{"id":30241,"date":"2020-10-31T15:36:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-31T19:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/?p=30241"},"modified":"2020-11-22T08:48:31","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T13:48:31","slug":"the-connection-between-investing-and-our-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/the-connection-between-investing-and-our-values\/","title":{"rendered":"The Connection Between Investing and Our Values"},"content":{"rendered":"
>> Back to November 2020 Issue<\/a><\/div>\n

\"RachelThe first time my family moved to Kenya and I experienced interacting with street kids in Nairobi, I was 10-years-old. It was a year of intense learning for me. I learned what it meant to be a minority and to be treated very differently because of my white skin. I also learned that I was wealthy, by comparative measures.<\/p>\n

I still recall the first time a young Kenyan boy, about the same age as me, came up to me and asked for money. And, although I was only ten, and didn\u2019t have a job, I did have some spending money in my pocket and I had a choice to make. In my developing understanding of the world around me, I began to realize that capital has influence<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I suppose that moment in Nairobi could have been the starting point for my now decades-long quest to connect money with meaning, and capital with positive impact<\/em>. You might expect me to tell you next that I also was called into overseas missions, like my parents before me, or started a micro-lending organization to help women in Africa start cottage industries. But God has called me into the financial services industry instead, to serve as a professional advisor to the wealthy, and to do what only a few advisors are willing to do for the affluent: tell them the truth about the connection between their investing and their values<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It is with that unique viewpoint of one who has had a front row seat to both extreme poverty and expansive wealth that I humbly ask for your attention on a widely overlooked opportunity.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s estimated that Christians<\/a><\/strong> manage over 150 trillion dollars, more than half the world\u2019s wealth. That\u2019s 200 to 300 times greater than what is given philanthropically each year.<\/p>\n

Capital has influence, yet many of us have been content to let others determine our investment strategy, or to broadly invest in indexes, not even knowing what companies we own in our investment portfolios. Even worse, if we are passive in this area, we are most certainly (unwittingly) giving capital companies that advance causes we oppose like gambling and pornography.<\/p>\n

This is a problem. But I encourage you not to think of it merely in terms of breaking Christian rules of morality. Yes, I believe that when we invest unintentionally, we are not being wise stewards with The Master\u2019s \u201ctalents\u201d while he is away<\/a><\/strong> and we are probably investing in the campaigns of his enemy<\/em>, unknowingly buying funds full of companies that steal, kill, and destroy<\/em> in one way or another\u2026all neatly hidden inside of a pleasant-sounding mutual fund wrapper: The XYZ Growth and Income Fund<\/em>. But even more than being passive participants in bad business, we\u2019re missing an enormous kingdom opportunity.<\/p>\n