When Adam LaRoche, Golden Glove Winner and Standout for the Chicago WhiteSox decided to retire from professional baseball, his decision seemed like one of the most unexpected moves in sports. But for those who know him, this move aligned perfectly with the integrity of his character. 

In today’s episode, you’re going to get a peek behind the curtain of the life of Adam LaRoche—his MLB career, the factors surrounding his decision to retire, and his journey as a Faith Driven Entrepreneur. Hear all about how he’s making an impact through his E3 Team along with other friends like Willie Robertson, Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan. 

We love talking to faith-driven athletes and faith-driven entrepreneurs, and Adam gave us a little bit of both! As always, thanks for listening.

Useful Links:

Adam LaRoche Goes Deep

Adam Laroche Speaks White Sox Exit

Buck Commander

E3 Ranch & Co.

This article was originally published here by The Christian Post

— by Eric Metaxas

Between 250 and 270 A.D. a terrible plague, believed to be measles or smallpox, devastated the Roman Empire. At the height of what came to be known as the Plague of Cyprian, after the bishop St. Cyprian who chronicled what was happening, 5,000 people died every day in Rome alone.

The plague coincided with the first empire-wide persecution of Christians under the emperor Decius. Not surprisingly, Decius and other enemies of the Church blamed Christians for the plague. That claim was, however, undermined by two inconvenient facts: Christians died from the plague like everybody else and, unlike everybody else, they cared for the victims of the plague, including their pagan neighbors.

This wasn’t new—Christians had done the same thing during the Antonine Plague a century earlier. As Rodney Stark wrote in “The Rise of Christianity,” Christians stayed in the afflicted cities when pagan leaders, including physicians, fled.

Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Notre Dame, notes that an “epidemic that seemed like the end of the world actually promoted the spread of Christianity.” By their actions in the face of possible death, Christians showed their neighbors that “Christianity is worth dying for.”

This witness came to mind after listening to a recent story on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Host Robert Siegel interviewed Stephen Rowden, who volunteered for Doctors Without Borders in Monrovia, Liberia.

Rowden’s grim task was to manage the teams that collected the bodies of Ebola victims. Rowden and his team retrieved 10-to-25 bodies a day. Since close contact with the victims is the chief means by which the usually-deadly virus is spread, Rowden and his team members lived with the risk of becoming victims themselves.

What’s more, living in the midst of this death and suffering took its toll. Rowden recalled entering a house and finding the body of a four-year-old victim who had been abandoned by her family. With the typical English understatement, he told Siegel, “I found that a very sad case.”

Rowden’s experience prompted Siegel to ask him if he was a religious man, to which Rowden replied, “I am. Yes, I’m a practicing Christian.” When Siegel then asked whether what he saw tested his faith, Rowden said that “No, I got great strength from my faith and the support of my family.”

Nearly eighteen centuries after the Plague of Cyprian, Christianity still prompts people to run towards the plague when virtually everyone else is running away.

Click here to read the full article!

For more information on COVID-19, please see our page highlighting some of the best resources out there for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs in this season.

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[Thanks to Maël BALLAND for the cover photo]

This article was originally published here by Sports Spectrum

— by Kevin Mercer

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright extended an invitation Thursday to his Twitter followers: to join him in reading through the Bible in a year.

Adam Wainwright✔@UncleCharlie50

Hey everybody. This won’t be for everyone, but it’s an important part of my life. Most of y’all probably just want to talk baseball, etc. BUT, if you want to read through the Bible with me In one year you can join my other twitter account… @walkingwwaino We’ll start Jan 12

12:53 AM – Jan 10, 2020

“Hey everybody,” Wainwright’s tweet began. “This won’t be for everyone, but it’s an important part of my life.”

The 38-year-old MLB veteran, fondly nicknamed Waino, directed those interested in joining him in his Bible-reading journey to follow @walkingwwaino, a separate Twitter account Wainwright created just for this purpose. The account has only two tweets but already more than 7,000 followers.

Walking With Waino@walkingwwaino

Hey guys, I am so glad y’all joined this group. This is a cool opportunity for me to walk through God’s Word in community with you. It’s my prayer that this would be a blessing and a daily encouragement to you all. I can’t wait to start on January 12th! – https://mailchi.mp/d603cf367c42/welcome-to-walking-with-waino …

11:50 PM – Jan 9, 2020

Wainwright and all of those who’ve decided to join him will begin their year of reading the Bible together on Sunday.

Pouring into others is something Wainwright enjoys. He said in the Spring 2019 edition of Sports Spectrum Magazine that he would likely have retired if it weren’t for the relationships he’d formed with the younger players and the experience he can pass along, both on the baseball diamond and in their faith journeys.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that if I didn’t feel so connected to this young group of pitchers coming up — and even the young position players, but especially the young pitchers — it would have almost been a no-brainer for me to walk away,” he said.

At one time, Wainwright himself was a young pitcher, learning about professional baseball and growing in his own walk with the Lord.

“In 2002, I decided to go to a conference in Dallas, Texas,” Wainwright said on the Sports Spectrum Podcast in 2017. “‘I really don’t want to be here, but I’m going to listen and we’ll see what happens.’ I just know that God had me there for a reason and I was meant to be there. Everything in my life led to that conference.

“During the night sermon, the pastor was preaching on the relationship that was meant to be with Jesus. And for whatever reason, God finally opened my ears and I bought in on the spot. As I was listening to him talk, it sunk in and it punched me right in the face, and it punched me so hard that I had to look around and make sure that I wasn’t talking to Jesus himself.”

Now with his Bible-reading initiative, Wainwright has encouraged thousands of others to experience the same closeness to God he did so many years ago. And even while he works to make an eternal impact for the Kingdom, Wainwright’s impact on the mound and in the Cardinals clubhouse will last for at least another year.

In November, he signed a one-year contract to return to the team in 2020. It will be his 15th major-league season, excluding the 2011 season he missed due to Tommy John surgery.

The Atlanta Braves selected Wainwright in the first round of the 2000 MLB Draft. His first MLB appearance came with St. Louis in 2005, and he has pitched for the Cardinals ever since. Over his 15-year career, Wainwright has posted a 3.39 ERA with 1,776 career strikeouts.

“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…” — 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)

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[Special thanks to Matt Marton for the cover photo]

We continue to count down the Top 100 Books for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs with…

Deep Work

by Cal Newport

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. DEEP WORK is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.

Click on the book cover to check out the Reviews and Purchase at Amazon

—by Faith Driven Entrepreneur Team

We at FDE are constantly impressed at our fellow faith-driven partner Rightnow Media’s ability to create content that is both timely and meaningful. During this time of global concern, they want to support your business as you care for your team. So, they’re offering everyone free access to a limited library of content on  RightNow Media @ Work. We highly encourage you to take a look at their resources as you plan for your own businesses, lead and care for employees but also take care of yourself during this time of uncertainty.

RightNow Media @ Work (RNM) is a voluntary, faith-based video library designed with employees in mind. From topics like leadership, parenting, and finances, RightNow Media @ Work is relevant to everyone on your team. Every member of your team — and their families — can benefit from RightNow Media @ Work. And it’s available on all their favorite devices, whenever they need it.

This is a simple way to care for your employees and cultivate a healthy team. 

A big thank you to RNM for informing us! We hope you are as blessed as we are. 

This article was originally published here by Crossroads Church

— by Luke Dooley

We’re living in an unprecedently unique time for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit. We’ll never forget the days we’re currently living, and I do not minimize the hardship and stress. But as the president of a business accelerator for start-up companies, I can’t help but notice the innate wiring God has designed in us for moments just like this.

We’ve created new terms like social distancing and self-isolation. We’ve created new rhythms and patterns in our life. We’ve created new ways of staying fit. We’ve created new ways of worshiping. We’ve created new ways of doing our work and connecting with people. I gathered with nine of my close friends last night for a bourbon tasting—in front of my computer on a Zoom call. Oh, and the memes. We’ve created so many memes that have become a source of great levity in many group text threads in my house.

This is what we do. We create. We can’t help ourselves. We’re hardwired, hand-built, wonderfully created to create. It’s because we’re fashioned in the image of the Creator. The One who breathes new life into dust, speaks cosmos into existence, and never ceases in making all things new.

He created. He creates. We’re created. We create.

These days of tumult will be long remembered. Historians will write about the 2019/2020 pandemic. There will be books and articles and podcasts that catalog the highlights and the lowlights of this cultural moment.

Here’s my question:

What will mark our personal memories of this season? When we look back, will we have feelings of regret because our memories are marked by fear, anxiety, sloth, mis-living, ineffectiveness, gluttony, social media swamps, and Netflix binging?

Or—

Will we remember these days as ones we resolved to embrace the moment and extract from each day the unique blessing and opportunity this season brings?

“If only I could work from home where I could create my own pace.”
“If only I didn’t have a commute.”
“If only I could stop working so much on the daily work of my business so I could work on the underlying foundation and future strategy.”
“I wish I had more time at home with my kids.”
“I wish my spouse and I shared a common schedule.”
“I wish life would slow down so I could enjoy the little things more.”
“I wish I had more time for prayer, worship, scripture.”
“I wish buying toilet paper was more like a scavenger hunt.”

Not sure about you, but these are all things I’ve dreamed about as a husband, father, leader, and follower of Jesus. There will be much loss in this season we’re in, but I believe opportunity abounds.

Maybe you don’t feel much hope right now. Maybe the entrepreneur mindset of turning need into innovation doesn’t feel like your sweet spot. Wherever you are on the spectrum of wrecked to inspired, we will all have rough days. There is a tool each of us can tap into for help.

Last week, I could feel myself being pulled into the warp zone; fear, anxiety, loss, unproductive hours, woe are we. Then I looked at my bookshelf and saw a daily devotional focused on gratitude and the daily riches of God’s grace in our lives (One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp). I picked it up, started reading this morning, and found myself immediately rooted in gratitude and grace.

Our mindset matters now, maybe more than ever. Gratitude is central to our ability to make the most of this moment. Find gratitude in the midst of the storm. As Ann reminds in the opening of her book: it is by leaning straight into the wind, we are able to take flight.

Waters rage. Uncertainty swells. The wind batters. The storm takes on the form of CNN, FoxNews, Twitter, Facebook, and empty grocery store shelves.

And in the midst of all those things, we have the ability to give thanks, to find hope, and to order our days. We can embrace our role as co-creators with the Author of all things as he makes all things new.

I saw these words this week and can’t escape them: “Old Keys Won’t Open New Doors.” As we pray and accept daily gratitude, may we fashion new keys and unlock love, grace, creativity, innovation, rhythms, neighboring, in ways unimaginable prior to thinking that Corona was anything other than a sub-standard, but well-marketed beer.

For more information on COVID-19, please see our page highlighting some of the best resources out there for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs in this season.

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[Thanks to Alice Dietrich for the cover photo]