by Henry Kaestner

When people ask me what I mean by a “faith driven entrepreneur”….the types of people that we look to serve here at FDE,  I talk about the intentionality of the leader to run a business for the glory of God.  Knowing that that answer often comes across as too ambiguous, I typically follow it up with the following:

“They are people that are willing to share with others “why” they do what they do…that they do business to honor God, they ask if it’s ok to pray with their employees they know are going through crisis, and they oftentimes have a corporate chaplain.”  This answer is waaay too simplistic, and yet it gets at some common attributes.  This video gets at one of those 3.  It’s delivered by Casey Crawford, the CEO of Movement Mortgage, a mortgage company with more than 4,000 employees across 47 states.  He’s done business with God at the core, and at scale.  He can’t recommend chaplaincy more, nor can I.

by Missy Wallace

One crisp fall morning in Nashville, six CEOs of entrepreneurial enterprises gathered to discuss their woe of the week. While the conversation started with the idle chit-chat of kids, traffic and weather change, an awkward silence overtook the room when our facilitator led with, “so what is really going on this week….”

Eyes diverted to the floor. The silence lasted and lasted. Typically one to fill the air with commentary, I had to bite my tongue to allow the discomfort to encourage vulnerability. Finally, John, a CEO usually full of theological wisdom and confidence, shakily shared, “I think this is really the week.”

He was referring to the week when the precarious house of cards might really fall. When the receivables aren’t coming in. When the cash on hand might not cover payroll. When that clinch “investor” is leaning towards a “no thank you,” and the bank is calling the line. The week when he just might have to call it quits. Pack up. Send 30 people home with pink slips.

Somewhere around his second sentence, the tears started falling, brushed with hints of both anger and hope. “Why the f*&$ did I leave a senior position at Google to serve God as a CEO if this is the outcome?… But I feel God is in this.”

Moments later, another CEO, David, sheepishly and after much cajoling, confessed that he would be experiencing his first “major liquidity event” later that week – “a low seven figure payout, not life changing, but significant.” To our surprise, he continued with his own vocal shake, “I know this seems really weird, but I am actually jealous of John right now.”

We all sat stunned. Again, awkward extended silence.

David went on, “The money makes me feel like a king. And that I need to do it again and again. I do not feel close to God…..It’s hard to be dependent on God when I just created this for myself. If I do not handle this with extreme caution, it could push me from God.”

Some say life in our weekly meeting, Entrepreneur Support Group, can occasionally seem like an AA meeting since the emotional vacillation of “entrepreneurism” can feel like something from which to recover. “I am Jane, I am an entrepreneur. I vacillate between my vision of “it” working, bringing me wealth, fame, and of course making the world a better place…… And utter despair, because I am terrible, I cannot get it done, and it’s going to fail.”

And that vacillation is weekly, if not daily or sometimes even hourly. It is the norm for the call of “entrepreneur.”

In an article in Inc. Magazine titled “The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship,” Toby Thomas, CEO of EnSite Solutions likens the CEO role to riding beasts, 

“‘People look at (the CEO) and think, This guy’s really got it together! He’s brave!’ says Thomas. ‘And the man riding the lion is thinking, How the hell did I get on a lion, and how do I keep from getting eaten?’”

What is it about entrepreneurship that creates the swinging pendulum? Does entrepreneurship create the vacillation or is the person hard wired to the role and its consequences? And does the pendulum swing include turning to and from God?

Our group has found that some “liturgical” practices can reduce the swings.

1. Support and Be Supported

Being a start-up CEO requires many situations where communication between aspiration and reality can diverge. Don’t create more than necessary. Surround yourself with other Christian entrepreneurs trying to work through what being dependent on God looks like in the context of building a business. Our group meets weekly with two facilitators to discuss key stressors in the business. We do not intend to solve the marketing problems, or advise each other on investor contract details – rather, we offer Kingdom perspective. We reiterate what God says about success and failure – about our worth. We anchor each other in God’s story instead of our own. As important, avoid groups which encourage you to posture unnecessarily about how well you and your company are doing.

2. Understand God’s Word on Your Calling

Arm yourself with a theology of entrepreneurism. Understand what God says about work (we were created for it), and creativity (it came from him and is a gift to steward), leadership (we are given opportunities to love people places and things to life), wealth (in and of itself it is not evil, but making it a god is), brokenness (we are broken, systems are broken), and startups (creating something out of nothing is God’s first act on the first page of the Bible).

3. Self Reflect: Understand your personal areas of brokenness

Are you feeling jealous or overly controlling? Is your anxiety spinning out of control? Is fear taking over? Are you soothing yourself with alcohol, social media, or excessive work hours? See those as symptoms to your root areas of brokenness. Take one symptom and keep asking, “why, why, why.” For instance, Why am I jealous? Because I am scared their company will thrive and mine will fail? Well, why am I scared? Because if it fails my reputation might be ruined? Well, why does that matter? What do I need? Why? Ultimately our brokenness leads back to the fact that we either do not believe that God is in control, do not believe we are his adopted children and he plans for our good, or we do not feel good enough for him without performance. (P.S. Psalm 73 is a great balm for jealousy.)

4. Industry Reflect: How does your industry and company at their best align with God’s character?

Financial services can show God’s sense of order; entertainment can show His creativity. What about yours? What problems does it solve? Likewise, where are systems and processes not aligned with God? Are people extorted? Is greed a problem? Is the earth exploited? Can you shine light on the brokenness? Can you engage differently?

5. Stop Dreaming of Quitting

In one group meeting, one CEO queried, “how many of you dream of quitting every week?” All raised their hands. Every. Single. One. By understanding that thought pattern as the norm can help you carry-on steadfastly, until you believe God wants you to stop.

6. Create Listening Rhythms

One of the questions we are most asked is “How do we know what God is telling us to do?” And our response is, “Are you making time to listen?” In addition to regular involvement with a church and personal devotional time with Scripture, we encourage the practice of a regular day of silence – a whole day. Ours consist of silently marinating on two Scriptures for six hours. No strategic planning, no to-do list making, no catching up on reading. Only time with Jesus. It renders peace, confidence, further belief in God, and likewise leadership encouragement. As the day approaches, everything can tell us to skip – too much to do at work, a child is sick, the company website is down, the lawyers have an issue. Mother Teresa, while building great networks of poverty alleviation which required incredible busyness, committed to the practice as noted by her comment, “In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. … Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”

And Most Important

7. Your Treasure is the Key to Peace

Does “upside” really matter? Do you really believe that God has your best in store for you? Do you really believe that you are good enough because you are a child of God? Do you believe your company is His for you to steward? Can you believe that the company’s success or failure is not who you are? Rarely have I met a CEO who can live in these beliefs hour to hour and day to day, but some are on their way because they are grounded in Christ.

And that sense of calm, that only Jesus can offer….well it’s like taming the lion you’re riding. By the way, it’s been a year, and John’s company is still alive.

(Entrepreneur Support Group, co-led by Missy Wallace and Ken Edwards, is a project of the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work, an organization dedicated to helping individuals and groups integrate their Christian faith into their day-to-day work in a way that brings about human and organizational flourishing.)

Note: Some small details of the opening anecdote are changed to protect confidentiality.

A Reflection from A Guilty Mom Who Has Help

by Brittany Norman

A nanny. A housekeeper. A gardener/yard person.  A cook.  Your “staff” may have multiple roles and/or have different names.  But they all serve a similar purpose:  you need help managing your life. 

That phrase alone can conjure up different emotions for you.  Some of you may easily embrace the idea of needing help; others of us struggle to embrace that need.  Why? Because we are people who are highly competent and capable and CAN do it all, right?  We run businesses, right?  We manage people and finances and client relationships and maybe travel and juggle lots.  But we still need help.  Especially at home.  At least I do. 

So even if you come to terms and embrace the idea that you need help with life and family and kids and cleaning and can come to think of that as managing another business (with staff), you may have friends or family who don’t agree or from whom you feel judgment. 

We have lived in three different cities in our married life and our business life.  In one city, everyone I knew had help—people who wanted to work were easy to find and there wasn’t social stigma about having household help.  But then we moved to our current smaller city.  I walked into it with two children and a full-plus-time job and expected to find all the same help I had before.  They weren’t here. Not only that, I quickly got the vibe that that was for the rich and famous.  Many moms didn’t work outside the home and I heard more than one time how cleaning their homes and having everything well-organized for their husband when he came home was how they contributed and served their family.  Yikes.  Did that mean I wasn’t serving my husband and family, or worse, the Lord?  Was I not being a good steward? Was I a failure because I truly couldn’t do it all on my own? 

No.  To all that guilt-speak and more!  My journey was different than some of my friends’!  And neither journey was/is “better or worse”. It’s just different. 

When our second child was born, a friend shared a book with me: A Housekeeper is Cheaper Than a Divorce by Kathy Fitzgerald Sherman.  I confess I never read the entire thing, but the premise struck a cord that I have shared with women for the last 17 years:  it’s okay to need and have help.  Having help to clean or cook or iron or help with kids and laundry and driving is okay and does not mean that you are not capable of doing all those things. It does not mean that if you have some or all that help you are somehow an inferior wife, mother and Christian steward.  It means you need help.  And that’s an okay place to be.  Some of you will meet those needs with family help; some of you will pay for outside help.  Either way, it does not make you a bad mom or wife. 

We chose for me to start a company and work full-plus-time and travel domestically and internationally for weeks at a time for many years. And we chose to have five children and we chose for my husband to work full-time also.  While the management and oversight of our home and family falls primarily to me, we share the day-to-day jobs.  AND we have help.  For both of us!

What we found is that helpers are valuable to the smooth running of our household and I honestly am a better mom and wife when I have some help with toilets and dust.  Even in the stretches when we have had to make financial choices, the helpers were the last to be cut from the budget.  And the reality is that those individuals who have come and gone from our home and our lives have become part of our family.  We have been co-laborers in our home and we have been able to love them and get to know their families as well as them knowing ours. 

Do I still have friends who struggle with guilt at having a housekeeper come clean once/month?  Yes.  Do they possibly think I’m a little decadent because I have someone help me several times a week?  Maybe….if they actually were staring at my life and evaluating it.    And that’s another key point.  People are not evaluating you and your choices nearly as much as you might think they are.  And if they are, that’s not your issue.    

The choices you make for your family are between you and your husband and God. 

Throughout scripture, we see God commending both the workers and the employers; we see parables about paying fair wages to people who help us and us bearing a responsibility for them just as you would your employees in your professional company.  Throughout the Epistles, Paul commends his helpers at the end of every letter to the churches and the Romans.  These helpers were important to the work of God and the literal Word of God—Paul needed help carrying his letters to the churches (and that’s how we have Romans and Corinthians and Galatians, etc..!). 

If you grew up in a Christian household, you know every young girl was encouraged to be a “Proverbs 31” woman some day. But let’s talk about that woman.  She is an entrepreneur; she works day and night; she is smart; she is innovative; she dresses well and takes care of herself and her family’s needs; her husband adores her; she needs and has helpers and she oversees them and cares for them too.  Does that mean that you aren’t a Proverbs 31 woman if you don’t have a paying job outside the home? No way.  It means, whatever our calling is from the Lord as women, we do it full on and well—in and out of the home.  And if we have help executing it all—then we do that for God’s glory and as His stewards. 

Years ago I learned the practice of “owning” the need for help—I think of it as part of my sanctification by the Holy Spirit as He’s moved me one degree at a time away from my pride and independence and guilt speak, and one degree at a time toward my dependence on Him and understanding that His call and journey to me is for me (not anyone else’s).  I need help. I can’t do it all.  It is okay to have support staff to do it all as well as I want to. 

I’m grateful for a husband who shares a lot of the household and family work and who has been supportive of us having outside help as we’ve needed it—but even his support didn’t always alleviate the guilt; only the Holy Spirit can do that for me.  Mostly the journey is about keeping my eyes fixed on the Father; not looking to the right or the left and comparing what you think someone else is doing or capable of doing.  Do what He has called you to do. 

If you need and have staff, be an above reproach household manager. Teach your children to respect and be grateful for those who help because as I’ve tried to teach ours – they are here to help me, not my kids (the kids have all had to clean toilets and do their laundry and sweep and dust).  And don’t allow the lies from Satan to sneak in and tell you that you are inferior because you need help or that others do it better, or you are spoiled or not capable of doing what God has called you to; or that you aren’t a good wife and mom.  Be where God has you today and do it well.  Stay fixed.  Press on/in.  More to come!

…

Editor’s Note: If you liked this piece from Brittany, we encourage you to check out her other FDE blogs as well —

FDE Blog – “I can’t do play dates” and Other Mantra of the Working Mom
FDE Blog – Seasons Change…But God

Thanks to Seb Kamel and Unsplash for the cover photo

by Johnny Shiu

In this week’s episode …

https://faithdrivenentrepreneur.simplecast.fm/

… we have a SPECIAL GUEST!  Missy Wallace, Executive Director at the Nashville Institute for Faith & Work (NIFW) joins us and gives us her insights into the convergence of faith and work.  She tells us a bit about her own journey, how she developed her theology of faith and work, the founding of NIFW and how she is equipping entrepreneurs today. 

One unique takeaway is that Missy noticed how in Genesis, we see that God basically brought structure from chaos.  Similarly, Missy observed that in the marketplace entrepreneurs’ job is also to bring structure from chaos.  

Throughout the interview, Missy will tell us of stories of various entrepreneurs who have been part of NIFW’s entrepreneur support group and how they have grappled with the ups and downs of their chosen career path.  These stories range from an entrepreneur coming into a 7-figure event being scared of wealth, to an entrepreneur wrestling with a bankruptcy, to a woman who knew she was called to elderly healthcare from the age of 16.

The program is a 12-week closed group where participants agree to a 90% attendance rate.  The program includes a video curriculum with faith and work theology.  However more than anything else, the group provides a place where the masks can come off; participants can process the anxiety/stress with running a company; they can stop posturing and practice honesty with one another.  

In redefining success (from a worldly one to a Kingdom one), Missy has found that these entrepreneurs find more peace in their work.  For the faith driven entrepreneur, it’s not about the score all the time.  Like raising children, the parent can’t just singularly focus on results; they should enjoy the process of their child’s growth as well.

In sum, the NIFW provides a great resource to support entrepreneurs who need community and spiritual encouragement. 

And, Missy is a great storyteller … join us to hear more!

Subscribe on ITunes or Other

In the week’s episode Henry, Rusty, and William talk with Missy Wallace of Nashville Institue for Faith & Work and she gives her insights into the convergence of faith and work.  She tells us a bit about her own journey, how she developed her theology of faith and work, the founding of NIFW and how she is equipping entrepreneurs today. 

Show Notes for Episode 17

by John Elliot

Two months ago, I woke up as lead pastor of Christ Community—a church I helped plant in 2011 with two of my closest friends. This morning I woke up as COO of FarmAfield—an ag tech company that is using software to create new connections between farmers and investors. At first glance, these may seem like two very different ventures and, in many ways, they are. At Christ Community, I spent my days preparing sermons, counseling congregants, and officiating weddings. In my new role at FarmAfield, I spend my time pitching investors, interviewing customers, and helping to develop software. The differences are so stark that even I wondered how much I’d be able to draw from the former as I engaged in the latter.

But it wasn’t long into my time with FarmAfield that some old, very familiar doubts came rushing back:

“Did God really call me to this? “Why is it so hard?” “Was I foolish to leave a situation that was safe and secure? “Wouldn’t someone else be more competent in my role?” “Does anybody want what we’re creating? “What if we fail?”

If you have ever tried creating something new (and I know most of you have), you can probably relate to these fears and add a few of your own. As Andy Crouch points out in his excellent book Culture Making, entrepreneurship is nothing less than “moving the horizons of possibility”. This is a noble and exciting calling, but one that often comes with its fair share of fears, insecurities, and doubts.

So how is a faith-driven entrepreneur to respond when caught in the midst of one of these psychological storms? I certainly don’t have the final answer to this question, but I will share with you three exhortations I preach to myself every morning that serve to anchor my soul. May God use them to bring you a sense of peace as you press forward in your entrepreneurial journey.

1. Be thankful for the opportunity.

No matter how difficult or discouraging the present circumstances, there are always evidences of God’s grace. I just have to stop to look for them. I regularly thank him for the lessons I’m learning, the relationships I’m forging, and the many ways he’s using this experience to shape me into Christ’s likeness. If you stop and observe, I’ll bet you too can list a number of ways God is being gracious to you in the midst of present trials. As faith-driven entrepreneurs, we get to move forward with the conviction that regardless of whether or not our venture ultimately “succeeds”, there is never waste in God’s economy. Remembering this truth regularly unleashes a tangible sense of gratitude in my spirit.

2. Be confident in your calling.

Tim Keller once shared a definition of calling I found to be refreshingly simple. “How do you know if you’re truly called to do something?” he asked. “If you’re doing it.” That answer may sound trite, but it is filled with wisdom.

As Christians, we worship a sovereign God who works out everything for his good purposes. That means there is nothing accidental about your current venture, team, or role. So go forward in confidence, trusting that—at least for today—you’re where God wants you to be doing what God wants you to do.

3. Be faithful with the day in front of you.

If you’ve been around sports at all in your life, you’ve probably heard the adage, “One game at a time.” The sentiment is so ubiquitous that the typical sports fan will roll his or her eyes upon hearing it. But in my experience with entrepreneurship, there is a lot of truth in it. Thinking about what needs to happen next month or next week or even the next day can be overwhelming, especially early on in a start-up when so much is coming at you. But something feels very different about asking the question “What does faithfulness look like today?”. Not only does this question focus my attention on the actionable steps in front of me. But it also reminds me that my job is stewarding opportunities, not manufacturing outcomes.

Benediction

As a final “benediction” of sorts, I’d like to share an excerpt from Douglas Kaine McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy. This particular passage comes from a liturgy about fearing failure and reads:

“If your greatest good is to bear in fuller measure the image of your Lord, then might not his greatest and most holy good to you come cloaked in guise of defeat and dismay? And if that is your Lord’s sacred intention, then who is to say how great a success even your failures might be, when read aright at last in the chronicles of eternity? So relinquish now all vain attempt to parse the mysteries of God’s intent. You can not think his thoughts. You can not reckon his deep purposes. It is enough to know that all he does is done in love for you.”

Photo by Harry Karoussos on Unsplash