co-founder | The Bible Project

Jon was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and is proud to call Portland home. He has been married for 11 years and has two boys.

Jon received a BA in Bible and Theology at Multnomah University. After working overseas in Christian ministry and then serving for a year as a Pastor, Jon stepped into the marketplace to explore digital communication. He started two digital communication companies and worked with clients ranging from Google and P&G to Silicon Valley start-ups and non-profits. In 2009 Jon’s first company, Epipheo, introduced the business world to “explainer videos.” Jon has a long history of creating shareable videos that spread messages organically on the internet.

In early 2016 Jon ended his participation in former business ventures to work on The Bible Project full time. He is thrilled to be working on something so meaningful.

LINKS

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR

Founder | Nuos Formation

Julie Barrios, Founder of Nuos Formation, designs personal and cultural liturgies. Trained at Talbot Institute for Spiritual Formation, she has honed her skills through fifteen years of experience as a spiritual director. Over the course of her career, Julie started noticing a pattern: toxic liturgies create toxic cultures. We’ve seen it in the news. Often, the most significant contributors to this phenomenon are underdeveloped leaders. When leaders unknowingly introduce destructive practices into their companies, it can lead to anxiety, confusion, and high turnover. 

Today, Julie is devoted to helping organizations flourish, where culture maximizes innovation and job satisfaction. Her extensive knowledge base as well as her experience with ancient methods of personal development enable Julie to approach her clients with a refreshing posture: hope.

LINKS 

• LinkedIn

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR

Speaker and lecturer at Alphacrucis and Mary Andrews colleges

Kara Martin is a speaker, lectures at Alphacrucis and Mary Andrews colleges, and was formerly Associate Dean of the Marketplace Institute at Ridley College in Melbourne. She has worked in media and communications, human resources, business analysis and policy development roles, in a variety of organisations, and as a consultant. She was Director of the School of Christian Studies for three years and has lectured with the Brisbane School of Theology, Macquarie Christian Studies Institute and Wesley Institute. Kara has a particular passion for integrating our Christian faith and work, as well as helping churches connect with the workers in their congregations. Volume 1 of Workship: How we can Use our Work to Worship God was published in April 2017. Workship 2: How we can Flourish at Work was published in May 2018. Kara has just started on Workship 3: How to Shape Christians for the Workplace.

She is married to David, and they have two amazing adult children: Jaslyn and Guy.

LINKS 

• LinkedIn

• Workship

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR

President and CEO | First Liberty Institute

Kelly Shackelford, Esq., is President and CEO of First Liberty Institute, the largest legal firm in the nation dedicated exclusively to protecting religious freedom for all Americans. He has served in this role since 1997, leading First Liberty’s efforts to defend religious freedom in the courts and in the public arena. Under his leadership, First Liberty’s legal team has participated in cases before the United States Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, federal district courts and various state courts, where they have won more than 90 percent of their cases.

Shackelford is a constitutional scholar who has argued before the United States Supreme Court, testified before the U.S. House and Senate, and has won a number of landmark First Amendment and religious liberty cases including a recent watershed, precedent-changing victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association.

He was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past quarter-century by Texas Lawyer and is the recipient of the prestigious William Bentley Ball Award for Life and Religious Freedom Defense for pioneering work protecting religious freedom.

Shackelford is a highly sought-after speaker and frequent guest on national news and talk shows including Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, Fox and Friends, MSNBC, and Hannity. He also has been featured in the National Law Journal, Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Times, The Washington Post, and The L.A. Times, and many others.

Shackelford is on the Board of Trustees of the United States Supreme Court Historical Society and earned his law degree from Baylor University.

LINKS 

• First Liberty

• The Shackelford Sessions

contributions to faith driven entrepreneur

Pastor | The Summit Church

J.D. Greear is the pastor of The Summit Church, in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

The Summit is characterized by its gospel focus and sending culture. As Pastor J.D. often says, “The gospel is not merely the diving board off of which we jump into the pool of Christianity, it’s also the pool itself.” The deeper we dive into the extravagant love of Christ, the more our lives will be filled with unquenchable joy, reckless generosity, and audacious faith.  

Depth in the gospel also leads to width in the mission. Under Pastor J.D.’s leadership, the Summit has grown from a plateaued church of 300 to one of over 10,000, making it one of Outreach magazine’s “top 25 fastest-growing churches in America” for many years running.

Seating capacity, however, is not the church’s primary metric for success. Sending capacity is. Pastor J.D. has led the Summit in a bold vision to plant one thousand new churches by the year 2050. In the last 15 years, the church has sent out more than 1,000 people to live on church planting teams—in North Carolina, across the United States, and around the world.  

Pastor J.D. completed his Ph.D. in Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, writing on the correlations between early church presentations of the gospel and Islamic theology. Seeing Muslims come to faith in Christ has long been a burden of his, a burden that led him to serve in Southeast Asia with the International Mission Board.

Life:

Pastor J.D. and his wife Veronica live in Raleigh. Together they are raising four ridiculously cute kids: Kharis, Alethia, Ryah, and Adon.

LINKS

• JDGreear.com

Pastor J.D. Greear has authored several books:

• Not God Enough: Why Your Small God Leads to Big Problems

• Gaining by Losing:  Why the Future Belongs to Churches That Send (2015)

• Gospel:  Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary (2011)

• Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart:  How to Know for Sure You Are Saved (2013)

• Jesus, Continued … Why the Spirit Inside You Is Better Than Jesus Beside You (2014)

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR

entrepreneur

Jon Kontz is a process-driven entrepreneur in the Philadelphia area with ventures in real estate, service industry and health-tech.

Company/Organization:
Various companies in the design+build industry

• Kontz Holdings LLC, Active real estate and angel investor

• PLANT, Founder of a design+build platform white-labeled for retailers

• Blockit, Co-Founder of a health tech company

Books regularly referenced:

• Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

• What’s Best Next, Matt Perman

• Culture Making, Andy Crouch

• Sprint, Jake Knapp

LINKS

• LinkedIn