Record Highs, Negative Gas Prices, and the Discipline Dividend

Host Richard Cunningham sits down with co-host Luke Roush and returning guest Jordan Strebeck of Fortress Energy Partners for a conversation that starts at the S&P 500's all-time high and ends at a Permian Basin wellhead where operators are paying to get rid of their own natural gas.

The numbers alone are worth the listen: four hyperscalers on pace for more than $700 billion in AI infrastructure spending this year, an IPO market that just absorbed the world's largest offering, and a global oil supply chain that's quietly burned through 400 million barrels of inventory since February. Jordan brings the view from the ground in Midland, Texas — where the domestic shale industry is showing more capital discipline than anyone expected, even as Middle East conflict keeps rewriting the energy math in real time.

Key Topics:

• Markets hitting record highs despite tariffs, an unresolved Middle East conflict, and zero rate cuts in 2026
• The AI CapEx arms race: how Wall Street is starting to separate real cash-flow return from spend for spend's sake
• What SpaceX's blockbuster IPO signals for Anthropic and the rest of the 2026 IPO pipeline
• 1,500 unicorns and counting — why so many private companies are stuck waiting to go public
• Inside the Permian Basin: negative natural gas prices, the AI power crunch, and why the U.S. needs more of everything — nuclear, gas, solar, and wind
• What 400 million barrels of drawn-down global oil inventory means for prices over the next five years
• A closing word on presence, parenting, and what it means to steward the time we're given

This episode is a masterclass in reading past the headline number — whether that's an index level, an IPO valuation, or a barrel price — to the stewardship question underneath it. For faith-driven investors trying to separate signal from noise in a genuinely strange market, this is a conversation worth sitting with.

Watch the full episode on YouTube or continue to stream audio on your favorite podcast platform.

Host Richard Cunningham welcomes co-host John Coleman for July's Marks on the Market, joined by two veteran venture investors: Phil Jung, who helps lead the venture investing business at Sovereign's Capital, and Mark Phillips, co-founder and managing partner at Eleven Tribes Ventures. The panel digs into a historic first half of 2026 for venture capital, the "barbell" strategy reshaping early-stage investing, and why faith-driven investors need to understand both the opportunity and the constraints of the AI boom.

Phil and Mark bring an early-stage, seed-focused lens shaped by operator-led, vertically focused founders — from wire harnessing to waste management — while John Coleman zooms out to the macro picture: record public market concentration, a $725 billion capex commitment from the hyperscalers, and the possibility that this technological shift could be ten times bigger and ten times faster than the Industrial Revolution. The conversation closes, as always, with reflections on Scripture and what it means to build — and rest — under God's sovereignty in the middle of historic disruption.

Key Topics:

• A record-breaking first half of 2026: $412 billion invested in venture capital, more than all of 2025 combined
• The "barbell" approach to early-stage investing: mega AI valuations on one end, capital-efficient vertical AI solutions on the other
• Why physical products, deep tech, and hard tech are back in vogue after years out of favor
• Constraints on the AI boom investors should watch: capital expenditure limits, energy demands, and regulatory fragmentation
• Token costs, open-source models, and who ultimately controls the data
• Closing reflections from Psalm 127 and John 4 on surrender, weariness, and calling

Notable Quotes:

"It really is an unprecedented venture market in the moment that we have never seen before." - Phil Jung

"Increasingly your software platform, your product is no longer the moat... it's distribution... and then it's integration." - Mark Phillips

"We serve a God who's in control, who's unchanging, who created a universe far more complex than anything we're talking about here." - John Coleman

What if the most freeing financial decision you could make had nothing to do with your portfolio returns?

In this episode, host Justin Forman sits down with John Cortines, co-author of God and Money and True Riches and a generosity leader at the Maclellan Foundation, for a practical, spiritually grounding conversation about generosity, stewardship, and freedom.

John shares how his journey began at Harvard Business School with a banking password that read "retire@40!" and how God used a men's Bible study, serious biblical research, and interviews with radically generous Harvard MBA alumni to completely reframe his understanding of wealth. What emerged wasn't just a new giving percentage. It was a transformation of the heart.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The wrong question most Christian investors ask about money, and the right one
• Financial finish lines: how pre-defining your lifestyle and net worth guardrails creates freedom instead of limiting it
• The four heart conditions that keep investors from true generosity (pride, coveting, anxiety, and indifference) and the gospel transformation for each
• Why effective altruism produces joyless giving, and what makes Christian generosity categorically different
• The rise of professionally managed giving funds, and why John believes they'll become as normal as index funds
• Practical steps for faith-driven investors to move from obligation-based to joy-driven stewardship

Direct Quotes from John Cortines:

"The right question isn't how much do we need to give? It's how much do I really need to keep." — John Cortines

"Giving is actually a source of joy and freedom and purpose in the Christian walk. And it's God's invitation where I can step into playing on his team to accomplish his purposes in the world." — John Cortines

"What if 10, 20, 30 years from now, it was as normal to think about professionally managed giving funds as it is to think about an index fund for stocks today." — John Cortines

Episode Description

John Cortines started his career in oil and gas with a banking password that literally read "retire@40!", a saver's dream encoded into every login. Then Harvard Business School, a men's Bible study, and a deep dive into Scripture dismantled his framework entirely. What he and co-author Greg Baumer uncovered changed not just how much he gave, but why, and the freedom that came with it.

In this episode, John walks through the framework from his books God and Money and True Riches, including the concept of financial finish lines that set guardrails for lifestyle and net worth, and the four heart transformations every steward must navigate: pride to gratitude, coveting to contentment, anxiety to trust, and indifference to love. These aren't abstract theological ideas. They're the architecture behind how faith-driven investors actually hold and deploy capital with joy.

John also shares his vision for the future of generosity: professionally managed giving funds that work alongside traditional portfolio management, bringing the same rigor, governance, and reporting to Kingdom capital that investors already expect from their financial advisors. Recorded live at Kingdom Advisors, this conversation is a call to bring generosity out of the shadows and into the boardroom, and the family table.

In this America 250 special edition of Marks on the Market, Richard Cunningham and Luke Roush sit down with Donna Harris — founder and CEO of Builders and Backers, venture investor, and co-author of the redemptive investing playbook at Praxis — for a wide-ranging conversation on the state of American entrepreneurship, the limits and promise of venture capital, and how the AI revolution is democratizing who gets to build.

As the country approaches its 250th birthday, Donna brings a decade of venture investing experience and a conviction that America's greatest competitive advantage isn't its capital markets — it's its people. Builders and Backers has helped launch nearly 800 companies, backing nurses, bartenders, dog breeders, and disability attorneys who are using AI to bring ideas to life that would have required $35,000 MVPs just a year ago.

Key Topics:

• Why venture capital is a "solid tool for a specific use case" — and why it's the single most expensive capital a startup can take
• The real entrepreneurship data: startups are creating a third fewer jobs per company than 15 years ago, and 62% of Americans have an entrepreneurial dream but less than 2% act on it
• How AI is democratizing startup formation — from a $35K MVP to a $20 Claude Pro subscription
• Donna's investment thesis for the AI era: stop asking which AI model wins and start asking which people are uniquely positioned to create value with it
• The concept of "re-risking" from a faith perspective — and why prosperity itself can become the greatest obstacle to obedience
• Scripture at the close: Donna on God's broken heroes, and Luke on the woman with the alabaster jar and the boy with five loaves

Notable Quotes:

"There has never ever in history been a greater moment to become an entrepreneur." — Donna Harris

"The best investors aren't just investing in AI companies. They're investing in smart people who will use the tool well and solve meaningful problems in sustainable ways." — Donna Harris

"We need to aggressively re-risk, otherwise we get lulled into this stupor of prosperity and comfort and building bigger barns." — Luke Roush

Faith Driven Investor Podcast – Episode 224 Release Date: June 8, 2026

Venture Studio, AI Disruption & the Mandate to Build Beautiful Things

John Coleman sits down with Kristian Andersen — co-founder and partner at High Alpha, the Indianapolis-based venture studio and fund — live at the Main Street Summit in Columbia, Missouri. Kristian traces his unlikely path from freelance designer to venture capital pioneer, unpacking how High Alpha's hybrid studio-fund model is navigating the most disruptive era in software history, and why he believes faith calls investors and builders alike to an adventure mandate and a creation mandate.

Key Topics:

• How High Alpha's venture studio model differs from traditional VC — and what 10+ years of iteration taught them about company creation
• Why seat-based SaaS licensing is dying and what outcome-based, utility, and agentic business models are replacing it
• The AI disruption hiding in plain sight: companies going from zero to $50M revenue in a single year — and what that means for early-stage investors
• The enterprise SaaS recession of 2021–2024, the "buying barbell," and why legacy SaaS and AI-native companies are on completely different trajectories
• Why the biggest untold story in the entrepreneurial journey is what it costs the founder's family — and how High Alpha is addressing it
• ServiceNow's entry as a Fund 4 LP and what strategic corporate venture capital actually looks like when done right
• The theology of taste: why Kristian believes truth is beauty, and how the adventure and creation mandates of Scripture shape his work as an investor and builder

Notable Quotes:

"Operating companies makes us better investors. And conversely, investing makes us better operators because the half-life of experience in this industry is a lot shorter than people think it is." — Kristian Andersen

"The currency we trade in are founders and markets. And we want to engineer some radical advantage into those businesses." — Kristian Andersen

"I think we serve a God that calls us to adventure. Every good thing that's happened to me in my life has been a function of me saying yes, not saying no." — Kristian Andersen

About Kristian Andersen: Kristian Andersen is the co-founder and partner at High Alpha, an Indianapolis-based venture studio that both incubates net-new software companies and invests in high-growth founders. Before High Alpha, he founded StudioScience, a design and innovation consultancy he ran for 15 years before selling to private equity. An active angel investor, Kristian has co-founded multiple software companies and invested in over 40 startups. He is married to Brandy, has six children, and is part of the Praxis community. High Alpha's Fund 4 counts ServiceNow as a strategic LP.

About High Alpha: High Alpha is a venture studio and fund based in Indianapolis that combines company creation with venture investing. The firm partners with founders and corporations to ideate and launch enterprise SaaS businesses, then supports them with capital, operations, and shared resources. High Alpha's portfolio companies have included Angi (formerly Angie's List), ExactTarget, and others from the Indianapolis tech ecosystem.

Episode Title: Marks on the Market: What’s Really Going On in Private Credit? | Kyle Brown 

Hosts: Richard Cunningham, John Coleman, Luke Roush Guest: Kyle Brown, CEO, Trinity Capital (TRIN)

Key Topics:

• The private credit market has grown 6X in the last decade — but headlines conflating software-sector turbulence with systemic credit risk are getting the story wrong
• How 90% of institutional allocations have flowed to just 12 companies and 50 funds, creating compressed spreads, race-to-the-bottom pricing, and concentrated risk in mega-cap private credit
• Why Trinity Capital's ~20% loan-to-value and ~1x ARR attachment rate on software leaves them well-positioned compared to over-leveraged competitors
• The AI infrastructure picks-and-shovels play: how Trinity is financing GPUs and power-generation equipment on 24–36 month fully amortizing loans to sidestep speculative overbuild risk
• Software incumbency in the age of AI — why enterprise systems of record are far more resilient than headlines suggest, and where the real vulnerability lies (point solutions)
• The US macro outlook: GDP at 2%, unemployment near long-term average, global capital flowing to America — and why all three hosts remain constructively bullish

Direct Quotes from Kyle Brown:

"Private credit over the last 10 years has grown 6X. It's projected to continue growing at a rapid pace. It's being confused as one big monolith and it's really not that at all. It's a massive and robust diversified marketplace now."

"The thing that we're missing out on and that we need to add to that balance sheet is our oodles... Because when you're on your deathbed, you're not talking about that great IRR you made on that stock investment or what you did in your IRA. You're telling stories."

"We're in the middle of a technological revolution and it's just a shame that culture wars and some of the stuff that is going on is getting in the way of what is really an amazing opportunity for anybody who wants to go and do something, who has an idea, who wants to build."

Episode Description:

Kyle Brown, CEO of publicly traded Trinity Capital (TRIN), joins Richard Cunningham, John Coleman, and Luke Roush for the May edition of Marks on the Market — and he brings a clear-eyed diagnosis of what's actually driving private credit volatility, what the headlines are getting wrong, and how Trinity has navigated one of the most turbulent environments in the asset class's short history.

The conversation opens with a deep dive into the structural forces reshaping private credit: a 6X decade of growth, 90% of institutional money concentrating in fewer than 50 funds, zero-interest-rate-era cost of capital that no longer exists, and a retail investor base encountering alternatives market gates for the first time. Brown explains why software-sector fears — while not entirely unfounded — are being misread as a system-wide credit crisis, and how Trinity's conservative underwriting (averaging ~20% LTV across the portfolio) positions them very differently from over-leveraged peers.

From there, the conversation pivots to AI infrastructure investing, the US macroeconomic outlook, the US-China summit, and — in a closing rapid-fire segment — what God has been teaching each host and guest in His Word. Brown closes with a meditation on "oodles," his invented economic unit of enjoyment, drawn from the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12 — a reminder that no balance sheet is complete without the investments we make in the people we love.

Host Luke Roush sits down with Kyle Kutz, Private Family Office Director, Senior Family Office Advisor, and Senior Partner at Blue Trust — a faith-driven wealth advisory firm managing $60 billion in assets across 11,000 client families nationwide. Together, they unpack what it looks like to build wealth with an eternal purpose, define a financial finish line, and break the cycle of anxiety that wealth can bring.

Key Topics:

• What it means to have a "financial quarterback" and why every wealth-building family needs one on their team
   
• The "financial finish line" concept — defining how much is enough so generosity can take the lead
   
• Why financial independence can become spiritually toxic, and how biblical wisdom offers a better framework
   
• Navigating wealth across generations: how every family member can be "Gen 1 in something"
   
• How Blue Trust celebrated over $450 million in collaborative client giving in a single year — and their goal to reach $2 billion annually by decade's end

Notable Quotes:

"A lot of times our clients will describe us as their comprehensive financial quarterback — someone who steps in with families who've experienced wealth and complexity and have a lot of moving parts." — Kyle Kutz

"People can spend so much of their time and life growing the financial capital side of their balance sheet, but ignoring the non-financial capital items — the spiritual capital, the social capital, the intellectual capital, the relational capital." — Kyle Kutz

"Financial independence in its truest form is independence from greed, independence from being complacent, independence from fear." — Kyle Kutz

About Kyle Kutz: Kyle Kutz serves as Private Family Office Director, Senior Family Office Advisor, and Senior Partner at Blue Trust, a faith-driven financial advisory firm founded by Ron Blue in 1979. With $60 billion in assets under advisory, 20 offices nationwide, and over 11,000 client families, Blue Trust is one of the preeminent faith-driven wealth management firms in the country. Kyle works with high-complexity entrepreneurial families, helping them move through a process of Clarity → Alignment → Peace of Mind while stewarding their financial, spiritual, and relational capital with intentionality.

Description:

What happens when the advisor sitting across the table from you doesn't just understand your estate plan — but also your eternal purpose? Kyle Kutz of Blue Trust has spent his career as a "comprehensive financial quarterback" for families navigating the complexity of significant wealth, and in this conversation with Luke Roush, he unpacks what that actually looks like in practice. From defining a financial finish line to equipping next-generation inheritors with identity and calling, this episode is a masterclass in faith-driven stewardship.

Kyle and Luke explore the idea that financial independence — properly understood — isn't about accumulating enough to need nothing; it's about independence from greed, fear, and complacency. They also dig into the tent analogy for multi-generational giving, the home-going plan Blue Trust uses to prepare families for legacy, and why encouraging clients to give generously has only deepened relationships and grown the firm.

Whether you're a first-generation wealth creator, a next-generation inheritor still finding your footing, or an advisor trying to serve families with both technical excellence and biblical wisdom, this episode will challenge and equip you for the stewardship journey ahead.

Faith Driven Investor Podcast | Ep. 221 | Marks on the Market: The State of Faith-Based Investing in Public Markets — with Tim Macready of Brightlight

Key Topics:

• The mixed performance picture for faith-based funds in 2025 — the average faith-based fund underperformed by just under 2.5%, driven largely by exclusions of Magnificent Seven stocks — and why that context matters for long-term investors
• How a $140 billion market representing less than half a percent of the broader ETF/mutual fund landscape signals an enormous untapped opportunity for faith-driven capital
• The shift from product-focused exclusionary screening toward engagement and "embrace" strategies — and why shareholder proxy voting and active engagement are now the frontier of faith-based investing
• The growing need for theological clarity in fund screening — from the "big five" traditional screens to harder modern questions around online child safety, human trafficking, and Mag Seven holdings
• The "core satellite" portfolio framework Tim recommends: low-cost, passive, well-screened exposure at the core, with active engage/embrace strategies at the satellite — and why this approach is now achievable with ETFs alone

Guest Quotes:

"I think two things can simultaneously be true as believers. I think we ought to be willing to make sacrifices in order to express our faith in the way that we live. And at the same time, in the faith-based investing space, I believe we ought not need to — that there should be excellent products that are delivering performance that is kind of aligned to the broader market." — Tim Macready

"The variety in the decision-making around screens is a strength of the market rather than a weakness." — Tim Macready

"Watch this space, I think, for more developments there." — Tim Macready (on the emerging "nutrition label" approach to faith-based fund disclosures)

Episode Description:

What does the state of faith-based investing in public markets actually look like heading into 2026? Tim Macready, Head of Global Advisory at Brightlight, joins Richard Cunningham and Luke Roush for the April edition of Marks on the Markets to break down Brightlight's third annual research report — the most comprehensive institutional analysis of faith-driven public markets investing available.

Tim unpacks a nuanced performance picture: the average faith-based fund delivered 16% returns in 2025, but underperformed its benchmark by nearly 2.5% — primarily because many funds excluded several of the Magnificent Seven companies that drove outsized market gains. He explains why this underperformance mirrors patterns seen in the early 2010s, and why history suggests a more favorable environment may be ahead as markets broaden beyond mega-cap growth stocks.

Beyond performance, this conversation is a masterclass in the evolving structure of the faith-based investing market — from the ETF product explosion and the "core satellite" portfolio approach, to the theological questions fund managers must answer about screens, engagement, and what it truly means to invest to the glory of God. Whether you're a financial advisor navigating client conversations or a faith-driven investor trying to align capital with conviction, this episode delivers both the data and the framework.

Episode Title: Solving the World's Greatest Problems: How Collaborative Giving Funds Are Reshaping Impact Capital

Guests: Zac Sicher (Fund Manager, Hunger & Joblessness — Solving the World's Greatest Problems) and Rebecca Yuschak (Grants & Operations Lead — Faith Driven Investor) Host: Justin Forman with Henry Kaestner

Key Topics:

• How philanthropic "first-loss" capital unlocks markets that investment capital alone cannot reach — and why the greatest innovations of the last 50 years started with charitable dollars
  
   
• The Jenga block framework: why attacking one structural pressure point in a complex problem (trafficking, hunger, housing) can cause the entire broken system to collapse
  
   
• The $14–16 trillion housing gap vs. $592 billion in annual US charitable giving — and why charity alone can never close it
  
   
• How Solving the World's Greatest Problems Collaborative Giving Funds work as professionally managed donor-advised funds — 100% of contributions deployed into the field
  
   
• Africa's structural hunger crisis: 378 million people facing solvable food insecurity, a 20x corn yield gap between Zimbabwe and the US, and 30–40% post-harvest food waste — and the market innovations targeting each
  
   

Notable Quotes:

"There is no shortage of money willing to chase profitable solutions. There is no shortage of money willing to follow. There is an immense shortage of money willing to go first." — Zac Sicher

"Capital, when structured properly, has the ability to solve the world's greatest problems. Not exclusively, but to play an important role in solving these problems." — Zac Sicher

"Charity alone was never gonna get us there in many of these times."

 — Justin Forman

Eternal Perspective: Rewiring How Faith-Driven Investors Think About Reward, Heaven, and Stewardship

Host Justin Forman sits down with author and theologian Randy Alcorn — founder of Eternal Perspective Ministries and author of 65 books including Treasure Principle, Heaven, and Law of Rewards — for a conversation that challenges some of the most deeply held misconceptions in Christian life and investing culture. From the Protestant Reformation's unintended legacy on how we think about reward, to a vision of the new earth that reframes the very purpose of stewardship, this episode is essential listening for anyone who wants their financial decisions anchored in eternity.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The Protestant Reformation's unintended impact on how Christians misunderstand reward — and why Scripture actually celebrates God-given incentives for faithful stewardship
• Why happiness and holiness are not in conflict, and how getting this wrong has distorted how faith-driven investors relate to wealth, generosity, and purpose
• Heaven and the new earth re-examined: What resurrection bodies, physical work, and eternal creativity reveal about stewarding resources now
• The Ebenezer Scrooge model of generosity: How true conversion produces radical, joyful giving — not reluctant obligation
• Randy Alcorn's "eternal perspective" framework — the common thread through 65 books — and how it applies to every investment and stewardship decision

Notable Quotes:

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." — Randy Alcorn (quoting Jim Elliot)

"God has not simply called us to holiness. God has called us also to happiness and there is no conflict whatsoever between them." — Randy Alcorn

"It is more blessed to give than to receive — the word translated 'blessed' is the Greek word Makarios, which means happy-making. It is more happy-making to give than to receive." — Randy Alcorn

About Randy Alcorn: Randy Alcorn is the founder of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM) and the bestselling author of 65 books, including Treasure Principle (over 1 million copies sold), Heaven, and Law of Rewards. A former pastor turned full-time writer and speaker, Randy's life work centers on one unifying theme: eternal perspective. He gives away all royalties from his books to support missions and ministry, living out the very principles he writes about.

Marks on the Markets: Geopolitics, AI Disruption & Where Smart Capital Is Moving in 2026

Host Richard Cunningham is joined by co-host John Coleman and market experts Matt Monson (Public Equities, Sovereign's Capital) and Brian McClard (CIO, Blue Trust) for the March 2026 edition of Marks on the Markets. With Operation Epic reshaping global energy dynamics, AI rewriting the rules of markets and labor, and private equity at a critical inflection point, this panel of seasoned investors offers grounded, faith-driven perspective on navigating one of the most complex macro environments in recent memory.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The geopolitical and market implications of Operation Epic in Iran — and what it means for global oil supply and the Strait of Hormuz
• Why 75% of S&P 500 gains over the past three years came from just 41 AI-linked stocks — and why that era may be ending
• Small cap vs. large cap: the longest large-cap outperformance streak in 100 years, and why the rotation may finally be here
• AI and the labor market: separating fear-driven headlines from real economic data
• Private markets outlook — where to be bullish, where to exercise caution, and the private credit warning signs

Notable Quotes:

"If you were to take $600 billion in capex spending in 2026 amongst four companies… that's $300 billion worth of brand new depreciation that will flow through income statements for those four companies combined that needs to be offset with brand new AI profit." — Matt Monson

"Godliness with contentment is great gain… it's so easy to get wrapped around the axle with what we have or don't have and how we're progressing at building our own people." — Brian McClard

"What would it look like to answer the question before you get asked the question? You say, here I am, send me — and then you wait and see where he's gonna send you." — Matt Monson

About the Guests:

Matt Monson leads Public Equities Investing at Sovereign's Capital, bringing deep analytical rigor to faith-aligned portfolio construction across small, mid, and large cap markets.

Brian McClard is Chief Investment Officer at Blue Trust, a wealth management firm built on biblical principles, advising high-net-worth individuals and families on stewarding capital with eternal perspective.

John Coleman is co-host of the FDI Podcast, a principal writer on human flourishing at HBR, and author of the newly released Good Money — a framework for integrating money, investing, giving, and spending around a flourishing life.