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In 1998, Mart Green took a transformational trip to Guatemala that changed the way he thought about return on investment. Since then, he has been involved in Bible translation and distribution efforts from the launch of the YouVersion Bible app to the establishment of a collaborative partnership among 10 of the world’s largest Bible translation organizations, called illumiNations. 

In today’s conversation, Mart shares where his passion for Bible translation started, the encouraging steps he’s seen in the effort to eliminate Bible poverty, and the power of what happens when competitors become collaborators. 

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.

Henry Kaestner: When I think about alternate ways to think about Faith Driven Investor and different ways to think about guys economy and how to measure the success of our investments, I keep on coming back to one story that I’ve heard, Martelle, time and time again. That’s really made an impact on me and it’s made an impact on me because I really think that my thought about what a return on investment look like was probably pretty much in sync with Marte’s way up until this time he had this trip to Guatemala, which we’re going to hear about. And so I’m eager for Mark to tell a story and we’re going to get into that and we’re going to be unpacking together. What does it look like to think about investment return in light of what God tells us through his scripture and tells us through his spirit in a way that I hope will stretch us all? And I hope that in the course of doing that will bring us closer to knowing God and then just helps us to understand how to steward the resources he’s entrusted us with under his power for his glory. So hopefully that’s what success looks like. At the end of this podcast. You’ll have that much more of a closer sense as to what that what that means for you and the assets you’ve been entrusted with. So, Mark, thank you for being on the show. Let’s start off, as we do with all of our guests. Tell us a bit about your personal background. Many people will probably know of your family, but pretend like we don’t.

Mart Green: Yeah, I was born in Oklahoma. My family gravitated to Oklahoma City because of a retail company called TGen Y where my dad worked. And so when I was nine, my dad decided that he want to get work life balance. And so he borrowed six hundred dollars and started what became Hobby Lobby in our home. So we glued frames. I was nine, my brother was a seven, and then I have a sister, she was three. So she got out of the child labor and just saw the business grow in her home. And my mom ran the business for the first five years without pay. My dad finally quit his job, selling half to see if he could make a go of it. Then I went to school. I was at college. I decided I heard my dad talk about Christian bookstores, will actually quit in nineteen eighty one, came home and started a company called Mortdale. We have thirty seven Christian bookstores and then ninth grade. I found a young lady that I liked and I chased her for six years and finally she agreed to marry me and we’ve had four children and our twenty second grandchild is due today. So if I run off this podcast you’ll know that I got the call and I’m sorry, but the family comes first. But anyway, somehow the two have become twenty two. And so God’s blessings, that incredible family.

Henry Kaestner: Wow, that is awesome. You’re a very rich man and the most meaningful sense

William Norvell: in a beautiful way to end the podcast. I don’t think we’ve ever had that happen. That would just be hey, what is beautiful.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, I would be super cool. OK, so get back to it because you gloss over that a little bit and you’re an entrepreneur. We have this sister series that we do called the Faith Driven Entrepreneur where we’ve done, I don’t know, maybe one hundred and eighty hundred and ninety segments. We’re not going to tell so much of the Mardell story today, but I want to look at it just a little bit. You grew up in an entrepreneurial home. You were glowing picture frames when you’re nine years old, and then you went and started your internal venture. What did it look like growing up in that house that made you want to be an entrepreneur? And were there ever a time, though, when you saw what was going on in the business? You said, no, I don’t want to do that. How did it all just growing up in an entrepreneurial home impact in shape, how you ended up seizing and lean into your own entrepreneurial career?

Mart Green: Yeah, what I saw probably were a couple of things. One was hard work because it was a lot of hard work. We started a business in your home, your mom not getting paid, all those kind of things. And then I also knew that it was a way to provide for family was also a way to give. You know, my family has always wanted to give and be generous. And so by being entrepreneurial, the more you can do, the more you can give. And so we kind of see it now as a prosperity gospel or the poverty gospel, but the plentiful gospel. So I use a symbol of a funnel. I have a coin in my pocket, has our family a love that intimately has a heart that was easy, live, extravagant generosity. I wanted to put a curtain being torn because I think that’s the most generous thing that ever happened visually. When Jesus died on the cross, the tartan was torn. This is hard to do that. So I chose a funnel. So on my coin in my pocket, I carry is a funnel in the back. And so that’s what I saw just kind of lived, you know, the more you get, just give. So when I was at college, I was nineteen years old. My dad, he want to do a barbecue stand. He want to do all these different things. And I wasn’t interested. But he said, Christian bookstore. I thought, oh no, that’s kind of cool because the entrepreneurial what you’re doing, you know, there’s not a lot of people go to Hobby Lobby, buy so flower and their life is transformed for eternity. Now they have incredible experience. It makes their home better and all that stuff. But a Christian bookstore, I’m thinking, oh, because usually you give to ministries and you make money, you’re entrepreneurial. Well, that’s kind of the deal. The Christian bookstore you kind of get to take. Both of those, and so, again, 19 not smart enough to ask all the big questions, you know, that I should have I probably would have never done it. So I quit school and my dad would pay for school kind of work. His measure goes, well, if I come over and I bust, I’ll make enough money to go back to school again. So that was my plan.

Henry Kaestner: So tell us also a little bit about family business, because Mardell is co-located with Hobby Lobby. You’re all together. What’s it like working in a multigenerational family business altogether?

Mart Green: Yeah, for me, it’s a huge benefit, as you can imagine, because my dad already had banking things, relationships. They had lawyers worked up. And all this is good news. I’d have to worry about a lot of heavy things. Now, obviously, Christian bookstore and at that time is off supply. Now, we’ve kind of evolved into education supplies. That was all different. So that’s what I had to do. Lots of learning. But the advantage of having a family business here together is my dad had already cut down lots of trees and lots of weeds that were in my way. And so I had huge advantage in that way. What I had to go do is say, hey, can I be a merchant in different categories? Then obviously Hobby Lobby has lots of different categories and they’re world class, what they do. And so it was just fun to go and do it there at the same time, have those advantages. But, you know, my dad kind of let me do it. You know, he didn’t come in. He only had seven hobby lobbies, I think, in nineteen eighty one when I opened. So he’s still trying to get his. And so the nice thing was my dad could have saved me from a lot of mistakes. He probably watched me walk right in that wall and get a bloody nose. When he stopped me I probably have done it again. Right. But since he didn’t stop me, I didn’t do it again. Right. And so I had a father that would empower me and not help me lots. You see what I’m saying? But in the decisions I had to make, he never Trumpton never got into the business of why did you do that? Why did you do that? So anyway, it was an incredible, incredible I guess I just assumed everybody had the same upbringing. I guess we all do. Right. I guess I assume everybody’s trying to figure something out on their house or working at home and working. Mother, nine years old. I didn’t find out later that I was I wasn’t under the child labor laws.

Henry Kaestner: So did your kids. The next generation, the tilers and and that generation start off the same way,

Mart Green: not at nine. We let them go to school and get a little bit older and stuff like that. But some of that same philosophy that, you know, your first car you have to pay for part of that college. We matched their funds, you know, so we got a little bit better than my parents. They were zero, you know, and stuff, because, again, they didn’t have the funds to help me at that time. So that’s what we try to figure that out. You know, that’s not a science. That’s an art stuff. How do you help your kids? You don’t want them to feel entitled. That’s always been a concern that we’ve had as a family. How do you do that? How do you be generous if your family seems to love got intimately and little extravagant generosity? What’s extravagant generosity to look like within a family member that’s also healthy? Right. I give my kids lots of money. That wouldn’t be extravagant generosity, really. I’d actually be killing their work, desire and all that. So it’s a it’s something you have to work through.

Henry Kaestner: OK, so that’s give me another Panksepp. So we’re going to come back to it because I’ve gotten to know Tyler and Derrick well over the course the last couple of years. And I know that you’re actually very, very intentional with the way you do that. I think that there’s a lot there to unpack. We won’t go there on this episode. But I actually want to go backwards. Just a second. You pulled a coin out of your pocket and you just said what it was. Just briefly, because I want to talk about that coin and then I want to talk about another thing that you always do as a matter of habit that’s really made an impression on me. But tell us again about the coin and then I’ll tell people about what the other habit that you have that’s made an impression on me.

Mart Green: Yeah. About twelve years ago, our family decided, you know what, we have a vision statement, a mission statement, a core values for the business. But we don’t have it for our family. And our family is more important than our business. So why don’t we do that? So at that point, Gen three object to my parents be Gen one, we’re younger. So Gen one, my parents, my brother and sister and their spouses, those eight of us sit down in a hotel room with a facilitator just to kind of put down who are we, what’s the Greens all about? So we have our core values, but we got an interest in a real simple one. So the real simple, little memorable and so is love got intimately the extravagant generosity. So I like symbols. I like things that I can look at and say, oh, that’s what that means. So as I showed earlier, that love got intimately extravagant, generous. So every morning when I get up here, I gave one to all the family members. Now I’m not ten. They kept theirs. They may have lost it. I have extras. They can have one because I’m a simple guy. But once a year we have a big family. Celebration is so at that meeting of a new family member. Then they’ll get a copy of this as well as that. We have a custom Bible for our family that when a new family member marries, then they get that Bible and we all bring us back to the meeting and they sign our Bible. We send their Bible just as a commitment to each other. Now, I can’t force my kids to love. Got into me a little extra generosity. All I’m saying is that’s where the river’s going. So if you want to go up river, you can jump out of the river. You can. But we’re kind of going this way, what we feel God’s given us. And so it’s been fun and our kids have embraced that. And just some of those little things you do as a family,

Henry Kaestner: it’s not one of those little things is a very big thing that you do as a family. Okay, here’s the other thing that you’ve done that’s really made an impression on me. You have the same way of signing off on your email every time. What is that? What quote do you put down and what does that mean to you? Because that’s a bridge. To an area, the conversation that Williams can take us through

Mart Green: now, back in the day, we were trying to do a full page ad for the newspaper about God’s word, very important to us. So I hired a firm that came back with a little tagline. I didn’t like it. So I sent him back to the drawing board and they came back with four words. I said, that’s it. That’s it. That’s it. So the last twenty three years I’ve had all my emails with these four words. This book is alive. And then I have a script that I put under that and hope most people understand because it’s the only book that’s alive. I mean, I’m watching it. There’s 6000 languages on planet Earth and every time it gets translated a new language, it speaks to the people. There is no book that does that. And so this book is alive is kind of what I love, being sure that I put on other people as much as I can.

William Norvell: So many beautiful things, so many beautiful things. I love symbols. I wrote down Quoin with family motto. I’m going in, I’m going have to get your tips. That just speaks to me.

Mart Green: I love

William Norvell: that. But one of the things we do want to dove into is Henry said, is your personal journey with God’s word and why you think it’s alive and why you think it’s so alive that you want to tell everybody about it. Every time you send an email, which I imagine is quite often, from what I understand, Guatamala is a big place for this started for you back in the late 90s. Could you tell us a little bit about that story?

Mart Green: Yeah, it’s a moment in time story, William, so thanks for asking. Nineteen ninety eight, because we had Christian bookstores and we sold Bibles, we thought and I didn’t know there were 6000 languages that people don’t have God’s word in our language. And so when I learned that, I said, oh, maybe we could be apart. So maybe Mardell could sell Bibles that helped pay for Bible translators. Well, the Bible translation process is kind of long, so that didn’t work so fine. I said, well, how do you pay for the printing, the Bibles? Because typically a new people groups, they will sell the Bibles to subsidized price. So maybe they charge them a quarter or fifty cents, but they may not be able to four or five dollars. So we started paying for first edition Bibles. So they said, well, ma, you paying these first edition Bibles, you got to come to a dedication. We dedicate the Bibles and you know how it is. You’re busy, you get your business, you’re trying to get it. You got four kids. And finally, the date worked February of nineteen ninety eight. So February 5th, I get on an airplane and I’m headed down there. And so now I’m getting some information about the translation. I don’t know much about this thing. You know, always the Asian heart attack people and there’s only thirty thousand of that. Speak this language like I’m new to this. I’m saying if you got a language, you got lots of people. My football stadium here, Norman holds one hundred thousand people. You know, all these people are going to fill up and get a little bit like an empty stadium, you know. Oh, and then only eight thousand of those people can read. A thousand of them are believers. Only four hundred believers can read. And I’m like, this is not a good hour. Oh, I you know, that’s the language I speak. I’ve got to go back to a family who all business minded. They’ll go on no good stories and I’ll come back. Oh, I went all the way down to Guatemala and four hundred people can read this Bible that this couple spent forty years translating because of warfare down there and all that stuff. They were nineteen fifty eight before I’m born to nineteen ninety eight forty years translating the Bible for people. Well for me it’s real simple. I’m not doing this again now. The forty years that the people I have no idea how to console them because they spent forty years of life. There were seventy years old when I got down. There will be one hundred ten when they get the next one done you know. So anyway so we got the ceremony and it’s ten hours out so I’m two days on the oral question. This is not working. Why do we do this then. I just ah forget it. It’s over. I’m not doing anymore. And then got the ceremony and they actually have, there was an American couple down there and for each and all the tech they give me a Bible for free. The translators get a free Bible and gas for one of the local isn’t huddle walk up to get his Bible. It’s something I’ve never seen before. In a Mortdale, we carry over a thousand different Bibles. We you take every language, every color, all that. There’s a thousand different choices. And I’ve helped people find the one, but I’ve never had them do a guest for doing Gaspar got God’s word. It’s hard language. Hinduja the first time he wept. Then he wiped his tears away and he wept. And I was stunned by that moment, watching a guy weep over a Bible. And so at that moment, the gods never spoke to me audibly. But the Holy Spirit has prompted me at different times in my life. That moment is a prompting was a simple question. Maat, why don’t you go tell Gaspar he’s not a good ahli? And that was like a spear going right to my heart sink, right, because I have been arguing that exact point for two days and I’m really not comfortable going up and telling the guy who’s weeping over his Bible he’s not a good return on investment. So in that one moment in time, I went from why to hell why do we translate the Bibles for small people groups to how are we going to make sure that everybody on planet Earth has God’s word in their heart language?

William Norvell: Let’s get it. And I’ve heard you talk before about, you know, you went from Oraibi to EROI. Could you tell us about what that metric means to you and how you put that into practice today?

Mart Green: Yeah, so I had a process. That’s what I’ve been arguing ahli the whole way down here. You know, that’s my heart language, right? That’s my language are a lie. And so I thought, well, what happened here? Then I realized, you know, I’m in charge of potent seed. I want to plant a seed that’s potent. So what? I plant potency. God’s in charge of the fruit. Now, right, I can take a scene put in right place and all that stuff, but now I understand God’s word is very potent. I have no idea what God is going to do among that group of four hundred or the thirty thousand. I mean, obviously, more people learn to read all that kind of stuff. So what I’m more concerned about now is in my planning potency and I just happen to believe that God’s word there’s only two things that last forever souls of men and women in God’s word. And so this is something I’m going to get to talk about for a long, long time. In heaven, we have all these 6000 names on our guys are going to figure all that out. He’ll figure all that out. But it’ll be fun to talk about your Bible and my Bible and all that stuff. And maybe we will instantly be able to speak six thousand languages. I don’t know. I mean, heaven is going to blow our brains out. Right. And so I can’t wait to get there because every tribe, every nation, every language is in heaven. That’s what it tells us. I love a picture that a guy does. He’s got the Last Supper, Elstein, the last supper. He took up an indigenous people around the table and I like call him at the next supper. The next time we go, they’re all going to be different indigenous people and all that stuff. So it’s beautiful. Heaven is an exciting thing and I think God’s word lasts forever. So that’s my EROI is to invest in things that last past, my lifetime.

William Norvell: That’s great. And so obviously a big point in time. Guatamala gasp Are these moments when you came back, you’re on the plane home. What do you think it did you immediately jump into how to solve this problem? What eventually led you into going really deep into the Bible translation world?

Mart Green: Before I took it home, I had one more experience and that was two o’clock in the morning. So, yeah, but it leads to that. So at two o’clock in the morning, I’m going to One Dollar Hotel and I lost the Arawa again. I didn’t get a return on investment on that Rodwin Dollar Hotel. And so I didn’t mind the hotel.

Henry Kaestner: The service at the hotel supplied you was not as good as one dollar that you paid.

Mart Green: No, it was a barn and the bed wasn’t made. And there’s no running water, just the bucket downstairs tin roof. So at two o’clock in the morning that actually there were cats, Latin reporters, jaguars, the four drunks singing out here. So that was a no sleep night. So at two o’clock in the morning, I’m not sleeping. And the most of the day I just watched as many people revival got pierced my heart. So I get out of book. Arthur being in God’s word and knowing it for yourself as a key being as well known as the key. Well, now the Lord gave me another prompting and it’s what kind of ahli is Mark Green? Fifth generation Christian, my mom’s side through my dad’s side, I own Christian bookstores, I paid for the printing that Bible, that man was over. I have 50 Bibles to my name and I read the Bible every great once in a while, maybe on Sundays when pastor opens it up and says to go somewhere. So all of a sudden I realized the oral question in Guatemala was not Gaspar, it was Mark Green. So I made a vow. February 8th, 1998, two o’clock in the morning, I get up first thing and read God’s word for the rest of my life. And so I get to gasp are weeping for me to appreciate what I took for granted. I’ve had in my English language for hundreds of years and hundreds of translations, but it took him for me to understand what I had taken for granted. So that started my journey of doing translation. But it really it took a few more years before I understood how to do that collaboratively. I went back and said, Hey guys, we got to sell more Bibles. Somebody else we can pay for more printing of Bibles. And so that was my first deal, is let’s just continue to pay for more printing of Bibles that get them done.

Henry Kaestner: So let’s talk about collaboration. Illuminations is a big project. You’re bringing together a whole bunch of different folks that might not ordinarily play well in the sandbox together. We’ve looked at this a little bit before in prior podcast with Peter Grear Rooting for Rivals. It’s just we live in a sinful fallen world and everybody’s got their own way. We know how many denominations there are. We know that we’re living in this post Tower of Babel reality. I’ve got that painting right behind me that’s kind of given birth to what you’re doing. Illuminations, right. But you’re bringing people together and you’re working on collaboration across a whole bunch of different sectors, different organizations that have different histories, and yet they’re all coming together. How are you making it happen?

Mart Green: Well, I’m not making it happen, but I’m trying to facilitate it happen. Of course, I think the Lord did it. So, yeah, back in ninety eight, right after my Gaspare experience, I was in Chicago and I just felt like someday there’ll be a project, so be the nominee to protect themselves. They would come together. No doubt I could do it. They would come together and both would come together. So that’s set my heart for 12 years. And then I went back to Guatemala because I talk about Guatemala all the time. So Todd Peterson, a good friend of yours, and see me say, hey, Mark, we’re going down to Guatemala City, I’m sure, Guatemala story in Guatemala. So I went down there when I was down there. So I’m not going back to Guatemala for about another ten or twelve years. And every time I go down there, my world gets rocked. You know, I said, oh, almost. If I get all these people to come together. And another unique thing was happening, and that’s called you Verson. So your version is a ministry based here out of Oklahoma City that has the Bible app that many people will be familiar with. Incredible entrepreneurial story. You won’t be surprised if you’ve already had him or we won’t have him on. We have, of course. Yeah. And so but he was doing these text digitized at the same time print on demand was saying, hey, green family, will you digitize these texts. Well that’s fifteen hundred dollars times two thousand languages for two different people. So I’m like no, no, no, I’m not digitizing these texts for everybody down river. I’m going back up river to who owns the intellectual property rights because bibles are intellectual property, you have to get the rights to do that. So we started by building a digital Bible library, so it kind of gave us a mutual reinforcing activity is what’s called the Collective Impact World, something we can all do together? Let’s centralize, digitize and standardize all these Bible text of the world. But my real goal was to finalize. We built this beautiful library that’s got two thousand books in it and there’s four thousand missing. So that was kind of a way to bring everybody together. And because it was called by the resource, we had four other resource partners like myself, a resource partner. You have ten Bible translation agencies that do most the translation in the world. You have five resource partners all meeting once a month, just strategizing. And so because it’s kind of cool by the resource partner now, we can be obnoxious as a resource partner and you can be a step too far. So it’s a it’s a dance. It’s a relationship of trust. You have to trust me very deeply that I’m working with you and I have to trust that you’re going to share. So I’ll build your tool as long as you’ll share with these other nine ministries, which actually represent there’s one hundred and fifty Bible societies that all have their own boards. So technically we’re coordinating probably one hundred fifty two hundred organizations all together. Now there’s a United Bible society, but they’re not over the Bible society. So they can say, hey, guys, please do this. But one hundred fifty boards could vote different way. So that took a trust, takes a long time. You get trust by the drop and you lose it by the buckets. And so we’re just trying to continue to build trust. So that’s what a collective impact really, really at the bottom line is about trust. But you know what? We all want to eradicate battle poverty. And nobody can say that by themselves. No donor can say I’m going to eradicate Bible poverty. No ministry party can say I can read. So that’s what keeps us whenever we get kind of shuffled down here and fighting with each other, all that stuff, we can keep looking up, guys. We’re going to eradicate poverty. There are people dying without scripture. We have the oxygen there underwater. We got to get them the oxygen. They’re going to die under there.

Henry Kaestner: So I’m fascinated by a collective impact. I’m actually not going to take us there because I’m a guy who saw t shirts at the University of Delaware. But William did go to Stanford Business School, which is where I think collective impact came out of. When you’re there, did you study collective impact and if so? Walk us through with Martje as he understands just the general principles of collective impact, because I think that they apply to limitations. And I think if this is an intro and an invitation for others to participate in illuminations, I hope they will. As people are motivated by the eradication of biblical poverty, I hope that they’ll find more about illuminations. But another thing that might happen from this is just the value of collective impact. Is that something, William, you’re familiar with? Did you ever study that there?

William Norvell: They didn’t let the Alabama guy into that class. Now, they were like, too heady, too much. You know, we’ve got sails for you, but so didn’t study it. I believe you that it started there. But I guess and Mark can illuminate us a little bit.

Mart Green: Yeah, it’s kind of wild because we started 2010 and in 2011, this Stanford comes out with this new concept called collective impact. And it was just so great because it gave language to what I was doing. Then as you’re doing something, you can explain it to people, but they did it. So there’s really what they call five steps ones, a common agenda. We just talked about that to eradicate child poverty. We all agree that’s a common agenda. Then you have a shared measurement system. How are we going to measure what we’re doing? Well, fortunately, in Bible translation, you can get it down to chapters in the Bible. So we have a goal that ninety five percent this world will have the full Bible, ninety nine point nine six will have at least the New Testament. And that last point zero four, which will be about three million people out of eight billion that we may have in twenty thirty three, we’ll all have scripture by twenty, thirty three. So that’s a shared measurement system. And then you’ve got mutually reinforcing activities. We talked about that, the digital Bible and let’s do some stuff together. Let’s go do something. So that’s one thing. We do lots of other things together now. Continuous communication. You’ve got to be talking. We meet every month. Typically, Dallas has the largest admiral’s club in the country, C twenty one in the Dallas airport. We all fly in for four hours. We fly back out. And so that’s the way we see each other. Now, obviously, the last year we’ve been doing that by Zoome because we can’t meet in person, but we’re about ready to get that going again. So we’ve met one hundred and three times, I think over the last ten years and then about three times. Wow. Yeah, trust takes

Henry Kaestner: time, you know, at C twenty one if you’ve been there a hundred and three times, you know the

Mart Green: gate. I know. I know so. And there’s a backbone about memorization and almost like the chief operating officer of it because all the CEOs come right, all the donors come, large donors all have businesses or things we got to go back to. So it’s not like we get full time to this. So we stir up all this trouble. I resisted it for the longest time. Then I realized no. So we have a staff of probably four or five that we helped fund that. Just follow up with all the details. Museum of the Bible, you said? Yeah, my brother on here, the Museum of the Bible want to make a room and put all 6000 languages in it. So they want to collect all two thousand Bibles. You know how hard it is to get one each of two thousand Bibles. It’s so hard that you would not do it unless you call one person called the backbone of Illuminations. And we did all that work with one hundred ninety organizations getting them to send to and from Germany, from Afghanistan, the whole world. These Bibles are not all sitting somewhere. And so now those are there. But they are now. Yeah, but we didn’t know that we started, but that’s the power of coming together. So those are the five points. The one that’s missing. Stanford missed one, the most important one, and that’s prayer. And so we have made this thing with a prayer from the very beginning. We actually have a translation prayer. It’s a six line prayer. And if we have time, maybe we’ll get to say at the end of it or something like that. But it’s just a six line prayer that I just hope maybe someday there’s so many people praying everywhere I go. I handed out my little card, a little magnet, two versions of it, because I’m a simple guy, right? So I want to leave somebody with something. I got to say to the Angels guys that prayer, I’m getting tired of hearing that we just go get that one solved, go answer that prayer. And so now, of course, people can pray what they want, but we’re also collectively having a prayer. And we just had an illuminations gathering. Three hundred people there. And every morning over one hundred people came early morning because we don’t let them out till 10:00 at night. They came up early morning to pray because we made a high priority is guys, we are operating the prayers of the people. And so that’s how you get people together, is to pray together

William Norvell: as a major. They I love symbols, too, and I’ve actually become fascinated over the last four or five years with collective prayer, praying the same thing. Right. I used to go against and of course, the Lord’s Prayer. I’ve never gone against that one, but I say, no, let’s not read prayers like God wants to hear our original thought, you know, but I love the power of it. Would you mind sharing that sixth line prayer with our audience? I would love if you would just pray that overall our audience over this moment.

Mart Green: Absolutely. God, your word is more precious than all that I possess. Your scripture gives light to my path and directs my steps. Through your will alone, lives are transformed, the mind’s made new, so I now pray for all people that do not yet know you, for you’ve promised that your voice by every tribe and nation will be heard. So equip us by your breath to provide every heart language with your word. Amen Amen.

Henry Kaestner: That’s awesome. And William, I love that you ask that question. William has authored the Sovereign’s Capital prayer and then also the faith driven movement prayer. And there is something really beautiful when everybody present together some. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Mart Green: Yeah. Thank you for allowing me to share.

William Norvell: And the last question I’d love to ask Martis, you’ve worked on this collective impact. You know, we’ve got a lot of entrepreneurs and investors that have, you know, shared high level goals. Right. They really do. But they also have their own business to run. How have you seen entrepreneurs work? Well, with that also, are there roadblocks that they should be looking out for? I mean, you do have to watch out for your own organization at some point. How does that tension play itself out and in this organization? And I would imagine others.

Mart Green: Yeah, the good news is, like we just came from this Illuminations event. We had one hundred and forty four giving units. So that’s lots of families. Now, some of those families, all they do is they come visit once a year and that’s it. We have thirty what we call co-host couples that give a little bit more their time and then there’s the five who give up their time. So some of those are in situations like Tai Peterson, former NFL football player. So he has a situation. They can give him more of his time. He still has to get some income and do some stuff like that. I also have in the way that I’ve been able to free up my time to do this. Now, not everybody can get the same amount of time. So I’m generous with my time and my talent and my treasure. Some might give us their talent and their treasure. Some might give us time and treasure. So you just try to get people, you find out what they’re getting are how can you help us? How can you do different things? And so but the five all have unique situations that they had enough time that they could give us that, because if they can’t, they won’t. There’s other people that love to be a part of our meetings every month, but they can’t because their time. So but when you get to a big enough audience, then you can have enough people that can come together to solve the issues that we have to come together with.

William Norvell: Well, as we do come to a close, this may be a little bit of pressure from someone who spent a good portion of their life translating different Bibles. So, you know, I know you hold the Bible dear and the Bible is alive as your as your sign off. But what we love to ask at the end of ours is we also hold God’s word very dear. And we love to see how God’s word can transcend your lives. Our guest lives with our listeners lives. And so we would love to invite our guest to do at the end to share something that God’s telling them through his word could be something this morning, could be something the season, could be something he’s told you his whole life that you think our audience should hear. But we’d love to invite you to do that here with our audience today.

Mart Green: Man, I wish we could take whole forty minutes on that question. I got lots of good answers there, but I’m all Jeremiah nine and twenty three in the message version. And it says, don’t let the wise regular wisdom. Don’t let the heroes brag of their exploits. Don’t let the rich brag of the riches. If you brag, brag of this and this only that you understand and know me. And so I’m really not a Bible guy on an intimacy with God guy. I just feel like the number one way to get into the God is through his word. And so that’s what I’m about. Intimacy with God.

— by Matthew Rohrs

When was the last time that the evil in this world interrupted your well-ordered life? For me, it happened when I met a Ugandan woman named Susan Ejang. In 1996, 14-year-old Susan was torn from the safety of her boarding school by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Armed young men forced their way into the compound and dragged her and 138 other girls out into the bush. Susan and her classmates became known as the “Aboke girls,” and their plight drew the world’s attention to the tens of thousands of abducted children forced to be soldiers or wives for the LRA. While in captivity, Susan experienced unspeakable horrors. Her family agonized with the news of her capture as the months became years. In 2004, eight long years after that fateful night, Susan finally escaped.

Stories like this elicit sadness, outrage, and often a feeling of paralysis. We lament with the victims and work to prevent these tragedies from ever happening again. What causes young men to take up arms, kidnap and rape children, and choose a life of violence? The reasons are complex, but these atrocities are routinely fueled by a sense of hopelessness and economic despair. As COVID-19 reverses progress in many vulnerable nations, economists estimate that as many as 140 million people have been pushed back into extreme poverty globally.[1]

To prevent, and heal from, tragedies like this, we need long-term, holistic strategies that go beyond quick fixes. These types of solutions must address spiritual and material poverty—the world needs Jesus and jobs. It is the people who understand the challenges and opportunities of these vulnerable contexts who are best positioned to facilitate lasting change.

The World Needs Jesus

Sustainable transformation starts with a heart change rooted in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The real Messiah—not the twisted caricature manipulated by extremists—brings hope, conviction of sin, forgiveness, and peace.

But how is the Church doing in spreading the gospel globally? The data is sobering. In the past century, the total number of Christians has tripled, but we’ve been stuck at 33% of the global population with no signs of growth.[2]We’re treading water.

In the Global South, where the Church has been growing, corruption is often the norm. For instance, in Kenya, 85% of the population identifies as Christian, while the nation is ranked 124th in the world in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.[3] Corruption stands in blatant opposition to the teachings of Christ and hinders the mission of the Church. It also strains economic growth and places a disproportionate burden on the poor as they pay a variety of bribes to navigate daily life.

It is clear that we need new ways to reach people for Christ and influence the culture around us. We don’t spread the gospel for the sake of filling churches on Sunday mornings. A life in Christ transforms our spiritual identity, but perhaps just as importantly, it transforms our relationships with our neighbors and our understanding of how all aspects of our lives—spiritual, social, and physical—are important to God.

The Poor Need Jobs

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, economists estimated that 657 million people would be living below the $1.90 extreme poverty line in 2020. This has risen to a projection of 797 million, setting the world back seven years in the fight against extreme poverty,[4] with the majority living in sub-Saharan Africa.[5] Pre-COVID, the World Bank estimated that an additional 600 million new jobs were needed by 2030 just to keep pace with population growth.COVID-19 is causing an enormous spike in unemployment throughout emerging market economies. The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs estimates that 49% of Small and Growing Businesses (SGBs) may fail worldwide. Business leaders who can sustain and create jobs that employ the vulnerable are even more valuable in a post-COVID economy. As our world continues to urbanize, and as populations in emerging market nations swell, we can either meet these employment needs and foster new levels of flourishing or witness the consequences of destabilized economies, riots, and revolutions.

The global Church must embrace economic development and job creation as an integral part of Christ’s prayer that God’s kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. This is an opportunity and an important part of God’s mandate for us.

Local, Kingdom-Minded Entrepreneurs Are the Solution

Profitable businesses that create jobs are one of the best, most sustainable ways to reduce poverty. In every major economic development success story, GDP growth fueled by the private sector is the driving force of sustainable solutions.[6] As local entrepreneurs identify business opportunities and build profitable companies, they grow the economy, create jobs, and increase incomes for families. Good jobs allow families to plan for the future and make their own dignified decisions about housing, food, education, and healthcare. Jobs lay a foundation for generational change.

So, who are the job creators? The data shows that entrepreneurs who grow companies by choice, not by necessity, create the majority of new jobs and a significant portion of overall economic growth. Worldwide, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) represent about 90% of businesses and more than 50% of employment. In emerging markets, SMEs create seven out of 10 formal jobs.[7]

Successful local entrepreneurs are also strategically placed by God to change their communities from the inside out. As their companies grow, they create innovative products and services that improve lives. Their success leads to growth for suppliers and business partners. They gain influence to fight corruption and share the gospel with employees, customers, and the community. As profits rise, resources increase to support the local church and address problems like hunger, corruption, and drug addiction.

How Sinapis Equips and Supports Entrepreneurs

Sinapis is a global network that exists to make disciples and alleviate poverty through the power of entrepreneurship. We provide rigorous business training that is customized for entrepreneurs leading SMEs in emerging markets. We directly manage programs in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, and we partner with organizations in six more countries. Entrepreneurs are given knowledge and tools to scale their companies while also making a social and spiritual impact in their communities.

Economic, Social, and Spiritual Impact

For over ten years, Sinapis has served over 5,800 entrepreneurs who lead SMEs. These leaders are game changers in their communities and are achieving remarkable economic, social, and spiritual impact.

Collectively, Sinapis graduates are generating $77.8M in annual revenue and have raised over $41.5M in capital. Pre-COVID, they were consistently growing revenue at roughly 50% each year (CAGR). Even with the challenges of 2020, their revenue growth exceeded 37% (CAGR). They also have staying power, as 76% are still in business three years after graduating from our training programs.

A consistent paycheck is one of the most effective, sustainable, and dignified ways to bring a family out of poverty. Worldwide, Sinapis graduates employ 7,647 people and have created 4,553 new jobs, often in areas with extreme poverty. We estimate that each job supports at least five additional dependents, which means that our graduates’ companies are impacting over 38,250 people. This means more children can afford school fees, more people can access health care, and more families can sleep at night with full stomachs, clean water, and secure housing.

Spiritually, Sinapis teaches entrepreneurs what it means to lead a faith-driven business. Our curriculum introduces entrepreneurs to a practical Kingdom business framework that helps them integrate their faith in Christ into their businesses and lives. All entrepreneurs learn Christian ethics and are encouraged to develop their own spiritual integration plans for their communities. Our graduates report that 82% have an active discipleship or community impact program in their companies. Most importantly, 38% report that someone has come to faith in Christ through their businesses!

Beyond training, we are focused on nurturing a lasting faith-driven entrepreneurship community in every market where we serve. We aim to help every entrepreneur we serve know where to go to build essential business skills, find a mentor, access capital, and grow spiritually. The goal is multigenerational change led by the men and women that the Lord has called to grow scalable businesses. To achieve this, greater collaboration will be required between the local church, business community, government, investors, and organizations who build entrepreneurial capacity.

As we deepen impact in East Africa, we continue to partner with organizations in other international markets by sharing curriculum, toolkits, systems, and lessons learned. We currently serve partners in Ghana, Liberia, Brazil, Egypt, Burundi, and Mongolia, and there is growing interest from around the world. Our goal is to create a collaborative network of practitioners that can implement and refine this model globally.

From Escaping the LRA to Helping Heal a Nation

Susan’s story did not end with her escape from the clutches of the LRA. After reuniting with her family, she went back to school and completed a degree in agriculture. Susan’s childhood friend, Lydia Nakayenze-Schubert, had been working for the Uganda Investment Authority in Germany and learned that Uganda had vast amounts of shea trees whose quality of butter was higher than the kind found in West Africa. The two friends saw an opportunity. Susan is from Uganda’s Lango district, which is in the heart of the country’s shea belt. While Susan had worked as an agricultural extension officer in the region, Lydia had worked and lived in Europe, making it easy to explore the international market for shea butter.

Despite already having an MBA, Lydia joined the Sinapis Entrepreneur Academy in 2019 and used the program as a platform to launch their company in Northern Uganda. In 2020, Susan joined our Crisis Crash Course, designed to help entrepreneurs navigate COVID. But even as they embrace an exciting future, reminders of the past are always present. As they complete construction of their shea butter processing facility, the mass graves along the main road to the factory reflect decades of grief in the lives of those they meet. Lydia and Susan have named their company Moo Me Gen, meaning “oils of hope.”

As Susan buys shea nuts from the farmers, she preaches hope and forgiveness. In a place where so many have grown disillusioned, hearts and minds are beginning to believe in a better future. Susan reflects, “I can’t change my past, but I can change my future. I hear people lamenting, and I use my testimony. I tell them what God can do if they choose to trust in Him. If I had not chosen to forgive and let go, then I couldn’t have done this.”

Entrepreneurs like Susan and Lydia have been strategically placed by God to build enduring companies that bring hope and advance God’s kingdom. They have the giftedness, influence, and deep local knowledge to collectively create tens of thousands of jobs that alleviate poverty. As ambassadors of Christ in the marketplace, they will have opportunities to work alongside churches to make disciples who will in turn make more disciples. As entrepreneurs, they embrace the joy of generosity and will be able to care for their neighbors in new and creative ways, including meeting financial needs from within their own countries and reducing dependence on external funding.

High-potential entrepreneurs around the world are inviting us to join them. Local and international business leaders can leverage their experience, skills, relationships, and capital to create economic engines that spark generational change. The potential for collaborative growth in this sector is enormous. We are just beginning to see the impact when international advisors, investors, and philanthropists come alongside entrepreneurs and the organizations that support them. Working together, we can catalyze a movement of businesses that get to the roots of material poverty and reflect the love of Jesus to a world in need of God’s kingdom.

We’ve made it easy.
Serve the entrepreneurs in your church.

——

[1] FCDO Dec 15, 2020.

[2] Pew Research Center, “www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/.”

[3] Transparency International “www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/index/nzl.”

[4] Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Dec 15, 2020.

[5] Brookings, “www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/03/28/poverty-in-africa-is-now-falling-but-not-fast-enough/.”

[6] From The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution by Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013.

[7] World Bank, “www.worldbank.org/en/topic/smefinance.”

Related articles

In 1976, 23-year-old David Weekley started his own home building company. Now more than 40 years later, the company has sold more than 100,000 homes, expanded to 19 cities across the nation, and won countless awards. In addition, David and his family launched a charitable Foundation to impact the world through both Christ-centered and secular organizations. David joins us to share the story of starting one of the most successful home building companies in the country and how their foundation is changing the lives of thousands around the world. 

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.

David Weekley: I would share to you, no one go where their passion and where they’re called, but number two, not to set aside their business acumen and learnings when they give so often times, especially if you come from a place of faith, you kind of it’s like you do business with your head and you give with your heart. And to me, you ought to combine those just like, you know, hopefully we’re living out our faith during the week and work. I think we’re supposed to give with the same business acumen that we use in earning money. Just amaze me that people spend 40 hours of 50 hours a week, whatever earning sums. And then they’ll give at the drop of a hat without any investigation, understanding, et cetera.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast is a special edition to combine this with our sister property, Faith Driven Investor, because we’ve got a really special guests. And to be clear. Having done a couple of hundred of these, each one of the guests are very special. And each one of them has made a major impact, I think, on all of our lives. I think they’re great stories. I hope that you’ll agree with me today, though, is, shall we say, extra special. We’ve got David Weekley on the program and from time to time we’ll have an interview with somebody who’s made an impact on my life and has for quite some time. And David is one of those people. I met David first, I think, probably about 12 years ago, and I think back to the different entrepreneurial things that I’ve been involved with my life. And to some extent, they’ve been informed by some measure of naivete and hubris. And you know, David met me when I was in my thirties. I’m now in my early 50s and I found him to be nothing but incredibly encouraging. He must have been thinking, this guy’s crazy. He just did all these different things he wants to do. He’s never going to be able to do any of them. And I’m a busy, successful guy and I don’t have time for this. And yet he did, and he’s been one of those guys that has consistently been a source of encouragement to me, of guiding me and how to think about entrepreneurship, how to think about giving and giving. Well, Sir David, thank you very much for spending so much time with me over the years. Thank you very much for being on the program.

David Weekley: I’m excited about it.

Henry Kaestner: So we like to start every one of our episodes by hearing about the personal background of our speakers. And you’ve got a great one and you’ve got incredible testimony. And so we want to start there. And so maybe you can just start off. Of course, at the beginning, bring us through quickly about the type of home you grew up in, but then what made you decide to launch your own business?

David Weekley: Born and raised in Houston, Texas, fortunate with a mom and dad who were together for seven years and two older brothers. We were all eagle scouts and, you know, kind of a suburban. Leave it to beaver kind of life growing up. So I was blessed in that way. My two older brothers were a lot older, 12 and eight years older, and so I know look up to them and always wanted to live up to their expectations of my parents expectations. Found out Boy Scouts, if you work hard, you could get badges. And it was kind of fun and I was never the smartest guy in school or the best looking or the best athlete. So I found out the working hard is what worked for me. I married my high school sweetheart, three kids and grandkids, and started out and went to work for a homebuilder right out of school because I was supposed to go get a a business degree up east, go get an MBA, and they wanted me to get a couple of years of experience. And so I went to work for a homebuilder and that was great. But then I got fired after about a year and a half, and so my brother said, Well, why don’t we start our own company so at age 20 to start my own company? Fortunately, it was the late 70s in Houston, Texas, and lots of homes were being sold and so grew that company up to the mid 80s. By the time I was 30 made a lot of money, thought I was God’s gift to the homebuilding business president, Local Builders Association, speaking to three hundred people every month and driving my BMW seven Series and building a 10000 square foot house at Memorial. I mean, I was I pretty much had it made. And then, sure enough, market downturn in the mid 80s oil and gas business in Houston and American went from 30000 starts to 6000 starts. And most builders went broke and we didn’t because we went to a couple different markets and were able to get profitable before we went broke. But the key point about that part of the story is that I remember the worst thing about that downturn was the reality that I had millions of dollars flow through my hands and nothing good had come out of it. And so kind of made got a promise to give me one more boom and I won’t screw the next one up. And he came through in the late 80s and early 90s, and guess what, about 92 that they have open heart surgery for a birth defect. I went on a Christian retreat and remembered my promise and said, OK, from this point forward, I’m going to give half my time and half my money to charitable causes. So I had to hire a CEO. I went through a couple with and found the right one, and I had taken the company up to about 300 million and he’s taking up to three billion. So I was fortunate to find someone wonderful, talented I was that was a professional manager where I was an entrepreneur, so to speak. So since then, I’ve been given half my time as well. And so that’s something that a lot of folks can’t do, but it helps you gain some knowledge, I guess, of the last 30 years and half my time, a thousand hours a year. So that’s 30000 hours into philanthropy. And you know, we’ve all heard it takes 10000 hours to get to be an expert, but I’m still making. Mistakes regularly, so still working on it.

Henry Kaestner: Well, the best part of that is that you’re showing mistakes with people like me is I and a lot of other people try to be better on that giving that helps rather than hurts. If you think about Brian Stricker and his work and so you’ve been a big part of that. I actually want to go backwards just a little second there because you talked about running the business as an entrepreneur and running the business as a manager and going from $300 to three billion. And what the type of skills are, they’re required to take it to that level. So many of our audience are entrepreneurs and they have a vision and they’ve got the energy and they’re catalyzing things. And yet it’s almost agree that you get the vision sometimes that you’re not great at actually program witnessing things. Can you talk a little bit about how that happened and just some of the maybe some of the lessons that you’ve learned in not only your own experience, but having been around enough around other entrepreneurs about mistakes made and or just council, you would give a visionary entrepreneur that is starting to see success come about and yet is really wondering what it takes to really scale something.

David Weekley: I was fortunate in that my older brother, who was my partner, was also a great mentor. And so I was able to bounce things off him and he had good business judgment. And entrepreneurship is sometimes a pretty lonely business. And so my first thought is to get some mentors people who you trust and have faith in to count for you early on. Second thought would be, is that, you know, oftentimes if you got a private company in your private stockholder, you know, the story is never sell anybody else stock or never give to anybody else. You know, you can pay them well, but just don’t give up stock. And for me, I found just the opposite to be true when I brought on my CEO as a partner sold some stock to him. Now I’ve got 40 managers that are my partners, that own real stock. And it’s great having them go through ups and downs. You know, this last downturn for us in 2007 and eight was really tough. Sixteen hundred team members and we took it down to eight hundred to survive and having a bunch of folks on the board with me pull through those waters that were my partners, whose financial net worth was on the line, just like mine was, was very helpful.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, OK. So that’s helpful. You know, we talked a lot about partnerships on the program and I’d be completely lost. I’ve had three different entrepreneurial endeavors, and each one of them were successful because of Divine Providence, but more pragmatically, having an incredible partner because otherwise being an entrepreneur is a really, really lonely journey. And so I did not know that part of your story. Tell us about the story of the idea of trading your principles for an Oldsmobile,

David Weekley: and that goes back to when I was fired. And what happened? I was running a community for another builder and we kind of had this compensation deal that was set up where it was. I got a percentage of the profits about halfway through the in June, they said. We want to change the deal and instead of you getting a percentage of profits, we want to give you a company, Oldsmobile. And I kind of said, Well, I really don’t want a company, Oldsmobile. I kind of want the deal we set out. And so end up talk to my boss or my boss’s boss. And they finally said, Well, this is really where the companies go. And then the final. I went to the president that, you know, wrote a letter to him and he called me in and I thought it was going to be great. You know, we agree we’re not going to change it midyear on you. But he said, I didn’t really have the right attitude and I need to go find employment elsewhere. So that’s kind of what happened.

Henry Kaestner: If it had been a BMW, would you have said

David Weekley: maybe you could

Henry Kaestner: trade even weekly at home instead of one of the largest and most successful home builders and contractors in the country? It’s huge. If you went down from 600 to 800, it’s now come back where you are now. Can you share that?

David Weekley: Yeah, we got again six hundred team members, but we’re doing a lot more volume. That’s good news. Yeah, we’re back up to three billion, which is our peak.

Henry Kaestner: So if you’re in a really competitive homebuilding business, then you always have been. The fact that homebuilding is a lucrative venture is not new for other people. It’s not like you have invented a new rocket ship to the Moon or something like that. There’s some amount of execution that has to go on, and there’s some amount of really understanding your market and product market fit and understand your competition. Can you share a little bit about what that was like for you over the last couple of decades about how you’ve looked at the competitive landscape, how you’re able to come up with a product that was just better than other people’s? In a way that it was preferred.

David Weekley: When I first started out, I was up against a national homebuilder that had better buying power and more efficient. And so they were selling cheap. And we were and I figured out pretty quickly. I had to figure out how I was going to differentiate myself. And so I decided the design was going to be that first differentiated myself. So I went to California, got the latest designs, hired my own designer in house, Brad. Going outside so we could learn what our customers liked and didn’t like and continue on a path of being very, very customer focused on design. Then about the early 90s realized that we need to do more next. We were catching up on design. So then we gave our customers choice instead of design centers, and they could come in and pick out their own tile and various things. So we moved to choice. And then sure enough, most of the competition have copied our design centers, and I’m not a copy from somebody starting out, but we went pretty fast and big with it. And then so service became the key differentiator for us, and now we get about 40 percent of our sales from referrals. You know, we got 4.8 stars on a five star rating from our customers. And you know, you can’t get a steak meal where you get 4.5 stars. And this is a very, you know, complex purchase. Very emotional takes a long time. They get to see building it. And so getting people that really care for the customer and care for that customer experience has been a huge differentiator for us currently. And that’s not easy to do. You can’t just flip a switch and make that happen. That’s a culture in the company.

Henry Kaestner: OK, so I want to get to that because that’s the other differentiator. It goes beyond just design and selection. There’s a unique culture that you have, and I think I know part of the answer to this. I think that our audience knows part of the answer to this about your unique culture. Part of it is the fact that you have these 40 car owners with you that are strapped to the mass with you. But I think it’s also more than that to talk about your unique culture and how you built it.

David Weekley: Well, in my early forties, when I had that operation and kind of moved from being a cultural Christian to being more of a committed Christian, I really kind of made the decision to look at the other more than myself. Quite honestly, the first 20 years of the company history, it was all about me. After all, the company was named David Weekley home. That should be fairly self-evident. And so moving for me to the other is when we really started taking off and creating, we have

Henry Kaestner: it so that your name was on it, but your brother, at least one of your brothers, was involved.

David Weekley: Right? Well, he started out the little story on that would back the late 70s. When we started our first billboard, it was weekly homes. It wasn’t David Weekley homes and it was weekly homes from the 30s, not 130, not 230, but from the 30s. It was. It was a lot of home. Now remember a truck pulling up in front of one of our models full of furniture on the back and said where those homes to rent for $30 a week weekly homes from the 30s?

Henry Kaestner: Oh, that’s great. No, there’s an e there between the L in the world, right?

David Weekley: Right. But oh, so I talk to my brother. So we need a change, change the name of the cavities and what he want to do. I said, How about David weekly? Sounds good to me. So. Wow. So anyway,

Henry Kaestner: what was his name, Ebenezer or something that just didn’t work?

David Weekley: His name was dick weekly. It is. So anyway, one of the interesting challenge about that when I hit my thirties and I had young kids in school and you know your names on a billboard, I realized I was kind of put my kids in a situation where all the kids in school would assume their rich folks because our name was fairly well known around town, et cetera. So I looked at changing the name of the company that literally we did market studies, et cetera. And we already had enough of a reputation that it didn’t make sense. And then, you know, later as I got into my more philanthropy and being able to speak and talk to folks, et cetera, I realized that God kind of had a plan because he gave me a platform that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. You know, with a name that was known out there. And so, you know, I love the way I guess Rick Warren coined it, whichever stewardship of affluence our money. But we also have the stewardship of influence, you know, the folks we know, et cetera. So I recognize that having a company called Weekly Homes gave me a stewardship of influence that I need to work with

Henry Kaestner: and do steward that influence within the company. If I come on board and I’m a project manager and I’m one of the six. What am I going to experience a David weekly that are not likely to experience it of Pulte or somebody else like that?

David Weekley: Well, we bring everybody in here to the main office and we have a fabulous one on one. I get to meet them all and we talk and and they get inaugurated, so to speak. The main thing is we hire people that really care, right? So it starts off if you don’t get people with similar values. It doesn’t work. So we get people with summer values. We incorporate them well. We do multiple interviews before they come. We even interview their spouse.

Henry Kaestner: OK, I was going to ask you, is there something unique that you do in doing that early? And I’ll tell you that that’s one. So I’m glad you said that. That’s one of the secrets to our success at bandWith was interviewing spouses.

David Weekley: Right, right. And it’s it shows that we care about them and puts everything on a different playing field right now. And then, you know, you take care of people, you know, eight percent managing for one K, there’s profit sharing every quarter. We have weekly TV personal encounters where the manager and the team member, you know, we’re fortunate we’ve been on Fortune’s Unabridged Place to work like 14 times. And for a homebuilder, that’s not Google, you know, we’re out there building houses, it’s it’s hot and and, you know, in tough work and, you know, we don’t buy everybody lunch and we have a gym for them, you know? But it’s how we treat them and how they work well together.

Henry Kaestner: Tell me more about the personal encounters part.

David Weekley: Well, most people want to know how they’re doing and having their manager spend time with them each week for half an hour personal encounter and making it the team members time to feedback to the manager what their needs are and how they’re doing and what’s going on in their life and how they’re going with the kids. Or it’s a half an hour personal encounter every week with each team member. And it’s really their time with their manager. It also quite honestly cuts down on all the day to day interaction, having to go back and forth because they know they have this set half an hour.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, yeah, that’s very interesting. OK. So personally, Karen, something I didn’t know about are just shocked at the frequency of it. But what you just saw obviously suggested there is that actually, it sounds like it’s inefficient, but actually is remarkably efficient because it changes the dynamic of the other thirty nine and a half for forty nine and a half hours.

David Weekley: Right, right. It saves time. It doesn’t take time.

Henry Kaestner: OK, I want to go back to Dave quickly. Homes, you’ve won lots and lots of awards and accolades over the years. Are there any that really stand out more than others? That’s a leading question, because you’ve been invited to build for a company that I think we can all really admire. You may have a different answer to it, but if you don’t answer it the way I want you to answer it, I’m going to bring you back there, OK?

David Weekley: Telling me that you want to hear about the invitation to build it was Disney. Yeah, and we went in there celebration project in Florida. And I’ll never forget sitting in my office and getting a call from somebody at Disney. And you know, this is Dave and I’m with Disney in this. I don’t want any tickets or anything. So no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. You know, the setting, the sales call. And he said, We’ve been looking at you for two years. We’ve interviewed your customers in Dallas and in Austin, and we’ve seen your designs. We’ve had this week that we ran that because they research stuff to death and we’d like you to come with us in Orlando and said, Well, we don’t build in Florida said we know that. And but we want you to come bill for us in Orlando. So anyway, we got together with him. I went there a couple of years early before the project was opened, so we could learn how to build in Florida, went to Disney, you, you know, university. And anyway, it was a great experience for us. They obviously know customers focus very well, building that community where we were the only builder to start out and finished up. Everybody else blew out over time because the customer expectations at Disney are through the roof, as you can imagine. And they were paying quite a premium for their home, on their side, not on our side. But it was a great experience and really we were building. It’s called T and traditional neighborhood design, very higher density smaller houses, but front porches really creating a sense of community. And that has really worked for us strongly for the last 20 25 years, for probably the largest candy builder in the country and a lot of flippers come to us because of that experience.

Henry Kaestner: So there are clearly things you picked out from that engagement that you then brought back into the business for sure. OK. David, the way that we first got together was actually not around entrepreneurship, not around business. So much, although I heard a little bit about your story and I think it probably showed a little bit about mine, but it was around the concept of giving. And how does one give? Well, when I remember being on the Board of Hope International about 10 years ago and you had been a very significant underwriter that I came to understand that there’s this guy is really thoughtful about giving in. So you spent a good amount of time with me. I don’t know if you remember the first time was at a gathering and maybe an hour on kind of like a veranda. And I want you to be able to see if we in our time that we’ve got left. If you can share some of the lessons that you’ve learned in philanthropy and in giving, you talked about the fact that you’ve done some things well. There are some things you still are learning as you get to that 10000 hours of giving. Can you share some of those with people, our demographic, we tend to have our average entrepreneurs, probably in their 40s. Many of them are coming into a place now where they’re having some financial success and they want to be generous. And their heart is oftentimes really influenced by a lot of stories. And yet they’re businesspeople they want to give, Well, what would you share with them?

David Weekley: I would share to you, no one go where they’re passionate and where they’re called. But number two, not to set aside their business acumen and learnings when they give. So often times, especially if you come from a place of faith, you kind of it’s like you do business with your head and you give with your heart. And to me, you ought to combine those just like, you know, hopefully we’re living out our faith during the week and work. I think we’re supposed to give with the same business acumen that we use in earning money. Just amaze me that people spend 40 hours of 50 hours a week, whatever earning sums, and then they’ll give at the drop of a hat without any investigation, understanding, etc. And since from my standpoint, it all kind of belongs to God anyway. You know, I have no idea why he put me in this place and decided to give me a company that’s grown like it is, et cetera. It’s just been a true blessing, and it really belongs to him. Why shouldn’t I give his money away as carefully as any other investment I make? And so to me, it’s just it’s a little bit of a mess to not take it that seriously.

Henry Kaestner: Can you give us some examples of maybe some given that you did early on? Were you learned some of these lessons or was it just always just baked into the way that you thought? Were you just like, you know, from the get go? I’m just not going to give to something that doesn’t satisfy both my heart and my head.

David Weekley: No, usually, you know, said people give to people. Right. And so, you know, somebody in they’re doing good work and they come up and they talk to you about something. And I did a lot of that giving starting out. And then over time, the more time I spent, I saw some of those funds were not being effectively used were being wasted. You know, the outcomes weren’t there that were hoped for or promised. And I just realized that if I was really going to take my giving seriously that I had to again, I had to pay attention and I gave the time as well. Most people don’t have the time or don’t make the time for me as an entrepreneur. Once I got up to a certain size, I realized, you know, I was working 70 hours a week flying all over the country, and I realized that I was getting out of my skis. I was losing control. I wasn’t good at managing four cities and 300 million. I mean, it was getting beyond me. And so when I committed to give half my time, it meant I had to go find somebody to run the place. And that worked out, obviously, to my benefit in both ways. It freed up the time to be serious about philanthropy, and it also helped the company by getting somebody that had skills that I didn’t have.

Henry Kaestner: You also did something on your company structure, right? You landed on kind of a unique ownership structure that allows the company to operate in perpetuity. Can you just share a little bit about that?

David Weekley: Yeah. As you get older and you have this company, especially if it’s a large company, you got to figure out what you’re going to do with it. Am I going to sell out or go public or what’s the endgame here? And I did lots of research, talked to lots of families, looked at all kinds of different opportunities, and I didn’t want to lose what we created as a team here in terms of the culture doing a great job for customers, et cetera. So I wanted to continue specifically as a private company. So I said, OK, how are we going to do that? How are we going to get alignment, et cetera? And I decided to do a third of it since I’d had luck with ownership being in other people’s hands. I said a third of it’s going to be owned by the employees, by the team members. And so I’ve got 18 percent of it in individual managers hands owning stock individually and then we got a 15 percent ESOP that we put on top of that. And then I wanted the charitable aspect that I’ve been doing with my own funds as the primary stockholder to continue. So I put a third of the stock into a charitable trust. And then the final third is going to be owned by the founding families to keep it like a family business into the future, that doesn’t mean everybody’s going to work here, et cetera. And whether my kids or anybody’s kids have the skills to earn three billion dollar company, that’s a pretty significant skill set. But you can be great owners and you can be in different positions if that’s their choice. But I just like the concept of a third, a third, a third, all with the line values, a third for the team members, a third for charitable interest and a third for the founding families. All of them have aligned interest in trying to do the right things for the right reasons and move on down the road and hopefully be here 100 years from now.

Henry Kaestner: OK, so you hit on a topic. I want to get back in a second back to giving and lessons learned what you’re getting as you spend ten thousand plus hours and giving. But when you talk about your family and you talk about your kids, I know you’ve got three. I know Robin the best Robin. I’ve known Robin for these 10 years because I know she helped us put together a trip to Nicaragua back before there are any traffic lights in Managua. You also come from a family of three boys. And I have three boys, so I’m a father of three boys. I’d love to get any reflections that you have of family dynamics, being a good brother, being a good father and seeing faith be a part of the family dynamic. Most of the people assume that are going to be parents. You’ve been thoughtful about this. Can you share something with us about family dynamics?

David Weekley: Well, the family dynamics started seeing my father put an envelope in the plate every week, right? He’d reach into his coat. The plate would come by. He’d put it in. And so right, I think things were mostly caught, not taught. And so my father was a generous man and that helped set me up that this is what we do. This is how we operate. There’s a father growing up. It was a challenge because I said my name was on billboards all over town, so my kids were labeled rich kids right in work. And so how do you handle that? So my kids earn half the money for their car. You know, we sit down with Amigos de las Americas. They went down to Central America and live for eight weeks in a village on the floor when they were in high school and did mission work. So I mean, they’ve seen that our life is not the usual life. And I think that that builds a responsibility for you. I mean, for me personally, I’ve just always come from a place of deep gratitude for my parents, where I am in America, et cetera. And out of that gratitude, I get a deep sense responsibility of what am I to do? You know, too much is given, et cetera. And then when I act out on that responsibility through philanthropy and working with people in other ways or in the company, I just get a deep sense of joy, not just happiness, but deep, deep joy feeling like I’m in God’s flow, feeling like I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing.

Henry Kaestner: So I think that you touched on something there that it’s taken me a while to really kind of embrace, which is this kind of selfish ambition, which is this personal joy that you feel as you give is what we are trying to always get when we are selfishly had selfish ambition before, but kind of wrestle with it. So I always had a selfish ambition and a selfishness that’s been a kind of the core of my life and influence all that I’ve done. But you’re getting on something there that’s really important, which is that that you actually have an opportunity to lean into that. Yes, you probably can give examples where you sacrifice and you take up your cross. And yet at the same time, this guy’s invited to life that is truly life and that you can have this selfish ambition of looking for joy. And there’s a recipe for it. And you found that in giving you found this joy and as cool as a BMW seven Series is and it’s more fun to drive than a Prius, you get presumably more joy from some of the giving you’re doing, regardless of what car you have. Or am I just putting words in your mouth, right?

David Weekley: No. And yeah, I’ve got a pickup truck now, so I’m sorry. It’s just I had the great good fortune to have had a lot early and had it taken away in the downturn and recognized that that’s not what life was all about. So my generosity came out of that understanding.

Henry Kaestner: OK. Share with us other things that you’re learning about giving and maybe way that maybe start off with this is just how do you all give? And for those that don’t know your daughter, Robin is running the foundation and you’re giving away more and more and more money. But what’s a way aside from the amount? But what’s a way in which you give differently than maybe did 10 years ago?

David Weekley: Well, like most entrepreneurs, I love deals in models. And so I used to give to whomever had the best model for something, whether it be, you know, five for finance or savings groups or community health workers or whoever had the coolest models that I thought, This is neat. Let me go, give to it. And what I’ve found out is that even more important than the model is giving you great leadership. It might seem self-evident, but I got caught up in the deal earlier. But, you know, if you got great leadership, they’ll adjust the model and get it to the best place. But if you don’t have good leadership, the best model will fail. So the key thing is that we really, really give to extraordinary leadership. So that’s that’s one thing.

Henry Kaestner: Before you go that, I’m going to come back and remind you that there’s a second thing, but that’s really, really important. That’s really hard to do. What are some different ways where you interact with a person and are able to determine whether they’re a great leader or not?

David Weekley: Well, have they established a vision that is big and broad and is a dean supported with a strategic plan that can get them there? And do they have people around them that can help get them there as well? So oftentimes will work with or meet the second layer of folks and not just to face the organization, but people really doing the work. And then you can really see what the organization is like and what they’re doing. And obviously always trying to focus on the outcomes of what’s happening. So, you know, it can be great people in lots of flash and a great deck and a great plan. But if the outcomes aren’t there, nothing else matters. And so again, I feel like I’m investing God’s resources and I want to have flourishing humans out there as a result of my investments.

Henry Kaestner: So you hit on something there that somebody that you and I both know. Kirk Kyle Hacker is the board chair. Praxis has impressed upon me and he said, You know, they’re really only three things for a leader to do is that you’re responsible for the vision you need to resource the enterprise and you need to get the right people on the bus. And it’s that emphasis on that third one that I think a lot of us miss. And that’s why I think that just in the same way that you interview spouses of employees, they’re coming on board the organization. Interviewing the next level of leadership helps you to really understand, Is this a great leader or are people really following the leader or not? And I think that’s really important. OK, so thank you. So the first one is leadership.

David Weekley: The second one, this really has three items. I look for an organization that uses leverage where my dollar will create $5 or $10 worth of impact. You know, I’m a real estate guy. I love leverage. So one authorization that has great leverage. I want to organization that can scale like geometrically, not arithmetically, but can really scale. So I want to fund organizations that can blow things up, right? That that can really impact the world. And then thirdly, I want to fund an organization, has some type of sustainability plan for the long term. Do they do anything where they can create their own income? Do they have a plan to get government funding, you know, or bilateral funding? Because if it’s an organization and the only way that they can grow is to go get more donors, and they will always be limited by how much that they can raise. So I want to get involved in things that can have high leverage, can scale and have some way to reach sustainability over time.

Henry Kaestner: Can you give us some examples of the leverage in the scale where you go ahead? And you know, if I write a check for a dollar, it’s going to lead to four or five in any samples of ministries. Charities doing that well, they come to mind.

David Weekley: Well, the one you mentioned, Hope International does it well because, you know they lend money, make interest on the money so they can fund part of their operations. Another one that I’m very involved with is Christian Camping. And so if we go and help and build a Christian camp, so if a Christian camp from go broke, add more cabins and you know, more dining halls, et cetera. Once that investments made, assuming you have a big assumption, great leadership and great board governance that can break even and provide returns and continue to impact kids for Christ forever. And so you plant the seed and it grows.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. So there’s this sustainability in there that you build out some infrastructure now parents feel better about spending twelve hundred dollars on the right.

David Weekley: And so things like that to me have a lot of impact for the dollar invested a lot of leverage.

Henry Kaestner: David, is we come to a close. I’m going to ask you the question that we ask every one of our guests. And that is that is there is something that God is teaching you through your time in scripture, your time in the Bible. It doesn’t need to be necessarily. This morning could be last week, but what are you hearing?

David Weekley: You know, something that is kind of guided me through my Christian journey as I try to think about what should I do this or should I go left? Should I go right? Should I go to more full time ministry or something else is I’ve always appreciated the version. First Corinthians 07:24 brothers and sisters. Each person as responsible to God shall remain in the situation God has called him to. And so to me, we’re in these life situations. And rather than presuming that to be a Christian brother or show my love of God or whatever, I’ve got to go, change my situation, take the situation to God’s, place me and figure out how I can take that to the next level and in a more Christian way, in a more loving way, in a more outreach way. How can I take where I’ve been placed and really plus it in a significant way through my faith and outreach, et cetera?

Henry Kaestner: It’s a great word. That’s a great word. So as we’re entrepreneurs, you’ve probably if you found this podcast, you probably know enough to know that God absolutely uses you in your business. And that being entrepreneur is by no means a second class citizen where we’re just doing this just so we can make money to do something else. Or gosh, if we’re really following God, we’d be in full time ministry in Botswana or something like that. But to stay where we are and look to honor God there. And of course, as you’ve heard from David today, you can make an impact on a lot of people’s lives where they live, as in the case, David. But each of us has an opportunity to be able to impact culture, and one of the things that I’ll take away from this is just the greatest investment that you can make, and culture is bringing the right people and giving them some skin in the game. But when you bring the right people in, getting to know them more than another important might and what a great way to be able to live on somebody. And when you’re having this every week where you’re following up with so many of this personal reflection moment to actually know who their spouses. So when I’m talking about going on a vacation or they’re talking about something that they’re wrestling with with their spouse in terms of where they give it, their time or their money, or what they do, or how they can support their spouse, you actually know them. And so that’s a big takeaway of mine for many. David, thank you for your time. Thank you for your friendship and partnership. And again, one encouragement that you are to me and all of us.

David Weekley: Thank you.

Founder | Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur movement

I’m a woman (and wife and mommy) who loves God, loves people, and is wildly passionate about seeing others experience God’s best in their lives by walking in their Kingdom identity and authority.

My life and business were radically transformed by encountering the unrelenting love of God. What I’ve learned over the past decade is that the world truly is waiting to see the people of God reveal His glory through their lives. What an amazing privilege it is to be alive for such a time as this!

I have been blessed to reach over a half-million aspiring and current entrepreneurs around the globe through my devotionals, books, courses, and podcasts.  As a founder of the Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur movement (est. 2012), my teaching and mentoring have provided inspiration and practical strategies for doing business in partnership with God for greater Kingdom impact in the marketplace.

Whether I am sharing on platforms publicly as a speaker or consulting my clients privately, you can expect me to deliver an abundance of truth with love, grace, and contagious joy.

Some fun facts about me:

I’m a native Floridian and have a healthy addiction to sunshine, water, and majestic mountain views. I’ve been with my husband since the age of 16, married for 22 years, and we have 3 beautiful daughters.

LINKS

• Personal Website

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR

— by John Hawkins

Jim was learning a difficult leadership lesson at a time of midlife evaluation.  Interestingly enough, this realization came from having dinner with his wife, Helen, his Vice President of Sales, Rob Chittington, and Rob’s wife, Sarah.

Dinner had been a celebration of the two couples’ twentieth anniversaries.  Four years ago, Jim finally convinced Rob to come work for his company, and since then, Rob had been a great addition to the organization.  He had also been a great sounding board and friendly critic for Jim.  Launching the company had been much more difficult for Jim than he could have ever imagined.  Rob’s trusted input and proven expertise were valuable assets to the company and to their friendship.

As the friends lingered over dessert and coffee, Helen posed a revealing question to Rob.  “In the four years that you have worked with Jim,” Helen asked, “what have you learned about him that you didn’t know before.”  A quick smile brightened Rob’s face as he considered the question.  Rob loved to receive feedback and likewise enjoyed opportunities to give feedback.  Jim braced himself, realizing that his faithful friend would be candid.

With sincerity, Rob quickly mentioned several of Jim’s strengths, giving examples of each.  He then turned to a specific challenge that he believed was before Jim.  “Jim,” Rob thoughtfully continued, “I believe that your desire for security and significance hampers your leadership.  Personally, I know you as a man of great integrity.  But in your leadership at work, you are often like a chameleon, constantly changing to avoid risks and win praise.  Chameleons are a wonder to watch but an exasperation to follow.”

Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”   Rob was indeed a faithful friend.  As the two wives stared downward, wondering how they could redirect the conversation to the happiness of the occasion, Jim responded to Rob’s comments.  “You’ve always been an honest voice of insight for me, Rob.  You are, most of the time, right on the mark.  Let’s get together for breakfast and you can explain to me further what you see.  And let’s keep meeting each week until we both believe that I have begun to address the problem.”

Rob happily agreed to Jim’s breakfast plan and reiterated the strengths in Jim’s life and leadership.  The dinner ended as it had begun, with enjoyment and appreciation for the years of marriage and the years of the two couples’ friendships.  As Jim and Helen drove home, Helen commented on Jim’s levelheaded response to Rob’s comment.  Jim replied, “I really believe that Rob is on to something.  Too many times, I feel like a chameleon, trying to figure out what color I must become next to play things safe and prove my worth to others.  As a leader, I’m constantly shifting, not firmly planted in my convictions.  I don’t understand all of the reasons I act this way, but I know this isn’t the leader I want to be.”

“I know that this isn’t the leader that I want to be.”  This isn’t an easy admission for anyone to make, but Jim’s feeling that he isn’t living up to his leadership potential is common.  As the years of our lives pass and the weight of our responsibilities increase, weariness and spiritual erosion can begin to wear down the quality of our influence.  Our focus as leaders can become fixed on basic desires such as survival, personal comfort, peace, and success.  As this happens, our leadership shifts focus, realigning toward self-protection and self-serving goals, rather than centering on service to others. 

The character, competence, and commitment of a lifestyle leader must be coherent with a clearly defined set of beliefs and virtues.  These beliefs and virtues contain what we understand about truth and the noble purposes we are called to accomplish.  Leadership founded upon truth and noble purposes stays focused on service to others rather than service to self.  This type of leadership exemplifies constancy and stability, rather than the ever-shifting, chameleon-like leadership in which personal goals replace beliefs and virtues.

Jim, in the opening story, is a leader whose leadership has shifted.  He finds himself in his early forties with a broken leadership compass.  He is a good guy who wants to be a good leader, but the internal compass that guides his leadership points in the wrong direction.  It continuously points toward personal security and personal significance rather than in the direction of core beliefs and virtues.  Though he realizes his compass is askew, it is hard for him to determine how he is off-track as a leader and what he must do to get back on the right path.  He knows that he continually changes according to the circumstances and that this is not the kind of leader he wants to be.

For a Christian leader, God’s Word is the source of core beliefs and God’s character is the source of our core virtues.  By core beliefs, we mean those precepts that make up ultimate truth.  These we find in the Bible.  Core virtues are those aspects of right heart, mind and actions that we see characterized by God the Father, Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Bible.  Alignment with God’s Word and God’s character points the leader to steadfast, principled leadership.  It is built upon a prayerful ongoing intake of the Bible that leads to reflection, repentance and right action.  Integration of faith into our thoughts and actions is an internal change of personal culture.  By God’s grace, we must displace many things that we believe and value, learn new beliefs and values, and anchor those new beliefs and values into our daily life in all spheres of influence.  Integration of faith is indeed personal cultural change, and it takes prayer, time and reflection.

Fortunately for Jim, he has a faithful friend cheering him on as he focuses on integrating the truth of God’s Word and the righteousness of God’s character in his life and leadership.  It is still a challenging path ahead, but by God’s grace and Rob’s support, he’ll get there.

—

The original version of this article appeared in Leadership as a Lifestyle, John Hawkins, Executive Excellence Publishing, 2001.  You can learn more about John Hawkins at https://www.lead-edge.com/john-hawkins.

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