for anyone who's a leader of an organization listening in for anyone who
Tim Winders:heads ministry and or business, which we've got both here, you know, most
Tim Winders:people would almost said kill for that.
Tim Winders:Some people would, that's unfortunate that I thought that, but that's obviously
Tim Winders:there was the God's hand was in that.
Tim Winders:But I, the curiosity that I had was what did that do for Steven's lack
Tim Winders:mindset that he had growing up and that disappointment that kind of came
Tim Winders:along with that, because I know that Prosperous Soul was birthed sometime.
Tim Winders:During that, you know, it's like, I think you just celebrated your 25th anniversary.
Tim Winders:So if I'm doing the math, right, it was late nineties and all that.
Tim Winders:But what was, what did that do for your, your lack that, you know, that
Tim Winders:sort of baked in that, that we're all working through the things from our
Tim Winders:younger days, what did it do for that lack mindset that you said you had?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Wow.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:I,
Tim Winders:Cause you saw the numbers,
Tim Winders:you were
Tim Winders:dealing with numbers,
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: I
Tim Winders:You weren't, you
Tim Winders:weren't necessarily
Tim Winders:looking at the ministry.
Tim Winders:I'm sure you were, but you had spreadsheets.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: right.
Tim Winders:I had spreadsheets.
Tim Winders:I had my Excel formulas running and my software.
Tim Winders:And, you know, I, I was the one who had to put the two ends of the hose together.
Tim Winders:One is this practical, we need to pay bills.
Tim Winders:The other is, well, what's God saying?
Tim Winders:Give away our offering from this Sunday.
Tim Winders:You know, just all this crazy spontaneity.
Tim Winders:I'm trying to get these two ends every week to cover our bills.
Tim Winders:It was, really, really stressful and a funny story.
Tim Winders:Maybe this relates.
Tim Winders:I was, stressing out.
Tim Winders:You'll notice most of my hair is gone, and this was where it went
Tim Winders:was during this season, trying to figure out how does this work?
Tim Winders:How do I make this work every single week?
Tim Winders:And, one time I heard the leader of the church.
Tim Winders:He said someone asked him, How do you handle the stress of this growth?
Tim Winders:And his answer was, I don't really feel any of it.
Tim Winders:I'm sitting in the room thinking, Oh, my gosh, no wonder I'm over
Tim Winders:here doing all the scary stuff.
Tim Winders:That's your, that's your job, Steven.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: but that was my
Tim Winders:your job, Steven.
Tim Winders:You deal.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Yeah.
Tim Winders:your job is to, no, well, that was my orphan paradigm.
Tim Winders:My, my poverty mindset is I have to make this work.
Tim Winders:And when this leader said that, I realized, oh, and I think again,
Tim Winders:the Holy Spirit tap on the shoulder.
Tim Winders:I heard, you know, the idea, well, who asked you to do that?
Tim Winders:That isn't your job.
Tim Winders:You're making that up.
Tim Winders:And I went, oh no.
Tim Winders:So I began to understand as a survival technique, the difference
Tim Winders:between responsibility and authority.
Tim Winders:the leader had the authority.
Tim Winders:But I had taken his responsibility and without the authority
Tim Winders:and it was just killing me.
Tim Winders:So I ended up, in a very tear filled moment in the chapel many, many times.
Tim Winders:We have a little room there we call the chapel and, on campus.
Tim Winders:And, I was in there processing with God.
Tim Winders:What do I do?
Tim Winders:Why do I feel so?
Tim Winders:Empty inside, I'm surrounded.
Tim Winders:If we give context of 25 percent growth, 20 to 25, not to
Tim Winders:exaggerate, but every year, it's just everything people are coming.
Tim Winders:And it's, it is just the craziest external favor on us.
Tim Winders:And I like to think of.
Tim Winders:In spite of our best efforts, we were growing, you know, we, we didn't know
Tim Winders:what we were doing, whatever it looks like or whatever people think or intuit.
Tim Winders:No, it was a, it was a mess.
Tim Winders:And we were just doing our best to hang on from my perspective.
Tim Winders:That's mine.
Tim Winders:And, And, so there was growth, I had influence, I had favor, I had
Tim Winders:friendships, I had income, I had position, I had all these things externally.
Tim Winders:My family was doing well, my kids loved me, my wife and I were in love, you
Tim Winders:know, it was just, it was all good.
Tim Winders:And still I felt empty.
Tim Winders:And I'm like, what in the world is going on, God, that,
Tim Winders:that doesn't even make sense.
Tim Winders:And referencing verses like John 10, verse 10, chapter 10, verse 10, just,
Tim Winders:just referencing some of these contexts.
Tim Winders:I'm like, what is going on?
Tim Winders:And God showed me that.
Tim Winders:I was an orphan.
Tim Winders:I understood God at a distance.
Tim Winders:Even though I was, I believed in God, I worshiped God, I still do.
Tim Winders:I, I, Because of my tragedy, I can go back to a story from earlier, and my broken
Tim Winders:spirit, I related to Jesus who forgave me and rescued me, and I related to the Holy
Tim Winders:Spirit who comforted me and educated me.
Tim Winders:He trained me, Holy Spirit.
Tim Winders:So, I was like, You're mine.
Tim Winders:You know, I embraced them.
Tim Winders:But Father God, I understood as the judge and, I'm scared of father God.
Tim Winders:So I've built my doctrinal understanding around that.
Tim Winders:I'm just going to hide in Christ, right?
Tim Winders:I'm going to take my cardboard cut out of Jesus and just stand behind it.
Tim Winders:Whenever God, when I perceive God, the father is around.
Tim Winders:Well, that just was an invitation and without sharing the details.
Tim Winders:I had a picture, this was a true vision, of Father God sitting on this massive
Tim Winders:throne in the middle of this room all by himself, and I am standing in the
Tim Winders:hallway that leads to this room, but I am scared to walk in, and Father God
Tim Winders:doesn't speak, he just goes like this with his finger, he says, come here, with
Tim Winders:his finger, and there was no way I was going to go near God, because of fear.
Tim Winders:You know, my, my poverty mindset, this persisted and finally, and I'm
Tim Winders:now crossing days and days and days.
Tim Winders:And I finally began to approach God and I went and sat behind this throne.
Tim Winders:I was so scared to be seen because of my mistakes.
Tim Winders:And you, you know, we've talked about those and what I began
Tim Winders:to learn over this experience.
Tim Winders:Now this vision happened day after day after day for, it feels like two years.
Tim Winders:I don't know, but it's just every single day I would practice
Tim Winders:being seen by Father God.
Tim Winders:I was in a school learning the difference between doing and being,
Tim Winders:which is the distinction between an orphan mindset and an adoption mindset.
Tim Winders:And so whether we're in a secular environment or a spiritual environment,
Tim Winders:whatever, wherever we are, this is the principle, there is such
Tim Winders:a profound need on the planet.
Tim Winders:for adoption.
Tim Winders:The need is so deep in humanity, the only solution was Jesus
Tim Winders:had to come and die to fix it.
Tim Winders:So the, I believe the essence of the gospel message is Jesus had to come and
Tim Winders:interrupt this fact that we are separated.
Tim Winders:And he's the only one who can close it.
Tim Winders:Jesus did accomplish that.
Tim Winders:Of course on the cross is finished, but we still live with gaps out
Tim Winders:of cultural information and belief structures and the little T's and all
Tim Winders:this stuff, our part, we need to learn how to close the gap and press in.
Tim Winders:to father God.
Tim Winders:And so that is the, profound moment in my life where I began to learn about,
Tim Winders:about identity and being with God.
Tim Winders:And, we could talk on and on.
Tim Winders:That's where my purpose train tool begins to emerge and you know,
Tim Winders:where it all flows out of that.
Tim Winders:I begin to understand purpose is not the The top floor or the
Tim Winders:the key to a life well lived it.
Tim Winders:There's a layer one layer above it.
Tim Winders:And that's identity.
Tim Winders:We need to know who we are.
Tim Winders:And there's only two choices.
Tim Winders:You're either.
Tim Winders:adopted or you're orphaned.
Tim Winders:You're either comfortable in your own skin or you're not.
Tim Winders:You either belong or you don't.
Tim Winders:And once we fundamentally understand that in context of God, then our
Tim Winders:purpose, vision, and strategies and tactics flow from that.
Tim Winders:Great thing about that, Steven, is that's one of
Tim Winders:the things when you and I had, you know, we spoke for an hour or so,
Tim Winders:about a year, year and a half ago.
Tim Winders:That is one of the things that still rings in my head.
Tim Winders:Is that piece.
Tim Winders:And I have even shared that because it's, I think And we're, we're
Tim Winders:talking about people, probably many people listening that they have,
Tim Winders:this is going to sound a little bit cynical, but I think you get it.
Tim Winders:They've checked the salvation box.
Tim Winders:They have said, I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
Tim Winders:Yeah, exactly.
Tim Winders:But yet you, do not, you haven't approached.
Tim Winders:See my, my personality, this is kind of a good contrast here.
Tim Winders:My personality was.
Tim Winders:The opposite arrogance.
Tim Winders:I walk in a room and I think I own the place I've got issues there too.
Tim Winders:But so when I stepped into the kingdom of God, when I was invited
Tim Winders:in, accepted Jesus, I automatically said, I'm going to the throne.
Tim Winders:I'm going to walk right in and converse.
Tim Winders:We got, where's my wife and others like you're talking about that
Tim Winders:have experienced disappointment and all that you're standing way back.
Tim Winders:And so, so it is so fascinating.
Tim Winders:I think this is a, such a root.
Tim Winders:root conversation.
Tim Winders:Is this what birthed your prosperous soul?
Tim Winders:I guess ministry message, things that led to books, et cetera.
Tim Winders:Is that kind of, is that when that began ish?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: I, I, I have to be honest, I, I began wrestling
Tim Winders:with poverty and greed or mammon.
Tim Winders:I began that and wrote the book with some awareness of this idea.
Tim Winders:It was later when I understood there's a layer above it.
Tim Winders:One of my chapters in the book talks about the four floors of purpose,
Tim Winders:vision, strategies and tactics and the importance of living on the top floor.
Tim Winders:Well it was after this experience, so after the book was published,
Tim Winders:that I realized there's actually a layer on top of that and that's.
Tim Winders:identity.
Tim Winders:So I was still in the process of healing.
Tim Winders:You see, I think at the top floor, the idea of identity has
Tim Winders:two choices, orphan or adoption.
Tim Winders:Orphan, the orphan identity, is the source of problems with money.
Tim Winders:That's the cause.
Tim Winders:And that's really what I want to do is heal that orphan wound, close the
Tim Winders:wound, and from that begin to build real capacity with wealth, with increase.
Tim Winders:And do, obviously, Christ.
Tim Winders:I mean, it's, I probably need to say that for listeners.
Tim Winders:It's not about having a Rolex and driving a Maserati or whatever people drive.
Tim Winders:I don't even know, but it's about using my money on purpose for
Tim Winders:a cause greater than ourselves.
Tim Winders:So, I think that when I wrote the book, I was wrestling poverty
Tim Winders:and its mindset and hating it.
Tim Winders:But I didn't know what to do about it.
Tim Winders:So I began to learn about the fingerprints and the mindset and
Tim Winders:there's scriptures, you know, there's good teachers that talk about this.
Tim Winders:And so I was learning these things and applying them to my life.
Tim Winders:I later learned that poverty and mammon are like puppet twins.
Tim Winders:Two sides of the same coin.
Tim Winders:They seem opposite, you know, excess and lack villain and victim.
Tim Winders:Those seem like opposites, but they're actually a family.
Tim Winders:There are two sides of one coin and the coin is.
Tim Winders:orphan.
Tim Winders:That's our identity.
Tim Winders:And that's why I think it's the highest level.
Tim Winders:You have to solve this puzzle and then your purpose, vision, strategies, the
Tim Winders:floors below begin to straighten out.
Tim Winders:It's like orphanism distorts or twists our purpose in life
Tim Winders:and our vision and everything.
Tim Winders:If from an orphan orientation, it just twists all of that.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:So when I wrote the book, I found a lot of secrets.
Tim Winders:But I realize now, I still use those tools very much.
Tim Winders:I have courses on them and whatnot, and, they're powerful and effective,
Tim Winders:but to actually heal financial disease, to move from disease to
Tim Winders:past healing into health, financial health is different than healing.
Tim Winders:if you, to, in order to get to health, and I like to think of it
Tim Winders:as a slide, we have to defy gravity.
Tim Winders:And get to a new stable, a new stable place, this health.
Tim Winders:In order to do that, you have to, begin with identity.
Tim Winders:You have to cut the strings of the puppet master, which is orphan ism,
Tim Winders:the mindset of orphan there, you know.
Tim Winders:I'm no theologian, but I do think there is one orphan, a
Tim Winders:real one, and that's the devil.
Tim Winders:And he's trying to father people because he wants to be like God.
Tim Winders:And because he's trying to father people, he's recreating orphans.
Tim Winders:And unfortunately, many people Outside of Christianity, inside Christianity,
Tim Winders:we are reinforced with orphan ideas.
Tim Winders:We kind of, we, it, it suits us because orphanism gives us so many excuses.
Tim Winders:You know, we can hide and blame others and we can vilify and do
Tim Winders:things to others and justify it.
Tim Winders:It's just a, it's, it's an ugly place, but it's also epidemic.
Tim Winders:there's a few things there.
Tim Winders:Obviously you went through quite the journey to arrive at that.
Tim Winders:And, and, and I also want to say this, that just to say you're either an
Tim Winders:orphan or you're adopted is one thing to accept and believe that side that you.
Tim Winders:Should accept is another thing that a lot of people have to go through.
Tim Winders:Like you mentioned that healing process, I don't, I don't know why, but the
Tim Winders:scripture in Matthew six, you know, you can't serve two masters, you can't serve
Tim Winders:God and Mammon kind of popped in my mind.
Tim Winders:I recognize that I was attempting to serve both and you can't, I think it's
Tim Winders:like you mentioned, it's that coin.
Tim Winders:I think there's, you know, the kingdom of God, you know, God's
Tim Winders:system, God's side, whatever.
Tim Winders:And then there's.
Tim Winders:The enemy the enemy of god, which is you know, satan satan all of all
Tim Winders:of that There's a lot more to that.
Tim Winders:I call it babylon at times just to say it's babylon or the
Tim Winders:kingdom of god Yeah, just to do it.
Tim Winders:But
Tim Winders:one thing I do want to ask this question because I think it's sort of
Tim Winders:foundational it's amazing to me that many translations and scriptures will
Tim Winders:Replace that word mammon You know, you can't serve God in mammon with money.
Tim Winders:but could you just briefly define mammon?
Tim Winders:Because I think
Tim Winders:it's a word that we throw out at times in our And you can't serve both.
Tim Winders:I want to, that's my foundation of it.
Tim Winders:But a lot of people don't know mammon might be.
Tim Winders:They go, it's money.
Tim Winders:I don't serve money.
Tim Winders:Yeah, whatever.
Tim Winders:Okay.
Tim Winders:What's mammon?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Yeah, wow.
Tim Winders:Yeah, so Mammon is an ancient word that we don't relate to today because it's
Tim Winders:not like an common English language word.
Tim Winders:It's Chaldean, so that takes us literally back to Babylon.
Tim Winders:So, it's funny that you call that system Babylonian, that is completely accurate.
Tim Winders:So, the Babylonian system is summed up best in, I forget the chapter in
Tim Winders:Revelation, but it talks about, You know, they're mourning the fall of Babylon.
Tim Winders:And, if you realize, if you read that passage, you see what Babylon
Tim Winders:offered and it was riches and purple and, you know, wealth, it was, it
Tim Winders:was all of these comforts and things, but that passage is keep reading.
Tim Winders:It's fascinating because it ends with slaves and human lives.
Tim Winders:It is a system designed.
Tim Winders:to enslave us.
Tim Winders:So that's the Babylonian concept that the world was mourning in and is going
Tim Winders:to mourn in the Book of Revelation.
Tim Winders:Well, that culture labeled or gave a name to the The, the heart condition that
Tim Winders:is necessary and that is called mammon.
Tim Winders:It's the actual word is momonas.
Tim Winders:And it, what it means is it does not mean money.
Tim Winders:it does not mean wealth.
Tim Winders:Now, there are English translations, NIV, NASB, I think the new King
Tim Winders:James, the original King James, the one that used the word mammon,
Tim Winders:that is the actual right word.
Tim Winders:But mammon means wealth deified.
Tim Winders:So it's different than, wealth.
Tim Winders:It's wealth that has been, something has been done to it.
Tim Winders:We have made it our source or point of worship.
Tim Winders:Another way to look at mammon is money.
Tim Winders:personified.
Tim Winders:So it's a, it's a pretty hideous idea if you think about it, where we are willing
Tim Winders:to in worship to this thing of wealth, this idea in that worship, we're willing
Tim Winders:to sacrifice ourselves and others.
Tim Winders:That's the worship component.
Tim Winders:And, it's, it's an embezzling idea.
Tim Winders:It, it steals from us.
Tim Winders:It's a pretty gross thing when we actually look at it.
Tim Winders:And, this is why you can't serve God and mammon because we are designed to
Tim Winders:worship something greater than ourselves.
Tim Winders:And even if we, you know, maybe a atheist would say, well, I'm not what
Tim Winders:they're doing is worshiping Humanity.
Tim Winders:That's what humanism is, right?
Tim Winders:So we all worship something and, money is very common, for us to gravitate
Tim Winders:to in the absence of Christ, because money is a spiritual power that
Tim Winders:exaggerates whatever it touches.
Tim Winders:It makes things bigger.
Tim Winders:So if you worship it, guess what?
Tim Winders:In exchange, you get power.
Tim Winders:That's the mechanics behind Mammon, but, Mammon itself will Eat you.
Tim Winders:It will eat you alive.
Tim Winders:It will destroy you, your family, all the things that we care about,
Tim Winders:our identity, our core values, our dreams, all of those things will be
Tim Winders:sacrificed to this, this, mindset.
Tim Winders:So some people have taught Mammon to be a demon.
Tim Winders:I don't believe that I could be wrong.
Tim Winders:I just see Mammon as a mindset.
Tim Winders:a paradigm of worship.
Tim Winders:And that's why I think mammon is not a demon.
Tim Winders:That's why you can't cast it out.
Tim Winders:You know, just like poverty is not a demon.
Tim Winders:There are demons around these things, like flies around
Tim Winders:manure, but you don't cast out.
Tim Winders:You have to, you have to supplant those things.
Tim Winders:I don't think they're demons.
Tim Winders:I think they are mindsets, but there is a demon involved.
Tim Winders:And that is the great orphan.
Tim Winders:That's the orphan
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:And I, and I definitely think for me, I know that what I did, because
Tim Winders:I was attempting at times to serve two masters, that, that serving that
Tim Winders:Spirit of Mammon, Mammon, you know, serving that opens up the doors for
Tim Winders:a lot of demons to mess with you.
Tim Winders:You know, it, it, it,
Tim Winders:it can definitely weaken you.
Tim Winders:You're not, you're not in that adopted, fully adopted state,
Tim Winders:if that even makes sense.
Tim Winders:orphan and adopted.
Tim Winders:I think that's foundational.
Tim Winders:I love that.
Tim Winders:And I do, I've got a, I got a copy of the book here, money in the prosperous soul.
Tim Winders:And, and, and I've highlighted, and I think I'm going to ask you something
Tim Winders:to do something here that's probably going to be difficult for you.
Tim Winders:I would love it if you could talk about and maybe just hit it at an
Tim Winders:extremely high level and quickly.
Tim Winders:That's why I think it's going to be tough for you.
Tim Winders:The tactic, strategy, vision, and purpose, the four levels, because I think when you
Tim Winders:tie that with the identity and I, and I want to tell this to the listener, you're
Tim Winders:not going to get enough From this, I just want you to be exposed to it and hear it.
Tim Winders:And then Steven, in a little while, we'll talk about more resources where you
Tim Winders:could go either in the book, or I know you've got a lot of resources like that.
Tim Winders:So could you just briefly talk about that?
Tim Winders:That's the purpose train, talk about that and tie it
Tim Winders:in with identity in our last few minutes here.
Tim Winders:Then I've got a question or two, and then we are going to jump off, but that's
Tim Winders:how, how's that for a tough task for you?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: I can do that.
Tim Winders:I appreciate you asking.
Tim Winders:That's great.
Tim Winders:I'm going to go to the top floor, which is purpose.
Tim Winders:So I'm referring to floors is what's in the book.
Tim Winders:The top floor is purpose.
Tim Winders:like I said, there's another layer I've learned it's identity.
Tim Winders:So let me go to an imaginary top floor, the fifth level,
Tim Winders:which is identity is where.
Tim Winders:It answers the question, who?
Tim Winders:It's not who God is.
Tim Winders:It's who am I?
Tim Winders:And so the, the question is identity.
Tim Winders:The answer is who?
Tim Winders:And the reward or the outcome is value.
Tim Winders:That's where worth and value are received.
Tim Winders:They are given to you.
Tim Winders:That's how you get it, is identity adopted.
Tim Winders:the second, the next level down is purpose.
Tim Winders:So the question is, what is your purpose?
Tim Winders:Thanks.
Tim Winders:The answer is, why am I alive, and the thing that is received,
Tim Winders:or the reward, is meaning in life.
Tim Winders:That's where meaning comes in.
Tim Winders:is absorbed or received.
Tim Winders:That's where it comes from.
Tim Winders:Below that is vision is the question, and the answer is what.
Tim Winders:What do you see in the future based on a top down perspective?
Tim Winders:And the thing that is received in vision is hope, and hope is what the world
Tim Winders:Especially our gens, gen z's and etc.
Tim Winders:You know, they need hope.
Tim Winders:Well, that's where you get it, but you don't work from the bottom up.
Tim Winders:You always work from the top down.
Tim Winders:Don't build vision without first figuring out who am I and why am I.
Tim Winders:Below that is strategy.
Tim Winders:The question is, what is, what is my strategy?
Tim Winders:The answer is how I'm going to get there.
Tim Winders:Whatever this pull system is engineering.
Tim Winders:And the thing that is given or the reward of that is assignment.
Tim Winders:It's your, it's your action steps to take, whether it's in
Tim Winders:home or business or whatever.
Tim Winders:That's where we actually do.
Tim Winders:That's where we become a human doing.
Tim Winders:And then finally at the bottom are tactics.
Tim Winders:The question is.
Tim Winders:What are my decisions?
Tim Winders:And the answer becomes either yes or no.
Tim Winders:Very simple.
Tim Winders:If it's a pull system that is connected to this decision, if this
Tim Winders:decision is on my purpose train, then the answer will clearly come out.
Tim Winders:Yes or no.
Tim Winders:If it's an orphan idea, then you, you can, you can identify those.
Tim Winders:The thing that you gain the reward from tactics and the yes or no is clarity
Tim Winders:and simplicity, quietness of mind and heart that sleep, sweet, sweet sleep.
Tim Winders:What we long for.
Tim Winders:That's where that comes from.
Tim Winders:So there's my summary.
Tim Winders:Yeah, and the great thing about that is that I, I
Tim Winders:consider that a kingdom of God model.
Tim Winders:And as you were bringing that up, I saw Maslow's hierarchy of
Tim Winders:needs rising to self, it flips it.
Tim Winders:You talked about the cascade.
Tim Winders:I don't know if you've ever put thought into this, but it really is what most
Tim Winders:people are attempting to get to that self.
Tim Winders:Actualization and they're building from the ground up and
Tim Winders:you started from the top down.
Tim Winders:That to me was the contrast I saw.
Tim Winders:You're nodding for those that, you know, I'm not messing up your model.
Tim Winders:I don't think I'm, I'm contextualizing or putting in perspective.
Tim Winders:And, and I do want to say, Steven, you know, you and I had a sozo session.
Tim Winders:I'll, we'll mention in just a moment how people can connect with you and find out.
Tim Winders:And you brought this up and I find myself, you know, we're all a
Tim Winders:product of the things that have come into our, our, Mind and spirit and
Tim Winders:all over the course of our lives.
Tim Winders:I find myself using almost that model with organizations also, you
Tim Winders:know, this is an individual thing.
Tim Winders:But, you know, organizations need to understand their identity, their purpose,
Tim Winders:and, and, and all the way down to tactics.
Tim Winders:And, you know, I actually emailed you probably about a year ago.
Tim Winders:I said, Hey, listen, I don't want to be swiping anything, but I'm kind
Tim Winders:of using this some, is that okay?
Tim Winders:And I can't remember what you said.
Tim Winders:We'll have our lawyers get involved.
Tim Winders:No, I'm just kidding.
Tim Winders:But anyway, no, I mean, I, so I see so much value from that, Stephen.
Tim Winders:So we we've, we've got a minute here.
Tim Winders:Is there anything else before I kind of start wrapping up that you might want to
Tim Winders:say anything that the spirit is leading you or, or something that might be
Tim Winders:unsaid, knowing that we've really just touched the surface and exposed some
Tim Winders:people to a lot of really cool stuff.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Yeah, I thank you for asking that.
Tim Winders:I think I would encourage people if, if, if someone is inspired or
Tim Winders:wondering, how do I start with this?
Tim Winders:What I would do is, give yourself permission to spend a little bit of time
Tim Winders:every single day exercising this muscle.
Tim Winders:That is being and not doing, you know, I think we have big muscles developed,
Tim Winders:especially if we're in the business or ministry area, if we're any kind
Tim Winders:of a leader, we are buffed on doers, but being is a different tiny muscle.
Tim Winders:It can build and it needs to build.
Tim Winders:So that's what I would do is give yourself permission, listener, to sit.
Tim Winders:10 minutes a day, you know, for me, it's first thing in the morning
Tim Winders:and just be with Father God.
Tim Winders:My example of him on the throne where I just came and sat with him and he
Tim Winders:looked at me and I had to bear that.
Tim Winders:Go do that for a while.
Tim Winders:Let Father God look at you in all of your ugliness and your nakedness.
Tim Winders:Just let him be there.
Tim Winders:He loves you and just experience that and let that change your paradigm.
Tim Winders:It's very healing.
Tim Winders:to hang out with Father God.
Tim Winders:It is the reason Christ came, was to show us the Father.
Tim Winders:And I think that will be transformational for people.
Tim Winders:Yeah, that's so good, Steven.
Tim Winders:I appreciate that.
Tim Winders:If someone wants to connect with you or get some of your resources or something,
Tim Winders:where, where do you want to send people?
Tim Winders:We'll include it down in notes and all that, but where, where
Tim Winders:do you want someone to go?
Tim Winders:I mean, I'm, I'm expecting some people to say, I want some more,
Tim Winders:but, where do you want them to go?
Tim Winders:How can they connect?
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: Well, the, the, if, if you're a shopper and you
Tim Winders:just kind of like to window shop, I'd point you to my website.
Tim Winders:I've got tons of resources in there.
Tim Winders:Courses, the website is prosperous soul.
Tim Winders:com all one word.
Tim Winders:but if you're wanting, if a listener wants to talk to me more, About any
Tim Winders:element that we've touched on, I will give a link to you for the notes that
Tim Winders:lets them schedule a zoom meeting privately with me a short one, maybe
Tim Winders:15 to 20 minutes and they get to meet.
Tim Winders:We get to talk and they can ask, what is the question?
Tim Winders:And then I could say, Oh, here's your next best step.
Tim Winders:And it was just save them a lot of time and accelerate
Tim Winders:whatever it is they're after.
Tim Winders:Excellent.
Tim Winders:I appreciate that.
Tim Winders:And, like I said, I, as a coach have even talked to Steven in what we call
Tim Winders:a Zozo session and it was powerful and I've been wanting to get back on the
Tim Winders:line and allow me to ask the questions.
Tim Winders:And so I'm excited that we've been able to do that.
Tim Winders:Steven, we are seek, go create those three words.
Tim Winders:I'm either going to allow or force you to choose one of those.
Tim Winders:Don't ever think it either, by the way, seek.
Tim Winders:Go or create, which do you choose?
Tim Winders:And why is my final question.
Tim Winders:Stephen De Silva: I love that you asked that.
Tim Winders:And I, I have thought about this for quite a few weeks.
Tim Winders:I follow your podcast.
Tim Winders:I've decided it's Seek.
Tim Winders:And for me, Seek, the reason is It is the closest word for the position of
Tim Winders:sitting with Father God and listening.
Tim Winders:I think the secrets of Solomon hide in seek.
Tim Winders:The Bible says nothing was hidden from Solomon.
Tim Winders:It doesn't say he knew everything.
Tim Winders:It says nothing was hidden from Solomon.
Tim Winders:I believe Solomon knew how to seek and listen.
Tim Winders:And that, that's the word I choose.
Tim Winders:I love that.
Tim Winders:Awesome.
Tim Winders:Stephen, I've enjoyed the conversation.
Tim Winders:I highly recommend that you get money and the prosperous soul.
Tim Winders:I've got a hard copy that is signed by Stephen that you sent me a while back.
Tim Winders:And then I also have it on my Kindle.
Tim Winders:So I've got two copies of it and I appreciate that.
Tim Winders:Make sure you pick up a copy of that and just connect with Stephen.
Tim Winders:This has been such a rich conversation.
Tim Winders:Conversation.
Tim Winders:We are seek, go create.
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