by Johnny Shiu

This week’s episode

A pastor is in a unique position to influence his leaders who are in the marketplace in many different ways, and this week we turn out attention to how a pastor might support entrepreneurship within his congregation.

This week, Henry, and William interview special guest, Pastor Andy Wood of Echo Church, about his journey in ministry and the world of entrepreneurship.

Andy is lead pastor of Echo Church located in San Jose, California, just south of San Francisco.   Early on, he was influenced by his father who was a business owner.  He recalled watching his father going through the “highs” and the “lows” of running a business. He saw that back in those days there was really no place for an entrepreneur in the Church for someone like his father.  That is, the pastors he knew did not know how to empower local faith centered entrepreneurs.

Today, Andy’s vision with his ministry is to partner with entrepreneurs because he believes that business has the ability to transform culture and entrepreneurs will have a leading role.  Andy explains that he does many things to equip his entrepreneurial congregants – from simple encouragement to preaching relevant messages to holding conferences.  A fascinating stat is that his most recent conference had a 50/50 split between Christ-followers and non Christ followers because the content was top notch.

This leads into a discussion about how a church leader should start their journey by finding those business leaders within the congregation that share a similar heart.  Connect with them and listen.  Take them out to lunch and try to learn from them.  Andy said that he noticed that business leaders and entrepreneurs are some of the most lonely people and are highly anxious.  They experience high stress and tremendous pressure.  They need a pastor even though they may represent themselves like they have it all together.

Ultimately, Andy stressed that a pastor needs to be convinced that business/entrepreneurs are important.  He reminisced that his father may have been able to utilize his gifts in a different way if he had more support from his church leaders.

William correctly noted that nothing could be more entrepreneurial than planting a church, and then Pastor Andy revealed that Echo had support from 17 different churches at its beginning, and that support was a huge encouragement to him on his own journey.  It is a great example of the Acts 2 church life where believers are helping other believers for God’s glory.

Editor’s Note:  if you or your pastor are looking for additional resources, check out Made to Flourish, It’s a ministry that equips pastors and churches looking to integrate faith, work and economic wisdom.

by Brett Hagler

I’m the CEO and Co-founder at New Story – a nonprofit that builds homes and communities for the world’s poor internationally. This year, we’ll surpass 2,000 homes building 17 communities collectively, since our founding in 2015.

Recently, in partnership with ICON, we unveiled the first ever 3D home printer and printed home designed to serve the world’s most vulnerable families. There are one billion people in the world who don’t have safe shelter, and we built this printer specifically to meet their needs.

The 3D home printing initiative has drawn praise but also much criticism. Why did we do it? Shouldn’t we be focusing our efforts on our core business — building homes — and not on risky new innovations?

While risk-taking might seem dangerous to some, we believe R&D and product innovation are essential in the pursuit of solving a one billion person problem. Taking big swings with forward-thinking technology increases our chance to achieve quantum leaps in speed, affordability, and quality.

The danger of playing it safe

Challenging traditional methods and testing breakthrough concepts are core to New Story’s DNA. The roots of innovation go deep for us, and for me, the basis is biblical. I draw inspiration from the Parable of the Talents, in which the Master entrusts his workers with some money and goes away for a while. When he comes back, he expects a return on his investment. As the story goes, the one that took no risks was reprimanded by the frustrated Master:

“That’s a terrible way to live! It’s criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. Get rid of this “play-it-safe” who won’t go out on a limb.” (Matthew 25:26,30 MSG)

The Master tells us he’s after the best. He’s not interested in the status quo. In all the work I do, I strive to defy a “play-it-safe” mentality so I can bring the highest return to the Master. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google, says, “10% improvement means you’re doing the same as everyone else and ensures you won’t fail but you’ll never succeed wildly.”

If your mission is to change more lives, then playing it safe is irresponsible. Steady, linear, 10% improvements will never solve the monumental challenges we face. Leaders in social impact and ministry ecosystems, consider taking a “playing it safe audit” of your organization. Size up which initiatives aren’t thinking big enough yet, and which ones could give you an opportunity to “succeed wildly.”

Going out on a limb with wisdom

“Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise.” Proverbs 19:20

If we take big risks without discipline and wisdom, then we’re not innovative, we’re just dumb. Always think big and stretch your imagination — and then start small. We dreamed way beyond our limits when we thought up the idea to design a 3D printer for the world’s poor, but then we backed way up and started with careful, calculated steps:

• Conducted 6+ months of research and seeking counsel

• Chose to fire a bullet before the cannonball by creating a lower cost prototype first

• Secured 100% sign off from our Board of Directors

• Made sure we could afford to lose what we spent (though it would hurt a little)

Often, we put “conservative wisdom” against “innovative risk-taking,” but the dichotomy is false and dangerous. The only way to bring the highest gain back to the Master is by practicing the “genius of the and.” Solving a billion person problem doesn’t happen by choosing either discipline or going out on a limb, it happens when you’re living in the cross-section of those two things. Be disciplined and take big risks.

What if we all went out on more limbs?

Imagine if all social impact organizations and ministries had a calculated “Out on a Limb” line item in their budget. You could measure that line item by setting annual and quarterly objectives, measured by pre-determined key results. In a year, we’d be generating a more significant return to the Master.

If we fail, worst case scenario — we miss out on a small improvement but we’re okay organizationally because it’s a calculated risk built into our budget. And if it works… our mission succeeds wildly.  

As a faith-driven entrepreneur, I’m inspired by God’s creative, evolving and redemptive ambition. I believe God’s Word makes it clear we must take more calculated risks so we can impact more lives exponentially faster and better.

by Henry Kaestner

If you spend any time browsing through the titles of Tim Keller’s sermons, you’d think that he rarely talks about faith in the workplace.  However, spend some time listening to his sermons (on the Gospel in Life podcast among other sources) and you’ll find that he talks about faith and work quite a bit.  His sermon, “A World of Idols” is a great example of this.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a-world-of-idols/id352660924?i=1000320366299&mt=2

There is much to apply from this sermon, and I don’t want to shortchange you listening to him by giving too much detail with the key learnings of his sermon.  If you’re a frequent reader to this blog, you’ll know that my favorite way to consume Tim Keller is on a run…..this doesn’t make for the fastest pace, but there’s nothing like coming back from a 46 minute run feeling leaner AND wiser. 

Tim’s chosen Scripture for this lesson is from Acts 17 as Paul engages in the Agora….the marketplace…. in Athens.  The marketplace for wares and services….and the marketplace for ideas.  

Keller talks about how we often engage in the market, how 98% of the time we have the wrong balance, either between being too much of a moralist or a relativist.  Paul manages to bridge the two beautifully in the way we most often don’t.  Paul’s model of course?  Jesus.  And Keller looks at how His interaction with Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus shows the compassion and conviction that we might use as inspiration for sharing our faith.

My favorite piece is likely how Keller chooses not to tell us how to share in the marketplace. He says that we are often practical at times to the point of being impractical.  The only way to know “how” to share our faith in the marketplace is to endeavor to have the knowledge of the Father that Jesus, and maybe more realistically for us, that Paul had.  Should Paul’s knowledge and faith still seem inaccessible, Keller breaks down the story of Naaman who brought soil back from Jerusalem as a witness to his new Faith.   Naaman pledged to spread the dirt of his new faith by not embracing, nor running away from his cultural context, but engaging it.

Where are you spreading the dirt?

by Ashot Iskandarian

Editor’s Note:  Ashot is a good friend of FDE, a new entrepreneur who has a growing/thriving business, albeit with some struggles along the way.  We’re going to look to get some entries from some folks that are in the midst of it…..looking to fully rely on God as they hope to make their new business flourish.   Let us know if you know of others that fit that bill who have a burden to share with others their story of faith driven entrepreneurship.

—————

Biblical business has always been an oxymoron for me. I’ve struggled to reconcile my preconceived notions of large, profit-thirsty corporations with biblical principles of gentleness, servitude, and forgiveness.

For a season, I even put aside the notion that God would ever call me to be a business owner because, well, I’m a Christian. Christians don’t lead businesses because businesses are inherently un-Christian.

Throughout my journey, three concepts helped me reconcile my Christian faith with a for-profit objective as I strived to create internal alignment and think biblically about my own company.

1 – First Things First

The first thing that allowed the foundation and the framework to click into place for me was a conscious, written and agreed upon commitment to follow Matthew 6:33 – “Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.” It became my north star.

I initially struggled with this, as, at the time, my wife and I had three children, were on a single income in the Silicon Valley and had only raised 4 months of runway when I quit my job. Life was chaotic, making the exercise to seek the Kingdom challenging and unappealing.  We decided that if we could only focus on one thing — seeking the Kingdom — the rest should and would fall into place.

What was interesting was that my wife and I decided to also make that the company’s north star as well. This helped tightly weave biblical values between me and the company and intentionally kill the dividing lines that had existed between the two. It helped purposefully place God above both, previously separate, worlds.

The primary way this manifested itself was that in the mornings, instead of checking my email first, I would get in the Word and instead of reaching out to mentors or investors for advice when stressed out, I would pray.

2 – Value vs. Dollars

The second thing that helped me create alignment was choosing to view the company as a vehicle to create value versus a vehicle to make a dollar. Viewing the company as a cash-centric machine had created a false dichotomy between my faith and running a business.  

This slight but important modification removed cash from the pedestal and re-emphasized that cash is a byproduct of value creation. This still allowed cash to act as a unit of measure for the value we create, but importantly, the new approach placed cash in its rightful context as a derivative. The new approach also opened up doors to valuable things we could do and activities we could participate in that may not have a high monetary ROI.

3 – Value for Purpose

With value at the pedestal, I could now reframe the narrative of the company’s mission and desire to give back. With my wife’s and my desire to serve our community, we wanted it to be more than with just dollars.

The narrative on building the Kingdom and creating value inherently demands more than just dollars to a charity or donation to help a cause; it requires that we fully engage and utilize our connections, our time, our corporate body, our money and our energy to serve someone.

With our company, we intentionally created a program called Maintenance for Moms, where we service and subsidize vehicle repairs for low-income single moms. Apart from the repairs, we use this opportunity to come alongside these women to pray for them, understand their struggle, resource them appropriately and connect them with others that may be able to help. This was our way of purposefully serving our community through the value we created with more than just money.

Conclusion

Before I felt comfortable running a business, I wanted to resolve and reconcile the tension I had between running a business and being a Christ follower. These three concepts helped alleviate my internal conflict, weave my faith with my work and gain a unified perspective on how to utilize my God-given talents. Importantly, the focus on value ensured that I think holistically about my business and that I never make cash the ultimate.

–Ashot Iskandarian (bio here)

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by Johnny Shiu

This weeks episode

As Christians, we are all called to make disciples based on the Great Commission. How does that apply at work? In the workplace, how do we live out our faith honorably without perhaps overstepping the professional line?

In this episode, Henry, Rusty, and William tackle the question should we even evangelize at work in the first place? When it comes to expressing our faith at the workplace, it’s important to discern and hear God’s voice. Our vertical relationship with God affects the horizontal one with our fellow teammates. Henry also reminds us that we would do well to be mindful of whether we are being willful or faithful.

There are several ways that evangelism at work could take place. In an organization, the first thing it can do to evangelize is to express its values and principles explicitly. A company should be clear on “why do we what we do?” Even by simply stating them, a leader in an organization can communicate at the outset what the company is about.

Sometimes, a company’s evangelistic fervor could be interpreted the wrong way though. For example, Henry tells the story that at the beginning of Bandwidth the leaders would hold Bible Studies. Some of their team members interpreted that attending these studies would be viewed highly by leadership. It sort of created an “us versus them” culture, and that’s not what Bandwidth wanted.

Another way to express our faith at work is to simply offer to pray for non-believing coworkers. Like the marketplace, people have pain points, too. As believers, we can address those pain points in a gentle way. The marketplace expects workers to leave their lives and issues at home; we are almost expected to be Super-human. We know that this is not the case. As believers, we can meet our coworkers where they are at and follow God’s leading in ministering to them.

There are other ways to evangelize at the workplace. Rusty gives us the example in this episode of his wife’s friend who works at Dropbox. At Dropbox, employees are encouraged to bring an instrument, form bands, and play music. One of these bands would play worship music as part of the rotation right here in the Silicon Valley!

Within the greater context of evangelism at work, William posed a great question in that “are there any lines?” That is, how far can a leader go? Is it ok to pass out Bibles at a Corporate retreat?

Henry impressed us that it goes back to gentleness and respect. God gives us all an opportunity to speak and prophecy (speak forth). We should pray for discernment in the particular situation. Importantly, we need to listen to God’s voice (and presumably not our own).

When we do speak boldly for God at work, does that really work? That is, do people really react to examples? Or is it an excuse for someone who does not have to be bold in one’s faith?

Rusty observed that from his own experience that it does work. In his own public talks, he will express his faith. The audience then become curious.

Henry added that there is another important reason to express our faith. Here, in Silicon Valley, some are apprehensive to show our faith. We don’t want to come across as exclusive. However, as leaders if we don’t talk about the most important thing in our lives, then some part of our leadership will have a hole. As a result, we won’t be authentic to our identity.

– Johnny

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In this episode, Henry, Rusty, and William tackle the question should we even evangelize at work in the first place? When it comes to expressing our faith at the workplace, it’s important to discern and hear God’s voice. Our vertical relationship with God affects the horizontal one with our fellow teammates. Henry also reminds us that we would do well to be mindful of whether we are being willful or faithful.

Show Notes for Episode 10