— by Amanda Lawson

As faith driven entrepreneurs, we’re no stranger to the temptation to give into the prosperity gospel: that if you do well, God will reward you with good things and that if you are receiving good things, God must be pleased with you. The danger is the potential for a faith-shaking identity crisis. Letting go of the prosperity gospel is one of the healthiest, most freeing things a faith driven entrepreneur could do. 

One of the biggest problems with the prosperity gospel is that it essentially eliminates grace and strips God of the authority to give us our identity. Let’s go one at a time. If “good” outcomes 100% of the time imply right actions and “bad” outcomes 100% of the time imply wrongdoing, there is simply no room for grace. The prosperity gospel is deeply entrenched in legalism and as faith driven professionals who truly want to succeed and grow, the perception of control that comes from legalism can be a major temptation. It often seems so much easier to point to a specific action or decision as the reason for an outcome. And if we can control the actions and decisions—regardless of the outcome—we take some level of comfort in the autonomy. 

It’s much easier to consider grace in our non-work lives, I believe partially because it’s much easier for us to offer grace to people in our personal lives than it is to our coworkers. The stakes seem higher at work, which is a problem in and of itself, to be considered another day. When we think about the prosperity gospel, we typically, if not universally, think about it first in the context of our professions. Interestingly, it seems as though when we consider the true gospel, we almost exclusively view it in light of our personal lives. So we end up holding two very different, frankly, mutually exclusive gospels. It’s no wonder we struggle to integrate our faith and work. 

Trying to hold both prosperity and truth is exhausting—because we aren’t meant to—and in addition to manipulating our perception and acceptance of grace, it confuses our identity. Times of success can then lead to pride and arrogance, while times of struggle and failure can cause us to think that God is mad at us, threatening to take from us. At its core, the prosperity gospel leads us into a false assumption of power, making our actions—and the “results” we see—the determinant of our relationship with God. So when things are going well in our work lives, God is pleased, our identity feels secure (though not in the right way), and our relationship with Him is good. Under this false assumption, the counter is also true: when you are struggling or facing trials, God must be mad at you, you run the risk of losing yourself in your failure, and God would not want to associate with someone so broken and wrong. 

Fortunately, the prosperity gospel is a false gospel. The truth found in the literal Word of God is that our identity is secure in Christ—from the moment we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts (Romans 10:9)—and that it is no longer we who have to earn right-standing but we who learn to live in what Christ freely gave (Galatians 2:20-21). We cannot earn our identity, nor can we lose it. Even our identity is an expression of God’s grace. 

If confidence in our identity and acceptance of grace weren’t already more than enough, letting go of the prosperity gospel enables us to integrate our faith and work more fully and can have a significant impact on our relationships with everyone we encounter. Understanding our identity as rooted in Jesus means that we can follow the advice of both Isaiah and Peter to fear the Lord rather than men (Isaiah 8:12-13, 1 Peter 3:14). When we face failure, we don’t live in fear of losing our identity or covering of grace, which means we respond differently when called to account on our mistakes; we recover faster, we don’t overreact, we accept the truth, repent, and move forward—whether in a professional or personal setting—we represent the redemption and humility and grace of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. 

This truth changes how we interact with the people in our lives as well. When we are the bystander or collaterally affected by someone else’s mistake, we view that coworker, boss, spouse, sibling, or child the way God’s Word describes them: loved and recipients of grace. 

Doing this requires that we first understand who we are, which necessitates our knowing the gospel, reading the Word, spending time in prayer and listening to the God who is desires deep relationship with us. When we live and work from that place, we find ourselves in an entirely different, beautiful, holy version of prosperity that comes from the only true gospel. It is freedom to live fully integrated, to let the gospel permeate every part of our lives so that we fulfill the call that is on every believer—whether a financial/professional success or not—to be a minster of reconciliation and ambassador of Christ through all the earth. 

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— by Daniel Sih

SPACE AND PACE

Several years ago, I was renovating my home and struggling to drill through concrete with my battery-powered drill. The battery kept smoking, and I needed more grunt. I needed The Ken.

It wasn’t called The Ken back then, but it is now. 

The Ken is a super-powerful electric drill, which I borrowed from a friend named Ken. He warned me that the drill was fast and hard to use. 

This was an understatement.

Most drills come with various speed settings, but The Ken has only one. When I squeezed the trigger, the chuck rotated so quickly that I needed to brace my arm to maintain precision. No matter how much I practised, The Ken made a huge mess and was impossible to control.

I still have this power tool sitting in my shed as Ken didn’t seem to want it back. Whenever I see The Ken gathering dust on my shelf, it reminds me of the importance of cadence and rhythm. An on-switch without slower speed settings is limited. Faster is not always better, particularly if we lack the capacity to slow down and shift gears. Those who achieve space know this and unplug as a habit to maximise their productivity.

When it comes to personal effectiveness, opposites are important. If we don’t stop to unwind, we achieve little. Highly effective people give equal attention to opposing realities. They create a rhythmical lifestyle of activity and inactivity, connection and disconnection. For simplicity, I call this pattern keeping pace and making space. Pace and space are the yin and yang of personal productivity. They require skill and attention, and we must value and practise both habits if we are to live a healthy, meaningful life.

KEEPING PACE

Keeping pace means keeping up. Our workplaces are complex, global and competitive. Jobs are becoming automated, and many traditional roles are moving online or off shore. Entire trades have become obsolete. If we are to survive and thrive in the digital age, we need to keep pace with these changes in our chosen fields. Keeping pace requires us to build tech skills, tech confidence and tech habits. We need to engage in skills training and risk-taking and be willing to reinvent ourselves.

In my line of business, keeping pace means adopting skills and systems to maximise output against effort. I have an online system to coordinate timetables and to communicate with my staff. Apps are used to mind-map ideas, store passwords and manage money. I upload blog posts and download podcasts. Software updates help me stay afloat in a cloud-based environment. Such practices consume most of my time and head space, and enable me to achieve my goals.

MAKING SPACE

Making space is about slowing down; a conscious choice to unplug and unwind.

Space does not mean meditation and mindfulness, although these can be useful tools. Space is anything that helps us to stop, reflect and regenerate. Spacemakers pay attention to their habits and motivations. They think before they react, plan before they do, rest before they work. Space can be inactive – lying in a park staring up at the sky – or active – running along a beach or skiing down a mountain. We can find space in a meaningful conversation or alone in deep thought. The

secret is to find space as a habit, resting deeply at a soul level, rather than being stuck in high gear.

A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY

There are many books written to help people keep pace in a busy world. They teach you to do more, know more and add more to your already full life. Yet in my experience, doing less is sometimes more productive than doing more. Many of my clients are ruthlessly organised yet

unproductive. They adopt every new app and life-hack that promises effectiveness but are unable to focus or prioritise. They tackle too many projects and jump at every notification. The root cause is not a lack of pace but space.

In recent times, ‘productivity’ has become synonymous with ‘pacemaking’. Workplaces subconsciously communicate the idea that adding without subtracting is effective. They want more projects, more policies, more services – never less. In my own business, most of our

contracted services are to help people ‘keep pace’ – building teams, redesigning meetings, developing strategy – all busy stuff!

Companies rarely invest in the unconventional habits of ‘making space’, teaching staff to do less, not more. This is not surprising; buying a donut for its hole instead of the sugar-coated ring is counter-intuitive (even if the hole has fewer calories). Visionary companies, such as activewear

giant, Lululemon Athletica, are beginning to see the world differently. They have created a winning culture by urging staff to set personal goals (one-year, three-year and ten-year goals) and supporting them to succeed. Staff are encouraged to take part in activities such as yoga and meditation within working hours. The head office provides reading materials to inspire personal growth, and staff have access to board games, gym facilities and a healthy-living café to encourage health and wholeness. Space and pace in balance – it works!

In almost every field of employment, making space is a good investment. Take email for example. Workplaces that eliminate email notifications, discourage out-of-hours communication and reduce

email volume, save money and improve efficiency. When individual workers process their inbox less often, rather than continuously, they experience less stress without losing responsiveness.

Balancing pace and space is a winning strategy. I believe it is the secret to sustained productivity

and getting the right things done. So why do so few of us have space to focus? Why are we wired, tired and distracted? Let’s find out.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel is the co-founder and director of Spacemakers®, a productivity consulting group for busy leaders. As a trainer, coach and keynote speaker, he has worked with CEOs, executives, and other senior professionals throughout Australia and beyond, ranging from global corporations and businesses to universities and non-profits. He has a broad professional history, including leadership roles in physiotherapy, health management, project management and Christian ministry. He is the founder of a number of globally accessible productivity courses such as Email Ninja®, List Assassin®, Priority Samurai™, which in total have more than 15,000 students online and online. Daniel lives in Tasmania, Australia with his wife, Kylie, and their three children. To learn more about Daniel and his work at Spacemakers, please visit www.spacemakers.com.au.

Recent articles

— by Amanda Lawson

The Heroic Entrepreneur

By Amanda Lawson

The Heroic Entrepreneur and Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic

Ah, the “heroic entrepreneur;” the one who is willing and able to take bold steps to build business and risk everything to provide a product or service that will lead to a better world for thousands, who will be rewarded richly for doing such good work. Every entrepreneur wants that. For faith driven entrepreneurs, there’s an added level of wanting to do it for the glory of God and the flourishing of humanity. 

This isn’t a new concept; in fact, the notion of a “heroic entrepreneur” is over a century old. Max Weber’s The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism first championed this character in 1905. His work, and more broadly, the concept of Protestant work ethic, had and maintains a profound impact on the way Christians view their work. Yet a deeper dive into the tenets of the century-old Protestant work ethic reveal that Weber’s entrepreneur is actually rooted in a set of biblical principles dating back several millennia. 

Weber not only posited that capitalism could not be divorced from religion, but that work needed to be contextualized in a way that recognized clergy and missionaries were not the only ones who could honor God in their work. He explored the idea that vocation—true to its Latin roots—was a calling. Voca, meaning that the individual was called by God into his or her work, implied therefore, that the entrepreneur’s purpose was to execute the job with that in mind. Weber of course, was not the first to put forth such a notion; the apostle Paul did so explicitly in his letter to the Church at Colossae, urging them, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23-24, NIV). 

Good stewardship of resources and maintaining order were pillars of Protestant Work Ethic, as was a rejection of materialism; good Christians worked for God, not greed. At the same time, Weber expressed his belief that charity and philanthropy were not necessarily appropriate practices, but that investment—and the job creation that would result for the diligent entrepreneur—was the right way to build an economy and bring about what we refer to today as human flourishing. 

Protestant Work Ethic is not without its hindrances, often directly correlating financial success with the level of delight God took in the entrepreneur’s work. It is a delicate balance—not falling into a prosperity gospel mindset, but understanding that God honors faithfulness. Faith driven entrepreneurs and investors today must navigate the same tensions, and often rely on similar principles of calling as vocation—especially in traditionally secular spaces. 

Weber’s writing brought to light ancient truth: God is intentional and good, and in that, He gives people unique abilities and callings to partner with Him in spreading the gospel and His glory on earth. While no system of man is perfect and we must take care to not fall into a false narrative of prosperity, much of Weber’s writing inspired generations of Christian entrepreneurs to pursue their work boldly, in a secular world, for more than selfish gain. In this way, the “heroic entrepreneur” is not so for his or her own glory, but for the glory of God and the good of His people.

As faith driven entrepreneurs and investors, it’s important to recognize the foundations of our systems and remember that what drives us is rooted in Scripture, rather than man’s wisdom. While Weber may have been on to something good, the truth of why we do what we do—that we work for the Lord and how we view our work as a calling unto His glory—extends beyond the Protestant Work Ethic. 

Recent articles

These are the 3 beliefs that drive Kwami’s passion. (1) poverty is an injustice, (2) we have a responsibility and a joy to solve this man-made problem, and (3) every problem presents an opportunity for business. 

If that doesn’t get you excited to hear about what Kwami has to share, then we don’t know what will. 
Listen in to hear how Kwami Williams is discovering entrepreneurial solutions that tackle the challenges faced by the poor and marginalized in our world today, especially on the African continent.

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: Here with my co-host, partners in crime, Rusty and William, greetings, brothers.

Rusty Rueff: Hey, hey, hey, hey. Good to see you guys.

William Norvell: Good to be here.

Henry Kaestner: And today, our travels take us to Accra, Ghana. One of the unique things about our podcasts, of course, is that over the last hundred and twenty one hundred twenty five episodes, maybe we didn’t do it for the first 10. But William has asked the same question at the end of every podcast. And this will be a heads up for Kwami. We always ask our guests, what is it that you’re hearing from Guy through his word? What most of our listeners don’t know, because we actually don’t usually ask it after we started recording, is that we also ask each one of our guests what they think is the best global sport and what city in the world plays that sport the best. And so I want to ask our guest from Accra, Ghana. Kwami, please tell us what your answers to both of those would be.

Kwami Williams: Henry, this question is super easy.

It is lacrosse and it definitely plays sport. Baltimore, Maryland, we have hands down all the way from Accra, Ghana.

Henry Kaestner: You heard it here first on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. What a treat it was for us to be on that call with […] together. And […], for those of you who don’t know, is maybe a look at it through the lens of like it’s a Y Combinator for the very best entrepreneurs. They’re coming out of the African continent. And it was so cool to be on this call with these brilliant entrepreneurs from over that continent and find out that Kwami and I had that passion in common. And so for us to get back on this call together, a super special for me. Great to see you again.

Kwami Williams: Great to see you again, Henry.

Henry Kaestner: So thanks for being with us. And we want to hear about your entrepreneurial journey is a great one. Your life starts off in Baltimore. Maybe we’ll start there. Give us a little bit of an autobiographical sketch. Who are you? Where do you come from? And then we want to hear all about True Moringa, what Moringa is, what God has taught you about your entrepreneurial journey.

Kwami Williams: Absolutely. And it’s a pleasure to get to meet you. Will, and Rusty really excited about this time together, and I’ll dive right in. My story starts in Accra, Ghana. As you mentioned, Henry, I was born into a home that loves Jesus, my parents at a very early age.

I was involved in church learning the books of the Bible, all of that. And probably in my formative years as well, I was super excited and passionate about aviation. Anything that got me like I would run outside when planes fly overhead and when butterflies and birds flew. And that curiosity got me really into the spirit of tinkering, more like destroying everyone’s toys, trying to figure out how to work. But we’re going to call it tinkering for all intents and purposes.

And I just sort of grew up just passionate about engineering ultimately, and was blessed with the opportunity to emigrate to the US when I was in the fourth grade. It’s two thousand, my parents believe, gone on April Fools Day two thousand. We landed in JFK Airport. My first meal is a Happy Meal at McDonald’s and I’m thinking it’s just amazing.

I get to play house not knowing that the future as an immigrant in the US would actually be extremely challenging.

And we settled in Baltimore, Maryland, and that’s the connection to La Crosse in high school, got into two things lacrosse and robotics. So I’m sort of this job by day and robotics, married all other our and I got the chance to learn the sport, got excited about sports in general.

And by the end of my time in high school, I realized that I could use this passion for building robots and this passion for aviation and a discipline called aerospace engineering. And I realized that my team was one of the best places to learn that. So I set my sights there and God opened up the door for me to get into MIT and pursue my dream, which was to become a rocket scientist.

Henry Kaestner: Did you play lacrosse at MIT? Does MIT even have a lacrosse team? Does have a lacrosse team?

Kwami Williams: I played one semester really actually just fall ball. Unfortunately, I realized that I just couldn’t keep up with school, which I’m drinking from a fire hose and then my team setting. Right. Science, I bet.

So I stuck with intramural sports as my sports outlet.

So everything ultimate Frisbee, soccer, football, dodgeball, whatever, got me moving.

And my time in my team was just this beautiful experience because I thought I was going MIT to learn about aerospace engineering. And it actually became this formative experience in my spiritual journey for so much of my life. Because I grew up in the church, they had just become second nature and I spent the first two years at MIT actually wrestling with that God exists. And if he does, fate has it right.

I join a fraternity to explore, like, OK, I’m away from home. I just want to experience what freedom looks like without immigrant parents who are watching your every move.

And God really. Just use my time at MIT to help me make my faith real, for me to get to a point where I was old enough with clarity to say that I love Jesus and that I want to live my life in a way that shares his love with others.

And in that same way, MIT was transformative and moving me ultimately from aerospace engineering to a lot of what I do now, which is agriculture. And I love to kind of talk about that journey with you as we talk about the Moringa tree.

Kwami Williams: Good. We’ll talk about that. And I think that much of the switch there, the transition came from meeting your co-founder. Meeting somebody else was a formative relationship and he saw a different opportunity to walk us through that transition. Walk us from meeting your partner, Emily, and then, yes, tell us what in the world Moringa is. I don’t think I’ve heard the word Moringa before, maybe nine months ago. And now it feels like every week somebody is saying something about Moringa, feels like it was ringing the kale of today or something like that.

Kwami Williams: Precisely. It’s, yeah. More nutritious than kale with even more antiinflammatory benefits than tumeric. It’s kind of the buzz words right now around Moringa. But yeah, let me take you back in time. So in 2010, as blessed with the opportunity to join the Campus Crusade for Christ now crew movement to visit, not on a mission trip.

And that trip took me to the northern part of Ghana. And that was really my first introduction to rural poverty. I’ve realized that it’s so easy for us to be desensitized by development statistics. But once those numbers become names and faces of people you do life with, you share life with, it changes everything.

And for me, it moved me from this place of saying, I want to go back and intern at NASA to how can I leverage what I’ve been blessed with to actually start making a difference in the lives of the rural poor in Ghana and what are the resources and opportunity around them that we can start capitalizing on to transform their lives? So it’s not just sort of a poverty lens, but really an opportunity lens. And I was stuck with this question until my final year identity when I took a course called Lab Development. And this is the course in which I met Emily, my co-founder and business partner, and as well, Daisy, my wife and my partner.

And so this course takes everything. And it started through a trip back to Ghana.

And this time we are working alongside real farmers and they’re telling us about this tree called Moringa. They’ve seen Moringa is this miracle tree locally.

And I’m saying, OK, hold up, slow down. Let’s talk about some numbers and some science here. And they’re like, OK, so the more we researched, the more we raise.

The farmers were right. The release of the tree contain more iron and more calcium in milk, protein, yogurt, more vitamin C than oranges. And so we those this nutrient powerhouse in the release of the tree and then we looked at the size of the tumor around it. It also contained is deeply moisturizing oil that outperforms, again, coconut and shale oils, which we know of in the cosmetics sphere. And when we took a layer back and we looked at the marketplace where there was a five billion dollar market opportunity. And so it became very clear to us as students in 2012 in Ghana that there was more to Moringa than getting an A on a class project that we really need to think about, connecting the dots, helping farmers as we like to joke, prove that money grows on trees. The money that they need to transform and improve their livelihoods is right there in their backyards. And so my co-founder, Emily and I, from that point on to start to research Moringa personally and we were fortunate enough to win some grant capital out of team that helped us launch through Moringa, our consumer facing and vertically integrated brand metering and Moringa products powered for our health and wellness today.

Rusty Rueff: And as I understand it, the Moringa tree is also good for farming. Right? It’s not one of those trees where like the palm oil trees where they go in and it messes everything up, it actually helps.

Kwami Williams: You’ve got it perfectly right, Rusty. So Moringa one, it grows and in arid climates. So it’s a really climate smart, sustainable tree too.

It helps the crops around it grow better. Three, it can be in a crop. And so you don’t put farmers in a position where it’s an all or nothing like grow Moringa and cut everything else down. And then for it grows extremely fast compared to other fruit trees. So Moranda fruits and about 12 to 14 months. And that compares, for example, to Shey, which takes fifteen years to give you its first fruit or even mango trees, fruit trees that are three to five years before they give you the first fruit. So in Moringa you have this climate resilience opportunity for real farmers. You also have a. Dual income opportunity from the seeds in the leaves, and then you have the opportunity to support and integrate into what farmers are already cultivating rather than replace that.

Rusty Rueff: That’s very cool. I feel like we’re just this far away from Moringa smoothies right down here at Jamba Juice.

Kwami Williams: You know, it’s it’s like it really is coming. It really is. It’s I mean, in different parts of the US, it’s already there.

Rusty Rueff: It’s very cool. So tell us about your vision and mission of True Moringa. I mean, what’s the problem? You’re talking to both Faith Driven Investor and Faith Driven Entrepreneurs here. So what’s the problem that you’re trying to solve?

And how does planting these trees actually do that?

Kwami Williams: Yeah, so True Moringa today serves five thousand women and farming families all across Ghana, and we’ve planned it two million trees across the country of forest and communities and combating malnutrition.

And we are adding value to the seeds of the tree and have created a line of natural personal care products. And as well, we’re taking the lease of the tree and have created a line of health and wellness products. And we built this vertically integrated supply chain really because we have a bold vision. And that vision is that there are a plethora of underutilized high value crops here on the African continent. And what’s missing are really the rails to connect these underutilized crops to a global marketplace where they can be enjoyed and appreciated and to build those rails in a way that improves the lives of farmers that cares for the planet as well as ultimately is sustainable by generating a profit. And so we like to say that our mission is to improve the lives of our farmers and to improve the wellness of our customers, all powered by this Moringa tree.

Rusty Rueff: That’s very cool. If I can paraphrase somebody that we all not only admire but follow, you’re not only teaching them to use a tree, you’re teaching them how to plant a tree. Right? You know.

Kwami Williams: Precisely, precisely. That’s good.

Rusty Rueff: So there must have been some disconnect in the market, though, because Moringa trees have been around for a long time and somebody didn’t see the market opportunity. But yet you have. So how did you see it and what’s your fix for that disconnect?

Kwami Williams: Yeah, so we realized that a big part of the disconnect revolved around the initial positioning of Moringa. It was largely being championed by non-profits and aid organizations working on the African continent, focused on rural malnutrition prevention.

So they would go into communities and they’ll say, hey, farmers here, soem Moringa Seeds, plant them, eat the leaves, your life will be better. Goodbye. And of course, farmers will receive seeds, plant them, and ultimately became jaded because they’re saying, OK, we’ve plant this amazing tree. We can’t eat all the leaves from hundreds of trees. And we know from everything you’ve taught us that there’s a market value to both the leaves and the seeds of my tree.

And so we realized what was missing was a for profit social impact focus to the supply chain. So we now have come in and said, right, we’re not just going to educate you on how to plant Moringa and how to consume it to combat malnutrition at home. We’re going to help you scale your five 10 trees to five hundred on an acre with your other crops. We’re going to now add value here in Ghana, transforming Moringa into ingredients like the seed oil and the leaf powder. And then we’re going to take these two key ingredients and create everyday products that people can enjoy. So there’s an economic engine behind the social impact work and environmental impact work that Moringa presents naturally. And so that’s been the differentiator that we brought into the marketplace. And so even now, when you go to our truemoringa.com Website and you make a purchase, we built the […] ability to allow you to know there’s where my products came from, the community in Ghana they came from. And as you buy one, you plant one. And so we’ve really connected the dots all the way from sort of the souls of Ghana to the shelves of Whole Foods and as well to the smartphones that we have as we shop online in the US.

Rusty Rueff: That’s cool. And we know you’re not only sowing Moringa tree seeds, we also know you’re sowing seeds of your faith. And so take us through, you know, the spiritual integration of your work, your project, your mission. And then while you’re there, talk to us about why Ghana and what harvests are you hoping to see spiritually through your work in Ghana?

Kwami Williams: Yes, such good questions, Rusty, I sort of go in order, so as I think about sowing seeds beyond Moringa seeds, it really comes down to how do I as the co-founder and CEO, I connect, share my fate and display and walk my faith out in a hopefully winsome way in our organization. And what’s been so special is that from the very beginning, God has been the foundation of everything we’ve done, actually. I remember when I first moved back to Ghana, we launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to kick start the business and we had a twenty five thousand dollar goal and we had raised something like four thousand dollars.

And it’s Christmas Eve. Nineteen thousand more to go. And I get an email from a couple in Sweden saying, hey, we don’t know you, but God told us to fill in the entire round. So you meet your goal.

Rusty Rueff: Sweden, you said Sweden and Sweden. So how to connect those dots for me to Sweden?

Kwami Williams: And I share this story because when I open up that email, this is Christmas. And I just started crying. And as I was crying, you there’s no voice in heaven. But I just felt in that moment God saying this is to show you and remind you that I am building this business with you and that I am the foundation of this. So your highs and lows are all going to have to be rooted in me in building this together. And really, there is no direct link between us and this incredible couple that are now still investors in our company. Seven years later, they saw our work online. They followed it and they were obedient to God in their giving. And I share this because it set the tone for the rest of our journey as a company. Today we start every meeting and every meeting and prayer. We create the space in our hiring process to say Colossians three twenty three is going to be our guiding sort of light and framework. And it challenges us to say, let’s work as something done for God, not for our human paycheck and not for any accolades. We create the space as well personally to fast weekly. And I do that because fasting has been a powerful physical expression of saying, God, I need you, but I want to work with you in building this organization. And we haven’t been perfect in modeling our, you know, our faith in God. And not everyone in the organization is a believer, but we’ve created the space that really invites God’s presence into our day to day decision making.

Rusty Rueff: That’s really great. When are we going to dove more into that? But I just have one more question for you. So I’m looking at your product lines here. And you have one product called the Tranquility Face. Now, you can see all of us here. Nobody else can.

Do you think that product could actually work on us? I mean, could it make us better?

William Norvell: And who have all of us needs it the most.

Kwami Williams: So let me just put myself in this and say that I use our oils and the tranquility. Oil is one of our scented oils every day, so I need it. And so I think all of us should use it.

And I personally use it as a beard oil to reduce irritation before and after shave. My wife is using as a lovely facial oil. My mom is using it as a hair oil. So it’s just as powerful. All-Purpose Moisturizing oil for your hair, face and body. I’m going to say we all need it and that’s why you should try it out.

Rusty Rueff: I just want someone to look at me and go, Hey, look at the tranquility in your face. I mean, that would just be a beautiful thing, especially right now at twenty twenty. All right. So William is all yours.

William Norvell: Has the as the only member of the team with a full beard, I take that as a backhanded way of saying William needs it the most.

Kwami Williams: But, you know, that’s it.

William Norvell: That’s all right. That’s all right.

Kwami, I want to dig a little deeper. And one thing we probably haven’t done on here in a while, I want to reread our mission statement, a Faith Driven Entrepreneur, because I think you are going to help us in this. And on the front page of our site, you read our mission to help entrepreneurs who are hard at work on the trail, who are often tired, exhausted, under-resourced and confused. They need rest, support, guidance and provisions as they get ready to head back on the trail to fight dragons. And in no time or is during this pandemic that we are all dealing with in different ways. And God is orchestrating his ways in different ways across the world. But I do know twenty, twenty years been a tough year in some ways for you and the company. And you’ve been so gracious to tell us that you wanted to share that with our audience. And I just think it’s going to be something they need to hear. And so if you could just share what challenges do you guys have faced and how God has walked with you through those.

Kwami Williams: Thank you so much, William. And. I just love the foundation that this mission statement sets, because we are living that to paint the picture for our audience today, starting January 20 19, we start to basically experience our own version of Job’s story. And for color, we’ve been growing at sort of seventy five percent CAGR as a business since inception. Twenty nineteen was supposed to be this big year. We had multimillion dollar contracts to supply companies and Whole Foods and Costco that retail Moringa products. And so there was just this year filled with so much hope and anticipation. And from the first day I come home from of in Ghana, you pray all throughout the night into the new year.

Come on. Supercharges during the first twenty nineteen and I get a call when I wake up on New Year’s Day that fifteen thousand trees were literally burning, that a wildfire had gone to our largest farm here in Ghana four months later in April twenty nineteen.

I also get another message saying that our factory was burning down to the ground and with it went over a million dollars worth of lost revenue assets and as well the livelihoods of job creation opportunity for over one hundred and eighty of our people on our team. And then fast forward a couple more months. A colleague passed away due to health complications and the very next month, the dam that’s upstream from our nuclease farm had an uncontrolled release and ultimately flooded parts of our farm. And to kind of end the year, a burglar broke into our office on Boxing Day the day after Christmas and stole a bunch of stuff. So twenty, nineteen, even before we get to twenty twenty years challenges, global challenges. Twenty nineteen was literally just like hell for us. And twenty twenty as we’ve all experienced. Covid pandemic hit everyone from the rural farmer to the biggest corporates. And for us during the lockdown months they passed about 90 percent of how we make money. It also touched me personally. In July of twenty twenty I got sick with covid. My wife and I both got sick with covid and we actually ended up having a miscarriage as well in that same month and then in September thinking that, OK, that hopefully that’s that’s it. That’s the last thing. In September of twenty twenty in one of our rural communities, three armed gunmen robbed three of my colleagues. They shot into our pickup truck and two were ultimately hit by the heavy ammunition. But by God’s grace, miraculously, they survived the shotgun heads and the AK 47 heads and are recovering post surgery.

And this specific attack is just it’s not Ghana. Ghana is extremely safe and it’s not even in this community. So it’s just a series of events where we have to pause and say, oh, God, what is happening?

Why is that happening? How do we even talk about this?

And so I think God has put not just myself, but our entire company on this sort of crash course of resilience and also of a reclarification and redefinition of our faith and so our love to maybe share some of the lessons that we’ve learned through these back to back adversities.

William Norvell: Thank you so much for sharing. And yeah, definitely. And I ask you to do that. And just that is a wilderness season and they’re littered through the scripture. I don’t know if this is from the Lord or not, but somebody once told me when I was going through a long one that, you know, God uses those mightly that he has taken to the wilderness first. And I don’t know if that hits where you are not. So take it from the Lord if it is and not if it’s not. But all of our heroes from the Bible have experienced things like this. And then I just am grateful for you sharing these stories with our listeners. And yeah, if you would, what has God taught you from these challenges and just. Yeah. Thank you for sharing.

Kwami Williams: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me and the happiness of all of this. And for that word, I do think that there’s truth in that because so much of this season has been challenging me with a couple big questions. So I know the first one is what’s more important to me? Is it God or is it his gifts? And one of my colleagues, Peter Neila, always knows just the right things to said to me at the right time. He and my mom have that gift and he sent a video to me, I feel this year from 2010. And he shared C.S. Lewis, quote, says he has God and everything else has no more than he who has God alone.

And the day I first heard that, it just changed everything for me because I was so, so much of my Christian life has been a God. Can you give me this gift? He open this door for my company.

You bless my wife and I to that pregnancy will be successful. And these are amazing, good things that a good father wants to give, but I realize that God wasn’t enough for me and this season has got me to a place where God has become enough for me, where I adversity after adversity I can pause and I can just say, God, I love you. I believe and I know that you are good even without this good gift. And I think a related question that I’ve had to wrestle with in this season has been, you know, is God good in my life or in our lives as believers because he protects us from bad things or because his presence with us and I think is right.

So if he protects us from our pain or present with us in our pain and I think honestly, for most of my life, I just chose I want the keep the bad thing away.

And God has used this season to challenge me to get to a place where every day I get to say that your presence is what I want is what I desire.

And that has impacted where I find my identity. So is my identity. And walking in this calling to use botanicals to improve the lives of people or as my identity and just being loved by God.

And I think the last kind of high level question that has helped bring out some lessons for me is around this idea of am I working as as a slave or as a son of God? And I share that the point to the fact that most of the past seven years I’ve drank the Kool-Aid of grind and hustle as a founder, you know, days off and my phone is with me when I’m having dinner with my wife.

And there were seasons I remember when we first won the Forbes 30 under 30, I’ll sleep in with my laptop every day because I’m like, I have to do even more. And when the factory burned and when we that we had to completely restructure our business God said, I need to start resting.

I need you to start taking a sabbatical and you just start setting better boundaries for work. And, you know, it’s been twenty four months almost of back to back adversity, but and I have not perfected it.

But I can say that by God’s grace, I’m progressing in this and setting better boundaries and my wife will call me out if I stray too far. And so just to kind of some that up, I think the big lessons are around really loving God and pursuing God for him, not his gifts. Secondly, being excited and acknowledging that God is good because of his presence and our pain, not simply the times when he protects us from pain. And then I think a big lesson has been how do I work alongside God as a son who rests rather than a slave who is constantly striving and grinding and hustling without his loving father guiding him.

So I think those are the big things that have come out of this season for me as I think about my faith journey in the face of so much adversity.

Henry Kaestner: Wow. You know, I had thought that we’d hear about Ghana in an entrepreneurial story and learn about Moringa, but it’s really powerful just to hear that we all got something much, much more than we expected and grateful for your faithfulness and sharing your story and a lot of transparency and vulnerability and just really seeing faith at work. And I know that that’s an inspiration, encouragement to all of us.

William Norvell: I’m in and I love what you said. I would love to have this pastor. I’d like to have read a book, a new book by a guy named John Mark called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. And so I don’t know if it’s one to send you. I’ll happily buy it for you. It’s an incredible book, but he does a section on the word hustle and how it’s been co-opted. And, you know, the word actually, the definition means to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a direction that’s not something to aspire to. The words the words been co-opted a little bit and like it’s definitely not biblical. And I love how you reframed that. And John, Mark does an incredible job. I’d love to hear him talk to entrepreneurs, but it’s all about trust. It comes from a quote from Dallas, Willard, that he asked one time and said, you know, what’s the biggest thing we should do to pursue Jesus?

And he said ruthlessly eliminate her. He said he said there he’s like, OK, what else? He’s like, that’s it. I’m done. So I thank you for that. And but you so you also have an interesting view there. I mean, so that’s your personal journey and what God’s taking you through. You’re also the leader of a company that has gone through these stresses. Not and I’m sure it sounds like just from getting to know you, that they probably walked alongside you through the personal struggles as well as the business struggles and the business is going through issues. How has that affected your organization and how is God equipped you to lead through this?

Kwami Williams: So first, my brother in Christ and colleague Peter Bieler, who I mentioned, always knows just the right thing to say, just yesterday was talking about the ruthless elimination of poverty. So he’s there with you. And I checked out the devotional in the Bible. So I got to taste a little bit of the book. But I think it’s worth diving in and actually reading it.

And to talk to your question about professionally how we’ve sort of navigated adversity and build resilience. I think the first thing is that the senior leadership team, we realized that we needed to self care because we were burning out or will burn out. And so for that, some of the biggest things that we did practically is create space. My co-founder Emily Create Space for a mindfulness meditation for me was a lot around writing down things I’m grateful for every day because I just changed my lens beyond sort of the caring for a mind. All of us have gone into wellness and fitness and so caring for our bodies just so we can actually endure the emotional, physical, mental, intellectual toll of what’s happening. And then in the organization itself. And we really double down on two simple frameworks. So one is start, stop, continue says what can I start today? That is going great. What do I need to stop? That’s not working. And what should we continue? And then a second framework, the growth framework. What’s our goal? What are the options that we have? And then what is the reality on the ground and what’s the way forward? And we took these frameworks as a way to just sit down and dissect our business. It meant we had to lay off our staff who were connected to the factory. That’s the most painful thing I’ve ever had to do as a leader. But then in that pain, we also created opportunities for those who knew how to sew, started making masks to support covid. And we raised our own capital. We really donated our savings to create an unemployment fund to serve those who don’t have a safety net. On the product side, we launched a couple of new skills and these skills actually became the trigger to get into Whole Foods in New England. So in our grocery at the worst possible time, the expansion of our product line doubling down or triggering a brand, companies getting to Whole Foods at the end of twenty nineteen and at the end of twenty twenty, that’s helped us get into Costco. And I think that basically taking these frameworks ultimately has helped us run lean experiments that have unlocked opportunity. And as we end twenty twenty, we’ve grown revenue by almost three times that of twenty nineteen. So we’re really excited that God has blessed these small efforts to really say, what can I start, what can I stop, what can I continue. And as well, how do I grow even in the face of adversity?

William Norvell: Amen, amen. And as we come near to our close, I would love to know as someone who’s on the ground working with entrepreneurs, I know you’re involved with so many. I think it’s a group of us, I think speak for the three of us. We’ve just collectively been inspired by the continent of Africa and what is going on there and just, you know, shame on us for missing it and not seeing the amazing opportunity and growth and looking past it. And so I would love for you maybe to give a pitch as well while you’re on this podcast. What’s your vision for the future of Ghana specifically? And maybe if you have one for Africa, what could entrepreneurship do for the country of Ghana and the continent of Africa?

William Norvell: That’s a great question. I think it’s been said that, you know, talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t that thing. That’s really the case. When you think about Ghana on the African continent, my sort of vision is to unleash the entrepreneurial capacity of people on the African continent.

I believe that Africans should be the one in the driver’s seat to solve the injustice of poverty, to create opportunities that improve the livelihoods of their communities, their cities, their countries. And we need allies from around the world in that partnership. But I think that it’s basically saying if the right acting come alongside African entrepreneurs, if they’re the coaching the capital, the community, the connections can create a conducive ecosystem, that we can transform this continent and take it from the economist, call it a hopeless continent to one that’s actually a beacon of excellence across every industry that we can imagine. And for me, the poorest demographic in our world today, our real farmers. And so, so much of how I think we can do this is creating opportunities that increase the income and improve the livelihoods of women and farming families all across the African continent.

William Norvell: Oh, that’s amazing. Thank you. And that’s Henry alluded to in the beginning. We are going to come to a close and we’re going to ask our favorite question. And we’ve recently been led by the spirit to ask a second question. So if you haven’t listened to the recent podcast, this may be new, but we’d love to invite you to share with our listeners. Where God has you in his word right now, where he has you in his scripture and what he may be teaching you, it could be something that you’ve been studying this season, could be something that he told you this morning through your mom or your business partner. And then secondarily, how can we be praying for you and how can we be praying and our listeners be praying for True Moringa?

Kwami Williams: A funny story is that my mom did send this verse to me this morning. It was her verse of the day, but it has been the verse that I have found so much comforting in the season.

And it’s Isaiah. Forty three, one to two. And I love to just sort of read it. And when I do, I insert my name just to make it as powerful as possible. And it’s the same. But now, Kwami, listen to the Lord who created you, Kwami, the one who formed you cells. Do not be afraid for I have sinned. You I have called you by name. You are mine when you go through the deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through the rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up. The flames will not consume you. And it resonates because we’ve literally gone through the flood, the fire, the oppression in a physical sense, and God has been faithful to it all. And so I hope this speaks to anyone who is going through any difficulty, especially with what twenty, twenty and covid-19 has brought to the world and just know that God is real. He loves you and he is presence in the most painful things.

William Norvell: Amen. And how can we be praying for you and your company?

Kwami Williams: True Moringa is at an inflection point. We’re grateful to God for the ability to be growing over one hundred and fifty four percent year over year. And so the keeper now is for like minded investors to partner with us to support our growth beyond this year. And I think that’s going to be the biggest sort of catalyst to our future as we work to improve the lives of farmers here in Ghana.

— by Amanda Lawson

Did you ever watch the movie The Truman Show? Jim Carey plays Truman, a man who finds out that his entire life is a television show that an audience watches and he struggles to come to terms with the fact that people were constantly aware of him. As believers, more specifically, as faith driven entrepreneurs, considering a life like Truman’s raises some interesting questions. For many of us, we can feel incredibly lonely in our work, either because of our position or simply a lack of like-spirited coworkers. Would it be encouraging to know that people were watching us do our jobs and interact with our families? For some—especially in the work-from-home era—staying motivated in our work can be a struggle. Would having a studio audience cause us to put in more effort? Would it drive us to unhealthy levels of competition and expectation? Some are craving attention in our jobs and our lives because they often feel unnoticed. Are we even doing anything worth watching? What does it mean to be seen?  

These questions may seem dramatic, but I think many—if not all—Christians can relate. The good news is, many—if not all—Christians can relate. The even better news is that while God’s people have faced similar struggles since the Fall, He has been faithful to remind them of His presence. 

Early in 2021, I was confronted by the sad (and untrue) thought that God didn’t care about or see me. I was facing some hard and stressful situations in both my work and personal life. It seemed like there was nothing I could do to fix any of it, and that I was alone in even wanting to. Upon lamenting about the situations, a wise counselor in my life pointed me to an Old Testament woman that I must confess, I don’t think I ever considered important: Hagar. 

Hagar has a brief, but significant role in the lives of Abraham and Sara. She gets caught up in Abraham’s frustrated eagerness to see the fulfillment of God’s promise to bless him and gives birth to Abraham’s son, Ishmael. There is too much context and many implications for this specific narrative to go into here, but long story short, Hagar and Ishmael are sent away because the promise God gave about blessing the world through Abraham was to be through his yet-unborn, unconceived son with his wife, Sara. 

Hagar didn’t ask for this child. I love how the character Nicodemus describes it in an episode of The Chosen, saying that she was caught up in something that she didn’t intend for. But in facing the reality of her situation, says of the Lord, “You are the God who sees me” (Genesis 16:13). 

When the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, they cried out to God and “their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them” (Exodus 2:23-25). Enter Moses.

One thing we know about God is that He is consistent; the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). This means that He still is the God who sees…who sees individuals as well as nations. 

Life is full of unexpected situations, hard circumstances, and lonely seasons. Yet, God sees. He knows His people. Even better, He is aware of them constantly. While we don’t have a studio audience watching us, we have a loving and powerful Father who sees our needs and has the ability to fill them. 

Whatever season you are in right now, know that God sees you. He is aware of you. He has a plan for you in this season and every season coming. When work is stressful and everything is going wrong, He sees you. When you’re running around trying to ensure you get the next stage of funding, He sees you. When you’re struggling to leave work at work and maintain healthy boundaries, He sees you. Regardless of your circumstances, He still is Adonai El Roi. I can think of no better encouragement than to know that the God of the universe has a specific awareness of you. 

Perhaps we should return the favor. At the end of the movie, Truman acknowledges his viewers before walking out of frame for the last time. The beautiful part of a relational God is that relationships take two people. He sees us, and we get to see Him. He talks to us; we talk to Him. My favorite thing to pray recently has been to ask for a greater awareness of the Lord. I want to see Him, to be aware of Him constantly. Part of that includes spending time in His Word. If we want to know God, to be aware of Him, let’s take the time to hear what He has already said. 

He is the God who sees. Let’s look back at Him. David declared—in the middle of life-threatening circumstances—that his one desire was to dwell in the house of the Lord and gaze on Him (Psalm 27:4) because he knew that seeing the Lord would be all he needed. As we endeavor to know and serve the Lord in every part of our lives, we need to be like David and Hagar, knowing that God is aware of us and that we can be aware of Him as well. 

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— by Matt Rusten

I remember taking drives around Kansas City sometime last year, long after the pandemic had begun, but long before it began to subside. I enjoy driving around my city, spotting cranes hovering over construction sites, or discovering new artisan shops on quaint streets. But on that mid-pandemic drive, I noticed something else — a plethora of “For Lease” signs in previously occupied store windows — a haunting clue that all was not well. 

I groaned on the inside. When a business goes under, there is a double wound — first, the inevitable loss of a cultural artifact that brings character to a place; but perhaps more importantly, the lives of people being upended amidst job loss and the turmoil that often follows. 

There’s been a lot of that the past year. Even with the historic disbursement of PPP loans that saved many businesses, over 160,000 small businesses shut their doors by last fall, and some studies indicated that upwards of 60 percent would be permanent closures. For a majority of these business casualties, they closed and will never rise again. 

But in a surprising narrative twist, a parallel story is emerging. Like aspen groves emerging after a forest fire, last year saw a surge in new business startups. Faced with the reality of no work and few job openings, many people created jobs for themselves.

This is not typical for recessions. John Haltiwanger, economist at the University of Maryland who studies business formation put it succinctly: “Start-ups have always fallen in recessions. This is the only one I know where start-ups grew.”

This would be hard to make sense of, except for one factor — the hard-to-fathom $867 billion dispersed in the form of stimulus checks, falling down into bank accounts like manna from heaven (“What is it?”). And with huge inflows of capital being dispersed, personal balance sheets were building even as everything else seemed to be crashing. 

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ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES 

What happens when people lose work, have little option of finding a traditional job, but (paradoxically) have access to significant capital? Last year gave us the answer: they start businesses — everything from modest side-projects and freelance work, to new opportunities that hold the possibility of hiring other workers (this latter subset rose by 15.5% last year, according to the Census Bureau). 

As the New York Times reported, 

In a study released on Wednesday, researchers at the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that Americans started 4.4 million businesses last year, a 24 percent increase from the year before. It is by far the biggest increase on record.

But even this is not the whole story. New data has revealed that this entrepreneurial boom appears to be particularly pronounced in predominantly black neighborhoods. As researchers mapped the data of new business applications, they found that the greatest increases were in black areas. “Even after controlling for other variables, the proportion of Black residents in a ZIP code had the strongest impact on the start-up growth rate.”

We know that black and brown communities were hit especially hard in Covid, both in terms of health outcomes and losing work. We are now beginning to see that given the near universal access to capital, they were also most likely to respond to economic adversity with entrepreneurial activity. 

This is not to naively idealize the financial outcomes of all these new entrepreneurs. Undoubtedly, many are likely struggling to get by. But it does point to at least one fascinating conclusion — faced with meager job opportunities, and with their backs against the wall, many people turn to entrepreneurship as a vital lifeline to survival, especially when they have access to capital.  

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ENTREPRENEURIAL PASTORS AND CHURCHES

I wonder what churches might do with this insight. 

Benevolence funds have long been a common church tactic to support the needy, and this has biblical precedent — not only in continuing the biblical legacy of almsgiving, but also because the theological categories of grace and mercy point to the goodness of giving free, unearned gifts. 

But this is not the only biblical guidance we have, nor the only theological categories we hold. Alongside alms for economic relief, God also instituted a job opportunity program among his people for economic sustainability in the form of gleaning, which was meant to offer poor members of the community a chance to provide food for their own needs. Theologically, we might anchor this idea in human dignity, the capacity to mimic the God who works, and productivity as a component of biblical fruitfulness.   

This is where entrepreneurship could act like the second wing of an airplane for churches. A church offering a benevolence fund should think seriously about a corresponding economic opportunity initiative, rooted in entrepreneurship. 

What might this look like for churches? Might they offer training on how to start and grow businesses, or partner with organizations who do? Could they find creative ways to provide new businesses with start-up capital? Engage retiring baby boomers who hold decades of business experience to mentor aspiring entrepreneurs? 

This is not theoretical. Already, there are entrepreneurial pastors and churches leading the way, like Cynthia and John Wallace in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Out of the Bible Center Church they lead, they have launched the Oasis Project, which, among other things, offers entrepreneurship training to community members. Examples like the Wallaces are emerging all over the country, as churches take seriously their role as economic actors in the community.  

The data speaks for itself. Entrepreneurship is not merely a wealth building strategy for the already well-to-do. It can also be a vital pathway for those on the economic margins. If churches want to engage more deeply with those with economic needs, entrepreneurship deserves serious consideration as at least one crucial piece of the puzzle. 

This article was originally posted here by Common Good

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