Welcome to Ask a Pastor, a podcast from Orchard Hill Church! Have you ever had a question about the Bible, Faith, or Christianity as a whole? Submit your question and one of our pastors will answer on the program. New episodes every Wednesday.

This episode Dr. Kurt Bjorklund, Joel Haldeman, and Hefron Tillotson Financial Adviser, Grady Wirth, get together online to have a conversation about how to respond to the financial crisis caused by the coronavirus and crises that arise through out life.

Mentioned in the Podcast
Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University - https://www.financialpeace.com/

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Podcast Transcript

Joel Haldeman: Hey everybody and welcome to Ask a Pastor. As always, we'd love to go through questions that you send in. But we today, want to do ask a pastor in sort of a new format and talk about something that's really pressing to everybody right now. And so as always, if you're watching this on social media, anything that you can do to like, to share, to subscribe, leave a comment, all that helpful, just in our effort to be able to get the word out about this podcast as we try to address relevant topics from a gospel perspective. So today, we want to talk about a financial crisis. So, I'm joined by my friend Grady Wirth. Grady, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do? 

Grady Wirth: Yeah, sure, Joel. So, thank you for having me. As Joel said, my name is Grady Wirth. I'm a financial advisor. And essentially what that means is I work with individuals and families to provide guidance on what they should do with their financial lives. 

Joel Haldeman: Nice. How did you become a part of Orchard Hill? 

Grady Wirth: It goes way back. My first experience at Orchard Hill was through the KidsFest program whenever I was in first or second grade. It kind of started there. I got more involved in the youth program for middle school. I took a little hiatus during high school/college, but really my wife is what got me back into coming to see you guys. You, having the Strip District campus is really how I found my way back. So, we started coming back again, probably I'd say, three or four years ago. 

Joel Haldeman: I wouldn't have known you as a teenager, but I was so excited to meet you when you came to the Strip District campus. And you and Carly, obviously, I just really enjoy you guys being around and contributing in lots of ways in different ministries. And most recently, the Work Matters program. It's been cool to doing that with you guys. 

Grady Wirth: Yeah, thank you. The feeling is definitely mutual. Glad you guys are there. 

Joel Haldeman: So, our goal here is not so much to give financial advice as it is to talk through how a Christian should respond to financial crises in our lives. And that applies not just to people watching the stock market, you know, go through wild swings, but also to somebody who has nothing invested, but is now unemployed because they were a restaurant worker, or they had a job where they met with clients or something like that. So, Kurt, maybe I'll throw the first question to you since you've been quiet so far. What do you make of this sort of this challenge that we're in? What do we say to somebody who's all of a sudden finding themselves unemployed? Why don't we start there? 

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, well, obviously, if you are counting on your income to live and you're without income, that's an incredibly hard place to be. And so, first words I would say would just be empathy and say, we really feel for you. Obviously, you know, there's two answers to any money problem that are really old and simple, increase revenue or decrease expenses. And so, from a what do you do perspective, you either have to find a way to replace income, or you have to cut expenses, and it's probably some combination of both. And so, yeah, just from a very practical standpoint, that's what needs to happen. And, you know, I would guess, too, that if you've lost your job, especially with something like this, it's easy to kind of look at yourself and say, what happened that I didn't see this coming, didn't have a different role, different job, that I didn't hedge myself against this. And I would just say, you know, this is certainly something that global, way beyond anything anybody could have seen. So, spend as little time as you can second guessing your choices and focus on what you can do right now to either increase revenue or decrease expenses. 

Joel Haldeman: That's helpful. Grady, what would you say? Just maybe looking at sort of what has happened overall. Could you just give us a summary of what has happened and why is it happening? 

Grady Wirth: Yeah. So, you know, what we're seeing right now is it's really is unprecedented. No one in this conversation right now certainly hasn't seen anything like this. And what is happening as a result is there's a whole lot of uncertainty in the world right now. Up until just a few months ago, it seems like the economy was soaring and everyone thought for all purposes that is going to continue to go down that path. Then Coronavirus came on and swept that away very quickly, in simplest terms, that is what has happened. We are now in a time of uncertainty and going to kind of what Kurt was saying, is let's focus on our perspective on what we can do. Not just what has happened. 

Joel Haldeman: I know that you have to sort of walk a line here Grady. You can't really give financial advice so feel free to tell me if you can't answer the question. But what do I say to people just as they're watching the stock market go through wild ups and downs? 

Grady Wirth: The first thing I say is don't panic. You know, I'm going to say the word uncertainty a lot today, I think, because that's kind of the theme of what's going on right now. But if we look back through times of crisis, throughout history, you have to believe and see the evidence for human ingenuity of being able to find solutions to problems. So, realizing that, although it might seem like the world is falling down around you right now, we will get through this, you know, this too shall pass. But yeah, it's very important that you just don't panic. 

Joel Haldeman: I've found that when it's easy to panic and to see all the negative, there's just a good reminder in it, that we're so blessed in so many ways that these are the things that we're concerned about, at least when we're, you know, thinking about the financial aspect of this crisis. You know, by and large, we still live very comfortable lives. And, that's not to downplay some of the financial stress that a lot of people are feeling. But I just think, you know, overall, what we're experiencing as a society doesn't compare to some of the life experiences of people in other parts of the world.  

Kurt Bjorklund: But yeah, when you see, this is off what you just said, if you see people in some of like the camps for refugees and some of these things that are walking through this, where now people who used to bring goods to help people have sustenance, won't go near them because of the travel bans or the fear that they have for themselves. Those are just devastating, heartbreaking stories and I realized, as you said, it doesn't make it easier to go through what we're going through. That's kind of like telling a 10-year-old kid to eat their green beans because there's someone on the other side of the world who is starving. It doesn't necessarily help the 10-year-old at that moment, it doesn't help us when we're facing a job loss or something like that, or income loss, or a big hit in the stock market, but it does bring a little perspective. That's helpful. I was just going to say about the stock market a moment ago, I do have a tip, and that is don't sell low and buy high in the middle of it. That's, you know, old simple advice. But I think sometimes when you panic, that's an easy thing to do. To follow everybody, and sell off at the bottom, and then buy as it started to go back up or vice versa. So yeah, and I am not under any obligation now to give stock advice. That's all I have. Just that. I've got nothing else. 

Joel Haldeman: I've heard it said that people who try to time the stock market, usually if they're, you know, Joe Shmoe like me, when we try to time the stock market, we end up making less money because that as opposed to just, you know, on the first of the month or whatever, putting in a set amount. I don't know, Grady, can you speak to that? 

Grady Wirth: Yeah, I can make a few comments. Again, very general, and broad comments. But you're right, it's incredibly, incredibly difficult to time the market. In fact, there's some people who would say that nobody can. The problem with trying to time it is that given these volatile times, you know, basically it just means it's going to go up and down a lot and you don't know which direction it's going to go next. There's going to be days where you're going to see big swings in both directions. And sometimes if you miss the biggest swings up, it makes it much harder to recover any potential losses that you were trying to save yourself from, like you were saying, trying to time it, or I'm going to buy in at the bottom there, however you might think you do it.  

Joel Haldeman: I literally right we got on this, checked on the Dow. And, I just had that moment of like going back over six months and saying yeah, I really wish I would have just sold everything on February whatever it was. And we sold a car in February and took all that money and put it right into this mutual fund. And so, we were having that moment, if we would have waited like two weeks, it would have been so much better. 

Grady Wirth: If hindsight is ever 2020 it is certainly in the stock market. 

Joel Haldeman: So, let me ask this question. Looking at what's happened to our economy, what's good about that, and what's bad about it? 

Grady Wirth: Well, I say, one of the silver linings that we can look to right now is that the government is responding fairly quickly with economic relief packages, and you've probably heard about the Cares Act being signed. That's coming out very soon, and that is going to help a lot of people all over the United States who are struggling right now because of this crisis. The bad is certainly what we've kind of already been talking about, which is people are losing their jobs, they're being furloughed, and the income that was once there is no longer coming in.  

Joel Haldeman: Kurt, anything you'd add to that? 

Kurt Bjorklund: Well, I think spiritually anytime our routine or comfort is disrupted, it causes us to ask bigger questions, which sometimes you can be just so into the flow of life that you don't have to ask some of those bigger questions. You know, I've probably been an advocate for taming kids sports for a long time. Anyone who's been around Orchard Hill has probably heard me heard me say that. And having put my kids into all the sports, so it's not like I'm a person who's an elitist in that or something. But I think a lot of families are going to discover that being home, night after night, is actually really good. And so even something like that, like being forced to just not run and chase, and say, wow, look at how much different our family is if we're home night, after night, after night. And so, it causes you, I think, to ask some questions about priorities, about things that you may not ask otherwise. You may just say, I'm on a treadmill, I just do what I do. And certainly, I think when your economic well-being is threatened, no matter how it's threatened it, it clarifies how much status and security we put into that, and in many ways is not healthy or justified. And, I think no matter who we are, that's a tendency to do it until all of a sudden you see how fickle it can be. 

Joel Haldeman: Yeah, just even in, you know, preparing a message right now. It's just thinking through how, in some ways it's such a blessing to have, as you said in one of the past messages Kurt, like we build our world out of these cardboard boxes and that's our comfort. That's our financial security. And all it takes is one rainstorm for all of that to come crashing down. And in some ways, that's a blessing when that happens because it helps you realize the box was made out of cardboard. It helps us realize that when we build our comfort on things that are so flimsy, that we're going to be disappointed. And I don't know, I think I've been reminded of how much joy we can have in little simple things like going for a bike ride outside or enjoying the sunny day when we when we get it. 

Kurt Bjorklund: The three of them we get, you know, in Pittsburgh. 

Joel Haldeman: That's right. 

Joel Haldeman: And just being able to enjoy those things and not the things that we buy, or the restaurants that we go to, or any of those things. And doing all that of course with a love for Christ.  

Grady Wirth: What you guys are saying is spot on. I mean during times of prosperity it's so easy to lose sight of what the true source is, and when all that is stripped away, just like you said the cardboard box, you know, true source of contentment is not the box, it's our faith, it's God. So, yeah, spot on. That was good. I like that. 

Joel Haldeman: I was thinking of two Proverbs. This is Proverbs 11:4, "Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death." And then Proverbs 18:11, "The wealth of the rich is their fortified city. They imagine it a wall too high to scale." I really appreciate that last one and just how that speaks to that the cardboard box analogy. That the wealthy, let's just put all of us, you know listening and watching us into that category, we think of our wealth or our financial security, our assumption that we're going to get paid at the end of the week or that we have a job tomorrow. That is our fortified city, like nothing can possibly break through that. Most have seen that's been broken through for many people. And I think it's just a reminder over and over again to put our hope in Christ, that we can find contentment regardless of our circumstances, and we don't need money to make ourselves happy. Kurt, you've talked to lots of people within our church that have been going through just hard financial times. What do you feel is the collective attitude of them right now? 

Kurt Bjorklund: Well, you know, probably the people from the church, I would hope would be somewhat different than people in the world in general. And I think I've seen that. I've seen a lot of people with a great perspective, just simply saying, a lot of what we just said, and saying I'm going to ride this out. And even seeing a lot of people saying, how can I help others, how can I serve in this time if I do have resources, rather than how do I hunker down? I mean, I've certainly talked to some people who are saying, I'm desperate, and I'm in need as well. And so, it's a big gamut but I've definitely heard a lot of this is the time to really trust and to just keep on a good path rather than having some radical reaction at this moment. Now, again, there's people who've lost jobs and income and are saying, I don't know where my next rent's coming from and that's a much more desperate situation. But those people who are saying, I need to just turn and say, okay, I can do what I can, and trust God simultaneously. You know, there's a verse, I think it's Nehemiah 4:10, where there was a threat to the city. And I love the word "and" in there because they said, we're going to keep working on our project, and defend ourselves, and pray to our God, basically, to help us. And I love the "and" there because it's saying, we aren't just going to pray, we aren't just going to work, we're going to do both things. And so, that's really a Godly attitude in this, is to say, do everything I can. and pray, and trust simultaneously. And if you do one to the exclusion of the other, you're missing part of what it is to do what you can and to follow God in a crisis. 

Joel Haldeman: Yeah, that's good. I'm always reminded of the moment with Moses as the people of Israel are coming up to the Red Sea. And he starts panicking, falls on his face and he's praying, and God says to him, get off your face and hold out your staff and walk. And I love that same concept of, you know, there's an appropriate time to pray, but there's an appropriate time to get up, and you know, do what you need to do. 

Kurt, how about this? You know, we're a church that depends on people's charitable giving and when we have that moment during the service where we talk about the offering, that's such a short window. We have a minute to say, hey, now we're passing the offering basket. Let's take a couple minutes here and just talk more about that. Do we encourage people to continue giving if somebody is in a hard place financially? Do they still pursue generosity? When does that become unwise, or does it ever become unwise? What's your take on some of that? 

Kurt Bjorklund: I'd love to hear Grady on that, and then you, and then I'll make some comments. 

Grady Wirth: Put me on the spot. Alright. I think people right now, they have to just take a look at their resources. And obviously you have to take care of yourself. You don't want to put strain on your family if you can't give right now. And that really comes down to the individual situation. It's a tough question to ask, but I think it's going to be answered on a personal basis. I don't know if I have that good answer for you, Kurt. I think definitely, I got to defer to you on this one. 

Joel Haldeman: I think you're right on Grady, about people do need to look at their personal situation. And we for sure need to take care of our needs and obligations. I don't think it'd be appropriate to not pay someone that you owe money to including your mortgage lender or if you have a loan on a vehicle. I don't think that it would be appropriate to not pay those people and then to be generous elsewhere because that's just practicing dishonesty. At the same time, I'd say that when I was a college student, I was working a part-time job. I had less money coming in then I had going out and things were very tight. The goal was to graduate without debt. And so, I shouldn't say that. We were basically breaking even on money coming in versus money going out. And still in that season, I was committed to whatever I brought in from a job to set aside 10% of that to give away. And it was in that season that my wife and I actually both started sponsoring two kids through an organization. And, I've just learned that, that is so freeing and life giving. That even when things are tight financially, to be able to let go of something and to be a blessing to somebody else is such a gift to the giver to be able to be free of that. 

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, I think it's actually a clarifying time in terms of priority and giving. And certainly, I agree, Grady and Joel, that if somebody owes money to somebody and needs to pay that first, and that if you have no income, there's nothing to tithe on. I get that. And if you're in a desperate place. For many people, though, it almost becomes a reason not to trust, or not to give. And I think it is a time to actually say, where is my trust? Is it in my ability? Or is it in God? And to be still faithful with your resources, even if they're smaller and you're scared of the future, actually is a moment to say, it's a clarification of saying, again, what's important to me? Am I willing to trust in probably the thing that feels most essential right now and most under my control, and least under my control, to say, okay, I'm going to just take and give some money away, is the essence of trust, when you feel like there might be a shortage. And so, if you're still getting an income, and you can meet your expenses, rather than saying I'm scared of what might be, so I'm hunkering down, that's I think a time to say, I'm actually going to trust still and be faithful with what I have, and trust that God will work in the days ahead in ways that I may not see or understand. And I realize that's a hard thing, but something I'm going to be looking at personally just because, there's some unevenness in what my income will be as a result of this whole thing, not just from the church but from other places that we have some resources. And as a result of that, my income is going to drop. And so, there's a tendency to want to do less rather than to say what does it mean to be faithful with what I have. 

Joel Haldeman: It's such a blessing to be able to give things away. And you know, I think you've said this before in past episodes, Kurt, that one day, generations are going to look back on us and maybe one of their strongest criticisms of us is how much we spent on ourselves, and our own appetites, and our own consuming, and to be able to break out of that. And giving is such a very real way that we say to our wallet, I'm not going to worship you, you're not going to lead me, I'm in charge of you, and if I want to just give some away, I'm going to do so. 

Kurt Bjorklund: I think that's well put and it really is, at some level, an issue of trust, especially in a time like this, where you say, am I willing to say God I'm going to give even though right now everything in me says conserve every last dollar. And anyhow, that's going to be true not just for the church, but any charity that you support, because everyone will take a hit. In part because some people don't have as much money and some people will be more concerned about giving. And so that's probably the reality of any organization that exists on charitable donations. 

Joel Haldeman: So, I have two different circumstances in mind. The first is someone who's living in their retirement years currently. So, Grady, what would you say to that person? Someone who's not working, and they're just living off of savings/investments. How can that person think about the season? 

Grady Wirth: So, I think it's a good time to take inventory of where you stand and do some planning around what you can handle in the future, whether you’re doing that by yourself or you're working with somebody, essentially boils down to, I'm a big advocate for financial planning. So, if I were speaking to someone who is retired, I would say before we make any rash decisions, or do any panicking, let's put this down on paper. Let's actually see how this could play out based on what we know from history. 

Joel Haldeman: I talked to somebody last week, or maybe the week before, who said, and they're in their retirement years, and they said that their financial advisor told them that they should be sitting on two years of living expenses in cash. And they were like, so I haven't even looked at the stock market or I haven't even looked at my account to see where it's at. And I thought that was such good advice. And, just naturally, that's not the kind of thing that I do. Like I told you, I sold a car and put all the money in a mutual fund, because to me, I don't want to have any cash sitting around that's not making money that it could be making. But what a blessing that financial advisor was to those people, because for them, this has not affected them at all financially, and they have two years for the market to make a rebound before it begins to affect them. Anything else that you'd add to that, Kurt? Just how somebody should think about this living in their retirement years. 

Kurt Bjorklund: Well, yeah, I mean, certainly, the retirement years are harder because the bounce or the market downturn has an immediate impact on how you're living, if that's what you're counting on in terms of your retirement entirely. You know, I think probably what I would say to somebody who's not quite at retirement years, is diversify, don't make everything about the market. You know, the markets great when it's going up, but it's a double-edged sword. And so, it's wise to have some diversity in terms of how you're having income streams, if at all possible. And if you're in the retirement years, and that's where you are, again, who knows what the future holds. But, I mean, at this point, you've got to probably look at history and say the market always bounces back at some point. It usually bounces back stronger than it was before a downturn. And although this could be a protracted recession, as some people are saying, the fundamentals of our economy haven't changed in the last two weeks. I mean, they have in the sense that people are out of work. But, you know, if a company was valued at a certain amount of money a month ago, other than the fact that sales would be soft for a while, there's no reason that it in theory should be valued less than it was a few weeks ago. So, there's a good chance that there will be a really strong bounce here at some point. Probably won't happen until we feel like there's an end in sight with the Coronavirus, in terms of how that lifts. So, it may not be in June, it may be much longer before there's a real true acceleration or bounce. But that's the kind of stuff that Grady advises people on and helps find that right balance. That's beyond my pay grade. 

Joel Haldeman: So, how about this, someone who up until this time has been living right at the edge, they have no savings, they have no investment, they've been spending everything that has been coming in. And, now they're having this moment of what do I do? What advice do you give to that person? And I get that in this moment, maybe there's not a whole lot that they can do. But, you know, once we get through this, once you know, everybody's fully employed, what does that person need to start doing? 

Grady Wirth: Well, for the moment right now, I would just encourage them to say, look, there are things that you can do. There's help that you can receive right now that can help you out during this time. Whether that's unemployment compensation, or the recovery rebates that are coming from the government. There are options that are going to help you until this kind of crisis plays out. Once you get back on your feet and get back in the swing of things, it's time to look at what has been sensed as a wake up call. That you saw that you weren't doing things the right way, and you need to take inventory, and really be accountable for how to plan out your future finances. So, inevitably, whenever the world does face a crisis again, you're better prepared. 

Kurt Bjorklund: What I would add to that is, if this might, as you said, be a blessing in the sense of there is bailout money, and they're extending unemployment, and some things that might make it easier to navigate. But, you know, one, look at all our expenses, your expenses, because there's a lot of expenses that a lot of us have that we think are necessary that may not be necessary. You know, in terms of phones, TV, plans, Netflix, you know, whatever it is, and I know now we're getting personal, but you know those recurring expenses. Again, you either have to raise revenue or cut expenses to have a better outcome. And so, at some point, you've got to look at those expenses and say, how can I bring those down. And then your long term plan, and most financial people I know would say, you want to have six months that you have sitting around that you can use to live as a safety net, as an emergency fund. And that seems really far-fetched to some people, like how could I ever do that? But that is really a worthwhile goal because if it wasn't a global thing and there weren’t the government programs to help sustain you in this time, then you might be going through that in a much different way. And so that's something that I know our program here, when we go through the Financial Peace thing, really advocates, and I think is a really simple but wise step for people for the future. 

Joel Haldeman: Yeah, and if you're finding yourself in a very tight spot financially, you know, whenever we're meeting in person again, I'm sure that we'll have the Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. But I know that you can go to that website and Google some of the baby steps. And I think one of the first baby steps is set aside $1,000 in an emergency fund, and then from there, you try to build it up to that six months. I read a couple months back, two fifths of Americans don't have $400 in their bank account. And so, you know, don't be one of those two fifths. Figure out what you need to cut expenses in order to get that thousand dollars in the bank account. And then, you know, let that just be your starting point. So, we're running low on time here, we're on a don't spend any money mode at the church, so we're using our free Zoom account here. So, in the last couple minutes, Kurt, Grady, is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you'd like to address? 

Grady Wirth: No, I just echo what you just said about the six months emergency reserve. Absolutely. I think that's number one starting point for setting up a strong financial foundation. And, Joel, going back to your comment about the adviser with the two years of cash, that is a true blessing of good advice right there. You know, Joel, a while ago, this was maybe a year or two ago in a sermon, you gave an analogy about driving and how a lot of car accidents happen because people are too focused on what's right in front of them instead of having their eyes up and looking at the long term. And I just think that's really applicable to what's going on right now. It's almost like we're driving through downtown Pittsburgh and a big pothole opens up in front of us and swallows up a bus, you know, like happened earlier in the last year. And it's very scary, it might seem the world is ending. But if you can pick up your gaze, look to the horizon, you'll see that there's ways around it, and there's a future ahead. 

Kurt Bjorklund: And I would just say, again, use this as a time to reassess what's most important. Look at God, and, you know, spiritual things, look at family time, look at how you're managing money, look at personal habits, all of that stuff right now. Rather than just amusing yourself with the time that this has. You know, I'd found myself the other day, wanting to just escape and watch some TV. And so, I was looking for a show that I could binge watch. And I had that thought, it's okay to binge watch a show. There's nothing wrong with that. But what if I used that time for this or that, and so I think that's something I would just say that this is a time to reassess some of our habits and patterns. 

Joel Haldeman: Literally, just within the past few days, my wife and I had this conversation where one of us said to the other, I'm not really liking our life right now. And I think that those are the conversations that we want to get to the bottom off. And I think that, yeah, you're right, there's the danger of entertaining it away, and there's a danger of drinking it away. And I think we want to encourage people to not do that, to face it square on, and to seek Christ in in at all.  

Hey, we're out of time. Grady, thanks so much for joining us and being a part of this. Anybody out there, you know, the more that you share, like, subscribe, all of that, is really helpful to us. And we'd love to receive questions from you. You can send them to askapastor@orchardhillchurch.com and we'll catch you next time.