Are you tired of the violence nudity vulgar language and all other negative things on television well guess what you are not alone Life vision TV is a new and exciting Network for the whole entire family get Life vision TV on Roku Amazon fir stick Apple TV and of course on our website
Www.life Vision tv.com and on Apple and Android apps Life vision TV already making TV better When I look in the miror tell me what do I see I see a coner a coner looking back at me when I look in the mirr tell me what do I see I see someone I know that’s winning and has the victory I’m more than a
Conquerer what God created me to be I am the head and not the tail I am above and not be no I will not be a run away when God’s given me the keys I refuse to be less when I know God made me more when I know God made more Than when I look in the miror tell me what do I see I see a conqueror a conqueror looking back at me when I look in the miror tell me what do I see I see someone I know who’s winning and has the victory I’m more than a
Conqueror I’m what God created me to be I am the head and not the tail I am above and not the need no I will not be a run away when God’s given me the keys I refuse to be less when I know God made me more than
When I know God made me more Than when I stop and think of all the things God done to me always opening doors and blessing me not bless we want over and over again I can’t lose with the stuff I used to but God I can’t count but win more than a
Conquerer what God created me to be I am thehead not the tail I am above and not beneath no I will not be a r away when God given me the key I refuse to be less when I know God made me more than coner more than a Coner more than a coner that’s what I am more than a conqueror I’m more than a conqueror I’m more than a conqueror that’s what I am that’s what I am that’s what I am that’s what I am that’s what I am that’s what I am that’s one I
Am no God made me more than oh God made me more than greetings everyone we’re really excited that you’ve joined us for this month’s edition of The Life vision October experience our theme for this month is wealth affluence and holiday spending in our community now this is going to be a
Segment that is going to hopefully revolutionize your thinking about a lot of things I want want to talk about three things today that I think will affect us it comes from the premise here of first of all that in the black community in the United States of
America here we are 150 years since we were property and now God has blessed us to have $1.6 trillion in spending power that means the money that comes into our hands the course of a year through wages business inheritances pensions whatever $1.6 trillion that amount of money if we were a a
Country we would be 15th wealthiest country and on the face of the Earth $1.6 trillion now unfortunately on the flip side of that is something we call Wealth wealth is the money that you get in and you subtract from that and add up all your assets your your income your
Furniture uh your your house uh stocks bonds all that kind of stuff but then you have to subtract from that what you owe out the mortgage that you have the car payment all of that kind of stuff and what you’re left with is your net worth or your wealth now
Unfortunately for us that 1.6 trillion which is a sounding amount of of money coming into our hands when you take out what we owe our Deb our net worth is among the smallest it’s actually decline when we TR you know climb to 1.6 our net worth has
Declined um to the point where we are next to the last of all ethnic groups in the United States I think Native Americans are the only people that are under us um in that uh list of uh net worth wealth and we got to think
About what do we do to change this and that’s the theme of what we want to address this month I’m going to talk about three seeds three seats the first is cable TV second is cars and the third is conventions got it cable TV cars conventions and you say what does that
Have to do with wealth well part of our dilemma is what we do with the money that we have comes into our hands but then it goes out and when it comes to African-Americans our money only stays in our hands for a very brief time some of the things we’ got to think
About is how do we cut that off in terms of what we spend what we spend it on so I want to start with cable TV because it’s the the thing that actually I gravitated to as the first point of of grappling with our wealth cable TV I
Haven’t been involved with uh with with cable um as the vice president of the Baltimore cable access Corporation in Baltimore and um and so when we moved here we started uh our uh Network as a means of focusing our attention on what we spend on
TV we happen to be people that love TV more than any other ethnic group we watched a lot of it and uh when cable came along we’ve embraced it we hold on to it all the other groups have uh dropped cable cut the cord moved away from cable
Over the last 10 uh 10 10 years or so um to the point where Comcast who was the biggest cable company in the United States had about a 100 million subscribers when we first started Life vision uh 10 years ago now that number has dropped to about 25
Million 25 million from 100 million what has taking its place is streaming using Roku Amazon Fire TV and other boxes Apple TV and so forth people get their uh what they watched on cable the channels that they watched before cable they now watch through the internet I
Just want to share this quick thing with you to think about we were in the community in Orlando called Pine Hills has about 20,000 families in Pine Hills the average cable bill in this country is $180 a month $180 a month if you cut cable and go to
Streaming using a Roku box or Amazon Fire TV box or something like that you would catch your bill to an average of $80 a month so you save $100 a month that’s that’s a nice saving you’re over period of a year it’s a it’s $1,200 pretty much the equivalent of one
Of those stimulus checks that we got during the pandemic but here’s where it becomes really important if there 20,000 families in that community of Pion it’s a African-American community in North uh west of in Orlando 20,000 P if each of those cut the cable save $100 that comes
To $2 million a month just in Pine Hills $2 million a month got freed up in Pine Hills that’s 20 $4 million over the course of the Year $24 million in one African-American Community that’s just the west side if you did it on the East Side you could double that maybe $50
Million a year right in Pine Hills take that for 10 major cities around the country that are led by African-Americans and you’re talking about $500 million half a billion dollars saved in just one Community by cutting the C I want you to see that that’s the kind of thing that we’re
Talking about cing up money in our own Community without a government grant without globan city hall or the government is in our control well since we’ve talked first about cable TV and the amount of money that could be released least to go towards our wealth by simply switching
From cable to streaming uh through using Roku Amazon Fire TV Apple TV so forth now I want to talk about the second SC cars cable TV and now cars yes cars you know we are stylish people and no matter where we are on the spectrum of our credit uh we want to
Look the best and we want to drive a nice car and a lot of our ideas about what is a nice car comes from uh what we see out on the road but we’re also impacted by uh advertising TV advertising for cars and we’re also influenced by those who are around us
Give you an example when my kids were growing up they were part of the generation that grew up on VH1 uh MTV bet hip-hop stars rappers uh filming music videos with pretty girls and fancy cars roses Bentley’s maybacks Mercedes Range Rovers that’s the kind of thing that that they looked at as that
Was uh that that was hip that was what uh we ought to Aspire to our young athletes young men coming out of college that 22 23 years old they were buying these kinds of cars and Ferraris and Lamborghinis and all that sort of thing and then not only were we uh influenced
By what entertainers athletes were doing we also in uh uh influenced by the church world uh they were guys with mega churches thousands of members um big um clothings that they were in but also driving Bentley’s Rose rses mercedesbenz and if you really got big youd have your own
Plane so all these things influence the choices that we think are the things that we ought to Aspire to now when we consider our assets and liabilities and our wealth and net worth course the cars go on the asset ass side they an asset depending on what you you PID for them
How you paid for it um but not only are they an asset but they also if we had to finance it it’s also in the liabilities column uh so when you sub you know you take what it’s worth subtract what you owe that’s the net worth for that
Particular uh investment and and you add up all those assets and all those liabilities and you wind up with a net worth so we have we have a situation where um many many people you know in America you know we even amongst the black folks with a high unemployment
Rate 5 or 6% that means that 95 94% of us have a job we have income we can qualify for some kind of car um and we’ve got to think about this this uh this equation as it affects our wealth it’s a very important thing to to to
Consider because as wonderful as the car is and and and you know the the pressure internal pressure to to you know not look like you’re driving something that’s not uh what the rest of the people in your group are driving uh you don’t want to come to church in a in a
Beat up car and and everybody else is driving luxury cars um but cars are a depreciating asset that means when you drive off the lot the car starts losing money other Investments that you have they grow every day the car loses value every day it becomes uh less and less valuable every
Passing day um and this is a problem for us um because if we have if if you have millions of black folks who have a lot of their income invested in a depreciating asset that means each day they’re going down and listen my friend cars have become very very expensive
Today very very expensive I mean to get a a normal car like a Ford or a Chevrolet a new one an s SUV you you might be paying $35 $40,000 uh for for a car like that but for a luxury car like a Mercedes or an
Audi or a a Range Rover you you may be paying 60 70 80,000 even $100,000 uh for for that car that’s going down in value and some of them go down in value quickly and a lot of luxury cars lose lose their value very very quickly so first of all it’s
Probably not the best idea to buy a brand new one that is going to take a big depreciation hit uh in the first few years that you have it so I consider uh buying something that’s a couple of years old uh and uh with you know low
Mileage um and let somebody else take the the the the big depreciation hit but listen when you start to put this into real terms and you start looking at our our population of African-Americans in the United States imagine if and I want to speak particularly to church leaders because we’re dealing with
People who are saved and who don’t waste all their money you know drinking and drugs and partying um they Frugal in those but if they aspire to be like you and you have a luxury car they don’t want to you know misrepresent the church in your ministry so they are going to
Strive to do the same kind of thing we need a generation of leaders to come up now that move away from this old notion that as the pastor of a black church no matter whether it’s a stor friend or a church with 100 members or 200 members
Or 500 members that they must drive a luxury vehicle and set the tone for people’s visions of what success is if they all started buying a $35,000 car um with you know a few thousand miles on it and saves $40,000 instead of spending 80,000 they spent 40,000 for a car
$40,000 now freed up in the community suppose you got 50,000 people around the country who took that plunge and decided I I’m I’m not going to be I’m not going to get one of those European or German luxury cars or British L luxury cars I’m going to get something that cost $35 or
$40,000 the the the most upto-date uh stuff in it uh Tech stuff in it uh runs on regular gasoline um it’s not nearly as expensive to maintain as the luxury car gets 20 or more miles per gallon uh when you go to Phil uh when you driving
It 50,000 people around the country you know a few in every major city did this and and save $40,000 that’s $200 million two if if $50,000 people move down from spending $80,000 on a depreciating asset to 40 to to to $40,000 $200 million now freed up for
Our people to use for uh investing in things that appreciate in value value can you imagine what we could do if we just change our focus of what we think makes us successful I can guarantee you if you go to some some very large churches of uh white
Folks not necessarily the uh you know the the prosperity preachers uh you’re not going to see the pastor with with one of those luxury cars um you just drive passes the the parking lot and look at the spaces where it says reserve for pastor check that against one of our
Pastors in a storefront that holds 50 people you’ll all to see the Mercedes there and not on the big uh the big white campus listen my friends we got to do something about our bottom line our net worth cars is a good place to start All right friends we’ve talked about two of the three se’s that I want to address in building the net worth of our community we chose cable TV as want to start with the first C second C cars third C I want to tackle is conventions conventions that’s right now
I don’t want I’m going to say say this ahead of time so that you all don’t get mad at me I’m I have been in church organizations I’ve been in civil Social Service organizations all of my life I the convention coordinator for our denomination International bibleway I’m
On the Executive Board of Bishops so we make decisions about the conventions and all of our meetings but I want to show us that if we are serious about keeping money in our community not having it flow out of our hands it’s directly into the hands of people um who are going to
Use our money to to do all kinds of stuff um they glad to get it hotels are glad to get it Airlines rental car companies restaurants everything that’s associated with traveling to a convention and participating are things that that when we begin to examine the amount of money
That we invest in these things it is a an outflow from the black community to the larger community and it’s mindboggling the amounts what are you saying pastor let’s think about this there was a large Convention of one of our major Pentecostal organizations in Baltimore a number of years ago when I
Was still living there and there was an article in the sun p paper about the economic impact of this group coming to Baltimore um to have their uh convention it wasn’t their main convention uh it it it was a Convention of the auxiliaries um it was going to have $30
Million in economic impact $30 million now that’s not talking about what happened inside of the organization and the offerings that they took up you know for the things that we needed to run the organization this is the impact of the hotel’s fees the rooms the the meals the
Banquets um the uh rental cars uh you know everything the sightseeing all of this stuff uh where people were excited when the convention Bureau told them this group is going to be coming on these dates get ready because you’re going to get an infusion of money uh
That is going to be significant for you that’s one organization $30 million within the course of a week now if you do this exercise to all of the church groups just let’s take the church groups first of all so you’re talking about the am you you’re talking about the am zans
You’re talking about the National Baptist Progressive Baptist Missionary Baptist Church of God in Christ Pentecostal Assembly the world cool JC International Bible way you can just go on and on and on there are organizations that I can’t even think of right right at this moment and when you
Begin to add up the impact of just the church groups um coming to hotels and signing a contract uh to to uh guarantee that there going to be a certain number of room nights um and that there going to be a certain amount of food and beverage that you’re going to contract
From them it comes out to hundreds of millions of dollars every year cuz we do these meetings most of us have two or three meetings a year some of the smaller ones and then the big ones is a lot of money now this doesn’t include just the church groups because we have
The Divine NS for turnning sororities we have social uh organizations the NAACP the Urban League all kinds of other groups that are meeting all over this country all year long we call the hotels and say hey we want to come to your hotel uh how much
Will you let us come for and uh they are glad to receive our money excited about it and the pandemic they lost lost so much money that coming out of it uh they’re going to help themselves to whatever money you have to make up for what they lost during during that time
My friend I I’ve done studies uh I invite you to do it just just start thinking about how much money you spend in your organization um to uh bring people together and then Envision it as if from all of these uh churches and not only the churches because it comes from the
People who are in the churches we are taking our paychecks we’re taking our hard earn dollars and we’re bringing it deposited in in Marriott and um and and you know all of these other hotels they are having a ball the airlines are happy the riddle car companies the restaurants in the area
Everybody is going away with our money we got to go back and raise some more money to come back again uh a few months later we need to think about how we operated even in the pandemic when we couldn’t come together um we started using Zoom to have our board meetings
And and and learned how to innovate and have putting on services and revivals even and workshops online many organizations found themselves in the black in a way that they hadn’t before because they didn’t have all the expenses that came with coming together sure we need to come together maybe we
Come we just cut down the number of meetings that we have but we need to look at holding these hundreds of million dollars that we are just dispensing freely and having a good time and saying wasn’t it good for us to have come together amen the three seats cable
TV our cars and our conventions God bless you
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