by Dr. Hubert Morken

I have had the great honor of being welcomed in to the Morken family with open arms since David and I became partners in 2000.  I’ll never forget the bear hug that Dr. Morken greeted me with in the airport back in 1999.  One of the greatest gifts we can give to our employees is the opportunity to create, lead and love great families.  The Morkens are an incredible example of that.  When I received the following from Dr. Morken, I knew that I had to share it.    I know that it’ll impact the way that I lead my family, and encourage the leaders of families that work with us.  I hope it’ll do the same for you (HK)

Hubert Morken, Notes for Reunion Comments, July 2018

                                       Great Families

                                “I belong to the God of the mountains,

                                  I belong to the God of the seas,

                                  I belong to the God of the universe,

                                  and He belongs to me.”

The Promise to Abraham, Genesis: 12:2,3.  “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 

God creates families.  The human race comes from one family, Adam and Eve.  Biology —genetic study — tends to confirm this idea.  Israel descends from two people, Abraham and Sarah.  History tends to confirm this story.  Looking ahead we see another family forming. The hymn “God and Man at Table are Sat Down”, written by Bob Stamps, a friend, celebrates the wedding feast of the Lamb, a marriage celebration for the family of God.  The Bible affirms this.  And then there is the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God.  So God Himself is the source of families and He is part of a family.

The children of Adam and Eve, i.e. all human beings, create or enter a family in three ways, marriage, birth, or adoption.  My family, Mary and I, constitute a family with 200,000 relatives, discovered, named, and documented, deceased and alive, with more coming, each of you counted among them, like grains of sand or stars in the sky.  I have met and talked to 6 generations of my family from grandparents to great grandchildren, with lots of siblings, uncles and aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews and so on.  Mary has talked with 7 of her generations.  To put this in perspective, Jesus lived in Israel a mere 80 or so generations ago.

We relatives of David and Helen live in a great family not just a large family.  There are many families but few great families, something in all confidence and humility to consider.  Before we fight about what I just said, let’s ask two questions, one, “What is a great family?; and two, How are great families formed?” 

What is a great family?  A great family inherits the future and contributes to the well being of others.  That’s my definition, rooted Biblically in Genesis 12 and 22 and in secular history.  

Inheriting the Future:  Often families last for two, three, or four generations and then fade away.  This is considered normal.  Great families persist longer, some much longer, and in the case of Israel are 4000 years old and counting.  Each generation in a great family pushes itself forward into the future treasuring itself, and its heritage.  A great family is forward looking, fundamentally optimistic.  Our mother Helen used to say that the Christian faith is always one generation away from extinction, one breath from death.  She reminds us to run the relay race i.e. to pass the baton forward, not to drop it.  She was conscious of generational power and vulnerability during the hand-off.

Keep in mind, the greatest families embrace the distant future.  Abraham and Sarah were told their children would be as the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashores.  All great families have the long view—they sacrifice for the future.  In fact, they are built on sacrifice, each generation preparing for the future.  (Note: Jordan B. Peterson’s Genesis lectures). 

The second characteristic of family greatness is positive world-wide influence.  Grandpa Andrew Mitchell made a plaque with one word “Bless”, a word which means “to give something of value, respectfully”.  From God’s point of view all families are meant to bless others, to give, but to be great a family’s “bless” horizon extends past what you can see to reach the nations of the earth.    These families travel, or their influence travels, through time and space, encompassing history and geography, leaping language and ethnic barriers.

Families survive, thrive, and give out of their greatness.  That is their blueprint, their action plan.

The second question is “How are such families formed?”  The best explanation is in plain sight, under our nose.  It is “obedience”.  Genesis 22:18 says “because you have obeyed my voice.”  Because what?  The text reads, the nations will be blessed because “you have obeyed my voice”.  I can say confidently, observing our family for seven plus decades, obedience is the not-so-secret sauce of Helen Michell and David Morken, who together merged two great families, the Morken’s and the Mitchell’s.  

But, I ask, which commandments produced this greatness, this power to survive, this imperative to bless?  Obedience as some abstract idea produces nothing or worse it can destroy everything, in fact I will comment on this truth later.

It is said, “The devil is in the details”.  I say “Greatness is in the details”.  The details are in five commandments given by God to our families.  When followed — year by year — common clay is transformed into something else.    

1. The First Commandment, Genesis 1 & 2:  Men and women are to marry, leave their parents, make babies, and work creatively to produce in this earth a garden, a home.  Each part of this creation mandate is tough.  Which of the four elements of the first commandment is most difficult for you to do today, to marry, leave parents, make babies, work creatively?  All four are essential to form a healthy new generation.  Note:  Those who do not marry are always part of the family, for all time, never alone, intensely needed, honored, and appreciated, fully integrated into the nuclear and extended family — called to be fruitful and mission driven, they help to drive us forward.

2. The Greatest Commandment, Deuteronomy 6: 5:  “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  There is nothing boring or stultifying about those words.  Centering your whole being on the one God requires exercise, commitment, imagination — for us, more like becoming a professional soccer player than a spectator; on the field, in the World Cup, not merely in the grandstands.

3. The Second Greatest Commandment, Mark 12: 31.  ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  Greatness must be grounded.  You cannot despise yourself and bless others or ignore others and hope to influence the world.

4. The New Commandment, John 13: 34.  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”  Reciprocal love, giving it and receiving it, modeled on Christ, is the nuclear power of the New Testament Church that out-lasted the Roman Empire and expanded its borders.  

5. The Last Commandment, Matthew 28:19-20.  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Evangelism, missions, instruction, are all anchored here by Jesus in consistent obedience to commandments, a pattern of living.  

Greatness starts with obedience, obedience begins with hearing the voice of God and all three combine to bless — to give something of value, respectfully, to all families and nations.

These five commandments produce staying power and profound influence.  The interplay between them is amazing…..a subject for another time.

In ending, here are two cautionary notes:  First, one great person, a genius, an apostle, a musician, a legend can come from an ordinary family or barely any family at all.  Abraham Lincoln qualifies.  God delights in surprising us, creating something out of nothing, launching greatness out of Nazareth, out of a Kentucky log cabin with dirt floors.  Nevertheless, great families are special too.  They are productive, fruitful, accomplished, and sprinkled among them will be extraordinary heroes, rare people of faith that we remember and celebrate.  See Hebrews 11.  

Second:  Obedience can crush individuality, destroy uniqueness, obliterate creativity.  This is true, especially true, if your god is tradition, if your god is family, if your god is success, or pleasure, or security, or self — all false gods.  But if your Lord is the creator, the covenant maker, the savior, the restorer of  everything, He sets you free by grace and obedience because He wants you to carve a personal destiny, where your mark in history, is yours, and no one else’s to make.  No two people the same, we are stunningly different, each made in His likeness, each valuable, each loaded for impact.  One Rebecca, one Miriam, one Hannah, one Mary

     “Obey.  Be great.  Bless.  Bless.  Be great.  Obey.  Hear the voice of God.”

The Promise to Abraham, Genesis: 12:2,3.  “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 

                                 “I belong to the God of the mountains,

                                   I belong to the God of the seas,

                                   I belong to the God of the universe,

                                   and He belongs to me.”

                                                      Family Song 

by Henry Kaestner

So, a bit on the lighter side on this, one of the last weekends of Summer….Alpenhorn by great friend of FDE: Wilf Gasser!

by Chris Horst

as originally posted at Christianity Today

Brian Rants never thought his contribution to the world would be a $15 lamp. But for schoolchildren in Swaziland and earthquake survivors in Haiti, these solar lamps have made all the difference. Rants’s Denver-based company—Nokero, short for “no kerosene”—have allowed African students to read at night and increased safety for Haitian families living in tent cities. As vice president of marketing, Rants’s job is to get these lamps into the hands of millions of families in the developing world.

Since its founding in 2010, Nokero has sold over half a million solar lights and chargers in 120 countries, but Rants believes their work has just begun. With over a billion people worldwide still using kerosene as their primary fuel source, the need is vast. In a comprehensive study on the industry, The Economist lauded solar lights as the next big innovation for the world’s poor, noting that solar lighting is “falling in price, improving in quality and benefiting from new business models that make it more accessible and affordable to those at the bottom of the pyramid. And its spread is sustainable because it is being driven by market forces, not charity.”

Nokero’s lamps replace the need for kerosene lighting and eliminate the sweeping problems that accompany its use. Annually, over 1.5 million people die from complications arising from indoor air pollution. Over a million of these deaths are from kerosene fires. When individuals live with kerosene lamps, they experience the same health effects of smoking 40 cigarettes a day.

When Rants graduated from Grace College in 2001 with a Bible degree in hand, he didn’t want to “settle” by pursuing a business career. A decade later, Rants works at a for-profit company.

“I am very surprised to find myself in business,” Rants says. “Business seemed to be a backup plan to being a missionary. Or being a pastor like I thought I would be. It seemed like business people were just ‘extras’ in God’s story, rather than lead or even supporting actors.”

Over the past ten years, Rants worked for a number of nonprofits and churches. After going through graduate school, however, he began to discover the ways enterprise is improving the lives of the poor around the world. Rants excitedly joined Nokero, equipped with a restored vision of vocation. Through leveraging his knack for marketing, Rants fights poverty not just through his volunteerism and philanthropy, but inherently through his work in business.

“The world changes by people doing work—whatever that work might be—with all their heart and might,” he says. “That’s not God’s Plan B. That’s plan A. . . . I began to discover how God made me. And I realized I am not a creative, entrepreneurial person by accident, but by design.”

Alongside reimagining business vocationally, Rants also started reimagining the role of business itself. What he once viewed as an adversary to the war on poverty, he now sees as a vital ally. His perception early in his career was that big business, multinational corporations, and globalization worked against the poor.

“Once I actually studied this in graduate school, I was shocked,” Rants shared. “Not only is business not ‘the bad guy,’ it’s the primary reason poverty has decreased so substantially over the past 50 years. Nothing has undermined poverty, tyrannies, and injustice more than open and free markets. It is the only system proven to actually do that over the long-term.”

Yale University and The Brookings Institution released a staggering study bolstering Rants’s conviction. According to the study, in 1981, 52 percent of the world’s population was unable to provide for their basic needs like housing and food, living below the “extreme poverty line.” By the end of 2011, just 30 years later, the number had plummeted to 15 percent. The reasons they cited for the unprecedented drop in poverty are “the rise of globalization, the spread of capitalism and the improving quality of economic governance.” This, the researchers describe, is the “potent combination” behind the tumbling poverty levels.

Even activists who were once critical of business recant their old positions. Bono—the lead singer of U2 and vocal advocate for the poor—recently admitted this “humbling realization.”

“[I’m a] rock-star preaching capitalism. Wow. Sometimes I hear myself and I just can’t believe it,” Bono shared last month at a technology conference. “Commerce is real . . . aid is just a stopgap. Commerce—entrepreneurial capitalism—takes more people out of poverty than aid.”

Nokero believes their for-profit approach is ultimately the most helpful for the families they serve. Research indicates those who buy a solar product take much better care of it than those who are given it for free. It’s also a smart long-term financial decision for these families to buy their products.

The average family off the electric grid spends 10% of their income on kerosene, with many spending up to 25%. When Nokero customers buy the $15 solar lamps, they recoup the purchase price in a few months—sometimes just weeks—from the fuel savings alone. Nokero joins an array of companies taking a new approach to the many needs and opportunities faced by poor families around the world.

D.Light Design, launched in 2007 by a group of five graduate students at Stanford University, is one such company, launched when designer Xianyi Wu created a solar light prototype designed for the developing world.

For Wu, the path to founding D.Light stalled many times. In December 2006, while attending the Urbana missions conference, Wu sensed God prodding him to persevere with his idea. He did. Five years later, D.Light has provided light to over ten million people around the world and created a market for companies like Nokero.

“Nonprofits that were in this industry this were either giving them away or highly subsidizing them because the design and business approach was so poorly done,” Wu says. “Handouts haven’t worked. Giving stuff away hasn’t changed anything. We asked: ‘What would happen if we leveraged capitalism and great design to reach more people?’ When we launched D.Light, we were able to prove that we could deliver a high-quality product at a very low price point.”

Some activists accuse companies like D.Light and Nokero of profiting off the poor, but these companies believe they’re profiting with the poor. These companies sell lights in places others are unable or unwilling to go. And Rants believes it actually gives their customers more power when they are buyers, not just receivers.

“When our customers buy a lamp from us, we become responsible to them,” Rants says. “They tell us what they like and don’t like, forcing us make our products better. If we want to stay in business, we have to respond and improve. Rightfully so, they have very high expectations from us.”

When Rants met Steve Katsaros, the inventor and CEO at Nokero, his growing conviction about commerce became real. Katsaros, a mechanical engineer with a penchant for competitive ski racing, began his colorful career by inventing several commercial products for the ski industry. In early 2010, he invented the hugely popular solar lamp, Nokero’s first product. Katsaros describes himself as an entrepreneur; Rants describes him as much more.

“He’s a remarkable poverty fighter,” Rants shared. “He designed a simple, affordable, market-based solution that addresses the needs of one-fifth of the world’s population living without reliable electricity.”

When David Livingstone, a renowned American missionary, returned from one of his trips to Africa in the 1850s, he suggested the two things the continent needed most were “Christianity and commerce.” Livingstone, a hero of the faith, believed all successful societies were built on these two pillars. For Rants, it’s taken him a few years to recognize how astute Livingstone’s suggestions truly are.

thanks to Seth Doyle and Unsplash for the cover photo

by Mike Sharrow

I grew up in Alaska, in a melting pot of transient people and cultures (there are only 17 of us genuine Alaskans).  I embarked on college then early career pursuits at a Fortune 50 company in Chicago where Christianity in the workplace was peculiar and I first wrestled with my own “sacred versus secular” frustrations.  Then, in 2006, I moved to Texas and was surprised to find out that “everybody [practically] is Christian here!” At least, I heard a lot of Christianese and there was even a Christian business chamber of commerce.  Blown away by this apparent oasis of fellow sojourners in business and the Kingdom, I began to ask every entrepreneur I could “So, what does it mean that you’re a Christ-follower running your business?”  With every answer my heart sank.

The top 5 answers I received representing scores of in person surveys:

1. I’m not afraid to say God Bless you or Merry Christmas!

2. We pay people fairly, treat people well and tell the truth (slow clap)

3. We do a good job and I give a fair bit of money away to a lot of good causes

4. Everybody knows I’m a member of Acme Really Christian Church and vote for the Bible believing political party (which I didn’t know that party existed)

5. Can’t you see the fish on my business card!?

I concluded too many people confuse being American or, in this case, Texan, with being citizens of the Kingdom of God operating as called and commission ambassadors stewarding business assets of our Father’s Holding Company for His purposes and His glory.

It wasn’t until I sat around a table of entrepreneurs at a country club in Austin, Texas in the summer of 2010 that I found humble, hungry and faithfully smart peers truly wrestling with how to follow Jesus in the very fabric of business.

What does it mean to you to be a “faith-driven entrepreneur”?  Is it about what you do with success achieved one day (philanthropy)? Is it about certain credos of conduct you abide by along the way (morality/virtue)? Is it a branding deal (icons)?  

A friend running a contracting business, Scott Barr, challenged me that there was a beautiful tension at the intersection of a Venn diagram – work as worship (business to the glory of God), business as ministry (eternal impact now), and a life in order (rightly ordered life in Christ).  That tension point is elusive and we tend to grab the circle of preference at the neglect of the other domains. The crucible of those 3 is actually the most powerful, formative discipleship experience I’ve ever experienced!

Being a faith-driven entrepreneur is not about quaint do’s and don’t, icons on materials or sacrificial gestures (so often about making ourselves feel good versus genuine worship like Zechariah charged our ancestors with).  Anchoring in the fullness of an identity in Christ, recognizing we’re just managers of God’s assets, appreciating the idea of eternal rewards and accountability for our stewardship, we must reimagine the entire “balanced scorecard” of our business and ask what does truly glorifying God in each domain, at each tactical dimension and strategic construct look like?  We use the 5 Point Alignment Matrix below as a visual paradigm to capture the breadth of this. For every dimension that may have its own dashboard, set of processes, rules and attributes – how is your faith expressed functionally?

That question catapults you into what will likely be years of discernment, experimentation and evolving mastery.  I would argue, it hijacks the common rat race of “success” into an endless adventure of faith, discovery, impact and eternal significance!

Friends, our work matters.  Results matter.  I get to serve a tribe of servant leaders across 95 metro areas, 35 states and 4 nations on 3 continents who are walking alongside over 2,100 leaders working out this same calling.  Culture matters, how we scale matters, creating a system of caring matters, and hearing from the Managing Partner daily matters.  I’ll close with some vignettes of leaders working this out imperfectly, differently and yet with great stories.

Preparing for the Unexpected & Seizing Moments for “Church” at Work

Rejecting the Greed Trap

White Collar, Administrative Mission Fields

Finding Balance & Remember “No Margin, No Mission”

An Immigrant Reaching Immigrants in Brooklyn

If I asked you what does being a “faith-driven entrepreneur” mean and look like, what would You say?

Editor’s note:  Mike is a great friend of FDE and the CEO of C12, one of the great workplace ministries in God’s Kingdom.  We’ve featured some of the stories of C12 companies before, like this one about Gary Archer.  You can learn more about Mike here, and C12 and other workplace ministries here.

Photo by Martin Shreder on Unsplash

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In the week’s episode Henry, Rusty, and William discuss how we can love on our team members through performance reviews.  As entrepreneurs, it’s highly likely that you are overseeing a team.  As Christ followers, how do we display Christ in the performance review?

Show Notes for Episode 18