Tune in today as co-host Katie Allred talks with Tim Newton, the Senior Creative Officer at Ramsey Solutions about Branding and the Church.Brought to you by Ramsey+, a money plan for real life.
For more information, visit: https://daveramsey.com/cctrial
Transcript:
Welcome to the church communications podcast, we want to help you become a church communications expert. We understand it can be a challenging and ever changing role because we’ve worked in the church, too, which is why we built a community with over 25000 church leaders that are ready to support and cheer you on. Your host for the show are Katie Alred and Kenny Giang, who want to help equip you to reach more of your congregation and community. This is the place where we’ll talk shop with fellow practitioners and professionals about what’s working, what’s not and what’s next. Are you ready? Let’s get started.
[00:00:31.630] – Katie Allred
This episode is brought to you by Ramsey, plus a money plan for your real life, this brand new all access membership from Dave Ramsey’s company gives you the best money, content, tools and resources all in one place. So later on, we’re going to talk to you about how your whole church organization can get plugged in. But until then, you can start a free Ramsey plus trial at https://daveramsey.com/cctrial
[00:01:18.040] – Katie Allred
Hey, everybody, welcome to Church Communications. So glad you could join us here on this podcast episode we are wrapping up this season. It’s been phenomenal. We have had some great guests. We have learned some really interesting information. I am just thrilled that we got to partner with Raines’s solutions during the season. And today I am so excited because we actually have someone from this team here today and is Tim Newton. He’s the senior creative officer at Dave Ramsey.
[00:01:51.550] – Katie Allred
And I just can’t wait. He’s going to share some really interesting thoughts on branding and the church and how we can help the church drive through emotionally and then connecting to that branding. It’s just I don’t know. It’s going to be it’s going to be great. I’m so excited about it. So thank you, Tim, for joining us today. So excited to have you here.
[00:02:13.300] – Tim Newton
Yeah, no problem. I’m happy to be here.
[00:02:16.230] – Katie Allred
So what I would love to know first is about you as a human being, so can you tell us about how you got today and kind of your journey there?
[00:02:28.860] – Tim Newton
Yeah, well, you know, a long time ago, I was a I was a creative director in Houston and this was, I guess, 12 years ago or something, you know, and I’d been listening to today even as money principles over the years. And it just made a ton of sense. And so I started doing all that. And then I got to a point where I was ready to leave Houston and I needed to find a job.
[00:02:49.540] – Tim Newton
And I saw that Dave Ramsey was hiring and I couldn’t believe it. It was up in Nashville. I was living in Houston. And so I said, you know, I got it. I got to go after that because I believe in what they’re doing. I believe in the message. I got to go after that. And so I started 12 years ago as a senior designer and and ever since, I’ve just had a heart for branding and building it up.
[00:03:07.620] – Tim Newton
Brands, you know, we have a lot of personalities on the team. And so I started being a creative director there, maybe like six years ago for the for the personalities. And I was building those brands and then got to work on bigger brands within the company. And I got just really laid it on my heart to to focus on building brands. And so I just been able to do that over the last 12 years or so. And it’s been a blast.
[00:03:31.970] – Katie Allred
Yeah, that’s awesome.
[00:03:33.270] – Katie Allred
So I love that you made a you made a pun there. I don’t know if you’ve been caught it about it made a lot of sense.
[00:03:38.280] – Tim Newton
I did that and I said no, no, no pun intended.
[00:03:44.750] – Katie Allred
Make a lot of sense at the time. No, that’s awesome. That’s really great. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m actually related to a senior designer at Ramsey right now. Did you know?
[00:03:54.830] – Tim Newton
No, I did not know that. Oh, I do know that. Yes, I do. She’s on my team. I do know you’re related. Yes, that’s right. Yes.
[00:04:01.560] – Katie Allred
That’s my sister in law. She is a secret weapon. Maybe we shouldn’t tell people that Lindsay and that she exists because she is phenomenal.
[00:04:10.200]
Really just a wonderful person. Oh, yeah. She is on our team, too. We’re glad to have her.
[00:04:15.720]
Yeah. Yeah. So fun.
[00:04:18.510] – Katie Allred
OK, so this episode is really focusing on the church should be a leader in connecting people emotionally versus really what culture is doing.
[00:04:27.420] – Katie Allred
And so, you know, let’s talk about how do you start a conversation in your community, maybe using felt needs that lead people to Jesus?
[00:04:39.180] – Tim Newton
Yeah, you know, it’s really interesting. The we’re all we’re all motivated by emotions. You know, I actually learned that emotions and motivation are all derived from the same word. Listen, the same Latin root root moved here, which means to move. And so your emotions are what caused you to move. And a lot of times, though, I see the church going after logical thought, but not emotion. And so and it’s really interesting because branding is all about emotions.
[00:05:06.900] – Tim Newton
Design and brand is really just a shortcut for what matters is a shortcut to get the logical thought through. But it’s a shortcut to reach emotions which connects with our unconscious brain, which is where our brain is living. Eighty percent of the day, you know, and and I’ve just noticed that that the the church should be the best at branding because branding overall is meaning and trust fueled by experience. And we have a lot of meeting and a lot of trust with the gospel and and and all of that.
[00:05:34.920] – Tim Newton
And so we should be the best at branding, you know. But a lot of times I feel like we’re going after logical thought instead of reaching out to people’s emotions. It’s really interesting when when I when I look at the landscape from that from that point of view.
[00:05:50.340] – Katie Allred
Yeah, I completely agree.
[00:05:52.440] – Katie Allred
And a lot of times we get lost in just putting out I don’t want to say just put out the message of Jesus isn’t that’s not you know, it’s not that. It’s because he does draw all things to himself. But I think that people we have to think about, like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Right. And so the first thing is they really need food and shelter. They need security. And then they you know, it goes up into love and self identity and those kind of things.
[00:06:24.360] – Katie Allred
And, you know, thinking about those felt needs, obviously money is a felt need. And Dave helps me that felt the need. But then there’s so many other felonies. And I think the church should do a better job. I wish they would do a better job of writing about the felt felonies on their website so that, you know, there are some CEO and some things that bring it back to their website. Yeah. And so just how do we how do we I guess the next question is how do we take a look at our messaging and marketing to develop relationships between the church and the community members in need of Jesus?
[00:07:05.690] – Tim Newton
Yeah, you know, it’s really interesting. I was telling someone the other day when when I see a lot of visual communication from the church, a lot of times it’s it’s showing people with their hands raised and praying and doing all this stuff that’s great and all that.
[00:07:19.790] – Tim Newton
But when you think about the people who are unreached, who don’t know Jesus yet, that kind of imagery means nothing to them. And if they’ve been if they feel internally like they’ve been burned by the church and that kind of imagery also just brings up some other kind of emotional issues and things like that, which makes it even more difficult, difficult to connect with those people. And instead, like what we’re all really after is, is joy and peace in our life.
[00:07:44.660] – Tim Newton
And a lot of people, we look for it through achievement and through drugs or sex or whatever, you know, or anything else.
[00:07:51.290] – Tim Newton
We try to fill it up. But people have an image in their mind of what freedom and peace and joy looks like. And what we’re showing people through our imagery, through our messaging, is a communication that you have to be a Christian to understand, you know, like you already have to be, quote unquote, in the club to understand this instead of reaching out and showing them what freedom looks like, what peace really looks like, and giving them a vision of what’s possible in their lives, because that’s what they truly desire.
[00:08:20.090] – Tim Newton
They don’t desire to be lifting their hands up and praying. Not yet, because they don’t fully know. They don’t know what that means. But that’s what we’re communicating most of the time. And you have brands out there like Nike who build an incredible brand, a Disney building, an incredible brand, because they’re reaching out and they’re understanding the desires of people and they’re showing them we can help you get to that place. But the church, they’re not shown in the same kind of way, like we can help you get to freedom and to join the peace because we’re not fully understanding what is driving them in the first place and speaking to that.
[00:08:49.700] – Tim Newton
And so so there’s there’s a lot of ways that we can jump in and understand what those things are. But the church has to take a step back and understand, well, what do we value, what do we believe? And then what emotionally moves the audience that really needs to hear Jesus, you know?
[00:09:05.150] – Katie Allred
Mm hmm. Yeah. So I guess my next question is like, how can we talk about better way to position the church in front of the community then?
[00:09:14.420] – Tim Newton
Yeah, well, it’s so I believe that first, it doesn’t actually start with the audience you’re talking to. It actually starts with understanding who you are, what’s the soul of your brand. And so I don’t know if if a lot of churches fully understand it, but a church does have a brand, whether whether people like it or not, a church does have a brand because people have a perception of the church and that is a brand, you know.
[00:09:38.460] – Tim Newton
Right. And so so you have to fully understand what you value and believe. I’ll tell you a quick story pretty recently. So I have a twin sister and she she assists a pastor in Georgia. And this pastor’s amazing. He’s a great guy. And and they’ve been working with an agency for for over a year.
[00:09:58.040] – Tim Newton
He started this church and and they’ve been working with an agency for over the year. But I took a look at the brand and I just I didn’t like it very much, to be honest. I didn’t think it really was a good representation of this pastor and what the what the church was trying to do, because he has all these great, great ideas and great vision on what the church can be in the community. But the designs were very soft and and like these dark greens and sad imagery and just a normal stream in a circle kind of icon thing, you know, that you see on all churches or a lot of churches.
[00:10:30.200] – Tim Newton
And so I talked to my sister. I just spent an hour with her and I asked her some probing questions to try to understand what what does this pastor believe? What what does he think is possible? What can the church really do as ask some questions? And I said, OK, so I took this, understood what he’s about. And I end up just making a really quick mood board that probably took me about an hour or so. I sent it to my sister and said, hey, this might be a better expression of what matters to his church.
[00:10:57.740] – Tim Newton
And so I ended up getting a text from that pastor and he says, Tim, can I talk to you for a second? And I was like, OK. And so he calls me. And the first thing he said was, Tim, I am disturbed when I saw that mood, but I felt disturbed and I said, OK, why do you feel disturbed? And he said, I feel disturbed because I’ve never seen anybody make the church look like that.
[00:11:21.650] – Tim Newton
And he said, and now I can’t unsee what I’ve seen. He said, I’ve been working with an agency for over a year, but within an hour you were able to understand what we’re really about and what we’re really trying to do and then express it through design. You were able to understand it better than this agency has been with us for a year. And he said, I’ve been I’ve been working with churches all around the country. I’ve never seen a church look like that with so much energy and so much boldness and so much freedom and excitement and all that kind of stuff.
[00:11:50.570] – Tim Newton
And now I can’t unsee what I’ve seen.
[00:11:52.580] – Tim Newton
And so I’m just disturbed that that it’s been going the way it’s going. You know, I said, yeah, I totally understand that because he’s feeling the same thing that I feel a lot of times when we when I look at design and brand and communiqu. And in the church, it’s either very behind, very poorly designed or it’s well designed, but it looks sad and gloomy, you know, and I see I see that all the time, too.
[00:12:15.220] – Tim Newton
And that is not a good expression of the church, which should be energizing. It should be freedom. It should be bold in the community and going against the world and all that stuff. You know, it should it should have so much excitement to it. And but that’s just not what’s shown, you know. And so to answer your question, where to start, like you have to understand what the church values and beliefs like and always take it down to three to three simple values and beliefs.
[00:12:39.910] – Tim Newton
If you have 20 of them, then who knows what you’re about, right?
[00:12:43.210] – Tim Newton
Yeah, but a brand, a brand is just like a human. We have beliefs and values that we stand for and we don’t go out trying to take on everybody else’s values and beliefs. We we understand what we believe. And then we go have conversations and we have meaningful conversations because we know what we believe, what we stand for. So a church needs to understand first, what are my three major values and beliefs? What am I deeply passionate about?
[00:13:05.680] – Tim Newton
What makes me angry in the world that the church should be solving understand what these three values and beliefs are. And then you go back and say, OK, what are simple words that can express those values and beliefs through design and through storytelling? If you can understand those two things, then the third one is understanding. OK, so what matters to people? What drives them emotionally? And then how can we align with them based on what we believe?
[00:13:31.030] – Tim Newton
How can we talk to them knowing what they desire, but through the lens of what we believe in an effective way that grabs a hold of their hearts and not their brains. And if you do that, like, that’s basically all I was doing was understanding that just did a quick mood board express in that design and then sent it off saying, this is what I believe your church is about. And it just opened that pastor’s eyes. And it should do the same for for for the churches if they just sit back and understand that, what are we about and what are we truly trying to say in the world?
[00:13:56.800] – Tim Newton
And then how can we consistently say that over and over and over?
[00:14:01.360] – Katie Allred
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of times where churches miss the point with branding. They really think that the brand ends that the logo. Right.
[00:14:08.770] – Katie Allred
I think that that’s a problem with companies. It’s not just it’s completely with companies like there is like Mulago that’s this is we are like that all wrapped up. And I’m like, what do you give Nike? Of course, you think of the checkmark. I mean, it’s ubiquitous. But like the thing about Nike is, is that Nike also like really embodies the athlete. And so and what I love about Nike and their messaging, I think that was a great example you used earlier, is that it’s basically everybody everybody is an athlete and every athlete has a body or whatever.
[00:14:47.020] – Tim Newton
Yeah.
[00:14:47.290] – Katie Allred
So if you have a body, you’re an athlete. Yeah. And so they pull you into the story is what’s interesting. If you go and look at like Nike’s Instagram right now or Facebook, it’s not going to have pictures of shoes. You know what it’s doing? It’s telling amazing stories of athletes.
[00:15:04.660] – Katie Allred
And those athletes just happen to wear Nike products.
[00:15:08.330] – Tim Newton
Yeah, it’s. Yeah, no, you go hey look, I don’t want to mess up your train of thought.
[00:15:13.360] – Tim Newton
You’re saying a couple of really good things. Yes. We’ll go back to the logo real quick and then we hit on Nike. Yes, you’re totally right. A lot of people think that brand means logo. It’s so funny.
[00:15:24.010] – Tim Newton
Whenever I have a brand conversation with people, I always have to take a step back and say, OK, let’s get on the same page. When you’re talking Brand, what are you really talking about? And most of the time they’re talking about logo or look in the field. Yeah, yeah. And they’re not they’re not talking about.
[00:15:37.810] – Tim Newton
Yeah, they’re not talking about the overall narrative, the overall perception like the meaning and the trust, their logo. It’s so funny. But yeah, Nike, it’s one of my favorite brands because of how they’ve done it. They grabbed a hold of me a long time ago when I was a teenager, when the Jordan elevons came out. You remember those black cat leather on the bottom? Amazing. But they grabbed my attention with those. But ever since then, it was more what they communicated.
[00:16:01.330] – Tim Newton
And they have you know, I was talking about three values and beliefs. When I pull up Nike, I believe that they have three very core things that that is consistent in everything they do. One is, if you have a body, you’re an athlete like you’re talking about. The second is innovate, the future of sport. They feel responsible for that. And the third is you can achieve the impossible. And so, like, when you what do you watch any of their ads in either Instagram things, they’re showing regular people achieving the impossible or athletes achieving the impossible.
[00:16:27.970] – Katie Allred
And so what it tells me, it aligns with what I desire. I desire to do amazing things in my life and desire to be an athlete.
[00:16:35.100] – Katie Allred
You can have a body. Even I can write like, yeah, yeah. I’m not going to be an athlete tomorrow, but I like.
[00:16:41.530] – Tim Newton
Yeah but it feel like it. Yeah. And even like Nike, by communicating you achieve the impossible. I even take that desire into work. I want to achieve great things at work. I want to achieve great things with my family, with my life, all that.
[00:16:53.740] – Tim Newton
And Nike is basically saying we are here to help you do that.
[00:16:59.560] – Katie Allred
It pulls you along in the story and makes you part of the story, which is the best part. So I’m actually store brand guide, so. Kind of a random, random factoid, you know, this is a lot of story and kind of basis, you know, if you want to read more building a story brand, I think this is a great book about this and can help you. Yeah. Donna Miller, thanks for your mission.
[00:17:19.180] – Katie Allred
Like, what is it defining? What is the problem that most of the people who come to your church have? You know, most people are coming to church because they have a problem or because a friend has invited them and the friend invited them, probably because they knew that they had some kind of issue that the church could help them, whether it’s anxiety or it’s a felt need or depression or it’s loneliness and they just need community. There is a felony there somewhere along the way.
[00:17:47.110] – Katie Allred
I just worked with the church on their on their brand guide and through their messaging. And there was really loneliness. I really wanted to help people who felt lonely and were disconnected to bring them into community, you know. And so a lot of our words were, you know, community and belonging and those kind of things like. And so, you know, I guess. Oh, go ahead.
[00:18:09.010] – Tim Newton
Sorry, I don’t mean to give it up now. Every time you say I was triggered all kinds of things, I’m like, this is great. I’m having fun talking about this. This is a yeah. So you’re right. There is a problem to solve. But even with that, they have they have a desire. So in that framework of story brand, there’s something that they want. But then there’s a problem that’s stopping them from getting there and saying, you know what, we’re talking about design.
[00:18:30.670] – Tim Newton
A lot of times people when building out the brand of communication, they’ll just show exactly what people are feeling. But that’s not what people really want. That’s what’s holding them back from getting what they want.
[00:18:41.590] – Tim Newton
And so, you know, a long time ago, even here, we used to have a lot of images on the site that showed people with their their hands on their foreheads stressed because of its money.
[00:18:50.160] – Katie Allred
Like negative marketing. Yeah. Yes, good. Like there’s a place for negative marketing. But yeah, I can understand your saying.
[00:18:58.060] – Tim Newton
Yeah, we got to stop saying we’ve got to stop showing where they are, but showing what’s possible in our lives. We can communicate. We know what you’re feeling, but we need to show them a vision like we need to put it in their head. This is what life can be like for you, because that’s the thing that they want. But it’s important that we know what is the thing that’s holding them back. Right.
[00:19:14.800] – Katie Allred
But it’s also to play. Exactly. But it’s also very important to give them a plan. So, you know, now, you know, we’ve got a problem. They you know, they have a guy that needs a plan. And so the guide is your church. Right. And you’re giving them a plan of how do I become less lonely? How do I know? Go through discipleship, how do I reach that point in life, whatever that might be, freedom or hope or.
[00:19:41.810] – Tim Newton
Yeah, people just need to know that you can help them get there, just like Nike, every time they’re showing stuff, they’re saying we can help you achieve the impossible. Like we know that you want, you know, and the church needs be able to communicate that same thing. We can get you to that place you desire, which is freedom and joy and true peace, you know.
[00:19:59.030] – Katie Allred
Yeah. So I guess my next question is, can you tease out maybe the difference between taking an approach of using, like a sterile logic approach and messaging versus understanding how people move emotionally?
[00:20:10.910] – Tim Newton
Yeah, well, it’s like I said, with, you know, brand is a shortcut to what matters. You know, logically, if you were to to to go and talk to people, you would just clearly state I know that you’re feeling this and you’re feeling this because of this.
[00:20:25.850] – Tim Newton
And you’d make people read a lot of stuff about about truth and all this. Right.
[00:20:30.320] – Tim Newton
But if you were to reach to the emotions of people, you would just show a video instead of someone who has an amazing life in them. Just telling a story on how a child like you can you can tell the facts. And that’s the thing is the difference between facts and drama. We don’t really want to hear facts. Our brains kind of shut that off because it makes us work too hard. But there’s something about storytelling that stops us in our tracks.
[00:20:52.220] – Tim Newton
Every time when people tell a good story, it causes us to focus because different chemicals are released in our brains that cause us to focus. And when you tell a story, that’s what Jesus, one of the best storytellers of all time, because I think Jesus understood to really grab a hold of people, I need to get to their emotions. And he told a bunch of parables to get his point across. And he he he used drama to get people, not facts, facts.
[00:21:15.770] – Katie Allred
One hundred percent.
[00:21:17.090] – Tim Newton
And so so when you’re showing imagery of what life could be like or he’s shown a video of someone telling a story or if you’re using specific colors because they’re energizing and bold and different fonts, because they express a certain thing, you’re speaking to people’s emotions by doing that because you’re reaching our unconscious brains. Our unconscious brain is always scanning a room and making decisions about what’s going on, even though our conscious brain doesn’t even know that that’s happening. But our unconscious brain is picking up on all this information, which is directly connecting to our emotions.
[00:21:45.500] – Tim Newton
And that’s why I say that brand and design and storytelling is a shortcut because it’s reaching that unconscious brain where people don’t even have to think, but they’re automatically feeling something about you. And so with the church, you have a choice. You could either take as much control of that perception in that brand as you can, or you can just let it become what it’s going to become. And I believe that’s what a lot of the churches have done, is just let it become what it’s going to become instead of really taking control and understanding through great stories, great design, intentional stories and design, you can really express to people what actually matters and reach their hearts and cause them to move and motivate, motivate them to go to you because they see that you have what they’re really looking for, which is freedom.
[00:22:28.260] – Katie Allred
Yeah, and I think that really feeds into our next question is, I think one of the big opportunities church leaders have is understanding how to present church, not like you would a product, but more of a life.
[00:22:40.240] – Tim Newton
Yeah, yeah. And that’s that’s a really good point. Lifestyle is really what everybody’s selling. Whether you’re a corporation or a church, you’re selling a lifestyle. That’s what the best brands do. You’re not selling a product. A product is just a means to that lifestyle. And it’s funny because at Ramsey we’re selling money stuff. We’re doing a budget and living on less than you make in taxes and doing all the stuff, stuff that people don’t want to do.
[00:23:04.560] – Tim Newton
But what we’re selling them really is, is freedom. We’re selling them hope, like that’s what we’re selling. And when if you listen to the Dave Ramsey Show, we have our debt free screams and you listen to people telling a story of what what their life was and what it’s like now ever since they became debt free. And they’re so excited and they’re crying and I’m crying when I’m listening to the story. And what those are doing is is showing people a lifestyle that they can that can actually happen in their lives.
[00:23:30.510] – Tim Newton
And once we sell them on that, then they’re willing to do the stuff they don’t want to do, like a budget and living on less than they make. And they’re willing to do that because they know when they do that, it’s going to lead to that lifestyle, which they’re going after. And so the church doesn’t doesn’t need to sell a product. They don’t need to sell Christianity. They need to show a lifestyle of what happens when you do have a relationship with Jesus.
[00:23:52.020] – Tim Newton
And that’s that’s when life is really great. So that’s what we all really want. And so and that’s really the authority piece, you know.
[00:23:59.790] – Katie Allred
And the good part is having the authority is is testimonial. Like, this is what God has done in my life. And yes, the church was a part of it. But we want you to also experience that.
[00:24:13.260] – Tim Newton
Yeah, that’s storytelling.
[00:24:14.460] – Tim Newton
You know, and storytelling is is that part that hits the emotional side of your brain. You know, I talked to I talked to him the other day who who does something very scientific. And I don’t remember exactly what it was. But she has this device that helps with this medical thing. And she was talking to me and saying, how do I explain to people what this does? Because in all of her emails that she makes and videos, she just talks them through what this thing does and how it works and all this.
[00:24:41.040] – Tim Newton
And I said, well, number one, you have to stop doing that.
[00:24:43.750] – Tim Newton
This thing has helped a ton of people just interview those people and have them tell their story, just do that. And that’s that’s all you’ve got to do and let them tell their story. And that’s what’s going to sell your product. That’s what’s going to sell this thing. The facts aren’t going to do it. Just have them tell the story, because that’s where the vision of lifestyle comes to play, right?
[00:25:02.280] – Katie Allred
Yeah, it’s exactly what Nike is doing. Right. They’re just sharing their stories of being athletes. And and through that, you are compelled to want to be an athlete. And so I think they’re just they’re just really brilliant in their marketing. No, but another sports company really does that. And I love that Dave also does this with financial freedom. So I’m going to pivot just a second. And can we talk about the cornerstone product of our energy solutions, which is for you?
[00:25:28.600] – Tim Newton
You know, maybe you can show us a little bit about where it’s going, but how is using personal finance actually connected to Jesus? Well, what we’re teaching is God’s way of handling money, like if you ever listen to Dave, it’s he tells his story of becoming a millionaire, then becoming broke, and then he looked in the Bible and said what the Bible said to do about money. And it really opened his eyes. And it was it was the truth, like the real truth about money, that you’re the borrow a slave to the lender.
[00:25:58.580] – Tim Newton
All of those things. And if you if you use money the right way, he says gods and grandma is a way of doing money, which is it’s a it’s a longer term process. It’s not get rich quick. It’s just being mature and smart with your money. It’s a very simple thing. But but it’s how it’s how the Bible talks about living your life with maturity and using money the right way. And so we just try we just try to teach people that because what the world is teaching, you know, Romans 12 to is is talking about going against the world, not the patterns of this world and where we have to fight against that, because the the world, these companies that are taking advantage of people through loans and debt and all this stuff like these companies are making most of their money through interest and fees, like just taking from people, you know.
[00:26:47.850] – Tim Newton
And it’s the really difficult thing is that these companies are also really good at branding and really good at marketing. Like they’re really good at storytelling. They understand all this stuff. And so a lot of their ads are brilliant. And I can see why it grabs a hold of people because they’re showing people life can be fun, life can be free.
[00:27:05.190] – Tim Newton
You know all this, but just borrow more money from us.
[00:27:08.220] – Tim Newton
And so so we’re we’re trying to teach the truth. It completely goes against what the world teaches about money. And so we have to educate people that the world has been selling you a lie about money. There’s an injustice. And that’s not right, that you’ve been sold a lie all these years, but you have a choice to make. You can choose to continue falling down this path where, you know, leads to stress and anxiety, or you can choose to do something different.
[00:27:33.690] – Tim Newton
And when you choose this way of doing money, which with the guts, what the Bible says, then you can find freedom in money. And isn’t that really a lot of what the Bible talks about? There’s injustice. You have a choice of following Jesus, and that’s where freedom comes into play. And that’s the story that we’re telling through financial peace and through Ramsey. Plus, which financial piece is now a part of Ramsey Plus, which has budgeting and baby step tracking in there.
[00:27:59.220] – Tim Newton
But it’s that’s that’s the narrative of the Bible, is the world is teaching you this, but you have a choice. And when you choose that there is freedom, it’s not going to be easy. But there is freedom that you can find, you know, and we’re just we’re just trying to teach that message like that. That’s that’s how we’re looking at money. You can find that freedom, but you have to make a choice. And in the end, we hope that when people do money this way and when they when they stay with us and build a relationship with us, we hope that in the end they do find Jesus like they do realize that this is all here because of what the gospel says and what God says, you know, and and if you really want if you really want freedom in your whole life, not just money.
[00:28:40.590] – Tim Newton
And that’s really where the answer is. And we hope that that’s what that happens. But to your point earlier, we know that money is the pain point right now. All right. So we have to make sure we hit that pain point and we hit it hard and teach them the truth about it. And in the end, we hope that they do find Jesus, you know?
[00:28:55.380] – Katie Allred
Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. And thank you so much, Tim. I don’t want to take up too much more of your time, but I do appreciate you so much for being here for everybody at home. Tim, in the Ramsey Plus team practice what they preach. They would love to give everyone in your church or organizations the tools that they need to budget, save Ankit, take control of their money. Like Tim was saying earlier, a Ramsey plus site license is the most flexible, efficient and cost effective way to bring Ramsey plus to your people.
[00:29:22.890] – Katie Allred
And you’ll get a dedicated relationship manager to support you every step of the way.
[00:29:28.740] – Katie Allred
So which is awesome. I honestly like customer support. It’s so important today. So to learn more, you can actually watch a demo webinar with the Ramsey Plus team that they put together at Ramsey.com/ccwebinar. Again, that’s Ramsey.com/ccwebinar and that’s all together. So yeah. Well, Tim, I think we could probably talk about branding all day. I don’t know if the people would love that, but I love that we could we could.
[00:29:58.710] – Tim Newton
I feel energized now. I’m ready to go.
[00:30:00.580] – Tim Newton
Let’s go, let’s go create some stuff right now. Let’s do it. Let’s do more branding. Yeah, that’s great. There’s been a lot of fun talking to you this. Is this a lot of fun. Thanks for. Yeah, of course. Well, thank you for being here. We appreciate it.
[00:30:13.240]
Thanks for listening to the Church Communications podcast with Katie Alred and Kenny Jahngtwenty-five. If you liked our show today and want to learn more, you can join our Facebook group with over twenty five thousand church leaders, simply search for church communications on Facebook.And if you liked today’s episode, please consider subscribing and leaving us a review. It’s the most impactful way you can help us reach more church leaders and equip them to become better communicators. Sports. The church and finally, don’t forget to check out our website at Church Communications Dotcom. Thanks for listening.
