Financial Stewardship with Abel Pomar

george grombacher 0:00
Come on warm lead. This is George G. And the time is right. welcome today’s guest strong and powerful able Pomar able already to do this already, George. All right, let’s go. Abel is the president and CEO of a Delphi, their credit union for you, your family, your faith and your future, able excited to have you on tell us a little about your personal life smart about your work and why you do what you do?

Unknown Speaker 0:34
Well, you know, George, I kind of like to think of myself as an early riser that likes to have activities and time with the Lord early in the day, because my brain is wired that way. And I kind of translate that into my work at Delphi there, you know, we kind of have been charging hard at improving ourselves as a financial institution for all of our members who happen to be Christian believers, and providing the best products and services we can in the best possible fashion easy and empathetic banking is what we like to call it. But that’s really what we’re about is trying to do that well, so that we can have some profits from that to pour back into the Kingdom building activities.

george grombacher 1:15
So what time are you waking up in the morning? Able?

Unknown Speaker 1:17
Oh, easily by 530?

george grombacher 1:18
Every morning? Okay, nice and bright and early? Yes. Appreciate you today. Easy and empathetic. I don’t know that those are typically terms that I think about when I’m thinking about banking. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Unknown Speaker 1:32
Yeah, that’s a great road and journey that Lord’s hands on. So we know we have to be competitive, right? A financial institution, whether we’re Christian, operated, owned, or not, needs to be effective, right. So we have to be good at what we do and provide products and services that folks need. So that’s, those are basics, right? But this idea easy, we want to be easier than the typical financial institution to work with meaning, you know, we the process of becoming a member, the process of applying for a loan, the process of opening an account, the process of interacting with us, we’ve been chipping away at becoming easier every year, making our processes easier to understand applying more self service functions, things like that. And we’re not never going to stop, I think one of the things that we are focused on is making sure we continue to invest in that easy component. Now, the empathetic side of it is we’re believers, right. And as I read through scripture, it’s pretty obvious that Christ was empathetic, he always paused and stopped for the one that was off on the side of the road or felt and seen by the rest of the world, and listen to their needs, and try to help in many cases, perform miracles that others would believe, right? So in our case, I think empathetic, we the way we want to see that played out in the workplace is we want to understand the believers that we serve. And we want to be able to help them in their financial journeys as best we can. We can’t always say yes to a loan request, for example. But when it is a no right now, how can we provide maybe a path to them? Getting to a yes, when it’s appropriate, right, in our situation? So that’s what I think we call empathetic.

george grombacher 3:21
Yeah, that certainly does make sense. Yeah, it’s in I don’t know, I don’t know, if it’s, if it’s a necessarily a middle ground, necessarily, it’s a different place than simply getting some, you know, very cold denial that if I went online and applied at some big bank that we’re all familiar with, and it just, it just got too big, no reply versus taking that more empathetic view and say, Okay, it’s, it’s, it’s not going to happen right now. But here are some additional resources. And here’s how to potentially position you for successfully getting a loan in the future.

Unknown Speaker 4:00
Right? That’s our goal to do better at that, right? We’re not perfect yet. But we’re working very hard to move in that direction, as fast as we can.

george grombacher 4:09
And I imagine that there’s a lot of people who, who probably fall into that, into that camp of who are aspirational when it comes to money, and maybe they’re learning about it, and they they need a little coaching or some additional resources,

Unknown Speaker 4:25
right. I mean, somewhat so many of us, I mean, life, thank God, we have the Lord, but life kind of comes at us pretty hard, right? And many times folks find themselves in situations that they had no control over. Now, that could be due to illnesses, job loss, whatever the case may be. And I think we have to think through an empathetic lens from a business standpoint, because it isn’t just a simple yes, no answer. Right. I think there are lives involved. And we as we said before, we serve the body of Christ because all of our members are believers. So therefore, I think we should handle our numbers. in a different way,

george grombacher 5:03
that maybe that makes a lot of sense. What, what is, what is financial stewardship? What is good financial stewardship?

Unknown Speaker 5:13
In my view of the term five, good financial stewardship, I see this as really honoring the Lord, in everything you do financially. So it isn’t just being a good saver. It isn’t just being a good giver. It’s also being a good planner. It’s also kind of combining the saver giver planner, all in one, it’s actually looking to the Lord for direction, like what do you want me to do with my life and resources, right, and having an intentional purpose about everything you do. And that includes even, in my opinion, and here at Delphi, what we like to think about as recycling Christian dollars, it’s this idea that the body of Christ is out there in the marketplace, right? We have dry cleaners on the corner, we have maybe somebody that owns an accountancy or a tax prep business in your in your community? Well, if we were to work together with those believers, we would enrich their lives because we would drive business to their businesses. And then from there, if they are being good stewards, they’re going to give back to their local church back into Kingdom building activities, that would help to at least work against all of the problems that we see that reported on the nightly news every night, right about what’s going on in the world, in our country and in the local communities that we live. Right. And so that’s, it’s kind of a broader definition in my mind of what real Christian financial stewardship should look like.

george grombacher 6:54
I appreciate that. So certainly, I understand saving, I understand giving, or at least I, because I understand planning to. So from from when when, when you say planning, what is what does that mean?

Unknown Speaker 7:10
Well, that means I mean, I think we we know from Scripture that life happens, right? And in my opinion, you can plan for the best. And that’s wonderful, we should we should be optimistic, because we have hope in Christ. But we also need to know that this is a imperfect fallen world, and things can happen. So it’s things like planning for an emergency fund, it’s planning for, you know, what, if this scenario doesn’t work in the way, I, you know, I hope it ideally works, right? It’s that kind of planning as well, you know, planning for worst case scenarios as well.

george grombacher 7:44
Yes, it does not always work out exactly the way that we want it to. There’s no doubt about that. So we do need to plan. It strikes me that, that what you’ve just described, this practice of recycling Christian dollars, it has a profound impact. And in a time, when I think that we’re feeling like a lot of things are out of our control, this is a pretty small thing that we can do that will have a big impact.

Unknown Speaker 8:15
Absolutely. You know, it’s I mentioned earlier that I’m an early riser, and I like to get my time with the Lord in early in the day, I’d like to get a run or a bicycle ride in before work early in the morning. And there’s a reason for that. The way I like to look at how to approach the day is the other many big, insurmountable things out there, that are probably gonna be worked on in the in this particular day. But if I can do the one thing that I have control over, like, you know, reading some scripture, praying to the Lord, asking him to kind of guide and direct the day for me, spending a little time in physical activity kind of wake up the mind and kind of re energize physically, right? I can control those things. And then the day now is in God’s hands, right to use me as he chooses. And it’s kind of the same thing with the problems in our, again, our community and in this country. We have the ability to choose, it’s a great choice. You know, the Lord gave us the choice, right? We can accept Christ or not into our hearts and lives and, and that’s an ultimate choice. And we have a choice to meet with every dollar we spend. I mean, I know we can’t possibly control every dollar not going to a Christian entity. But in many cases we do and maybe we just don’t take the time to look around us and identify those Christian businesses that are around us that fat can make a difference. Like for example, at Delphi. Last year, we gave nearly a million dollars in either cash contributions or in kind contributions to various ministries. So you can see that on our website. And now this year, we’re here hoping to do that as well continue to progress in what it is, is basically a tithe on our earnings right on our profits. And I don’t obviously a secular organization is going to be given to causes as well in this day and age, but our causes are all causes that we select that our Gospel centered Christ centered in what they do. So they may feed the hungry, but they do it as they share the Gospel, or they may be a building, in the case of a recent partner that we’re working with, they may be building wells in other parts of the world for fresh, clean water. But when they do that, they do that as they spread the gospel and plant the church in those villages and communities. So the difference between Adelphia and someone else is everything we give to is Christ centered, right. And I think that is how we all can grow the kingdom, you know, you can spend $1, swipe our credit or debit card, that interchange income, a little piece of that is going to spreading the gospel somewhere in the world, right? That’s powerful,

george grombacher 11:05
no doubt, extremely powerful. My intuition tells me that, if I am paying attention to and to where I’m spending my money, and being more, be more intentional with with spending it with organizations that are aligned with my beliefs and my values, and I am somebody who is giving money that will have a net positive impact on just my overall financial situation. What do you think?

Unknown Speaker 11:41
I think that God observes, yes, everything around us. And I mean, I don’t, I can’t quote you a scripture that says, you know, thou shalt be financially blessed because thou you know, the business, I can’t find that inscription necessarily. But I always go back to the book of Acts, in a lot of our strategy making at the credit union, and the fourth chapter of the book of Acts, and like verse 32. In that verse, it says, All believers were united in heart mind. And they felt that the end they felt that what they owned was not their own. So they shared everything they had. And so there’s this thought that this comes across in that verse. And as you read that whole chapter, you see that God was creating a sense of unity. Amongst the believers, that I don’t think is represented, as well anywhere else in Scripture, that was like a unique moment in the history of mankind here on earth. And God was doing something through transforming their hearts as the believers started looking more to the Lord and less at earthly things. Right. And they were blessed. Right. And basically, there was no need among them is what a couple of verses down, it says there was no needy people among them. So there is something to be said about the fact that this unity can create something so to me, it’s not the act of the I did this, it’s, it’s the unity we start creating a Christ that has this transformative power, both in our lives and in the lives of others, right. Both for eternity, and also in our present day, because that verse 34, starts out by saying there was no new people among them. So it has direct impact right now to not just eternity.

george grombacher 13:33
And, yeah, and that’s, I think that that’s an inspiring thing. Certainly. And I, I imagine, and I feel like most people, if they’re in a position to be able to help others, and to be able to lift them up, would be able to or are interested in doing that. And so living, according to the verse you were just talking about, probably is, I would imagine, is is an attractive thing. So how, how has how is the growth of a Delphi ban? How is in what does the future look like? Well, we’re

Unknown Speaker 14:15
a 58 year old organization. We recently changed our name earlier this year. Our name actually comes from the root word of Delphos. That which is found over 300 times in Scripture and Delphos means really a brother and sister in Christ. We shortened it to Adele. And then added the f5 really means financial institution, kind of a nod towards financial stewardship and blended the words to come up with a Delphi which we’re very excited about because I think that that new name and brand really tells a story of what I just described in the fourth chapter of the book of Acts, which is the body of believers coming together, all for shared stewardship, and And really for the for the sake of growing the kingdom. So that, you know, we were not a young company, but we are are in transformed company, right because I believe God is always doing a new thing, right. And we’ve been in this journey of investing in ourselves, as I mentioned earlier about better processes, better technology, becoming easier to work with and trying to be more empathetic with those that choose to bank with us. And I think it’s, it’s an exciting time for us the future, you know, what’s happened with us, we’ve grown about 65%, in the last six years, when it comes to membership, those that paint with us, historically, from our inception, through about the early 2000s, we were exclusively or not exclusively, almost exclusively focused on serving the church, and missionaries. We’ve expanded now to the blue, the regular believer, you and me, right. And then this year, at the beginning of the year, we are also we launched offerings for Christian investors, and small business owners. So we’re really trying to provide the ministry, the the individual and family but like you and I, and the Christian investor and business owner with finance and banking options, which we all have today. So for us, the future looks very bright. And I think we’re excited about where God’s been leading us and how we see the momentum just growing with our new brand launched this year, which is part of that planning we’ve been doing over the last few years to communicate the who you are and the impact we can all have together for Christ.

george grombacher 16:40
Exciting. label that people are ready for that difference making tip, what do you have for them?

Unknown Speaker 16:47
Well, I would say the one thing is today as you out about your day, and you’re either going to reach into your wallet and purchase the very next thing you purchased. Ask yourself, where is this organization going to use these profits? How are they going to help further the purpose that God has placed me on this earth for and then determine your own answer, I think is that set, every little step and every little decision like that every day? It builds up and it all matters.

george grombacher 17:18
Well, I think that is great stuff that definitely gets Come on. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you and how can they engage with Delphi?

Unknown Speaker 17:29
Well, the easiest way to do that is at www dot ATT Delphi a d e l f i banking.com. And you can find us there. Excellent.

george grombacher 17:43
Well if you enjoyed this as much as I did show Abel your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to a Delphi banking.com A d e l f i banking.com And check out everything that they are working on. Thanks again April. Thank you George for being here. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai