— by Lukas Naugle and Sam Weatherford

Sergeant “B.A.” Baracus regularly played the hero in the ‘80s A-Team TV series. Every American kid-fan dreamed of donning his signature mohawk (some of us gave it a shot). He was fearless and relied on brute strength to solve his problems. There were few he couldn’t overcome, but the resulting destruction often produced as many problems as it solved.

Enter Hannibal Smith, the tactician and leader of the crew, who preferred a disguise and a more calculated approach to the bull-in-a-china-shop methods of his demolition-savvy partner. “I love it when a plan comes together” became his preferred catchphrase in the heat of battle, demonstrating his desire to outthink his opponents and rely more on brains than brawn.

When he couldn’t outmaneuver the enemy via ingenuity, however, B.A. was there to run through whatever wall stood between the team and their goal—literally. 

Founded in the Godhead

Wisdom and strength together enabled the success of the A-Team, and that shouldn’t be a surprise to believers. The union of the two weaves throughout God’s story, initially within God Himself. Scripture describes each person of the Godhead as possessing both wisdom and might, God the Father (Daniel 2:20), God the Son (1 Corinthians 1:23), and God the Holy Spirit.

Wisdom and strength not only exist in the Godhead, they exude from God into creation. He is the source of might (Job 12:13-25) and wisdom (James 1:5, 3:17). And in His image, we, by His deep and unending grace, can be recipients of both, for His glory and our good. Scripture offers varied examples of their application:

• Wisdom and strength together in a person: Solomon, at least for a time (1 Kings 1-11)

• Together in a partnership: Jonathan and David (1 Samuel 18-20)

• Together in an organization: Joseph (Genesis 39-46)

• Together in a team: David and Nathan (2 Sam 12; 1 Kings 1; 1 Chron 17)

It is the combination of both characteristics that breeds success, but wisdom and strength each present in very different ways for different purposes and with differing outcomes:

Strength

• Ability

• Energy

• Resources

• Capital

• Relationships

• Assets

• Health

• Attention

• Action

• Finances, Riches

• Ingredients

• Supply

• Physical Health, Beauty, Strength

Wisdom

• Decision making

• Programming

• Process

• Planning

• Protocols

• Algorithms to live by

• Recipes

• Maps and Models

• Frameworks

• Math

• Design

• Strategy

• Knowledge, Insight, Understanding

On its own, each also tends to fall short in some way:

Wisdom alone

• Insightful Theory, but no traction

• Tortures soul, overlooked, discounted, silenced, discouraged

• Poor

• Frustrated with understanding dynamics, but unable to effect change

Strength alone

• Powerful

• Ready, fire, aim. Shoot yourself in the foot.

• Oops. Just kidding.

• Bull in a china shop

• Frustrated with lots of energy/activity but little to show for it

The Underestimated Value of Wisdom

Strength has long been celebrated in almost every culture above other attributes. Might has been the impetus for admiration and leadership, despite a lack of wisdom in many cases, and the results have been mixed, at best.

A cursory look at history—political leadership, the onslaught of pastoral failures, business leaders who’ve rapidly scaled their companies without concern for fallout—demonstrates that strength alone, though often at least temporarily successful, does not make up for a lack of wisdom. Yet still, we value strength over wisdom. In our businesses, we staff for strength but rarely for wisdom. Wisdom is not baked in but is outsourced to external professional services such as counseling, coaching, and consulting.  

The Overwhelming Nature of Power

Strength is visible and tangible. It draws attention, and we are willing to invest substantial amounts of money and time to develop strength—even to simply admire it. Americans spend well over $100B a year on sports, and more than half of that is spent attending sporting events, celebrating strength, and idolizing the mighty.

The fitness industry in the U.S. has surpassed $100B and continues to grow, while some of the most influential athletes in the world receive more than $300K for a single social media post as an influencer. The same can be said of powerful business leaders who lend their voices or images to back a product in the marketplace.

And it works. When powerful people endorse a certain product, we spend whatever it takes to attain it ourselves because we want to be perceived as powerful in the same way.

There is a natural, cultural bias towards strength, and it shows in our spending. Parents will spend thousands of dollars on sports equipment, training, lessons, and travel and expend untold hours delivering their children to practices and games in various places without batting an eye. They train their children to accomplish their goals through strength and discipline.

Wisdom is the Secret Sauce

Wisdom is not so clearly seen. It doesn’t get the same screen time as strength, so it doesn’t create a stir, and our culture doesn’t celebrate it in the same way. Strength is accessible, fungible, transactable, and commodifiable. Strength is elevated, but wisdom is required to build something that lasts—to build something excellent and beautiful.Strength can plow ahead, break down barriers, open doors, create opportunity, and generate results.

Wisdom is what is behind the scenes, enabling the effective use of power to achieve results. Wisdom addresses if, how, and when results should be generated. It is not focused solely on accomplishing; it seeks accomplishment in the right way with the right outcomes. It informs strength about when to plow and on which rows, which doors should be opened and how hard they should be kicked, and which opportunities will produce the best results. So, history and Scripture implore each of us, “If you must choose, choose wisdom before strength!”

But when faced with the choice—the wise or the strong—don’t we choose the strong? Our intuition tells us that the strong must possess some wisdom. Otherwise, they would not have become so strong. But Scripture refuses to mince words and demands that the right choice is the opposite. When faced with such a dilemma, choose wisdom. You most likely won’t win any fame or fortune in the near term, but you will be making the right bet.

Proverbs 24:3-6 –The Message Bible

It takes wisdom to build a house, and understanding to set it on a firm foundation;

It takes knowledge to furnish its rooms with fine furniture and beautiful draperies.

It’s better to be wise than strong; intelligence outranks muscle any day.

Strategic planning is the key to warfare; to win, you need a lot of good counsel.

Proverbs 8:14-18

14 I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength.

15 By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just;

16 by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly.

17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

18 Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness.

Ecclesiastes 7:19 –The Message Bible

Wisdom puts more strength in one wise person than ten strong men give to a city.

It is quite telling that in each of these passages, wisdom is valued over strength—even in battle! And it is not by a small amount—one man’s strength gained through wisdom is greater than ten strong men who lack wisdom! Wisdom not only builds strength, but it also enables efficiency and effectiveness (Ecclesiastes 10:10) and helps the wise to succeed.

Wisdom Is Worth the Investment

Proverbs 23:23

Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.

Our businesses, our churches, and our organizations are often built on the backs of the powerful and energetic, whose broad shoulders can carry the weight of the work, create a following, and make things happen that are simply outside the reach of others. They are an integral part of creating and sustaining work. Every worthwhile effort needs a strong leader to tear down walls and drive through difficulty.

But it is folly when strength works alone, regularly leading to compromise and the vulnerable being run over along the way. Yet as valued companions, wisdom and strength together usher in God’s peace, flourishing, abundance, and justice.

At any given moment, we have a knowledge of and desire for far more than we can achieve or possess. This gap creates a hunger, a pain, and even a sense of injustice. It is the impetus for new enterprise and thriving churches when wisdom and strength are employed to close the gap between our desires and reality.

If we are honest with ourselves, we regularly spend time in wishful thinking, longing, complaining, and lamenting.

If only I had known.

If only I had the brain power.

If only I had control.

If only I had the time, opportunity, resources, money, or capital.

If only I had the access and the connections.

If only I had the pedigree or the resume.

If only I had the body, looks, or genes.

If only I had the team and the tools.

If only I could afford it or could spend the time.

If only I could be at two places at the same time.

The mighty answer the “if only” problems with strength in numbers, technology, resources, and volume. Everyone notices, everyone pays attention, and everyone remembers.

But the book of Ecclesiastes reminds us of the counterintuitive secret (9:14-17)—that wisdom is better than might and weapons and that wisdom’s whispers in the quiet are better than the mighty’s shouts to the crowds.

14 There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siege-works against it.

15 But there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man.

16 But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard.

17 The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools.

18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

This feels right, but it also seems unbelievably naive. I mean, who wants to be poor, alone, forgotten, and unheard? Or who would be willing to take a chance on listening to the poor, wise man? He’s not an influencer, and his endorsement wouldn’t build a platform at all.

Yet, though his words are free, their value far surpasses those of the strong leader. 

Wisdom & Strength Together

Like our heroes from the A-Team, we strive to address the long list of “if only” problems through the healthy partnership of the wise and the strong, avoiding the pitfall of relying too heavily on one or the other. Brute strength offers expediency but yields less than favorable, short-term results. Wisdom imagines a path forward but gains no traction that actively advances the cause.

Looking again to Scripture and to history, we are reminded that success is found when humanity organizes to pool God-given wisdom and strength in order to overcome injustice and undergird human flourishing. Thus, we createintentional organization—our businesses included—by hiring, training, prioritizing, and funding for wisdom and strength in order to bring about abundance and peace for the praise and honor of Jesus Christ, the power and wisdom of God.

In order to be successful—

Collaboration matters.

Finding the right team matters.

Building the right board matters.

Filling the gaps in your organization with great advisors and consultants matters.

We were not made to go it alone. But wisdom and strength in partnership together bring justice and flourishing. They bring shalom.

*All Scripture is ESV unless otherwise noted.

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s 2019 Global Event.

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Founder and Advisor | Net Health

Patrick has served Net Health as President for two decades. Today, as Founder and Advisor, he is equipping the growing movement of Refounders to reimagine and renew the places they live, work and play. With extensive experience in executive leadership in both for-profit and not-for-profit environments, he is passionate about driving growth while creating world-class culture. In 2021, his first book – Refounder: How Audacious Leaders Take What’s Broken and Make it Better – will be released. Current and past directorships include Net Health, Careform (ConnectiveRx), National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), SDC, Near Health, PLF, and the Pittsburgh Technology Council. In 2010, along with CTO Chris Hayes, he won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. Patrick is a graduate of Muskingum University, double majors in Business and Philosophy.

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR

Andy Crouch, best-selling author and a partner of theology and culture at Praxis, is a leading voice in the Faith Driven movement. Andy spoke at a recent Faith Driven Investor Conference on a topic that many faith driven investors are wrestling with regularly: God and money, we cannot serve both. How do we balance out Jesus’ teaching and our calling as Faith Driven Investors? Listen to what Andy had to say for some insights and inspiration.

Episode Transcript

*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDE movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Andy Crouch: I want to talk about two mysteries relating to Jesus most famous words about money. And of course, you know what they are. You cannot serve God, and most modern translations will say money. So the first mystery is why not? Why couldn’t you serve God and money each in their appropriate way, the way Jesus said you could God and Caesar. So Caesar’s, the pagan emperor of the Roman Empire, people pressed Jesus on the question of whether they should even pay taxes to Caesar. And he says, Well, render to Caesar what Caesar’s and render God, what’s god. So serve Caesar in a proper ways. Don’t serve Caesar the way you serve God, don’t treat Caesar like a God. But you can serve Caesar in his appropriate way and serve God. Why does Jesus never say you cannot serve God and Caesar? But he does say you can’t serve God and money. And then what exactly does Jesus say? Because older translations have Jesus saying You cannot serve God and Mammon? What does that word doing there, and what would it mean that Jesus said, You cannot serve God, not just in money, but God and mammon? So first question verse why? Why is money more powerful than Caesar? I want to suggest it’s because money, especially in large quantities, gives you a power that Caesar does not have. What is money? You learned it in economics. It’s a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. And this means that money is fungible. Countable, storable. Power power, the ability to get things done in the world, the ability to get what you want in the world, the ability to get that and get things done, perhaps even without other people wanting that to get done. That’s power and money gives you a form of power that’s fungible, countable and storable. So fungible it can be exchanged for other things. So this this obviously is one of the key things about money. It’s actually a very little use all by itself, but you can turn it into whatever you want. Not true of most forms of power, including Caesar’s. Caesar has a great deal of power as the Lord of the Roman Empire, but he can only exercise his power in that office in that land. He’s not the emperor of China. He can’t just arbitrarily decide he wants something totally different or wants to exercise his power in somewhere totally different. His power has to be used in a particular context because most power is contextual, but money allows you to use power wherever you want anywhere that legal tender is accepted. You can exchange it into anything. That’s power that Caesar doesn’t know, at least doesn’t know because of his role as emperor, then it’s accountable. You know how much you have of it, and this is definitely not true of most kinds of power. How much power exactly does the CEO of a company have? Well, certainly some. But if you’ve ever been in that role, you know, it’s hard to know exactly how much you how. There’s certainly no way to count it, but you can measure money, you can count money, you can know how much is on your balance sheet, how much is available to spend, and you can’t really do that with power. There’s an uncertainty to other kinds of power, but not with the kind of power that we call money. And maybe most powerfully, you can store it. It’s storable, a store of value. You can save it for later. And most kinds of power have to be exercised now at the moment that you have it because you may not have it later or it may not be given, except in a given moment. I’m I have a certain my powers as speaker at FDE, I’ve got this moment, I’ve got the power to speak to you right now, but I can’t save it for next month or next year. I’ve got to use it now. But if I have money. At a time of my choosing, I imagine at least I can use it. And all of these kinds of power are kind that Caesar doesn’t have. And all of them add up to a power that is not dependent. There is no dependance in the power of money in the way there is in most other forms of power, even political and military power. Caesar only had his role because he was the adopted or sometimes biological son of a powerful man. It was a relationship that gave him power. Even in our modern democracies, people get power through the consent of the governed. But if you have enough money, the honest truth is you can get whatever done you want without anyone really having to know or care or even validate who you are because money talks without you having to be a person, it’s impersonal power. This is a power greater than any other in the world. And if you have it or had it or can imagine having it, why would you need God? Who needs God? When you can get what you want, whatever you want, when you want it, when you know how much you have, you can store it and you don’t have to be any particular kind of person to get what you want. Who any God? When you add money. So this is the first reason you can’t serve it, because this is the most direct rival to God in human affairs. And the reason people come to you and the reason you and I live with anxieties about money with hopes for money is because of the kind of power we imagine that will give us. But there’s also a deeper thing going on, and it gets to the word that Jesus used. Jesus was speaking Aramaic the way he probably did his whole life. His biographers, the gospel writers, translate his words into Greek and then we translate in case of English speakers into English so we can understand. But every once in a while, the Gospels will leave an Arabic word untranslated, and they do so in this case. They write down in Greek, you shall that you cannot serve God, and they just leave it on translate mammon. It’s a Semitic word that roughly means money or assets held in trust or the create trust. Why is why do they not translate this word well, what kinds of words do we not translate the most common kind of word? We don’t translate our names. You don’t translate a name from one language to another, you just transliteration that name. And that’s what the gospel writers do here. And the early church concluded that the reason they did this is they understand they understood something that Jesus was saying, which is that we’re not talking about an ordinary noun here. We’re not talking about even just a principle or an idea. We’re talking about a quasi personal name, a all power in human affairs that intends something that has a will in the world that is opposed to the will of God. And the ordinary way we talk about this ordinary, extraordinary way is we’re talking about a demonic power. The early church concluded that Mammon was not just an idea or a principle, but the name of a being in service of the enemy of all that is good, the opponent of all of God’s works in the world that we sometimes call Satan or the devil. That Mammon is this demonic force at work in history with a kind of quasi personal ability to whisper and speak to human beings and to arrange and distort human affairs in a particular direction. And what is it that man and wants to get done in the world wants the opposite of what God wants. God has made this good, beautiful, abundant material world. He fills it with persons. He says this world is already very good, but now I want you to feel the Earth multiply and bring forth all the possibility and all the value out of the world. As the world is filled with persons that will become full of the knowledge and love of God and the knowledge and love of one another, and in some ways, the knowledge and love of the world itself. While Mammon being aligned with the demonic, being part of the demonic forces that work in history hates all of these things. Of course it hates God. It wants us never to depend on God. Mammon hates creation itself, doesn’t like the material. World wants an immaterial world that’s purely spirit. And think about how money functions as a as as it gets more advanced, it becomes less and less metaphysical. We don’t carry on gold anymore. We just account in our minds the imagination of how much we have. And Mammon hates persons. It wants you to operate impersonally. It actually wants to turn persons into things. In fact, one madman really gets its grip into a human society as it had gotten its grip into the Roman Empire as it got its grip into capitalism that built our western world. The result is treating persons like things, treating persons impersonally. This is what slavery is. It’s treating a person like property, it’s treating a person like a thing. And while God wants the world to be filled with persons so that the whole world will be known and loved and God will be known and loved and everything Mammon wants to empty the world of persons want Amen, amen wants everything to be impersonal so that there’s no one and nothing. No one left only things and ultimately not even material things, just an immaterial world that is devoted to pure power without dependance. You cannot serve a demon that wants to destroy a person’s relationships creation itself. And also serve the true God who wants to reunite persons, restore relationships and liberate creation from its bondage to decay. You cannot serve God and Mammon and this demonic power called Mammon. Besides our world, our modern world in an absolutely unique way in history. How can you doubt this is the principle that is driving human events in a way that wasn’t even sure in Jesus Day wasn’t even true a thousand years ago, but is incredibly true today. You cannot serve God and Mammon. And so I’ve started to think that what’s Faith Driven Investor? I mean, investing is about the deployment of many kinds of resources, but especially financial ones, especially in our modern world. Money based resources. Is our job just to sort of do that with Christian principles, kind of, you know, obviously not violate Christian principles, but just do things with money in the world and maybe make money in Christian ways in the world. I think that is not nearly deep enough for what we’re actually called to do. We are actually here insofar as we are people who operate proximate to money and the whisperings and power of madmen to take back territory from this demonic power and from these false promises of fungible, storable, accountable power. And reclaim territory for the relational creation loving God, who has placed us here to tend his world. So we’re going to do that. We’re going to do two kinds of things. We’re going to need to have some detox moves and some creative moves or creative resistance, let’s say, to the empire moment. The first thing we’re going to have to do is just thoroughly dethrone Mammon and this imagination of money as power, without relationship abundance, without dependance. We’re going to have to dethrone that from our lives. So just two quick detox ideas that I think all of us need to take super seriously. The basic way to dethrone money and mammon is generosity. It’s giving because most ways we use money give us control and safety, but giving releases control by definition, when you give you no longer have control giving is risky. By definition, when you give, you’re giving up some store of value. You could have held on for some other use. And you’re just you’re just saying, I release it. It is the basic detox activity. The Christian churches often taught a kind of principle of tithing on income, and I think that’s a really good thing, though I think many of us should probably end for a higher percentage than 10. I just want to say what what has been absolutely transforming for my own life and our family in the last 10 years is twice now we have felt God leading us to tithe, not on our income, which we continue to do and a graduated way, but to tithe on our assets. So we calculate our net worth, all the things that are entrusted to us that we know how to value, and we find a way to liquidate 10 percent of that and give it away to the purposes of God’s kingdom and the good of our neighbors. I will tell you, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried this. If you try it first, it is incredibly hard to pull the trigger in that way. It feels really risky in a way that tithing on your income doesn’t because you can’t know that income is coming in. But this store of assets I have I mean, this is my store for the future. This is my promise of security for the future of options, for the future. And 10 percent is enough to hurt, at least for us. And once you do it. The joy and freedom you feel with relation to money is just unbelievable. It has been the thing that has just truly emptied me, especially having done it twice now in the last 10 years, just emptied me of the fear and love of money as near as I can tell in my life. It’s just gone. It’s just not part of my anxieties. And instead, I’m joyfully anticipating the next time I got to give away this level at this level in my life. The second detox. So generosity is the first. The second would be something I’m not really going to model here so directly, but it’s transparency. If we were together in person and I do this with many, many groups, have you been part of it? And I do it with many individuals. Rather than just talking about our family’s generosity in percentage terms, I would put up graphs and tables that have numbers on them. They show you how much we make in a given year our family, our household, how much we have been entrusted with our net worth, how that’s changed over time, how we’ve given, how we’ve spent, how we’ve saved all with real numbers. And when I do that consistently, people say I have never, ever heard a fellow Christian outside of some kind of confidential fiduciary relationship. Tell me how much they have and how much they make. Brothers, sisters, this should not be so this secrecy that we have around these numbers that are are the most immaterial thing about our lives is a sign that Mammon has its grip on us. And a very powerful way to detox is to open up your books. Not in a willy nilly way, and I don’t do it when it’s virtual and online because it’s severed from a relationship right now. But in any kind of relationship, I’m happy to share the complexities of what what God has entrusted to our family and how we’re trying to be faithful with it. Why is this not normal in the Christian community? Because we are trying to serve God and money. We’re trying to serve God Amen, amen at the same time. If we detox, if we. Are so lavishly generous for so openly transparent. What will we be free to do, what will become possible for us to strategies of creative resistance to man? And the first is we will be able in every transaction, every investment, every business decision to prioritize not money, but people to prioritize people, relationship with people, connection with people. The primary question we will ask about every deployment of our assets, including our spending as well as our saving and our investing and our giving is what will this do to strengthen relationship, to create capacity of love and dignity and respect for other people so that we can all do in the world what we were made to do? Only those who are free of madmen can realize that every transaction is actually an opportunity for love, to grow, for love, to be expressed in the world and a secondary byproduct is whatever accounting we may make of. The value that we can trust will be created as we operate a loving and people prioritizing where a person prioritizing where in the world. And then the second strategy of creative resistance to Amen, amen is that we can learn to be just ridiculously patient, ridiculously patient, ridiculous. That is to mammon. Because Mammon is in a hurry. Mammon wants you to make more of that money fast. Amen, amen wants you to move so fast you don’t notice the people you’re running over to make it. And we learn from our Lord Jesus, and we learned from God’s own way with his creation that there’s this incredible divine patience that’s available to us. We are not in a hurry, so we will think less and less about IRR, more and more about what you know, some people call MLA multiples on investment. God is in the world. God wants us to be in the world to create multiples on investment, for sure. But our timing, how fast the velocity of money that’s ultimately up to God. That’s not the most important, not the most important thing. And this will lead us to have a thousand generation vision for our lives. If you give yourselves over to Amen, amen, give yourself over to Mama, then you act and all the exploitive ways that Mammon would have you act in order to get more of that countable, storable fungible power. You will do a lot of damage, but we know exactly. Or we know, according to God, how long that damage will last. God says if you enter into that kind of iniquity and mammon leads us to iniquity, it will do damage unto the third and fourth generation. This is Deuteronomy five nine. But the interesting thing is, even if you operate very ethically in the way that we’re taught to in modern investment and business, the truth is that the results financial and otherwise of of even our best investments, even our best enterprise building also probably will last about three or four generations. Honestly, most family wealth is kind of exhausted after three or four generations deluded. Most businesses don’t last more than that. Most of the work you and I do in our daily work, let alone the financial investments we place. I mean, realistically, it’s only going to last three or four generations. God says to those who love me and keep my commands and walking my way, I visit blessing to the thousandth generation. That is not going to be measured primarily in any kind of financial return that is measured in the flourishing of persons in the transmission of a love in the creation of redemptive possibility in the world. And it’s only available when we are completely serving God. We’ve completely detoxed from serving money. Any use of money is simply to serve this God on on whom we are completely dependent. Can we do that? Can we live in this world that mammon rules in a totally different way? Can we totally dethrone its power from our lives so that all of our workers, investors and spenders and savers and givers? Is devoted to God and God’s ways, prioritizing people. Pursuing patients. It’s as easy as a camel going through the eye of a needle, right? With human beings, it’s impossible. But with God, all things are possible. Thanks.

— by Joel Morris

Introduction

Unashamedly, I straddle the business, grant-making, and ministry space. I came into running a charity (and inherited a failing seminary) from a background in aerospace and nuclear engineering. Sure, I was an obvious choice! I’m the Executive Director of Union Foundation, strategically working to serve church growth across Europe. We work through training, publishing, research, and church planting. Through various friendships and partnerships, we have come together to create a missional ecosystem where the church can sustainably grow and bear fruit. This is a ‘grand project’ developed over several years with likeminded businesspeople, donor networks, churches, seminaries, publishers, and networks—all working together to see God’s kingdom grow in Europe. We can only do this together because of the scale of the challenge.

Missional friendships

As we survey the history of the church, every unique movement of God was birthed through fellowship. History seems to highlight only single heroes of the faith, but rarely does anyone achieve anything for the kingdom of Christ alone. The German Reformer, Martin Luther, welcomed many friends around his table for mutual instruction, advice, planning, and humor. Among Luther’s friends were fellow reformers Philip Melancthon, Caspar Cruciger, Justus Jonas, Vitus Dietrich, John Bugenhagen, John Forster, and others. A merry band of brothers united around one vision and were mightily used by God.

In Geneva, John Calvin also gathered a company of men to train pastors to plant churches in France, Hungary, Scotland, and even Brazil. Calvin desired deep friendships—a band of brothers committed to the same vision, loving each other, and serving shoulder to shoulder for the growth of Christ’s church. Europe was profoundly impacted due to this deep mutual affection that existed in Geneva and eventually spread throughout the world.

During the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century in North America and the United Kingdom, a fellowship was formed among key leaders around preaching, church planting, mission, and publishing. In 1748, when gospel patron Lady Huntingdon visited Trefeca, Wales, she met Howel Harris, Daniel Rowland, Griffith Jones, and Howel Davis. She began funding the building of a seminary to train future gospel preachers. This group of friends commenced a preaching tour around the country, which eventually included William Williams and George Whitefield, who had crossed the Atlantic to the American colonies, joining Jonathan Edwards in a ministry partnership.

Such vivid examples have served as the impetus for our work, which fosters friendship around a mutual gospel vision. This vision is rooted in the common desire to see the church of Christ grow in Europe. We aim to see the church built up, purified, fruitful, growing, and pre-eminently glorifying to God. We hope to provide support and fellowship for all who stand for this vision through collaboration.

Genuine biblical fellowship doesn’t create solitary oak trees standing alone but fosters a forest of friends standing together for the gospel. Ecclesiastes 4:2 illustrates such togetherness in the image of a three-fold cord so tightly woven that it becomes virtually indestructible. This is our hope for our grand project—friendships and fellowship that are indestructible in mission and ministry because they are anchored in Christ.

Unity around the mission

When we think about multiplying churches across a whole region or continent, it helps to think in a big-picture, joined-up way: Not short-term, small, pragmatic, although it helps to be practical; but longer-term, sustainable, and generational growth. Our grand project began with a dying residential seminary in South Wales, UK—nothing grand in the capital city but something quite insalubrious and unremarkable in a field in South Wales. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?[1] As unlikely as something significant starting in South Wales, a friendship sprung up between what was known as the ‘Bryntirion’ College and SaRang Community Church in Seoul, South Korea. It came about through one of its members, businesswoman Sung Joo Kim, visiting Wales for a Christian conference, and when struck by the dire need, she wanted to do something to help Wales. The CEO of German fashion brand MCM was able to bring together a Korean mega church and a struggling Welsh seminary through a historical missionary connection long forgotten in Wales.

Providentially, Mrs. Kim met a student from Bryntirion, which was the last evangelical seminary left in Wales, and connected the college with her Senior Pastor in Korea. The Pastor felt a sense of spiritual debt to the church in Wales because of Welsh missionary Robert Jermain Thomas who had been martyred in Pyongyang in 1866.[2] A truly remarkable story, Thomas had briefly stood on North Korean soil before he was beheaded, killed along with the crew of the American merchant ship, the General Sherman. His executioner took the Bibles Thomas was handing out and papered the inside of his house with the scriptures. As his family and guests read the wallpaper, they were saved by the Word of God. This house became the first church building in Korea. The Korean protestant church can trace their 150-year church history back to a long forgotten Welsh missionary.

In 2011, SaRang Church committed a million dollars into restarting the ministry with the purpose of blessing Wales, the UK, and Europe. Then, the church also began to fund church planting projects of students through the seminary. The response to what the Lord was doing through the seminary was to reform the charity into a foundation that ran a seminary as well as to facilitate grant making to churches. Bryntirion became Union School of Theology which pioneered blended and decentralised training through local church learning communities, and many in turn have become church planting hubs. This has become the ‘Union model.’ There are currently 30 learning community partnerships with local churches and other training providers from Helsinki to Rome and Edinburgh to London. Union Mission became the grant making arm of the charity to connect graduates and partners with financial resources. We settled on the name ‘Union’ because it’s inclusive and stands for friendship and collaboration. It says: We’re going after this together in union.

In 2019, a donor collaboration called the European Great Commission Collaboration, set up by businessman Adam Walach, joined our initiative to fund church plants from Union as well as other church planting networks, such as M4 based in Estonia. The EGCC is made of donor networks from several European countries funding indigenous ministries across Europe. In partnership, together with SaRang Church in Seoul, they have been funding European projects together. Since 2015, Union Foundation has awarded grants totalling 1 million pounds to over 130 projects across Europe. Union has been serving donor partners as fiscal sponsor, carrying out due diligence on each project and reporting progress.

It’s wonderful to see the impact that collaboration has been having in countries like Greece, through our learning community in partnership with the Greek Bible College where leaders are being recruited, raised up with the local church, deployed, and financially supported to plant or rejuvenate churches. As an entrepreneur and engineer, it has been satisfying to see friends come together and work effectively toward a shared vision. God is moving and bringing churches, organisations, and people together for His great mission.

Then, we added the ability to publish our own books and digital resources to the missional ecosystem. Union was able to create its own publishing house in collaboration with Canadian publisher H&E Publishing. We want to give opportunities for future leaders to develop as authors and to write the books for their generations. Gnowbe[3] (USA) has enabled us to provide micro courses for learners online through their mobile first platform. Micro-Learning Courses (MLCs) are self-paced digital courses. The production of accessible, theological resources works to help people delight in God, grow in Christ, and engage with their callings—some of whom then go on to join our School of Theology or another seminary. Union Publishing helps fuel the School, and everything drives through to mission.

Union’s Research arm began in March 2021 as another important part of the model, as we develop pastor-theologians, thinkers, and writers who can help grow the church—fortifying the church’s mission through theological excellence and building long-term sustainable growth in church movements and networks. So, we set up Newton House based in Oxford, England, in partnership with scholars and institutions from around the world as well as Tyndale House, Cambridge.

This ‘grand project’ continues with friends and partners, planters and pastors, churches, foundations, business leaders, publishers, and students, working to see a God-inspired solution for Europe to be reignited for the gospel once again; to see a new generation of leaders raised up; and to see churches growing and multiplying. Walking where others have gone before, friends working collaboratively and strategically to advance God’s kingdom. We can look back to the past to see how God worked in the past and also to see what God is doing now. He has perfect strategic foresight; He has plans to prosper His church.[4] We need to be in step with Him as we plan ahead. Such movements of God involve all parts of His church, from gospel patrons to gifted preachers, pastor theologians, writers, scholars, and more to further the cause of the gospel. Instead of being tribal, partisan, or just about furthering an institution, if we are about actually serving the church and blessing the world, then together, we can see past our own agendas to national and international gospel transformation.

 ——

[1] John 1:46

[2] Stella Price, Chosen for Choson (Emmaus Road Ministries: Essex, MA, USA), 91-96.

[3] https://www.gnowbe.com

[4] Jeremiah 29:10

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s 2019 Global Event.

Recent articles

Carey Nieuwhof knows something about burnout. He was crushed by its devastating effects while over-working as a lawyer. What he discovered is “The people that ultimately pay the price for your overcommitment are the people you care about the most.” In his book At Your Best, Carey provides leaders with practical solutions to thrive both in their personal life and within their organizations. For the faith driven entrepreneur, success can be so much more than an all-or-nothing proposition. Tune in now for our encouraging conversation with Carey Nieuwhof.

Episode Transcript

*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDE movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

Carey Nieuwhof: And as I reconstructed my life, I started thinking there’s got to be a better formula. And so I came up with a new approach on how to look at time, how to look at my energy levels and how to stop my priorities from being hijacked by other people. And it was a personal formula based around doing what you’re best at, at your best. And sort of the mantra is I needed to learn how to live in a way today that would help me thrive tomorrow.

William Norvell: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. It is so good to have, we have two special guests today, we have one really special guests. And then we have one moderately special guest. It’s Amen introduced our moderately special guest. First, we have Luke Roush from the crossover Faith Driven Investor podcast. Luke Roush. Welcome to the show!

Luke Roush: It’s great to be moderate. Thank you, William.

William Norvell: Does your visit your first appearance here, right?

Luke Roush: It’s is. This is and that’s what happens when your business partner gets stuck in Romania and really fired up to be here, though with Carey.

William Norvell: Yeah. Yeah. If you’re if you’re one of the people that heard Henry’s talk in Romania about Faith driven entrepreneurs ship, you are awesome and you’re the reason that he’s not here. But it was fantastic. And flights and COVID restrictions are really fun, but is amazing that he was able to go over there and speak to some faith driven entrepreneurs that are doing some amazing things. So with that, Carrie, thanks for being here.

Carey Nieuwhof: Hey, it’s a joy. Thanks for having me, man. I’ve been looking forward to this.

William Norvell: Well, this is exciting. If you are the one listener that doesn’t know who Carrie new off is and is not. And listen to our podcast instead of his. Then I worry about you. You know, I worry about your soul. I worry about your marketing on Instagram. What are you really looking at? If you haven’t found Carrie’s podcast, so you know it’s it’s good that you’re here now.

Carey Nieuwhof: Yeah. Hey, it’s like lots of people don’t know me as Seth Godin says, you know, when you’re famous, like ninety nine percent of the planet has never heard of you. So I just just try to remember that, you know, that’s good. D-List, celebrity, D-List celebrity.

William Norvell: So if you’re d, then I’m really worried about what my letter is, but that’s a different conversation. In all seriousness, if you have not, we’re about to get into Carrie’s background. But if you have knowledge in his podcast, some of the interviews are just breathtaking. From Tim Keller to Seth Godin to Adam Grant to Simon Sinek to one of my personal favorites, I thought your interview with Rob Pelinka was just unbelievable.

Carey Nieuwhof: Yeah, you know, I got away with my lack of basketball knowledge like you did really come through like

William Norvell: it came through when suddenly.

Carey Nieuwhof: That’s what I’m OK. Good I did study. I studied for that interview, but it was funny because I’ll give you the backstory. I get this text. I’m out with my family. It’s Andy Stanley and Andy’s like, Hey, Rob from the Lakers is trying to get a hold of you, Rob Pelinka from the Lakers trying to get a hold of you. Can I give them your email? I’m like Lakers. I like high school team. Like, what is that I’m saying to my family? I’m like, What? Like, they’re like in L.A., right? Like, that’s that’s the L.A. Lakers, right? And so I said, Yeah, sure, we can connect. And anyway, Rob’s a gem. Oh my gosh, that was so great. And I can’t wait to fly to the U.S. again one day, and we’re going to go hang out in L.A. But he was incredible and such a man of faith like, my goodness, running this huge empire and like read theology in his spare time.

William Norvell: It was amazing, and that’s exactly what I thought was what a quiet man of faith, but how faithful? And if you don’t know who we’re talking about, he was Kobe Bryant’s agent and then became the GM of the Lakers. And so big, big job. And he reached out to Kerry to say, I want to talk about my faith on your show and how it impacts the way I live my life. And it was just an incredible interview.

Carey Nieuwhof: I found the the original email and it was so humble, he said, Hey, my name’s Rob, I listen to your podcast. We just won a world championship. I help with the Lakers. You want to connect sometime. It’s like so unreal. The guy’s humility is like off the charts.

William Norvell: Amen Amen. Well, well, speaking of that, Kerry, tell us a little bit about you. We always love to start our show. Who are you? Where do you come from? You teased a little bit, not from the United States. So tell us a little bit more. Who are you? How did God get you to where you are today?

Carey Nieuwhof: I’m almost an American because I was born about a mile from Detroit across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, so I lived there for about a decade. I grew up with immigrant parents. My parents both came over from Holland and they met in Canada. So both Dutch roots, but they met in Canada and one of four kids. So I have three younger sisters, first born when I was eight, I wanted to be a lawyer. I do not know why to this day, but I’m like, Yep, I’m going to be a lawyer. I had a lot of detours got into radio in my teen years. There was like this thing when I remember being 12 years old, I’m giving you the long version, so speed it up. But I remember being 12 years old and you know that moment when you kind of realized, Oh, this is how the world works. We’re listening to the radio in my mom’s car and I’m like, Wait a minute, that guy talking at me is an actual human being because you don’t think about those things, right? It’s like, Oh, that’s a real person. I bet you could get a job in radio. So it’s 16, went to local radio station, got a job, ended up in Toronto, working in Toronto radio, but quit that when I was 24. Got to law school in between first and second year law felt a call to ministry had grown up in church. Rededicated my life to Christ prior to law school. But like never thought about ministry, wrestled with that for a long time finished law work. For year in downtown Toronto, got called to the bar, then went straight into seminary. Thought I did not have the gifts for pastoral ministry because I’m kind of like a leader. I’m not very pastoral. I can trample people’s feelings pretty quickly, at least especially back then, but decided to test it out. Came up to three small churches about an hour north of Toronto, and I’m still here. 26 years later. Those three churches would merge, eventually become connects this church. I led that for 20 years. We grew to a relatively large church, multiple locations, and then about six years ago, I stepped aside, decided to hand things over to the next generation because succession is a real crisis. It’s a crisis in business. It’s a huge crisis in the church. So let’s do this. Well, the church was growing. I just turned 50, so I handed it over to my successor. And for the last five years, six years, I’ve been doing this, just podcasting, writing books, that kind of stuff, helping leaders,

William Norvell: helping leaders go one layer deeper there. So tell us about your podcast. Tell us about when you think about helping leaders write what, what? What does that look like to you in your day to day?

Carey Nieuwhof: Well, you know, the mission of our company is to help people thrive in life and leadership. So I found as a graduate of a good law school, nobody taught me anything about running a law firm. There was like and not that much about how to argue in court, either, to be honest with you. So you figure out a lot of that stuff in real time. And then seminary was the same thing. There were just leadership gaps. We never learned how to run a board meeting. No concept of what happens when your church grows. We had growth almost from day one, and I found that a lot of my problems, a lot of my struggles were like trying to figure out how to do the practice of leadership. And back then in the 90s, like, you know, we didn’t really have the internet. We sort of did, but not like we do today. So it was like books or conferences, like I was just so hungry to figure out how do you lead people through change? We sold buildings within five years of me moving there like historic red brick buildings had to like rally people around a vision had to raise millions of dollars like nobody taught you that stuff. So they figured it all out the hard way, and God was gracious. So then when I kind of looked at the second chapter of my life, what became the next this chapter of my life? I had started as a hobby maybe over a decade ago, doing a lot of speaking to leaders because when you have a growing church, people ask you questions. So I got invited to conferences and I’ve been a podcast listener, probably for over a decade now, like 12 years. Probably caught onto that around 2010, and I would be in the green room backstage with amazing leaders. And I kept thinking, Gosh, I wish our board could have heard that or I wish my staff could have heard that, or I wish everyone could have heard that. And it’s hard to believe, but like eight years ago, there was no interview format podcast in the Christian space. I know that sounds weird today because it’s 2021. But in 2013 2014, there was none. I had heard the format, obviously on radio. I heard it in the business space and I thought, Well, what if I could just bring these conversations via podcast? So in 2014, we started a leadership podcast. My first guest was Andy Stanley. He was very gracious. So that gave it a huge boost right out of the gate. And I’m surprised, but I’ve been doing it six times a month these days for seven years, and we never missed a launch date. And it’s just a great privilege. Like, I get to interview a lot of my heroes, some of the smartest people in the world that I know of, and we try to bring people the back story, not the Oh, give me, you know, 10 minutes of soundbites on your book, but like, what’s it like to be you and what do you struggle with and what are some of your challenges? And tell me the making of Seth go? How do you get to be that good at turning phrases? Why is your content so calorie dense questions like that that always interests me? And then we just kind of bring the interviews to leaders, and it seems to have resonated.

William Norvell: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And what a long obedience in the same direction as well, right? I mean, I think it’s so easy for entrepreneurs to see something like where your show has gone and say, Oh, I mean, that must have just happened, right? Oh yeah.

Carey Nieuwhof: Well, we’re pushing 20 million downloads and we had a good start. But I can tell you, I looked at so we’ve been seven, seven years now, podcasting. And so I think it took us like, I’m pulling numbers out of the air here. But let’s just say two years to hit a million downloads, which is pretty incredible. Like when you hit a million downloads like. Ninety nine percent of the downloads happened to one percent of the podcasts, which is insane. Like there’s two million podcasts out there, but so many of them three episodes, they abandoned it. They got like 50 downloads know. So it is a real extreme version of the Preto principle, but so took, you know, a few years to get to a million and a couple more years to two million than we hit five million. We hit 10 million downloads less than 24 months ago, and we’re about to hit 20. So long obedience in the same direction, I don’t know exactly what happened, but there was just this hockey stick moment where all of a sudden things really like things were always growing. But then we got this like exponential boost back in 2019. 2020 was a really good year. And then 2021 is proving to be a record year. And of course, having guests in that kind of downloads opens up doors that you don’t get opened up when you’re starting out like, you know, the first 15 episodes where? Well, I know this guy. I could talk to him about that. Like I already spent my Andy Stanley monopoly money. So, you know, now I got to talk to my buddy and hopefully he’ll do it right. So you start there. You don’t get to Simon Sinek on year one, or at least I couldn’t. It took me seven years to get there, but we got there and I still got a hitless hour.

William Norvell: Our first 30 guests have no idea what you’re talking about now. I promise. No, no clue. They don’t. They don’t empathize with that at all. Yeah, it

Luke Roush: is, as you were describing that kind of downward ramp. It reminds me a little bit of Moore’s law. You know, where doubling and the as you get into the out years, that doubling turns into some real big numbers.

Carey Nieuwhof: Yeah. And the similar things happening on YouTube, we have a fledgling YouTube channel, and so I’ve done video interviews for years. We didn’t broadcast them forever, but I like it because I think I do a better interview if I can watch body language because they’re the written questions. But the best interviews, I hardly look at my notes. It’s like, Well, tell me more about that or what did you mean with this? Or, you know, that kind of thing, draw them out. And we uploaded it to YouTube, and it was a really slow start. Like 12 views, 15 views, 100 views, 200 views. But again, the hockey stick stuff. Since May, we went from like eight 6000 subscribers to now, the fall of 2021, we’re at 13000. Some of the videos now, like even the bad videos, are getting 1500 views. Some of the best have over 100000 views on YouTube. So it’s like, Oh, this is a thing, and I think it’s throwing spaghetti at the wall. We did a good job, I think, but we haven’t really spent a lot of energy and I’m excited because we’re hiring again. Well, now we’re going to actually try to develop a YouTube strategy right now that we got a little bit of momentum. But it is that thing of don’t give up, don’t give up. And thirteen thousand like there are people with millions, I’m sure, who are listening to this podcast. But, you know, thirteen thousand for us, it’s like the most we’ve ever had on YouTube. So you just experiment. This was all a hobby for me. This is what I did after I burned out. I’m like, I’m going to start writing articles just for fun because I need a hobby and I’ll start interviewing people just for fun because I need a hobby. Well, now it’s not a hobby anymore. It’s my full time job. But you know, it is that long obedience in the same direction.

Luke Roush: Well, and you know, career just to kind of jump in reference and kind of Moore’s law and just the law of big numbers as you get out there. One of the things that we’ve seen with Faith driven entrepreneurs and we see it all the time as investors is success kind of begets more success. But then at some point it just becomes really big numbers and there’s a feeling of burnout on the part of some entrepreneurs that can kind of set in. And you talk a little bit about that in your new book at your best. So I’d love to just get your perspective on what’s different today that seems to be contributing to extreme challenges in that area.

Carey Nieuwhof: Well, I’m doing less and accomplishing more. And so the back story to that is there’s a hinge point in my life and it happened around age 40. So I spent 11 years in university degrees in history, law and theology, so it takes a long time to finish. So anyway, finished started at 30 in ministry up here, and after about a decade, we were the fastest growing church in our denomination and one of the largest in the country. And I had a terrible equation for time management, which was more growth equals more hours. And the problem with that is it doesn’t scale now. We weren’t leading a giant church, but you know, churches aren’t very big in Canada. So when we were about seven 800 people, I just hit a wall and I couldn’t work any more hours. There were probably over a thousand people who call their church home. I couldn’t remember names anymore and people told me for years, Hey, Nuha, if you’re going to burn out and I’m like, No, I’m not. That’s for weak people. And then one day my body’s just like, That’s it. We’re done. And I probably would have qualified as clinically depressed. I lost all my passion, lost all my energy or my zeal didn’t lose my faith, but I couldn’t feel it anymore. I went numb and I’m like, Gosh, this is it. I’m like 40 in my life is over. And so I kind of knew my formula was broken like more hours is not the solution to more growth than I started in the reconstruction by the grace of God. That that burnout, that depression lasted four to six months. It was brutal. Worst half year in my life. But I started to gradually see daylight and as I reconstructed my life. I started thinking there’s got to be a better formula. And so I came up with a new approach on how to look at time, how to look at my energy levels and how to stop my priorities from being hijacked by other people. And it was a personal formula based around doing what you’re best at, at your best. And sort of the mantra is I needed to learn how to live in a way today that would help me thrive tomorrow. So I use that for a number of years, and then I started to see exponential growth to the point where I was four while leading a church full time and it was still growing. We were in a building campaign. I launched a podcast. I was speaking around the world. I was writing books and I was writing regularly on my website at Curie News.com. And a few years ago, the number one question I was getting asked is like, How do you get it all done? And so I started to think about it and I thought, Well, you know, there’s this formula I use. And then I realized, Oh, this works for other people. And so it’s really ironic because I say no way more often I have way more margin. Like today, I did some writing in the morning. I launched a book a week ago, but at lunch I went for a 25k bike ride and then I came in. I did an Instagram Live. I’m doing this interview. I have another one. I’m going for dinner with a friend and I’ll be in bed by 10:00 tonight and I’ll get up and do it. So now I serve like our content gets access that like a million and a half times a month by leaders around the world. And I have more time than ever before, and we’re accomplishing more. So it’s this really weird. And so that’s what at your best is about. It’s like, OK, here’s the formula that I’ve used, and we’ve trained thousands of leaders on this over the last few years. But you know, this works for other people. That was the big surprise is, oh, these are principles that you can adopt to your life that will help you accomplish more in less time.

William Norvell: Oh, that’s good. OK, so I’m going to play, you know, the negative guy on the podcast here, right? Right. So this is, oh, I guess it’s absolutely a plug for your book, but you said you’ve trained lots of people. So does that work? So what you just said, that sounds great. That sounds amazing. Every entrepreneur and this thing goes, I mean, gosh, I’d love to work forty five hours a week and not 80 and accomplished just as much. I mean, we’ve done a podcast before as I’m sure, you know, anxiety, depression so high in entrepreneurs like, is this real, Carrie? Like, Is this? And I’m not saying the book for sure is going to change the life, but you’ve trained leaders. This isn’t just a one of you, right? This ideology works. Is that what you’re saying?

Carey Nieuwhof: Well, to be specific, let’s put numbers behind it. I had a version of this. I’ve redeveloped it and made it better. But there was a course called The High Impact Leader. We ran over 3000 leaders through that course, so not everyone completed it. You know, online courses, but we heard from hundreds, if not thousands, of people who said, Wow, this is really making a difference. Then I’ve spoken on it for three or four years and have literally interacted with thousands of leaders around the world as I’ve spoken and had lots of dialog and people write us. So I would say we tested it with about 5000 leaders. We’ve also sold about 5000 books in the first week, and now we’re starting to get letters in from people who are just starting the system. I know this sounds like some miracle tonic or whatever, but all it is, it’s a fun. Let me let me give you the heart of why I think it works. You start out first thing in the morning, often in your inbox or you’re checking all your unread messages. You have 24 equal hours in the day, but you don’t know when you’re actually at your best. Like, there is now brain science that says, believe it or not, you have three to five productive hours in a day. And that’s it. Like, as a writer, I can tell you my content at seven a.m. is far superior to what I can produce at seven p.m. I’m a morning person. You know, no one’s a robot. We can’t. If you’re doing investor calls your investor call up 4:30 in the afternoon, Luke probably is not the best one. You know, unless you had a nap at two o’clock, you’re probably sharper at eight o’clock in the morning and any board meeting a lot of your listeners will sit on a board at some church or something like that. Any board meeting that runs by 10:00, like there’s three brain cells left in the room. That’s just the loss of human energy. And what we do is we spend our time unthinkingly and reactively. We don’t manage our energy. So what happens is you start with that honkin to do list at seven a.m. You’re in reactive mode all day. So you’re answering emails, answering texts, fighting fires, you know, people are knocking on your door. Hey, William, I need your help on this. You’re like, Yep, OK, and you’ve got this big strategic plan you’re working on, but now you have to come back to that. Then it’s lunch, then you get back. You’re kind of tired. You have more caffeine. Oh, there’s a meeting. Can you come into this meeting? Yes, I’ll come into this meeting. Oh gosh, I got 17 new emails I got to respond to. Oh, there’s this guy who needs me to return the call. It’s four o’clock. What have you crossed off your to do list? Nothing. And that’s called every day, so you take your most important work, the stuff that actually moves. The needle and now you’ve got that home with you. So if you have a family at home, you’re trying to be present with your family, but you’re not really family. Your laptop is open while Disney Plus is on. You’re not really paying attention. You’re reading with your daughter. You’re skipping pages out of her storybook, hoping she won’t notice. But she notices because you just have to get back there. You fall into bed exhausted and you do it again tomorrow. Like that stinks. And we always tell ourselves, OK, this is just a busy season. It’s like, No, you’re an entrepreneur, OK? Seasons have beginnings and ends. If your busy season has no ending, it’s not a season. It’s your life. So I can live like that for a book launch. I can live like that. If there’s a date on the calendar, OK, by Christmas, we get peace by February 17th. This season is over. Our IPO is finished. Whatever, there has to be a date on the calendar. We don’t have dates on the calendar. Next thing you know, you’re 50 years old and you hate your life or you’re 30 and you hate your life and you built this life you want to escape from. So that’s the stress spiral, and that’s what I’m trying to defeat. And I lived in the stress spiral. I got eaten alive. You know, when our church was 800, that’s not, you know, a million liters a year, but now it’s a million liters a year and this has worked. So that’s where it comes from. But push push back even more because I like it, I used to. My favorite part of being a lawyer was being in court. So be the opposition. Go ahead.

Luke Roush: So I have a question that actually relates to maybe kind of a root cause diagnosis. And then I think William has a question around how do we solve for all this? But what drives leaders? Because I think many of us innately understand what you just shared and what you just articulated. Many of us have experienced it. Maybe not me, of course.

Carey Nieuwhof: But of course, of course I know. But but good friend and good

William Norvell: friend of Lou gets his two o’clock nap. Don’t worry.

Luke Roush: So you know what drives it? Is it my insecurity? Is it my kind of concern for what others think? Is it a desire to be busy almost like a paranoia? What is it that actually at the root level drives leaders to continue to behave in a way that they know is ultimately not as productive as kind of this state that you described a moment ago?

Carey Nieuwhof: It can be incredibly unhealthy or it can be healthy. So in my case, going back 20 years in my thirties, I’m 56 now, but going back into my 30s, it was, you know, it was a part of me that really needed redemption. It’s a very perceptive question, Luke. I would say as a performance addict, and I think a lot of people who are in that entrepreneurial space and a lot of pastors who was a pastor of a church at the time, you know, 30 percent growth wasn’t enough, even though it was unmanageable, it wasn’t enough. And I remember one day I came home and I told my wife, my biggest fan, my best critic. I said, How is today’s message? She said it was good. And I’m like, Well, good. We’re like, Really good. She’s like, OK. It was really good. I’m like, You look really good. Or was it excellent? She goes, OK. It was excellent. Yeah, but excellent. Like, do you mean it was excellent? Do you mean? And she’s just she just looked at me and she said, I don’t know what that is, but whatever that hole inside you is, I will never be able to fill it. Hmm. And. Mike, yeah, you’re right. And it doesn’t matter, you can be number one on the New York Times list, which I have not been, but you can be number one in the New York Times list and it’s like, Well, you know, William, look just and they were on for 10 weeks. I was only on for four weeks, Ted. Ted Turner donated a billion dollars to the U.S.. Anyone remember that that happened in the 90s, but he donated a billion dollars to the U.N. and I remember reading an article at that time and they asked Ted Turner, How do you feel after donating a billion dollars to the U.N.? Said, Well, it’s not bad, but like compared to what Warren Buffett could do, I’m like, Oh my gosh, you just donated a billion dollars and you’re like, Well, compared to Warren Buffett, I’m like, What do you do, right? Like, there is something unhealthy I interviewed. This will be, I’m sure, by the time this airs, this will also be on my podcast. But Mike Todd, the lead pastor of Transformation Church, the fastest growing and one of the largest churches in America. Thirty three year old African-American leader who’s just sensational. And we got into it and I said, What’s driving that? And he he said, you know, I’m working through that with my counselor. He said when I was 11 or 12 years old, I was a drummer and I wanted to be the best drummer in the world. And I kept wanting my church to pick me as a drummer. And they always pick the other guy. And he said there was a lie, there is an agreement that happened in that moment, and he’s unpacking this in real time. Where he just couldn’t stop until he was back, so he has been a New York Times number one best selling author. He’s had an album he produced or song he produced chart top 10 on Billboard. Like, the guy has been so successful and he’s sitting with his counselor trying to figure out what drives me. So this summer, he took 103 days off. And his church grew and his book launched at number one after that, there’s this really weird thing that drives us, and you can’t because the very thing that drives you is the thing that will destroy you if it is unredeemed. So most of the people listen to this podcast are Christians. You have to bring that under your drive. My drive, I had to bring that under the grace of Christ. And it’s a daily mode of check. It’s like, Am I doing this so I can be well known? Am I doing this so that I can be successful? Am I doing this for the wrong reason? And the answer is still, my motives are a bit mixed. Like, Catch me on a good day. It’s pretty altruistic. Catch me on a day where I’m tired or exhausted or not in good space, and it’s a little selfish. And what I have to do is I have to lay down my life in the service of others. And so it can’t really be about me. It’s funny. That thing I’m best known for. My podcast is the thing where I talk the least, right? So I preach sermons for 20 years, talk for 40 minutes uninterrupted. I shut up and let the guest talk, and that’s what I become known for. In the end, it’s just the most bizarre thing, but there is that Gordon MacDonald, if you want to read about this in his order in your private world, a classic book it was released almost 40 years ago has a whole section on driven verses called And It. I’ve talked to Gordon about that on my podcast. It’s chilling, but if you redeem that, if you allow God to take that drive and have it, it’s like, you know, what’s the difference? Because your work, Luke is in the area of finance. What’s the difference between the greedy guy who builds himself a mansion and spends all his money on himself and the kingdom minded entrepreneur who decides, I’m going to use this money for the benefit of others? You know, the green family, for example, like we are actually doing Hobby Lobby so that we can actually change the face of generosity and hopefully make a little dent in human history. I think that’s a much better motive, but it’s just a twist. It’s a redemption. The drive is still there, but the purpose is redemptive. And so that has been a very active story in my life and on my good days. I get it right on my bad days. It’s like, Please pray for me. I’m still working on it, but it takes it takes the pressure off and the emptiness in my last book didn’t see it coming. My final chapter, which I don’t think anybody read, is on emptiness. And like, what happens when you reach the pinnacle and you’re like, This isn’t enough. Like, Solomon lived in that world, and his conclusion was, It’s meaningless, it’s meaningless. It’s all meaningless. And there’s a there’s a certain vanity to the chase unless it’s fully redeemed. And so, yeah, you got me on a soapbox, but I will now step off, think it’s

William Norvell: a we might we might get you right back on there. No, that was so good. I mean, so when I hear that the one thing I want to think about for entrepreneurs, so they’re they’re hearing this, hopefully they’re thinking about the priorities in their life. They’re trying to reorder some of them and think through, you know, what does matter and how am I living my life? What are the questions I want to ask? Are there spiritual practices? How does trusting the Lord work in this? You know, the famous my mind goes the famous quote. He probably never said the Martin Luther quote of, You know, I’ve got so much to do today. I must spend three hours in prayer for that, right? You know, is there something there? Do you commit the week to the Lord when you start to you, close your laptop on Friday or Saturday and say, Lord, you work while I’m not. How do you? In your soul? Most of our people listening right there over workers, that’s probably their default, right? Like is there? Is there a practice or something that says, Well, you have to trust that, that you’re doing the Lord’s work? And if you know, and ninety hours a week just can’t be the Lord’s work for five years, right? Or you know what I’m saying? How do you how do you think through that?

Carey Nieuwhof: Yeah, I think through that in a number of ways. So the goal is to get time, energy and priorities working for you, and margin should show up in your life in five categories spiritual, emotional, relational, physical and financial and by financial margin. I don’t necessarily mean, oh, you got millions in your bank account. What I mean is margin, because we all know the guy who makes $30000 a year, who has an emergency fund and the guy who makes $300000 a year, who’s got loans coming out of his ears and has no margin. So margin is simply extra. It’s surplus spiritual and so many entrepreneurs live in the red all the time. They’re just in deficit. Their relationships are in tatters because they spent too many hours emotionally. They’re depleted and they feel numb. Physically, it’s like, Yeah, maybe they go to the gym, but are they really taking care of their bodies or is it, you know, drive through day in and day out and then financial margin can be razor thin sometimes. And I know there are seasons to sacrifice and there’s start season and all of that and then spiritual. So what it looks like for me, my kids are grown when they were young. You know, I started my day with God for about 15 minutes. Now that’s about an hour, and I don’t want to, you know, you won’t find me sitting there in perfect meditation. I’ll be thinking I’ll be reflecting, I’ll be journaling, I’ll be reading, I’ll be reading scripture. But that kind of sets a baseline for the day. And then the other discipline that I would add to that is you’ve got to learn the art of saying no and FOMO is going to creep up on you fear of missing out. We just did my 2020 22 speaking calendar. I said no to most of the requests that came in for twenty twenty two, and that’s a little terrifying because it’s money you can be certain of its opportunities. You may not get again, but we set our priorities as an organization. I realized COVID was a gift not in most ways, but in the sense of grounding me for 18 months. And I’m like, Oh, I like this pace. I’m a better boss, I’m a better husband. I used to fly 100000 miles a year and I wasn’t burning out, but it’s like, I think I’m going to do one or two trips a month. I think, you know, we talked about Tim Keller when we were getting ready to record. I had the privilege of interviewing Tim and he has pancreatic cancer. And so I asked him what he was reflecting on. And one of the things he said just. You know, stop me in my tracks, because Tim Keller said I’ve been thinking about how much time I have done what other people wanted me to do and not what the Lord has wanted me to do. And like, I hope Tim Keller lives to be one hundred and seventy two years old and writes a book every year until he is no longer here with us. But, you know, to think that Tim could have perhaps done more in his lane with his life, that he’s that’s what he’s thinking, like, what is God uniquely called you to do? And what I’ve found is just this inverse relationship. I mean, we just had a six hour dinner party Sunday night. I’m going to dinner with a friend who’s come in from out of town, did a bike ride at lunch, and the platform keeps growing. It’s like, What is that? And we say no, and then we get more requests. It’s like. And you have to be careful. Like, there’s a season maybe early on where you say yes to everything. But as your capacity expands, it’s that bizarre thing. And Richard Branson never been to Necker Island, but I’ve had a couple of friends who have been there and you know, the guy runs like 400 companies. Think about the Virgin Empire. There are hundreds of companies under Richard Branson. Apparently, if you go to Necker Island, he comes out on the jet ski and you know, he’s got a T-shirt and shorts and he’s like, Hey, what do you want, William? Luke, Justin, what would you guys like? Do you want something to drink? You want to go sit in a hammock, you want to talk in the cabana. Like, what do you want to do? And he’s got all the time in the world for you. He’s not on a cell phone like texting seventeen people. He’s just he’s just present. And it’s sort of like Dallas Willard, you know, he talks about the ruthless elimination of Hurry, an idea that John Mark Comber popularized. And you know, I’ve got friends who knew Willard quite well, and when one of my friends tells the story and Dallas has had this huge spiritual legacy. But if you went to Dallas, his house was very modest. He had an old fashioned land line and one day he was just sitting there talking to my friend. John and John said the phone rang and rang and rang and rang, and it was like Dallas didn’t even notice because he was just fully present with my friend John that day. And you know what, that kind of singular focus does, what that could do for your company, what that could do for your marriage, what that could do for your parenting, what that could do for your time with God. And so if you think about your limited energy doing what you’re best at, when you’re at your best, what is the most valuable thing you could do for your company? You’ve got three to five peak hours in a day. Do it, then shut off all the distractions. Turn off all your notifications and just focus on that for an hour or two every day and then get your inbox and then get to your screaming customers and then get to the investors and then get to the customer service department and then get to those other things. But that kind of like moving the big rocks, getting those things done early in the day or whenever your peak zone is and being fully focused on that, it just alleviates so much pressure and that’s made a huge difference. So I think, you know, having margin again, do you remember between kindergarten and grade one to remember that summer? It felt like five years of today time, doesn’t it? It’s like one school going to start again. It just lasted forever. And now we’re like, Gosh, how is it? Not 2019 anymore? The years are flying by like days used to, and it’s time to slow down. And Jesus, you know, he walked. He didn’t run, and he changed the world in three years. We’ve got to figure out a better rhythm that doesn’t kill us.

William Norvell: Amen Amen, gosh, have so many questions left. I’ve listened to too many of your podcasts so we can do rapid fire.

Carey Nieuwhof: I’ve been so

William Norvell: rapid, but I love that. Two lessons from people you’ve interviewed that you’d want to pass along to entrepreneurs listening.

Carey Nieuwhof: Hmm. I would say. Gordon MacDonald just about making an active contribution at age 82. He just at eighty two, his life is focused on reading great biographies and giving back to other people and staying intellectually curious. That’s huge. And then Adam Grant, I had a fascinating conversation with Adam Grant earlier this year and. So often we think the world is not interested in the church. The world is not interested in the negative version of the church that unfortunately dominates the news and everybody’s social media. But when you actually start talking about Jesus, I was just listening. You know, Adam and I had the most fascinating conversation about church, and he was like to his point to his book, thinking again about what he thought about church so more as possible than you would think.

William Norvell: Hmm. What would you tell an entrepreneur to do tomorrow morning if they’re overworked, they’re in the red and everything? What would you tell them?

Carey Nieuwhof: Turn off all the notifications on all of your devices. Spend your first few minutes or a half hour with Jesus, with God, and then spend the next two hours doing the most important thing. You could do that you never get around to, to moving your company forward and then open your devices and jump in your day and repeat that and repeat that. And that’s like the baby version of at your best. But if you just start there tomorrow, you’ll already have a better day tomorrow.

William Norvell: And last one, I know this is not a prosperity gospel idea, but I have to ask it. Someone reorders their priorities. They work 40 percent less. Their company fails. Was it worth it?

Carey Nieuwhof: Well, let’s ask it the other way around would have been worth it for you to win at work and lose it life. Because to me, I used to I used to justify it when I was in my 30s and I was starting to lose at home, my wife Tony wrote a book before you split about the really rough part in our marriage, where we didn’t know whether we’re going to make it or not. And I was a pastor and she was my wife. And, you know, I used to believe that the success at work justified feeling at home. And I don’t believe that anymore. If you’re winning at work, but you’re losing at home, you’re losing. Period. So what profit’s a person to win the whole world and lose your soul? It’s not worth it.

Luke Roush: Amen, I’m going to close this out, and we like to close each episode by just hearing what God is teaching you right now, how he can be praying for you and then what have you found in God’s word that has stuck out to you recently above the just quote there, if we could carry

Carey Nieuwhof: Amen second desire? So the hope, the hope that kind of springs eternal, the Old Testament can be like just this roller coaster. And so springs in the desert and the second Isaiah story. That’s seminary thing. It actually is the book of Isaiah, but they say those first 40 chapters written by one Isaiah. What’s next for you anyway? Long story short, still the word of God, but it’s super powerful. The other thing I would say God is teaching me in this season is that I wrote, at your best to be a Trojan horse into the business community, that there’s not a lot of scripture in it. It’s thoroughly scriptural. But, you know, on the front cover, you’ve got endorsements from Adam Grant and Seth Godin on the back, Pat Lynch, Yoni, who is a Jesus follower, by the way. Yeah. And Cal Newport, Greg McEwan, all those people who are sort of in that space. And when I left La, my heart never really left. And so I’m hoping that business leaders, I would encourage people, you know, who are listening if you’ve got secular friends who just need the help of Jesus. I’m hoping God uses this platform in this book and what we do to reach out in the world and make a difference. Because, you know, when I was in law in my twenties in Toronto, they had the whole world, but they didn’t have Christ, and you could see the bankruptcy happening in people’s lives as they had all this money and they were miserable. And I’m like, People need help. And so I’m really trying to let God speak into my life right now about perhaps using me and what we do to make a small dent in that universe. So the book is really a lot of scripture without all the Bible verses, and some principles, I hope can help some people who are far from God and far from church. And perhaps along the way they’ll discover the beauty of Jesus.

Luke Roush: What an awesome on ramp for people who are going to ask that important question at the end of going through your book. Where does this all come from? Where does this lead? And what will be a great opportunity? I think over time for you to be able to speak to where that comes from and where does it lead? So thank you for being with us today. This is wonderful, Gary,

Carey Nieuwhof: and thank you, Lou. William, so appreciate you guys.

— by Amanda Lawson

I’ve lived in the Midwest my entire life and every year, even though by now I have circled the sun enough to understand seasons, the leaves changing hits like a beautiful surprise. I’ll look out my window at the tree line that serves as our back fence or at the mix of pines and brightly-colored maples and oaks that cover our little college town and be amazed at how this seemingly innocuous, literally natural process can have such a profound impact on my outlook. I recently realized the power of fixing my eyes on beautiful things when—on a particularly frustrating day—I hopped in my car, ready to tell God how annoyed I was by various situations, but caught a glimpse of a cluster of trees that were the perfect blend of fall colors. I stopped mid-lament and simply told the Lord, “Wow. You’re beautiful. Thank you for being beautiful even when life feels like it’s falling apart.” 

It wasn’t a long prayer. It wasn’t sophisticated. I wasn’t—as far as I can tell—staring at the face of God but I caught a brief glimpse of His handiwork. And with Him, even brief glimpses are incredibly powerful. My mood shifted; my circumstances and frustrating situations did not. 

Romans 1:19-20 tell us that what can be known about God is plain to see, that God has shown us; that “His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” We see His power and awe-inspiring beauty in the things He has made. I think fall leaves in the Midwest are a prime example. 

It’s so easy in our world today to become distracted by our work, by political divisions, by tragedy at home and abroad. We get entrenched in our jobs—even if at first for noble reasons—and at some point down the line, look up to find ourselves in places (physically, mentally, spiritually) where we never thought we’d go. 

This is not a case for ignoring deadlines or responsibilities; I’m not advocating playing make-believe. As stewards of our lives—including our work lives—we must steward our vision. We look with intention on financial statements, meeting agendas, and branding strategies. What if we also spent our gaze on the Lord? For many of us, the demands of work and life don’t always allow for extended time in the Word. But how kind of the Lord to give us evidence of Himself in the nature we drive through on our way to our jobs! In those moments, we get to refocus our vision and our hearts. On a walk between meetings, driving to and from the office, drinking that cup of coffee and simply staring out the window, if we are willing, we can gaze on the beauty and majesty of the King, even in the busiest and most hectic workdays. 

In the middle of running for his life, king David pens what we know as Psalm 27. He writes of his deep desire to gaze on the Lord, even when being actively pursued by enemies. In a prayer found in Psalm 86, David asks the Lord to give him an “undivided heart” that was focused on the goodness and glory of God. What if our prayers matched David’s and we took seriously the reality that we were made to gaze on the beauty of God, regardless of our circumstances or stress level? 

A few times since that drive, I have found myself sitting alone, staring at the nature surrounding me…in my backyard, on my drive to work, at the state park just outside of town, even sitting in our church parking lot. It doesn’t take an extravagant expense to find yourself somewhere beautiful. It does take you looking at something other than your own situations. And it is worth it every time. 

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