“For every church we plant, we need to start a business.”

– Mark Batterson

Can Faith Driven Entrepreneurs really partner with their churches? What would that partnership even look like?

In last week’s episode, we talked about the need for partnerships between entrepreneurs and pastors. In this episode, we highlight the voices of three pastors–Mark Batterson, Chip Ingram, and John Mark Comer–who have seen the power of working alongside entrepreneurs for the good of their communities.

We believe the church and entrepreneurs can do more together because they’re better together.

Hear how these pastors are partnering with entrepreneurs.

Other Episodes:

• Last Week’s Episode

• Chip Ingram Full Episode

• John Mark Comer Full Episode

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: Whether you’ve tuned in this show for all 200 plus episodes we’ve ever recorded, or this is your first time here. My guess is that you’re listening right now because you believe that God can work in and through the marketplace. You believe in the power of faith driven entrepreneurs. You’ve seen the impact they can have on communities, cities, and nations. But if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you might feel like this kind of work has to happen outside of your church context. In this episode, we hope to prove you wrong. This is going to be a part two from last week’s conversation with David Kinnaman, where we talked about how we might heal the historically challenging relationship between pastors and entrepreneurs. Go back and listen to that one, if you haven’t already, because this episode is going to build on that momentum by sharing some incredible stories of pastors who really understand and support the entrepreneurs in their congregations. You’ll hear the entrepreneurial spirit that runs through Mark Batterson and his church in Washington, DC. Then Chip Ingram will talk about how entrepreneurs and pastors can experience the changing power of the Holy Spirit. And finally, we’ll land with John Mark Comer, sharing some powerful and challenging insights about how every pastor and every entrepreneur can see their work as a loving contribution to God’s kingdom. I’m Joey Honescko, and you’re listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let’s get into it.

Mark Batterson: In 1996, my wife Laura and I inherited a core group of 19 people, started pastoring National Community Church in Washington, D.C. and I better backdrop this. We were coming off of a failed church plan. When I was in seminary in Chicago, ripe old age of 22. Amazing how much, you know, at 22, you almost have everything figured out. So we needed a little unlearning. That church plan attempt failed and I learned two lessons. One, the cure for the fear of failure is not success. The cure for the fear of failure is failure in small enough doses that you build up an immunity to it. You realize that God’s there to pick you up, dust you off. I don’t know anybody in ministry or in business that doesn’t have a few failures notched on their belt. And I would say this failure typically is poorly managed. Success and success nine times out of ten is well-managed failure. So failure is part and parcel. I’m guessing a few of you have a few failed businesses like I do on my resume. And so we started with 19 people in DC, and we have a couple of core convictions. Church ought to be the most creative place on the planet. I believe that two church belongs in the middle of the marketplace. And let me explain that Jesus didn’t just hang out at the synagogue. He hung out at Wells. Wells were natural gathering places and ancient culture. And so actually, our first entrepreneurial endeavor was turning a crack house on Capitol Hill into a coffeehouse. And why would we do that? Because we wanted to create a place where church and community could cross paths. Plus, the Holy Spirit plus caffeine equals awesome. Pretty amazing having a coffeehouse where we keep Capitol Hill caffeinated. And I should say this for the record, if you’re going into any business, you better be able to compete in terms of excellence in product or even over the top hospitality, like let’s do it and do it well. And so Ebenezer Coffee House voted number one coffee house in DC many times. And every penny of profit we give to kingdom causes. And so we in Ward seven, a part of our city that’s underserved and under-resourced. We have a DC Dream Center that is impacting thousands of kids. It is, one of the most important things we do. That ministry, which was a $5 million project to build, was funded in large part by our coffee house. And so I’ll just share a personal conviction for every church we plant. We need to start a business. And part of that comes from the fact that we have received gifts from those who have an amazing mind for business, and a heart for the kingdom that has propelled us forward as a church. And so we own and operate Ebenezer Coffee House. We also operate the only movie theater on Capitol Hill, which is unique. We believed that in a sense, the screen is almost like post-modern stained glass. So the medieval church used stained glass to paint pictures for those who are illiterate. We use moving pictures to communicate the message of the gospel. And so now we find ourselves with a city block. Ebenezer is one corner of that circle and the building where I am right now, the capital. Turn around. It was built in 1891. Navy yard car barn, and it’s 100,000ft². It’s an amazing property across from the Navy Yard, less than a mile from the Capitol and in the riverfront neighborhood, which is the fastest growing part of DC. Long story short, I turn the corner of this building in 96. We bought it 18 years later to the day from the day of that prayer circle. And so we are building it out as a mixed use marketplace instead of just building a space where we gather on the weekend to worship, we pulled out all the stops and built by the 1000 seat auditorium that others could use for concerts. Conferences will host about 100. Rid events this year. Those 100 events will revenue stream about $1 million. And it’s a win win because not only does it help finance the kingdom, people don’t know it, but everybody who walks in, I’m going to pastor them. I’m going to love them. We’re going to show hospitality to them. And so we’ve had NBC rent the space to film. Amazon has rented it for events. DC government does events here. First lady has been here several times. What that allows us to do is to be a church in the middle of the marketplace. And so I hope you hear the heart behind this. A church that stays within its four walls is not a church at all. So we’re cognizant about things like as we build out this marketplace, there is the unintended consequence of gentrification. So how can we employ people that maybe are returning citizens? How can we employ people that maybe are in an underserved, under-resourced part of our city now? Our kids ministry space, which we use on the weekend, also doubles as a child development center. So the mayor said a couple of years ago, mayor of DC, that there weren’t enough spaces for childcare. And so we thought we can meet a real need in real time and create a win win scenario. So we partnered with our friend Frank Bieler, faith Family, and we turned our children’s ministry space into a child development center Monday to Friday. Now, the next phase of this vision is to build out a mixed use marketplace. What we want to do is empower our entrepreneurs. There are several dozen nonprofits, and for profits that just in the last decade have evolved out of this ecosystem that we call Nashville Community Church. And so what we want to do is actually empower them. And so we’ll have a couple of sit down restaurants, as well as about 15 pop up, mixed use retail and restaurant concepts. And the idea is this, can we do and be the church beyond just a weekend gathering? Whatever it is that you do, that is your pulpit and the people you work with that is your congregation when. So when we approach business that way, there are people that will pop into a coffee shop or go see a movie, or want to get a pair of shoes or any kind of service industry. You name it, dog grooming, whatever it is. And so what I’m believing is that there are a lot of entrepreneurs with some God ideas. It’s going to take some faith. And so thanks for letting me take a few minutes sharing a little bit of our story and with the help of the Holy Spirit, take that God idea, take it captive and make it obedient to Christ. Second Corinthians ten five. It’s going to take blood, sweat and tears. It’s going to take time, talent, treasure. But I pray God’s anointing on your life in Jesus name, Amen.

Joseph Honescko: Mark provides a great image of what it looks like for pastors to champion entrepreneurs. And this next section, Chip Ingram talks with Henry Kastner about some of the chapters he contributed to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur book, where he talked about stewardship versus ownership, being faithful versus willful. And maybe most shockingly, the surprising overlap between pastors and entrepreneurs. Chip will also share from another book he has about how the Holy Spirit has the power to change us into the people God has called us to be.

Henry Kaestner: So you’ve got chapters on stewardship. Faithful and willful, and what pastors and entrepreneurs have in common. What are some takeaways that people can look forward to reading about with that?

Chip Ingram: I think for high energy active entrepreneurs, the challenge and this is true of pastors that have an entrepreneurial spirit as well, is what’s my part and what’s God’s part. I mean, we talk about you’re a steward, that okay, I’m supposed to rest and trust in God and His wisdom. Not strive. Not be a workaholic, not feel this unbelievable pressure to make it happen. And yet I’m not to be passive. How do you do that? That’s what I think we address in this book. I think in an understandable way. I think it’s foggy and vague and try and entrepreneurs hit it and miss it, and we just go sort of we zoom out of balance, one direction only, the pendulum to zoom out of balance in the other direction. And I think this book will really help entrepreneurs in that, to discern that, to realize, you know, I don’t have to keep telling those around me. You know, once we get through this big launch, once we get through this, once we do this, once we do that, then things are going to change, which is the lie that we tell ourselves and those that love us. It is possible to be at rest, to have a peaceful heart, to take risk, to be very engaged and intense at times, and also to know when to say no and not feel like the world depends on me. And that’s as much or more an art as it is a science. And I think you and JD speak well to that, and I gave it my best shot as well.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, it was a very, very good shot. I’m very grateful. It’s a real treat for me. So as much as I’m semi tempted to talk more about some of the issues that we unpack there, I’m also a little uncomfortable about the self-promotion, but I feel much better about talking about a book that you’re coming out with that I think is really important. And it’s called yes, You Can Really Change. Talk to us about it. What’s in the book? What’s it about? What’s the reason for writing it?

Chip Ingram: Well, it is about life change. I mean, we are made. Entrepreneurs know this more than anyone else. The status quo makes us crazy. I would say the status quo. I don’t want to be irreverent. It makes God crazy. We were made to change. His goal is to make us more and more like his son. And so this book is it’s really about how change happens. My experience after many years as a pastor, rubbing shoulders with, you know, business leaders, CEOs is there’s this once the external change is like, okay, the big morals or maybe my language or, you know, I basically tell the truth in business deals. There’s those internal things that often get stuck. Greed, lust, resentment, anger. Unresolved conflict. Comparing yourself with others. God has an agenda and a way to transform us from the inside out. And my experience is most Christians don’t know what that looks like. Most Christians are trying very hard to be a good person and involved in some good religious activities and some spiritual disciplines. But when you peel all that away, there’s some things that God longs to change and they’re really stuck. They really don’t know how that works.

Henry Kaestner: So when people read it and they’re feeling stuck and they want to get out of being stuck, what’s it take away that you want the readers to get at and just you hope that changes in their lives afterwards? One thing, again, just the takeaway and not in any way that short change is the very important of unpacking how you get there that you’re able to do in the book. But give us a takeaway, please.

Chip Ingram: The fundamental takeaway is verse one of Ephesians four. It’s grasping how deeply you’re loved, who you really are and whose you are. And then walking in a manner that is worthy of Christ. It’s spiritual maturity. It’s becoming like Christ in your speech, your thoughts, your actions, your business. And here’s I’ll make a fine distinction. Not working hard to look like you have good speech. Good action. You know, I wrote my journal. I’d like to say it was 20 years ago, but it was about a year and a half ago. And it was one of those defining, honest moments with God and a time of repentance, actually. And I remember writing father, I realize at times I spend more energy trying to look humble and more energy trying to look loving than I actually spend being humble and being loving. And you know, that part of our DNA. If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s make it happen. And if you want to make it happen, you are always tempted or most of us, to make the ends justify the means. And I think what I really long for people to see is living out of the overflow of your relationship with Christ that allows you to be at peace, that brings freedom, and honestly causes you to do things in ways that people shake their head and say, I didn’t think you could be that kind of Christian and be successful in business. You’re breaking a lot of the rules here, but you really believe in this Jesus that you talk about in this kingdom agenda that he has and that his upside down values. You know what? They don’t make a lot of sense to me. You know, if you’re an unbeliever that I’m in or that was the goal. Let your light so shine before men, right? That they could see your good deeds. That the evidence and how we actually live, how our business is run, how we treat our employees, how we respond to a crisis. What do we do when there is failure? How do we treat people who failed? The takeaway is doing that the way Jesus would do it if he lived inside your body. And if you’re a follower of Jesus. That’s the reality. Jesus lives inside your body. You’re his temple. And my dream is that people would learn just how to do that progressively, not perfectly, until we get to heaven and make a huge difference for God’s kingdom.

Joseph Honescko: As we head to our last section here, you’re going to hear from William, Rusty and John Mark Comer as they discuss what it’s like to eliminate hurry from our lives and the joy that comes when we untether ourselves from the unnecessary stress of trying to control outcomes. William. We’ll take it from here.

Mark Batterson: John Mark want to dig into the book a little bit, and I would just ask you to jump in. I mean, for those that maybe haven’t read the book, you haven’t been convinced yet, convince them that hurry is not just a symptom, but actually a root cause for so many of the problems that entrepreneurs may face.

John Mark Comer: Yeah. You know, Carl Jung said, hurry isn’t of the devil. It is the devil. And you know, that’s just a pithy saying, but there’s something in it. You know, when Willard said, hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day, it’s hard to even agree with that, much less live that way. In a culture where hustle is a positive thing, not a pejorative, you know, and where the thought is, you know, do more, do faster, go go go. And of course, you have great writers, even from your neck of the woods. Greg McCowan and Cal Newport and others that are really pushing back on the myth of, you know, busyness equals productivity, you know, and that’s obviously your space more than my space. So I’ve read just enough to be dangerous. But it’s my clear understanding that God bless Elon Musk. But 80 hours a week of hustle is actually not the best way to make a meaningful contribution, or even grow your business or whatever your thing is. There’s deep work, there’s meaningful contribution. That’s a very different thing at a different pace. But again, I come at it more a little bit less through the angle of, you know, vocation or productivity, though I think that matters. And I think it matters for Christians to be thinking about that. I think, you know, you can make a very biblical case for work productivity because time is precious. You have the whole concept of redeeming the time in the New Testament, and life is like a vapor. But I come at it more again, just to the angle of spiritual formation, of becoming more like Jesus, of growth and maturity. You know, let’s again, let’s just take the fruit of the spirit as our metric love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Hurry is incompatible with that entire list. So just think about love. You know, pretty much all of my worst moments, my most unloving moments as a husband, as a father, as a pastor, as a neighbor, as a friend are when I’m in a hurry and I don’t have time to attend to my loved ones, to my family, to my community, or I’m there in body, but my mind’s going 1,000,000mph, and I’m texting because I didn’t get my work done for the day, and I’m not present to the person, or I’m present, but I’m too emotionally exhausted to actually have compassion on them and connect with them on an emotional level. You know, I’m just I have three kids. I have a wonderful wife who’s late for everything. God bless her. Trying to get anywhere on time as a family is just like a minor war, you know? And some of my most unloving moments are when we’re late for something. Get in the car. I don’t have time. Stop crying. Get in the back of the car. We’ll talk about it later. You know, why do you always do this? Some of my most unloving moments, you know, and really, most of life is interruption. C.S. Lewis again once said something to the effect of how you respond to an interruption is who you really are, which is like, oh my gosh, you know, I respond terrible to interruption because I don’t have enough time. I don’t have time for interruptions. This is not on my schedule and I have too much to do already. But most 80% of parenting is dealing with interruptions, and a huge chunk of life is navigating interruptions well. And so if we’re so busy and such a speed and moving at such a frenetic pace, we’ll miss these interruptions in these moments for love, we won’t have the emotional capacity to sit with people, to listen, to attend to people with our full presence, to have compassion. So Japanese theologian who’s passed away now, but he wrote this beautiful essay called Three Mile an Hour God. And I had to Google that. I had no idea what that meant. Apparently three miles per hour is the speed of walking, and he just has this whole short meditation on how God has the speed. And it’s the speed of love, and love is a walking speed. And if God could go faster, he would. But God is love, so we can’t. And I really think there’s an inner and outer speed. There’s a pace to love, a pace to the way of Jesus. That is when you look at the life of Jesus, he’s unhurried. He’s present to the moment. He’s late for certain things on purpose. He has space, he has margin. He’s just fully available to each person, prophetically aware of what God is doing in that moment and what God is calling him to do in that day. It’s an extraordinary kind of model of human life. And then you could just go down the list, joy, you know what I mean? All the experts on happiness tie it to like, presents the moment. The more like grounded in your body and your breathing and presence of the moment in gratitude for what is right now, the happier you are. Peace I mean have. Just imagine, you know, being late for a flight or something, that feeling in your body when you’re late and you’re stressed and you have too much to do, it’s it is not peace, whatever that’s going through your body. It’s not peace. It’s anxiety and stress and all of that. So we could just go down through the list. And I just believe that hurry is incompatible with following Jesus, and not just with following Jesus at an emotional level like you won’t have the love and joy and peace some people are legitimately very much type A. Busy people that can be really happy doing those things. But at the end of the day, our discipleship to Jesus is a form of relationship, and relationships of intimacy take a lot of time and they take intentionality, they take disciplines, they take covenant, and they’re not efficient. My relationship with my wife is not efficient. My relationship with my three kids is wildly inefficient, and it’s time consuming, and I don’t always enjoy it. And sometimes I really enjoy it. But they’re deeply meaningful to me. And at the end of the day, many of us are just too. It’s not that we don’t love Jesus. Ronald Heiser has that great line. We’re more busy than bad. It’s just that we don’t have time to have much of a relationship with Jesus. Or when we do set aside time, we’re going at such a speed and our mind is so distracted by our phone and the digital age and apps and alerts and pushes that we can barely even pay attention to Jesus, and prayer becomes just a way of like trying to calm a wild mind. So at some point, you reach a spot where in the same way with my wife, if I said, I love you, babe, I want to be with you forever. No matter how many times I said that if I worked 100 hours a week, never came home, didn’t have a date night with her. I didn’t have touch points with her. At some point she would say, honey, you actually you say you love me and you say you want to be an emergency, but you’re not in a marriage. This is not a marriage. This is not a relationship, or this is barely one. You’re doing something else. And I’m just here on the margins of your life. And at some point, you’d have to decide. Do I actually want to stay faithful to the covenant I made? Am I ready to be married or not? And sometimes I wonder if that’s what kind of what our relationship with Jesus is. And that’s not to shame anyone. It’s more just like a sobering moment of wake up. Like, wow, is Jesus on the periphery, in the margins of my life? Or is he at the center? Is this a relationship of intimacy with the father and the son and the Holy Spirit? Or is this just like a kind of how we feel about the Warriors? Like, I’m a fan, it’s great. I don’t know if I have time to go to the game tonight. Hopefully they do good. I’ll read about in the news tomorrow for 10s. Is that kind of more the relationship with Jesus? Are you a fan or are you a follower, a disciple, an apprentice of Jesus?

William Norvell: Oh that’s amazing. And one of the things we like to just kind of hit a complaint, potentially, that some of our entrepreneurs might they might be thinking, you know what? That sounds great, but you don’t know my life. I’ve got 50 employees. I you know, I’ve got shareholders. I told these investors things and, you know, that’s the bargain I made. I have to work 80 hours a week. I’m an entrepreneur. Like that’s what it is. Is this is this the way it’s always been? Is this technology that caused this problem? Is there basically like, is there a way out? You know, I mean, for those type of people is, you know, hey, because I think what I heard you say is you’re not telling you to sacrifice success. Actually, this will lead to success, right? But maybe go a layer deeper on that for our company leaders listening in.

John Mark Comer: Well, William, I mean, I’d love to have you answer that for me. I mean, of course I can quote to you, you know, the Microsoft study from last year that found a four day work where our five hour workday was, you know, increased productivity by 40%. I could quote to use study after study that says after 55 hours a week of work, your productivity plummets. And the difference between working 80 hours a week and 55 hours a week is almost negligible, which is really interesting because that’s basically a six day workweek. And Jesus said, the Sabbath is actually two commandments for six days you shall work, and the seventh is a day of rest to God. So actually commanded to work, and we’re commanded to rest, and we’re it’s a six and one rhythm, six and one and six and one. So all that to say, I could quote studies at you, I can tell you about my life and how I work. You know, I still work very hard, but I think you have to work smarter, not necessarily longer, but I think I’m more productive now than I’ve ever been as a writer, as a teacher, as a leader. But I’ve also had to make major sacrifices that I thought would permanently damage my career is kind of a gross word for a pastored years, but it’s actually had the opposite effect. But I still think most people would write me off because I’m a pastor and a writer. What about you, William? What have you? Obviously you’re habituated or attempting to habituate some of the stuff in your life. It’s touched you at some heart level. How are you working it out?

William Norvell: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I’m I’m in in the sense that I know it’s right. And, you know, some of the stories you tell in the book around like, guess how long the average human used to sleep at night? That’s right. Get 11 hours right prior to like, the invention of the light bulb. Right. It’s like so when you think about these titans of industry, John Rockefeller and some of these people, they weren’t working 90 hour weeks. No, that wasn’t true. And I’ve read Ben Franklin’s diary and he basically had an 8 to 5 schedule. And this guy invented all kinds of things. And, you know, and we as Christians have the gift of the Holy Spirit to move time and space outside of us if we submit to his will. And so, you know, this is an excited disciple working through it, saying, I see the light. I haven’t put the light into practice, but the small pieces I’ve been able to. And so one you convince me of eight months ago as I turn my phone OFF every weekend, Saturday at 5 p.m. until Sunday at five. Well done. And I tell you, I find myself, of course, seeing my children differently. I found myself seeing my wife differently. And you know what? The weird stuff. I find myself just like staring at trees sometimes, too, and being like, that’s a pretty tree. I didn’t know that existed. Did you know God called trees beautiful? So that’s how it’s working out for me. I mean, it’s an evolution, but I believe it. You know, it’s kind of like the gospel, I believe it. I’m still working on trying to, like, capture it.

John Mark Comer: Yeah. You know, this isn’t. I’m not an entrepreneur. You know, the classical sense. But I planted a couple of churches, and I’m starting a nonprofit right now, so I know a little bit of what that’s like. Just that feeling of starting something from scratch. And, you know, I mean, a couple thoughts. One would be, be careful how you build. Be careful that you don’t build yourself into a prison. You know, it’s like you have read that book when you were kids. Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel. Anybody ever read that? Okay, well, if you have kids, get it? It’s a great read. It’s about this back in the day when they had, like, bulldozers. And he literally builds so fast that he digs this huge cellar for like a town library or city hall. I think it’s a city hall in like small town America. It’s an old book. And he builds so fast and he stirs up the dust and it’s like, nobody’s ever done it this fast. And then he gets to the bottom and he realizes that he didn’t build a way out, and now he’s stuck at the bottom of what’s supposed to be the basement of the city hall. And it ends up it ends with, like, the steam engine becomes like the furnace, and he becomes like the caretaker. So it has a happy ending. But there’s something of that where sometimes we build so fast and so furiously that we build ourselves into a prison, and all of a sudden now we can’t escape the building or the company or the organization that we start. So be careful how you build. Another thought would just be, remember, there are seasons to life and don’t let a season become normal. Sometimes there are just seasons where what’s required of us as leaders is far outside of our kind of healthy rhythms, and what we would say is a balanced life, you know? And balanced life can be a misleading thing. And like, you know, there are seasons to life. But it’s one thing to have a season for a year, 3 to 6 months. It’s another thing to let that become how I live. And so now I’m having to intentionally alter my life, like even rebuild. You know, that my body has this time of day when it’s done working. You know, for the last year, it’s been several hours later than it should be. And so I’m having to rebuild that kind of muscle memory. All right. It’s time to go home now and help my wife cook dinner. Third thing I would say is, you know, and this will only appeal to certain personality types, but if you’re at all like me, I’m pretty duty base, pretty workaholic. I probably have more freedom as a leader than I let myself take advantage of. And I’ve met a number of like business owners, entrepreneurs, pastors, and when you actually meet them and look at their life, they’re not nearly as busy or stressed out as you would imagine. They are. You know, they get those of the burrito principle, whatever it’s called, where, you know, 20% of your work yields 80% of your results. So they’re all about that. Forgive me if I have the math off or the name off, but they’re all about that 20%, you know, and they nail the 20% every week. And then they kind of have a house. And they, you know. They golf or whatever they do, and they live well, because part of it is like, how do we be healthy human beings for decades, you know? So I do wonder, you know, if there’s more flexibility, creativity, freedom as far as how we structure our lives as leaders, then sometimes we allow ourselves to.

Rusty Rueff: So I’m going to ask you to return to the pulpit and use those altar calls skills here. Speak directly to our entrepreneurs. Tell them what’s on the other side if they, you know, can adopt this philosophy. Slow down, eliminate, hurry in their lives.

John Mark Comer: Well, I mean the gift is I mean gosh just at a heart level. Okay. Read the book if you want to hear more about the heart level let me just talk to entrepreneurs. Don’t hear me wrong. I care deeply about work, not just quote sacred work but secular work. And that bifurcation is not helpful. But man, there is such a difference. There is such a freedom and joy and greater courage and boldness when work becomes not an ambition, not a God that you are looking to for an identity, for a sense of happiness that you need, but rather it becomes just an act of loving contribution. It actually enables you to have your work come from a place of deep courage, because you can do what God’s actually putting your heart, not just what you feel you need to do to make a certain amount of money, or be liked or meet a certain criteria. You can actually be more bold, more daring, more faith driven, as you would say, more creative, more compassionate, and more free when you get to the spot. So much of, I think spiritual formation, discipleship, Christian spirituality, whatever you want to call it is about coming to a place in our heart where we are detached in a healthy way from outcomes, where how we live really matters. And the work that God’s called us to do. The business is called us to lead or start or. Whatever my case. You know, the books he’s called me to write and the teachings he’s called me to do. It all matters a lot. But, man, my emotional well-being is not tied to the outcomes, you know? So for me, I’m not an entrepreneur. You know, I’m a writer. And so I have a new book coming out, and I’m really worried that it’s not going to do very good. I mean, my last one did really good, and that’s totally out of my control. And so if I can get to the spot where, man, I know what God’s called me to do to write this book, and I want to work my tail off, I want to make it the best thing I’ve ever done, and I want success to be man. And this was born out of prayer and sweat and blood and tears in my life and our church. And here it is. And that success, whether three people read it or 300,000 people read it. I’m not in control of that. I abandon outcomes, and I’m not emotionally dependent on either outcome. For me to be at a place of peace and love and joy, that is what has the potential to come. Not just if you slow your life down, but if you actually recalibrate your metrics for success.

Joseph Honescko: So what is your metric for success? Is it growth at all costs? Is it some set amount of money or level of prestige? What would it look like to bring those metrics before God and allow him to shape them? Or maybe even more challenging. What would it look like to bring it before your church, before your peers and say, hey, this is what I struggle with. Our hope is that entrepreneurs and pastors would continuously grow closer together because we believe they’re better together. The world needs faith driven entrepreneurs, and faith driven entrepreneurs need churches who understand and support their vision. We need pastors who can shape us and challenge us and all of us, no matter our roles, need the spirit of the living God to make us into the people were called to be. Thanks for listening to today’s show. If you found it helpful, follow us, read the show and share it with someone else. Maybe it’s your pastor, maybe it’s another entrepreneur. Whatever. You can also learn more about our organization and the resources and groups we offer at our website. FaithDrivenEntrepreneur.org. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll catch you next week.

Recent Episodes

Entrepreneur: what is your relationship like with your church?

(We really want to know!)

Church leaders and entrepreneurs have the potential to be radical partners who influence and impact communities for the glory of God together.

But often, we find a strange divide between these two groups that interferes with the good work they could be doing together.

That’s why in this week’s podcast episode Justin Forman and Barna Group’s David Kinnaman will be talking about ways the church can become better partners. They’ll also talk about an exciting research project underway between these two organizations.
This is part of a new segment we call the “riff” where we invite listeners into the ideas and conversations we’re having, so please leave your thoughts in the comments or send them to podcast@faithdrivenentrepreneur.org.

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: How often do you feel complicated when you step into church on a Sunday morning? Many faith driven entrepreneurs love the church. They appreciate the community it brings, and if they have families, they like how it gives them something to unite over and pursue together. But personally, they still feel a little, well, complicated. A lot of us just aren’t sure how to find our place within the church. Often our desire is for innovation. Disruption and change. Don’t have an outlet within an institution that is rooted in beautifully ancient traditions. Other times, it feels like our abilities to lead and charge ahead can get overlooked or brushed aside. But these challenges don’t mean that we should just throw in the towel. Entrepreneurs need the church, and the church can learn a lot from the entrepreneurs in their congregations. These two groups are often separated. But what would happen if both of these powerful forces came together in partnership? That’s what we’re riffing about in this episode of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Justin Forman and I will be talking with Barna Group’s David Kinnaman about the kind of impact that becomes possible when the church and entrepreneurs work together for the glory of God and the good of those around them. We’ll also talk about a very exciting research project that faith driven entrepreneur is doing in partnership with the Barna Group. All that coming up on Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I’m Joey Honescko. Let’s get into it. Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. My name is Joey Honescko, and I’ve got Justin Forman with me to riff about the relationship between the church and entrepreneurs alongside our guest, David Kinnaman from The Barna Group. I want to welcome you both on the show, and I’m going to lean into the fact that we have a studio full of Texas transplants with us. So I’m going to say, how y’all doing?

Justin Forman: Well said, Joey, I love it, I love it. Yeah, I certainly didn’t think I would be in Texas 20, 30 years ago. But here I found myself a couple kids later and, maybe not Texas forever, but man, it’s a good place to live.

David Kinnaman: Yeah, never say never, because I thought Dallas would not be in my future. But here I am in the Fort Worth side and enjoying it. It’s a great city built for business, and, it’s been a good life transition. Miss California at times and summer for sure. But Texas has been a good place for me.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, the summers are the hardest part. And I will say we won’t harp on this, but Fort Worth is an underrated city. Fort worth is such a cool place to be. The Dallas gets the credit. Speaking of two things that sometimes are at odds with each other. You’ve got Dallas Fort Worth, and today we’re going off on a riff on pastors and entrepreneurs, and we’ve done a few episodes like this before. We’re going to wrestle through these ideas together. And if you’ve got thoughts, listeners, we’d love to hear them. You can send your thoughts to podcast at Faith Driven entrepreneur.org, or you can leave a comment on LinkedIn and add your thoughts to the topic today. But I want to start us by just saying, Justin, maybe you can kick us off here. That tension between the entrepreneur and the church, what’s the deal with that? And why should entrepreneurs even care to better their relationship with the church?

Justin Forman: Starting off with the light question. All right. Well, we’ll walk into this slowly. You know, it’s such a great question. There’s so much history here, and we’re never going to be able to cover it all in this episode. But being 43 and just growing up in the church and seeing the last 20 years or so since college, or just kind of what you’ve seen in the space, and I think that, you know, if you did a 23 and me test and kind of like trace the DNA of entrepreneurs and pastors, I think there’d be a whole lot more similarity than we give them credit. Like I think there’s just like on mission, purpose driven, trailblazing, always working, always on care so deeply about it that we have just missed. I think a lot of times, I mean, you could look at any sort of relationship counseling, marriage counseling, go through anything. And I think the first step of some things is just like we haven’t paused long enough to see each other. We haven’t paused long enough to see each other and to see where each other’s coming from, to understand them. And many of our listeners may have seen this clip that we did called Dear Entrepreneur, that Joey that we were all part of putting that together and crafting that together. But seeing several different voices of pastors kind of speaking into it was like they were speaking into kind of like a wound, a dad wound, if you will, or something that some of us were carrying and saying, hey, there’s been some overlook. But the key is and I think that as we step into this as entrepreneurs, we have to understand it’s a two way street. I think there’s a two way street and disconnect. And we have to sometimes start by owning kind of what’s in our circle. But it’s law as you said, it’s been there for a while. This isn’t something that is recent events. I think entrepreneurs over the last 20 years, we get so passionate about something, we get fired up and like, go do it. And then we all try and share that same vision with the pastor. And if they don’t get it, we just move on and we go doing it again. And I think sometimes, like if we want to go further, we’ve got to have that moment where we stop, see those roles that we each play and recognize, you know, this side of heaven. I don’t think there is a greater opportunity or partnership for this movement. If these two things can come together. Yes, we can do these one offs and these things, but there is a spiritual battle probably being waged to keep us apart. And man, if we could, It would be something we have not ever seen.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, I think that’s such a key point too, is that it’s this vision for what could be right. Because you have these two powerful forces. You have these two influential institutions, really entrepreneurship business pastors in the church. And so we have these two sides. And, David, I’m going to turn to you here because Barna has been doing a lot of good work about the state of the church for years. And one major focus that it seems like has been a greater emphasis lately has been this idea of resilient pastors, because leading churches in our modern age is tough, right? So how might partnering with entrepreneurs help churches adapt to some of these challenges? You know, these waves of de-churching and deconstruction and all these other things that they’re facing. How can entrepreneurs step in and be of service to the pastors in the church?

David Kinnaman: Well, I think Justin said it really well that there is great potential in the partnership between pastors and entrepreneurs, and our aim is to unlock some of that and to make it more plain through social research. And we’re, you know, working on some new studies with faith driven entrepreneurs to do just that. But I would actually track it back to the very qualities and characteristics of people who get into entrepreneurial leadership. There’s some areas of similarity, and there are also some areas of difference to those who get into pastoral leadership. I often think about that, you know, certain industries. Certain kinds of jobs. It’s just natural. There’s certain strength, certain sorts of capabilities that draw a person into that industry. And you know, with entrepreneur activity, it’s risk taking. It is the capacity to have a vision of a preferable future to mobilize, motivate, resource and direct people towards that. That people part is something that is similar between entrepreneurs and pastors. But it’s really clear from the research that we’ve done and we’ve done as a company, tens of thousands of interviews with pastors through the years. Pastors are really good at communicating. Seven out of ten pastors say their favorite thing to do is to preach and teach. So some pastors are entrepreneurs, but not all pastors are entrepreneurs. Even though the position actually gives them a title or role of leadership, I think that’s sometimes where pastors and entrepreneurs can miss each other. Is there is a visionary, if you will, through the language of literature, more apostolic vision in terms of entrepreneurs have a capacity to sort of see and think about systems and structures and institutions. Again, I think that’s true of some pastors, but not all pastors. So we have these kind of two sets of gifts and giftedness, one around communicating, mobilizing people, helping to train people in the way and knowledge of Jesus, discipling people, evangelizing, creating people structures. But entrepreneurs are great at, you know, financial structures and real estate ventures and, you know, market opportunities. And I think that’s why entrepreneurs can get so frustrated with pastors is they don’t often sort of speak the same language, even if they’re using the same word. And so, you know, I think this is a great opportunity as the world is changing, as the church is undergoing a lot of pressure, as we’re looking at how to really engage younger generations in a gospel that is compelling. I think pastors and entrepreneurs not only need to be great partners, but I think ultimately will want to be great partners, because I think there’s really great potential for how the fruit of their partnership actually produces long lasting, you know, sort of impact in people’s lives. And that’s ultimately what all of us are about.

Justin Forman: Do me a favor, David. Most of our listeners are entrepreneurs. They might not appreciate the rich history and data that you guys have about what pastors are going through. Set the stage for us for a moment. We’re all thinking about that local pastor, the church that we’re a part of. But give us a broad sense, whether it’s the burnout, the weight that they’re carrying, the loneliness. What are some of the things that pastors themselves are going through? And then some of the other surveying that you guys have done?

David Kinnaman: Yeah, thanks for asking. So, you know, Barna Group has been in business for 40 years. And that’s all just background to this opportunity that George Barna, the founder of the company, saw to help navigate and talk about social trends, religious trends, faith trends, Christian trends from a distinctively Christian point of view. So, you know, there’s Gallup and Pew and many other sources of data about our society, but very few that kind of approach that from a distinctively Orthodox Christian point of view. Even the nature of the questions can be unique at Barna, because we’re trying to look at things from a theologically rich orientation. So we apply that grid to our social resource or market researchers or social researchers. We’ve had the chance of interviewing millions of people adults, teenagers, pastors, entrepreneurs around the world, mostly in the United States, in North America. But we’ve done stuff around the world. So it’s a great privilege to do the work that we do. And as for the role of pastors, I think that’s something that’s particularly unique to our company is we’ve really been a voice to amplify the concerns and hopes and dreams of pastors, because we’ve gotten a chance to interview tens of thousands of them and talk about what they’re going through. And the last 3 to 5 years have been an absolute pressure cooker for spiritual frontline workers, pastors and church leaders, the kind of the betrayal they feel when people walk away from the church after being close friends and they just all of a sudden stop attending, and they never say what’s happening, even if they have the dignity of saying so. We see a lot of that kind of breach of trust that pastors endure, you know, marrying people, burying family members, you know, going through crises with families, and then they just poof, they’re gone. And so that the pandemic, the general political nature of our society and the ways the church has become so fragmented is very difficult for pastors, social media, and, you know, cable news and the pressure of passing on the faith that younger generations, which is much less likely to embrace Christian values and Christian identity. It’s a really tough time to be in a lot of leadership positions, but it’s an especially hard time to be a pastor. And this role of a pastor is so critical. It is undergoing a lot of change. It is at the center of an institution that’s under a lot of pressure culturally, politically, socially, generationally, financially. But recognizing the pressures that we are feeling, entrepreneurs and pastors alike is another place where I think we have a natural inclination to be working together.

Justin Forman: I want to come back to some of the things you’re talking about, just societally in terms of the changes that we’re going through, compounding with what pastors have gone through. But, you know, so we’ve got young kids, and I may have mentioned this before on a podcast or something before, but a movie that’s resonated deeply with us is the movie Cars and Disney Classic. We’re all familiar with it Radiator Springs, this highway, classic place where everybody goes west, you drive down it, and it’s the place where you go. It’s just a place you stop on your journey. And in many ways, then there’s this new highway, this new highway that’s built. It’s smoother, it’s wider, paved, it’s whatever. It’s got all the bells and whistles, the stops next to it that takes off. And that’s the tension of the movie cars that we see played out in Disney. It feels like we’re in that moment as a church where that there is this like this highway that we all used to go down. But today there’s so many competing options. Whether you can find community with a sports team, a community with your alma mater, community with your kids, sports teams, all these other things that are competing, maybe more convenient, a click away on our phone. It’s led to this place where things are changing and things are just changing in the place of like where people are naturally turning. What are you guys seeing in that? Put the numbers to it. How much are people turning to different outlets?

David Kinnaman: Yeah, I think it’s a beautiful analogy and it’s a good one. I might steal it from a Justin or maybe from cars, but there’s so much change that’s happening. And one of the ways that I think we could really locate that change is a concept we describe as Digital Babylon. And, you know, another kind of example of Radiator Springs before Radiator Springs with Babylon. And so Jerusalem would have been Radiator Springs, and Babylon was the big city that everyone took, you know, the superhighway to get to. And that idea of Babylon has been a very shaping theme for me, and trying to understand the journey of younger Christians and indeed of the church today and Babylon, all throughout Scripture is sort of the city of man all the way through to revelation and the notion that’s like the idea of humanity, can certainly, rule and reign at the place of God. And so one of my favorite people in Scripture is Daniel, who was taken from Jerusalem to Babylon to serve faithfully in that context. And he becomes a political advisor to three different regimes. He is faithful in his calling. We see his prayer life. We see his commitment to holiness throughout his life. But he’s also, you know, a political leader. And it’s a really interesting story of someone who’s able to face some of those challenges going from Radiator Springs into the big lights of the big city. And, I think recognizing the pressures that this generation is facing, the research points a really clear line to that. People are being discipled by the algorithms. They’re being shaped and formed by the significant volume of information that comes in through screens. We could call it the gospel according to YouTube. We could say that people are, you know, sort of their best friend is their smartphone. And so human nature is such that people had challenges to be growing in the way of Jesus, way back in the early days of the church. And that’s never changed through centuries. But the particular landscape of digital technology and digital Babylon means we’re all exiles. We’re all pulled away from Radiator Springs, where life was simple and clean and easy, and we all kind of knew each other. And there was a, you know, kind of a way of being in that simple life. And we can romanticize it for sure. You know, I mean, I think that’s another theme of the cars movie, is that the old life isn’t necessarily the only life or the best life, but another. I think the similarity between pastors and entrepreneurs is that the gospel should make us some of the most agile leaders and the most comfortable with change, because it turns out we serve a God who’s always on the move. And while he doesn’t change, Jesus doesn’t change and his message doesn’t change. And our need for a savior doesn’t change. We’re in a constant state of flux. That’s just the nature of being human. And so I actually think one thing that excites me about our partnership with faith driven entrepreneur is really giving language to being great, agile, change oriented leaders. In an era of disruption, out of the chaos comes a new way forward. And so that’s what we can see from Daniel. He actually, you know, would have been taken away from all the things that he knew well and would have been comfortable with to a completely different space and a completely different reality. And yet he learn to be faithful and and I think that’s the invitation that we all take from here.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah. I think a big thing that you said there is that God is on the move and he is actively doing things. I think a pessimistic view would say, we’re in Babylon and there’s no hope. People have lost a search for meaning. But Justin, you’ve seen a lot of research just about the way that people are looking. It’s not that they’ve stopped looking for meaning, they’ve just maybe stopped looking for meaning within the church or in these traditional radiator spring like places. So talk to me a little bit about the research about, you know, the trust in institutions and where are people finding meaning and how do businesses and entrepreneurs play a role in that?

Justin Forman: Yeah, I think that’s such a great challenge, and I think that’s a great context heading into this conversation. We have to see this with the optimism going into it. You know, I mean, earlier when David were just talking about everything what pastors are going through, it’s so easy to feel the weight of and just feel the sympathy of what somebody must be going through and leading into that. So I think it was that Gallup poll that we’re looking at not too long ago that was talking about trust in institutions, and the typical year of the people would turn to in these times would be your celebrity cause your politician. But I think the trust factor. What was it, Joey? What that was like in the single digits, like 9%, 6%, depending upon what part of the U.S. government I think was, you know, he held up their trust in the church, jumped, and it was like, what, in the high 20s, 30% or somewhere around there?

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, 2023, it was 6% of people trusted Congress, 32% trusted the church. And then the one that I think you’re looking for here is 65% trusted small businesses.

Justin Forman: Yeah. And when you see that, I think it’s easy to say, man, we’ve lost ground as a church. Oh, man. We’re down in the 30s. But yet how do we see the silver lining to that is, is no in fact, God is. You know, I loved what David talked about Daniel for such a time here. He has placed these unique people into these roles, into these places. And there is a high trust factor into it. So how do we see that is kind of the silver lining of. Like people aren’t any less broken. There aren’t any less hurt there. Not any less. Searching for meaning and purpose. It’s just that they’re showing up in different places to look for that. And so even the work that you guys are doing, and there’s so much of what you’re doing that I can probably see, it can feel like, man, it’s weighty. It’s overwhelming the data that you guys deliver. How do you guys balance delivering the candor of some of the data, but showing the silver lining and the optimism just as a whole, that when you see something like that.

David Kinnaman: Well, it’s a personal journey, I think, as much as anything, and I tend not to be an especially cynical person, although I hope I am a very realistic person about the pressures that we face as a church and as Christians in our society and in our time. Like I’ve written quite a few books and resources around, just like the challenges of passing on the faith, a book called You Lost Me and a book called unChristian. So, you know, for me, it’s been a personal journey with the Lord as a researcher because it is easy to get overwhelmed by the data. And I think there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic or to lose hope. But we ultimately put our hope in Jesus. That’s the foundation of that. And then recognizing that if God calls us to be an agent of change, a kind of prophetic voice as researchers, it’s really the results are up to God. We just have to be faithful with the things that we report and that we say and that we conclude based on the social research. And so for me, it’s been, you know, being an active member of some incredible churches. But back when I was in California and here in Fort Worth, now in Texas, regular time with the Lord, just really letting God’s Word change the way I see the world. Which attracts back to what I said earlier. We even approach the research with a different set of perspectives about human nature and about leadership and what is required of us. So approaching all of this and then praying through the results of, like, okay, we get a study back or we get some data back, I’m like, you know, praying together. Okay, Lord, where do you want us to find key threads of analytical insights that are, you know, what you want to say to your people? Without a vision, people perish. And so we want to know what God has to say as we’re trying to tell the stories faithfully from the data. But I think it’s easy to get cynical. And I’ve seen other leaders, especially as they reach certain ages and they’ve been, you know, pounding their head against a brick wall trying to change the church. And I think that may be true of some of your listeners today, might feel like they’re as entrepreneurs, they’re feeling pretty frustrated with the church or with a relationship within the church or even the pastor that they’ve been working with. I just want to say, like, hey, encourage the leaders around you. People are very often doing the very best that they can. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. We need to recognize that people have limitations. That’s why we need Jesus. And then to be hopeful about, you know, what God is up to. I, God is building a new and faithful church, new wineskins. In this moment, I think a new wineskin represents the kind of partnership that could be possible between pastors and entrepreneurs and other sectors of society. I think this is one of the most compelling arguments for the power of the gospel, is it actually changes us into different kinds of people because we are connected to a deeper source. And it tells us things like Ecclesiastes, which is like, hey, entrepreneurs, all this metrics of success is just chasing the wind. And there was a period in my life as an entrepreneur where I was just about ready to tap out of a season where I just, I wonder, what am I doing with all this? And the fact that Ecclesiastes was so realistic to give voice to my exhaustion actually was like, oh, the Lord knows the Lord sees it. Turns out I’ve been trying to do this through my own power. And so we come to the church for a new and better story, a deeper story. And I think we as entrepreneurs and as pastors and as leaders for this now and future church, can do well to understand how to best tell the story of entrepreneurial ism and what God creates entrepreneurs to go do to create abundance in the world, to generate jobs, to give people vision and purpose, to build systems. All those things become very powerful, compelling parts of what an entrepreneur is meant to do.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, yeah, I’m hearing you say that, and I love the optimism. I’m going to play the card of the cynic. And when I think about that, right. You’re talking about this beautiful idea of rewriting narratives, rearranging stories. And that’s a painful process, right? Like it changing from one narrative to another. It is a beautiful process. Hear me when I say that I’m not against it. But that transformation, that metamorphosis that we go through is a challenge at times, and it causes us to look at ourselves. And so Justin I pass it to you here to just about the entrepreneur who’s sitting, listening and is like, yeah, I want to be changed by the church. I do love the church. I still show up on Sundays, but I just don’t know how, like, how do we work through those roadblocks and through some of that cynicism to make sure that we’re actually getting the reward that David’s talking about?

Justin Forman: Yeah. Great questions. I think there is a posture of listening, a posture of showing up that we need to start with. There’s a long season of just understanding, like what David was talking about the pastor is going through today. And just think of like how many different stakeholders, how many different things battling culture, battling things in all different fronts. We can’t sit there and wait for somebody to show up. It’s so antithetical to our nature as an entrepreneur, right? Like as entrepreneurs, we are initiators. We go out and we start and we do things. I think that somewhere maybe we’re expecting. Something a little bit different. When we come into the walls of the church, we’re expecting a program to be designed and delivered to our needs, something designed and delivered to how we feel community to being built around our entrepreneurs. And yet. That is so different from us. Our nature is that we go out there and we build and we start. And so I think the question that we have to start saying is like, what’s in our circle, what’s in our things that we can control, what are the things that we can own? And, and I think it’s one of the things that we’ve wrestled with here is, is like. How do you make the complex accessible? How do you make something like this so that an entrepreneurs can like -I don’t know – like demystify it? I think sometimes we’ve used the word community so much in the church that it feels more like a scientific formula than a relationship. It feels more like something that we will never understand versus just take a first step. And so I think that there is an element that we have to own responsibility. When I think about what the pastor and everybody’s going through or what can we do to start. And so my hope would be as a movement that we can create tools, resources, conversations, steps. That just make this more accessible? Because I think that it’s just so strange when you think about it. We’re not used to being spoon fed in so many areas of our life as entrepreneurs. This is one that it is. Should it be that way, or should we be starting with where we are and think how it can be different? So I think we got to start looking inward more than anything. When I think about what a pastor is going through today.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, that’s really good. And I think, like you said, it really leans into the entrepreneur’s gifts. Like entrepreneurs are not ones to wait around. But for some reason, when we step into the church, there is this feeling of it being like, why is there nothing for me? And maybe we step out of our own kind of call to create and call to step in. So as we think about that, I’d love to hear just both of you. We’re working on this project, this research project about entrepreneurs in the church and this relationship. I’d love to hear maybe hopes about this. I know we have some stories, Justin, of different pastors and entrepreneurs working together, and maybe we can hit on some of those. But let’s say a year down the road, two years down the road. Ideal situation. What does the most hopeful relationship between pastors and entrepreneurs, business leaders? The church? What does that actually look like practically? Yeah.

Justin Forman: You know, I think that we use this line a lot. We’re not prescriptive and not presumptuous. And if there was ever a place for that to be the case, this is it. I think churches of all sizes and all different ethnicities and locations and regions and everything, it’s going to look varied. There’s some great stories that you’re alluding to that we’re in the midst of capturing, where sometimes it’s staff in a business owner working to create jobs in difficult communities and creating an opportunity out of poverty that’s unique, that’s awesome. That might not happen. Every church and some places it might be mutually affirming encouragement that then leads to just a place of being seen, feel felt and heard and just unleashing a creativity. So I think we have to be careful that, like, we’re not prescribing and nobody’s prescribing a one size fits all side of things. But I guess my hope would be is and I recognize the tension of what David must walk in. It’s like you’re delivering hard truths and data, and yet you’re wanting to show the optimism. And my hope is, is that people would see the optimism of the moment and not the mist, not the past. I mean, it’s easy to regret that business decision, financial trade, whatever it might have been in the past. But we’re here. We’re here where we are today, and what is it that we can do about it? And I think part of that that I’m struck by is I hope that there’s a death of ego entrepreneurs and pastors, we have a lot in common. That’s probably one of the things, I think, that we’re attacked a lot. We have the independent spirit, but the other side of that can be a pride. That can be an ego. It can be this thing that we’re designed or independent. We can do it on our own. But I think if we come to this place where we let go of ego, will we let our homes down? That’s where I think the fun thing happens. When I’ve seen beautiful partnerships with pastors and entrepreneurs in their church. I think one of the things, and it’ll be interesting to see if the data shows some of this as this research starts to happen, is I think there’s a death of ego component there where it says like, no matter what it is, this is all sand castles. We’re playing for a kingdom above. And when that happens, it’s exciting to see what that unlocks. And I think it unlocks. Honestly, so much creativity. We can’t even begin to dream what could happen.

David Kinnaman: I think that’s so great, Justin. And I think I’d add that the journey will be part of our destination in this, and that we’re setting out to do research with entrepreneurs themselves, how they’re experiencing entrepreneurship and spiritual formation, and then pastors and then also general population. So we’ll be interviewing adults about what are some of their expectations and thoughts about the role of entrepreneurship in our society. What are the redeeming ways in which entrepreneurship can be used? So, you know, we’re at the front end as we record this at the front end of a really fun journey of inquiry and discovery. We do our best to have some hypotheses, but then to let the data and the inquiry tell us where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. And I think that will be a lot of fun to see. Okay. What are the natural connection points? What are the friction areas? What are the spaces where there are some best practices and models of what this could look like? And, you know, there’s some really good things that are happening already in churches around the country. There’s also some real friction, and there’s a natural reason why pastors don’t really understand some of the business realities that entrepreneurs are going through. Many pastors don’t. And I think pastors also have the right perception that sometimes entrepreneurs come in with the like, well, I could run this better if you just run a more like a business or if you just did it this way. And that doesn’t mean we can’t have bold decisions, but just recognize that certain institutions are built for certain functions and certain ways of being. And, a church is built differently than an entrepreneurial environment. It’s meant to be that. It’s meant to some of Justin’s comments earlier, we have to sort of take all of our identities, whatever that will be. And as entrepreneurs, first and foremost, we have to put that at the door and move into the body of Christ, not forgetting who we are, but sort of laying all that at the cross and at the feet of Jesus. So I have a lot of hope that this research project will give us insights as to how language in the words and the teaching and the environments and the cohorts and the greater possibility of partnership might look. And I get pretty excited about this journey and what we can learn together.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, absolutely. We’re excited about this research and to see where it’s all going to lead. We’re going to be announcing some exciting things coming up where David will be partnering with us, maybe some conference material and maybe a little bit more leaning into the entrepreneur in church. Little hint, hint, wink wink. There’ll be more coming there. But yeah, excited about the research. And the other thing I would just challenge our listeners to is as helpful as this research will be. We also don’t have to wait for it to take action. A lot of us feel this friction and like you guys are both saying, it takes that first step often from the entrepreneur to make that first move. So we’ve mentioned some stories that we’ve already heard around the world. I’ll be putting those in the show notes so you can click links there to read more about what it looks like for churches and entrepreneurs to work together. And the reality is that there’s a lot more of these left to be written. And so that’s our hope, is that we’re going to continue to see these stories flourish of churches and entrepreneurs coming together. So, David, Justin, thank you guys both so much. Really excited for the research and to see where that leads. And just excited for churches and entrepreneurs working together. Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms, and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at Faith Driven entrepreneur.org.

Recent Episodes

Everyone has different end goals for what they’d call ultimate success, but most of us are chasing after something.

For many entrepreneurs, “going public” stands as the ultimate sign that you’ve truly “made it.” And if that’s the case, then today’s guest, Renji Bijoy, is on the verge of making it.

But that’s not what keeps him going.

Renji is the CEO and Founder of Immersed, the company behind the world’s most used AR/VR app on the planet. In an industry full of potential dangers where Christians are quick to back away, Renji and his team have decided to lean in.

In this conversation, Renji’s talks with Joey Honescko and Henry Kaestner about what it’s like to lead and innovate in a new, emerging industry. He and Henry will also share how their faith has kept them grounded in the highs and lows that come with worldly success.

Listen to Renji’s first episode: https://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/podcast-inventory/episode-161-the-immersed-story-with-renji-bijoy

Learn more about Immersed:

https://immersed.com/

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: Every entrepreneur has different end goals for what they’d call success. But all of us are chasing after something. For many of us, going public stands as this ultimate sign that you’ve truly made it. And if that were true, then today’s guest, Renji Bijoy would be on the verge of making it. But that’s not what keeps him motivated. Renji is the CEO and founder of Immersed, the company behind the world’s most used AR/VR app. In an industry full of potential dangers where Christians are quick to back away, Renji and his team have decided to lean in.

Renji Bijoy: There’s this perspective that AR VR looks like sort of this dystopian, escapist whole, but I think a VR world that’s led by believers can look very, very different.

Joseph Honescko: In this conversation, Renji is going to talk with me and Henry Kaestner about what it’s like to lead and innovate in a new, emerging industry. He and Henry will also share how their faith has helped them stay grounded in the highs and the lows that come with worldly success. He’ll talk about the challenges, the opportunities, and the ways that he’s continued to be open about his faith in the midst of a growing business. I’m Joey Honescko, and you’re listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let’s get into it. Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I’m Joey Honescko and I’m joined by my co-host for the day, Henry Kaestner. Henry, how are you doing, man?

Henry Kaestner: Joey I’m doing awesome. I know that you’re going through thunderstorms in Texas, and it just made me think that today we’re going to be in Texas, not only because you’re in Dallas, but because we’re going to Austin, one of my favorite cities on the planet.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, absolutely. We got Renji Bijoy with us. Renji, man, how are you doing calling in from Austin?

Renji Bijoy: Yeah, doing well man. Thanks so much for having me on here.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah. It was over 100 episodes ago that we had you on, which is crazy, but, yeah, we talked a lot about kind of your faith journey and some of the things there, but people should go back and listen to it, to hear some of that context. You kind of gave us the early overview of immersed back then, but even in those two years since then, I imagine a lot has changed, not only for immersed. As you guys are considering going public. I’m going to talk about that in a second, but also just in the space. I mean, I feel like it’s grown so rapidly. What has it been like adapting to these fast paced changes? How have you kind of managed some of that?

Renji Bijoy: Yeah, well, I will say the fast paced changes have always been a tailwind. It’s always been momentum that’s only helped us. But we’ve had to be patient. Right. And I guess that is the case for a lot of companies. Like for example, OpenAI has been around for what, 6 or 7 years as well. And things really turned around for them just in the past couple of years. Right? So like, you know, people can call it an overnight success, but it’s a seven year overnight success, so to speak. Right? So when we entered the VR space, first off, I had no idea what the history of VR was. And the reason why that matters is here. I’ll just kind of say it in two seconds. Like the company called Oculus that Palmer Luckey started. He founded it in 2012. Two years later, in 2014, he sold it to Facebook, now called meta, for $3 billion. And by the way, he’s my age, right? So back then he was, what, 23 or something at 23 years old. And he worked on it at meta for the, you know, next following couple of years between I think 2014 to 2016. But what’s so crazy is as long as you tacked on the letters VR at the end of your startup’s name, you would automatically get funding back in 2014, 2015. And it turns out by 2016, all of these startups would rise and fall. And that left pretty much no VC money left for VR in 2017. By the time I entered the space, so little did I know I entered the VR trough of sorrow. And little did I know we would be on this journey for the next seven years to try to get to a point where VR can be at least somewhat attractive to the general public. So back in 2017, when I went through Techstars, based in Chicago, I didn’t know that Zuckerberg was being overzealous and overambitious. On his timeline for AR VR. He had mentioned that by 2020, we’re all going to be using glasses instead of smartphones. And you know, we’re already in 2024 and that’s still not the case. And so I think at the end of the day, it’s been really cool to see how the Lord has constantly given us the conviction of just one foot in front, the other. Stay focused, steadfast, keep executing. And at the end of the day, he’ll have his way. So there are many times in the past, I would say, 4 or 5 years, where our product has gotten to the point where it has the most amount of user usage in AR, VR, period. I don’t know if you guys know that because ours is not a game, ours is a work product and people have to use it 30, 40, 50 hours a week plus every week. And because of that, we’ve accumulated the most amount of user data in all of AR, VR. And so this is why a couple of years ago, meta had wanted to acquire us. You know, last year Google had sort of bring up the conversation around acquisition, but I also kept kicking the can down the road with that conversation, too, because I think in a day like if there was a tech giant that was run by believers, I think that our culture would probably look very different. And so, like my conviction over the years has gone from, you know, maybe someday I’ll just sell this thing and go work on the next thing to now, man, I don’t know if I could sell this because it’s starting to have more and more reach, more and more impact. And if, Lord willing, someday this becomes the next Google or Facebook or Microsoft or whatever, and I would really love for us to be able to impact culture with sort of this next generation of computing, aka spatial computing, to be run by believers. And, you know, we’ll see what the Lord does. But that’s kind of what the heart of the mission is behind this.

Henry Kaestner: I love that heart of vision, and I want to come back to that. And that’s the more important thing. A practical thing is you’re talking about the Trough of Sorrows. I haven’t heard that term before, but it’s I think back to our own entrepreneurial journey of bandwidth. We started in 99, but it wasn’t really until 2001 that we got our […] right. As Global Crossing was imploding, right as the dotcom bust was happening and Pets.com and billions of dollars were being lost. And that was the time we got in. And through the grace of God, it worked out great. Talk to us a little bit more about this sense of having a faithful presence in AR, VR. We hear all sorts of different things about what this alternate reality might look like and what it might be, and what technology will allow us to do and imagine. See, and some of it’s virtuous and a lot of it is not. Yeah. What does it look like when you start contemplating these things in the rap that the space gets? What does it look like to have a faithful presence there?

Renji Bijoy: Yeah. I mean, I think even with the advent of the internet or different devices that come out like iPhones and iPads and, you know, kids get addicted to it and all these sort of negative things happen. And there’s a lot of good things too. But what I will say is a trend that I’ve noticed is especially in the church world, is that oftentimes we put our moralistic flag in the ground saying, we’re going to boycott this thing, we’re not going to adopt this. And then 10 or 15 years later, they do adopt it because society does, and they want to be part of society, and then they’re just late to the game and things like the internet or things like the iPhone or screen time or now VR, we can see that a lot of people, they’re afraid of what they don’t understand. And oftentimes before they’re able to have any sort of level of impact or influence, they boycott it and then join 15 years later hoping they could have some level of influence. And so, my conviction has been it’s important to get early into this space so that we can be the ones who guide and of course, correct it because we are the ones setting the standard. And so, yes, I understand that there’s this perspective that AR, VR based on science fiction looks like sort of this dystopian, escapist whole and kind of your closet and you don’t eat, you know, you don’t have any sunlight. Back in a day like that is what a VR world run by the world looks like. But I think of AR VR world that’s led by believers can look very, very different. And candidly, I’m already seeing that now. Right where again, I’m going to repeat the stat immersed, which is a virtual office product, is the world’s most used AR VR app on the planet. And guess what? It’s run by believers. And so I have a lot of hope and excitement for what this next generation of computing looks like. Because yes, there’s a world in which maybe Apple figures out how to get the most amount of user usage and adoption, and then they get to set the standards. Or there’s a world in which I believe Immersed could do that. And what that means is we can do a lot of things to fight how people use these technologies for things like sex trafficking, for things like black market, selling organs, the things that are very selling, I guess, terrorist activity. There’s a lot of things that we can do as believers that because our convictions are rooted in Scripture and where the Lord is leading us, as opposed to what our public perception or public image looks like, or how much money we can make. At the end of the day, I feel like a company led by the Holy Spirit would probably have a pretty dramatically different outcome and effect on society than a company that’s just mainly chasing money.

Joseph Honescko: So one thing you’re talking about here is this idea of the Trough of Sorrows. You were walking through this faithfully. Even in the midst of those struggles. You mentioned this idea of it looking like an overnight success when it’s really a seven year overnight success. And something that it sounds like you’ve seen is that that faithful endurance, you’ve seen it lead to some success. Now that you’re at this place, you’re considering going public. You’re in that process. So how are you continuing to think about faithfulness as you grow in success and as you grow in this place where you’re taking the company public?

Renji Bijoy: Yeah. I mean, I think that it really starts with knowing who you are and knowing who God is and knowing that I’ll say this massive chasm in regards to holiness and knowing that I am no better than anyone else. So when it comes to us building, immersed, when it comes to us, getting to, you know, build a company that may potentially be listed on the Nasdaq in a month from now. That’s something that might, on paper, sound prestigious, might sound fun. Well, first off, I know it’s going to be a lot of hard work, but also at the same time, like, I know who I am. I’m a person who was separated from the Lord and the fact that he saved me. I’m not owed anything more than the next person, and I’m not anything more than the next person, so I don’t know. I think that the way that we lead this company, the way that we hire, the way that we not only promote a certain type of culture internally at the company, but also protect that culture, and then how that spills over into the way that we interact with our users on our discord community, or how that leads to how we interact with potential partners or customers or enterprise customers or whatever. The reason why, for example, we even have an immersed community on discord where our users will literally fly to each other’s cities to hang out with each other and talk about the immerse community. Like, it’s crazy how the Lord really sort of gives us a redeemed mind and heart to understand how to love people, and I think that that’s a very overlooked thing in business or even in the Christian world where it’s crazy. It’s been such a huge advantage to be a believer in building companies. So what I mean by that is, you know, even, for example, when I was 24 and I first started this company, I guess for whatever reason, maybe part of it is the beard. But some people thought I was older than I was, but I think it was mainly because of the fact that, like my personal conviction, for example, is I just don’t use profanity the way that I conduct myself when I’m around other people, and also just in general, my convictions, it makes people think that I’m older than I am, or at least especially when I was 24 and they thought I was 40. But you know, that does not because I’m trying to portray some sort of mature image, but instead it’s just the intrinsic convictions that the Lord has given me of, hey, like, don’t tear other people down, don’t yell at other people. All those types of things that we as believers seem like it’s common sense, but actually is foolishness to the world, right? Like when I’ve been watching these sort of Steve Jobs movies, and I’m seeing how he used to like, shout at people and, you know, they’d work through the middle of the night and he’s still angry at them. It’s like, well, he wouldn’t have really known better because the Lord didn’t open his eyes to see those things. And then you kind of fast forward to, you know, 2011, when he had passed his funeral, was a very I see, I was grieving because here’s a person who had an insane, lasting impact, to the point where everyone, even on this podcast, is using his products even today. And yet, when it comes to the relationships of the people that he had around him and then also his standing with God, I have no idea where he ended up on that. Like I know that he was seeking, but I don’t know where he ended up on that. And so when we’re building this company and you know, you can call it success. Sure. I think the part that our team is really excited about is the way that we get to influence culture. We get to influence the way that people use technology, and we get to build things that other people get to use, especially with a redemptive outcome or desire in mind. So I’d say kind of going back to your original question, I think that the heart that the Lord has given myself and other believers on the team in regards to who we are, the grace that he’s given us, and this mission that we’re now given the privilege of being on. Right is I mean, if you go back to acts 5:41, they counted themselves to be kind of worthy to be shamed for his name. And so, like when I think about immersed, this is a privilege that we get to even build this company and be able to take this thing public where I’ll be ridiculed, I’ll be mocked, I’ll have people who will be shorting our stock. One of the co-founders of Airbnb told me that, going public is it’s almost like you’re signing up to get sued. Just expect it. And, you know, I’ve never been in a lawsuit. I’m not looking forward if that ends up happening. But at the end of the day, if this is the calling of the Lord’s placing on our lives for let’s do it in a way that honors him and let’s be okay with what the results are. Because in the end, even though it might be tiring right now, in the end we will enter his eternal rest forever. And I want to look back on my life and know that I was more well utilized than well-rested, if that makes sense.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, totally. And it sounds like I mean, so much of what you’re saying starts with what you started that answer with, with this idea of the identity in Christ, of knowing exactly who you are. And I love that you said there’s this huge advantage to being a believer in business, because even something as exciting and as big as going public, like the co-founder of Airbnb said, it’s going to come with all sorts of challenges. And Henry, I was thinking about a story you told me recently where there were. Days when bandwidth went public and, you were just checking the stock prices every day, and you saw giant drops. And I imagine that you needed that identity. You needed to be rooted in Christ to face those kinds of challenges. And so from your experience, even Henry going public, seeing that, how did the identity in Christ sort of power you through the excitement, but also those lows?

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I’m remarkably grateful for the experience because it helped me to really test on something that I always believed to be true, but wasn’t 100% sure identity in Christ. And, you know, we’ve talked to Jeremy Lin before about what is your identity if you’re staying on a free throw line, getting ready in the middle of Linsanity to sing some free throws against Kobe Bryant, if you’re identity is is a professional basketball player, you’re in big trouble, right? Because you miss those and it’s all over. And you see in some of those mental sports like golf, right. Say golf is 90% mental and the other 10%, you know, the other 10% is less mental. It’s all about what’s right. And those types of things and free throws are one of those things. Having a faith in an identity and something else is really important. And absolutely, as a publicly traded CEO, I would have told you my identity was in Christ before going public. And yet, man, there’s nothing like getting tested when the stock goes up 198 and then over the course the next three years or so, it goes down to nine. 198 to 9. While the company’s growing. Nothing wrong with the company. Company’s still growing, getting increasingly, you know, just doing better on the top line in the bottom line. And company goes from 198 to 9, and you see it go down two days and up a day and down two days and up a day. And it’s a wonderful, beautiful test. Now, through grace of God, the company continues to grow top line and bottom line. And the stock is no longer nine. And so there’s the blessing and a curse. The blessing is is this constant reminder because all of a sudden you look at it and you think your identity. There’s never been a point in time where Renji you’ve been able to say, okay, my net worth is exactly this, and I wonder how my net worth changed today. When you go public, you can see how your net worth changed over the last five minutes. And that’s a weird thing, especially again, if it goes and Lord willing well for Renji. But when it goes from 198 to 9, it’s really something else and it becomes a great gift. Character is built through adversity, but I Renji, I’m super excited for it because going public also allows you to have more of a yes, a public face. And for an entrepreneur like yourself that has this redemptive focus on an industry that you are in, it is something that will allow other people to participate in the work that God is doing through immersed, to be able to be strapped in a mask with you. And that’s really exciting. And that can be really encouraging.

Renji Bijoy: Yeah, it’s interesting you bring that up as far as like how your net worth was impacted day by day, minute by minute. And I don’t know, like for me, I’m not looking forward to the days where people poke fun at it. For example, like I all the times, the articles about how Elon Musk’s net worth, you know, dropped by $100 billion in a few months, and it’s like, well, first off, that’s not like him. Macroeconomic conditions are not really his faults, but obviously that hurts him. Right? It’s funny how like all of the like say you have, you know, 99 compliments and you have one negative comment. That one negative comment really sticks with you. And it really, you know, lives rent free in your mind is just really a, practice of the Lord. Sort of like a test of the Lord teaching you to be patient and and I can’t even imagine in comparison, when Jesus died and he. Well, even before that, he when he was being tortured and spat on by his own creation, that was mocking and ridiculing him. I’m like, man, I haven’t experienced anything to that extent. And so I was going public. I’m like, oh, you know, maybe there’s certain aspects of this that’s going to be pretty tough and difficult, but I think that that’s not something the Lord can’t sympathize with. And I think that that’s in a day if the goal here is the mission at hand, and if the goal here is for more souls to be one and for all of us to be in heaven with him, then that’s where my eyes got to be set on. Not necessarily my net worth or what people say about me.

Henry Kaestner: When are you talking about more souls being in heaven? You sure? Just a little bit. When we talked years and years ago, talked a little bit about sharing your faith winsomely in the workforce among founders, coworkers, etc., have you seen as you continue to scale, how does that operate? You’re more of a public guy right now. Surely there’s more pressure to kind of put a lid on those things. What does that look like for you?

Renji Bijoy: It’s it’s funny you say that because I always feel like the more successful that the Lord allows me to be, the more YOLO ish my mindset becomes. Meaning I’m more and more vocal about my faith. I’m like, look, I made it this far. And yeah, well, I guess what I mean by that is like, I mean, even just the past year or two, maybe a year and a half, there’s just been a couple of other founders who’ve come to the faith, not even by my direct discipleship or interactions. It’s more almost in spite of me meaning, you know, one person I know, he moved to Austin from California, and he randomly saw me at a coffee shop where I was sort of doing like a Bible study group with some guys, and he walked up. He’s like, yo, dude, I didn’t realize you live in Austin. I was like, yeah, I had no idea. You live in Austin.He was just like, yeah, I just move here and he’s like, what are you guys reading? I was like, it’s kind of awkward, but I read this book called Radical by David Platt, and it’s about evangelism. And he’s like, oh, interesting. You mean like getting other people to convert to Christianity? I was like, I mean, I guess you can look at it that way if you want. But the way I look at it is, you know, the fact that the Lord had saved us and opened up our eyes to see the world the way that he sees it, or at least try to like. Yeah, I mean, that’s my hope for everyone is to not live the life that they were born with, but rather, you know, essentially be born again. And so it’s funny because after that conversation, I went to my LinkedIn profile and you saw kind of my profession of faith that’s on there and on his own without me pushing him at all, without me even knowing. He started reading the Bible on his own. And maybe three months later he texted me saying, hey Renji, by the way, I just, you know, randomly decided to start reading the Bible. And I checked out Matthew and Mark and I think he read some of the acts. He’s like, what books should I read next. I was I was like, well, what the heck? Why are you even reading to begin with? Because I don’t know. I just saw it on your profile and I was so confused as to why you care about this stuff, when I always thought that being a Christian meant that you were dumb. Meaning? Like he just thought that it was more of like a a Southern American thing, right? That they believe in it just because their parents told him to. But they’re not intellectual enough to realize that there is no God. And I guess because he thought that I was a decent founder, decent at what I do for a living. He thought maybe there’s something more to Christianity than you thought. And so all that to say, like months later, he ended up coming to the faith and one of my employees on my team, who was also a believer, he met this guy like three years ago and then recently saw him again after not seeing him for like three years. And he’s like, dude, that guy is a totally different person. What the heck happened? I was like, dude, all that happened was the Lord literally had him go to my LinkedIn profile and that made him start reading the Bible. And then the Lord saved them. So all that to say, like stories like that, it’s not even me bringing anyone’s the faith. I can’t open up anyone’s eyes. It’s really the Lord doing the work and me just staying faithful in the present. And I get to partake in the joy that it is to win another brother whose eyes are finally opened and finally sees a purpose to life.

Joseph Honescko: What a powerful story, Renji. That’s incredible to hear that in all your answers. There’s such a groundedness in your identity in Christ. There’s such a humility. And I’m thinking about the fact that many of our listeners are not going to ever go public. They’re never going to have something that maybe raises the largest funds, but they all have these different measures of success, and pride sneaks its way into all of our lives, regardless of where we’re at. And I wonder if you would be able to say just something about like, how do you fight against that pride?

Renji Bijoy: Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Sorry. It’s like fight tears when thinking about this. Like, for me, when I think about my sin and I think about what, like times were in the moments, I don’t realize that what I just said was prideful or I don’t realize what I said was not gentle to like an employee or whatever it is. And I go to my Lord and I realize who I am and who he is and who he calls me to be. And the Holy Spirit really humbles me. If that makes sense, it really helps put things into perspective. I generally use a lot of like sort of overly aggressive illustrations, but like, I feel like I just like get punched in the face of like, yo, chill out, you are my child, just like anyone else’s. And at the end of the day, the Lord is the one who, yeah, instills humility in people. And I would not say that there’s any sort of quote unquote, practical behavioral modifications that will ever be enough to get you to bear the Holy Spirit’s driven fruit. There’s no way to do that consistently for your entire life, because only Jesus, the only one who ever lived a perfect life. And so, I don’t know, like, it’s hard for me to even talk to other founders about how do you stay humble? How do you love people on your team, or how do you woo people based off of character versus money? And I’m like, my only answer, dude, is you need to have a relationship with God who is empowering you to walk by the Holy Spirit. So all that to say, like the only practical thing I can say is run back to the Lord constantly. What I mean by that is like if he is not the closest person to you, if he is not the one who you talk to throughout the day, if he’s not the one that you are, always put it this way, like people ask me, well, you know, what are your spiritual disciplines? What are your routines and your practices? And I’m like, honestly, at the end of day, man, like moment by moment, I need the Lord. And that’s what I would focus on is how do you grow in your understanding for that? Or rather, how do you grow in your awareness of the reality of that? Because if you don’t believe that, it’s just because you’re blind, you don’t see it. And so when it comes to my relationship with God. It’s not about necessarily. Only in the mornings I open up scripture and I read it, or certain times of the day I pray or whatever. It’s really a dependance on the Lord, because he’s the one who will teach you how to operate as a strong leader. He’s the one who will teach you how to love people. He’s the one who teach you why you should be humble. And so when it comes to me even talking to founders, believer or not, I can almost never give them anything other than you just need to cling to the Lord. Who’s the one who created you, who knew you when you were a a baby, a child, who knew you when you went through difficult situations in your childhood, in high school and college, and now in your career? The only person who knows you to the depths of your soul and loves you more than you will ever love yourself. He is the only one who could ever teach you how to live life properly. And so yeah, my only practical advice is run to the Lord because he loves you and wants you to, and also because he’s the only one who can empower you to live this life to its fullest.

Henry Kaestner: I am nothing without the Lord Jesus. I’m defined by his purpose for me. He will lead me wherever he needs me to be, and I will gladly follow. Those are not my words. Those are Renji’s words from the About Us section. The about section on LinkedIn. Renji, you’ve in public now we’re looking in the future. You’ve been public for six months. Fidelity calls up and says, you know, we really like we really like your company a lot. But man, that statement on the about for LinkedIn, we just can’t do that. Can’t do that. I can’t see our shareholders taking a look at companies we invest in. And then I see somebody that is subscribing to a faith tradition that’s exclusive and offensive. And so we’re just, you know, we could be in for a couple of million shares, but we’re just not going to be able to be in. What do you say?

Renji Bijoy: I can see you find another company to invest in. I’m going to say like like, look, I mean, first, I think that I think in a day, like. As much as I can try to use man’s money and efforts and strategies, this thing cannot and will not be any, existentially impactful and successful if it’s not the Lord’s will. And so whether it be fidelity, whether it be Elon Musk himself, whoever, right. The dude with the most money or I guess now, Jeff Bezos, apparently it doesn’t matter who wants to give us money. It doesn’t matter even if the company runs out of money, like the Lord has already shown me that this company will live and or die by his will. And I’m okay with that. And if there’s a company like fidelity or anyone else who wants to invest, with a CEO who is not a believer, then that’s fine. That’s not us. But I think in a day like, yeah, I’d rather quit my job than be in a position where I have to hide my face, hide the relationship I have with the Lord. Yeah, I’m not super worried about that. Because again, at the end of it all, like, I’m not trying to be the richest person in the grave, right? I’m trying to be a person who’s brought souls with me to heaven.

Henry Kaestner: True that. Super motivating. Okay, we like to close out every one of these about what you’re hearing from God through His Word. Believing Scripture is alive, that God continues to speak to us through it. Anything pop out from your reading? Daily, weekly? Monthly? Something recent that’s just like, you know what? I feel like God speaking to me through that passage.

Renji Bijoy: Yeah, I feel like I really struggle to read scripture and it not, like, pierce me in my soul. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is sort of later in John ten, I guess people oftentimes sort of read over this. They mainly think about John ten. As you know, Jesus is the good Shepherd and you know, his sheep know his voice. And but there’s a part kind of midway through where he specifically talks about how he lays his life down on his own accord. No one takes his life from him. And when you think about the fact that he is the sovereign creator of the universe, he’s not a victim of anything. He can do whatever he wants. And even just thinking about how the Great Commission. Right. Matthew 28:19 I think of how all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. And at the end of that section he says, and I will be with you till the end of the age. And you think about how. Man as a believer, as a child of God. What am I afraid of here on earth? If he is given all authority in heaven and on earth, and he will be with me until the end of the age. If no one takes his life from him, but he lays it down of his own accord. And that’s the God that I serve. Going public is easy. Building a company like this, that is to change the trajectory of the world’s culture. If this is to become like the next iPhone or whatever it is, that there are billions of devices that are being adopted all around the world, and there is government entities that are pursuing us because they want to take control of it. And I’m having to speak in front of the Supreme Courts to answer first things, even answer for my faith. I will be the first person the Lord knows. I will be the first person that is willing to lay down their life for that. I will be the first person that will see it as a joyful thing, to count myself worthy, to be shamed for his name. And he knows that, as Peter said, that he would lay his life down for him. Peter also denied him three times. And so when I think about how. Jesus came back to Peter and said, Peter, do you love me? Three times. And he said, well, then feed my sheep. I identify with Peter because I know that I am faulty. I know that I am fallible, I know that I’m not perfect and I’m not God’s best child. I’m not the best disciple. But all I know is all I have is him. I don’t have a company. I don’t have wealth. I have nothing here on earth. But I do have the Lord. And because I have him, I have everything. And that’s all I ever need. And my hope is that that’s what every founder would ever want. My hope is that their eyes see that I know that the Lord can perform those miracles. And so that’s my hope and prayer.

Joseph Honescko: Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms, and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at Faith Driven entrepreneur.org.

Recent Episodes

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs and special guest host Mike Sharrow join the show to take a candid look at how entrepreneurs can overcome the challenges they face in their personal and professional relationships.

Dr. Eggerichs is a renowned counselor and author, as well as the founder of Love and Respect, a ministry that grew from the success of his best-selling marriage book of the same name and has expanded to include teachings and resources on business, leadership, and communication in addition to marriage and family concerns.

In this conversation, he breaks down practical insights for bringing love and respect to all relationships.

• We can motivate and influence others by meeting their deepest core needs with love and respect.

• It is important to apologize and seek forgiveness when we come across as unloving or disrespectful.

• Trust and obedience are key in applying these principles over time.

• In marriage, it is important to communicate in a way that resonates with your spouse’s natural language.

Find more about Dr. Eggerichs’ ministry at https://www.loveandrespect.com/ 

Get the book https://www.loveandrespect.com/product/love-respect-book

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: You walk into the office feeling uneasy. There’s been a bit of tension between you and your employees, but you can’t quite place what it is you feel. You’ve been clear with your expectations. You pay them well. You’re not mean or difficult, but something still feels off. Maybe turnover is high or morale is low. The culture just doesn’t feel right and it’s affecting you too. So you find yourself being more passive aggressive or caring less for the people around you. You build up this wall and unsurprisingly, it doesn’t help. If this has ever happened to you, you might have entered what today’s guest, Doctor Emerson Eggerichs, calls the crazy cycle. And in this episode, he’s going to tell you how to get out of it. Doctor Eggerichs is a counselor, author, and leader of a ministry called Love and Respect, which he grew from the success of his bestselling marriage book of the same name. Today, the ministry has expanded to include teachings and resources on business leadership, communication and marriage, and family concerns. He joins us on the show to talk about the unique challenges entrepreneurs face to offer love and respect, both in their marriages and in their businesses. I’m Joey Honescko, and you’re listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let’s get into it.

Joseph Honescko: Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. My name is Joey Honescko and I’m excited for the conversation today with Doctor Emerson Eggerichs. And I’m also excited because we’ve been doing this thing where we rotate co-host to show various voices from around the faith driven movement. And today I’ll be joined by Mike Sharrow of an awesome ministry called C12, and we love the work they’re doing to bring together and coach Christian business leaders and group settings. He’s a longtime friend and partner in this movement, and it’s great to have Mike on the show, particularly because of his unique connection to the work of doctor Eggerichs. So, Mike, maybe just introduce yourself for a second talk about C12, and then I’d love for you to hit on just how love and respect has impacted you as a leader and your organization.

Mike Sharrow: Absolutely, Joey. This is gonna be so much fun. This is like the collision of major parts of my world in one conversation. So my day job, I get to be the CEO of this amazing platform called C12 Business Forums, where we run these groups all around the world for about 4000 business leaders and CEOs on like four continents. We get 200 full time chairs. They’re out running those forums for us. And Robert’s idea of great business, great a purpose business as a ministry, but also whole life stewardship. And so marriage comes up a ton into the human side. Like my wife and I are about to have our 22nd marriage anniversary in a few weeks, in probably the single greatest book in content that is impact of that is love and respect to that we have. I think we’ve read it, taught it, led groups on it maybe 20 times. We taught it in different countries. I’ve watched you grow me as a husband, as a father, vitality, my marriage. But even I have, I could tell you, I could drive down the road to two engineers at a company who tore up their divorce papers at work because their boss played a love and respect DVD at lunch. Wow. And I could tell you, we probably purchased like, 500 copies of books. I think we show them to get a commission on book sales. And all I to say, love business, ministry, life integration. And I think some stuff that gods use you, Emerson, to unpack for people is just so powerful for business. I can’t wait for us to talk about it. Powerful, powerful.

Emerson Eggerichs: Thank you.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, that’s very powerful. And marriage is such a key part for entrepreneurs because there’s all these extra financial pressures. It’s hard for everyone, right? Just like as a floor. But I think with entrepreneurs, we’ve done episodes where we talk about the mental health challenges, the financial challenges, all these different pressures and it all that can add up and interfere with our marriages, our families. We’re going to get into that. And so let’s introduce our guest, Doctor Emerson Eggerichs. Emerson. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.

Emerson Eggerichs: Oh thank you Joey and Mike. Thank you. Yes.

Mike Sharrow: So part of I want to dive in is this is such a big issue. In fact, a few years ago we partnered with a national research group to study marriages of our leaders, our chairs. And so our members just try to figure out where we can help encourage them. And the researchers came back and said, oh, wow, you didn’t think of this high net worth. Christians, particularly entrepreneurs, are tied with pastors for having some of the worst marriage profiles. And, it blew me away. But they it made so much sense. They said there’s this high financial stability. They’re not fighting about money or how to survive. So there’s comfort. And there was a high spirituality, like a moral condition. We got to do the right thing. And those were so extraordinarily high it actually masked, tolerated and created what they call artificial buoyancy for all other areas of marital vitality, and that they are actually often miserable in areas of communication and intimacy and all these other factors. But with the mask of […], they got a big house. They’re doing good things and they’re getting big money away. So life’s all good. And we just found out it’s this illusion of flourishing. And I was curious. Emerson, you’ve been walking in couples for so long. Are you surprised by that? And why do you think we end up in the spot of being great Christians, doing great things and having miserable marriages?

Emerson Eggerichs: No, I think that was profound research and very intriguing to hear your comments. I think, again, as you even referenced earlier, the two gentlemen, I think it was it tore up their divorce papers upon hearing, I think, a little of this information. I think oftentimes it’s an honest misunderstanding in between the husband and the wife. I mean, you can have great skill as a brain surgeon, so to speak, but you don’t have the emotional wisdom to know how to engage your wife, who may be criticizing or complaining because it sounds like contempt when really it’s driven by her desire to, you know, make the relationship better because she cares. So she is caring as she confronts, but she comes across as contemptuous because no one talks to the brain surgeon this way. So be easy for him to, you know, just kind of put up the shield here and get frustrated with this. And then she gets hurt because she’s moving toward him to resolve some of these concerns. And so it comes back to honest misunderstandings. And that’s been part of my campaign that we can have great, abilities on so many fronts. But when it comes to this husband wife relationship, it oftentimes is an honest misunderstanding. And we would think that we understand because we feel that we’re normal and we feel that we’re right. And so we try to communicate to them that they’re wrong, not because we’re mean spirited, but we just think they are wrong. And actually they may be a little abnormal. And once we posture that way, we’re, entering what I call the crazy cycle, and it gets insane and people are frustrated and feel very impotent, and then they just end up living as roommates, and they she doesn’t divorce him because she can’t remarry somebody else with that kind of money. And he didn’t want to divorce her because he didn’t want to split his assets. I mean, I overstated that, but yeah.

Mike Sharrow: No. Yeah. No, I love it that what I find on the, you know, practical side. And you walk through and you address a well, maybe this is like a quick thumbnail sketch of this. Crazy cycles is like, no one’s happy. So the frustrating things you get two people who are both like, I’m working really hard. In fact, I’m exhausted trying to do the right best thing and I’m a brain surgeon, or I’m out for another and I’m successful everywhere else and not here. So it’s not like lack of effort typically. And at the end of your why? Like, why do we end up here?

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, because, we have all heard the definition of craziness. And as we keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same ill effects, and the crazy cycle is based on Ephesians 5:33, where the apostle Paul instructs husbands to love their wives with agape love. The Greek word there’s agape, and no wife is commanded to agape love her husband. It’s not there because he’s put it within her nature to nurture women, love to love it. The love of intimacy. You really have to close her up before she’ll say, I don’t love you. She wants to love. And she’s moving toward that to express her love and to receive that love. So it’s very telling that Paul then tells her to put on respect toward her husband. So the husband is to love, the wife is to respect. And I always point out that she needs respect. Peter tells her husband to honor his wife, and in Titus two, the older woman and encourage young women to love their husbands. But that’s phileo. Be more friendly in though she becomes unfriendly, so the end result is that both need love and respect equally. But we’ve asked 7000 people this question. When you’re in conflict with your spouse, do you feel unloved at that moment or disrespected? And Joey, in my 83% of the men said they feel disrespected and 72% of the women say they feel unloved. So again, there’s exception to everything, but this is statistically significant. This is off the charts. This is as different as night is from day is pink is from blue. And people don’t understand this, for any number of reasons. But then I saw this correlation or connection. I thought when Sarah, my wife and we’ve been married 50 years, when Sarah feels unloved, how does she react? I’ll bet she reacts in disrespectful way. She doesn’t intend to be disrespectful. But that’s how she appears to me that because there’s a negativity there, women there default when they’re feeling insecure and upset, and I know they will react negatively and move aggressively toward the man, you know, to try to resolve this. But she does it in a way that no one else does toward her husband, usually. So he just feels like, well, I know you love me, but better if you like me right now and I don’t deserve this disrespect. And she said, well, you haven’t earned the respect. And so now that becomes a real misunderstanding on the other side, when he feels disrespected, he’ll do what every man does. If you and I, Mike, we’re the best of buddies. And we got into heated argument, a certain point, it’s a drop. But forget it. Because today research has revealed our heartbeats get to 99 beats per minute during this provocation. So we have to withdraw and calm down physiologically. So the man just says, drop it. Forget it’s not that big of an issue. He tries to de-escalate it, but let’s just kind of move on. Well, that threatens her to no end because that feels hugely unloving. So here he feels disrespectful. He’s trying to do the honorable thing only to be labeled as unloving. And then she then reacts in a more disrespectful way, and then he pulls back even more. And this thing gets crazy without love. She reacts without respect. Without respect. He reacts without love, without love. She reacts with our respect, with our respect. And I always say when the issue isn’t the issue, this is the issue. And when you see the spirit of your spouse to play or get provoked, you’ve entered the crazy cycle. And Mike, it is at this point that many people, as competent as they are and is skilled as they are and as knowledgeable they are on so many fronts. If they don’t have a little knowledge on this and a little skill on this to know how to jump off that crazy cycle, it moves into insanity. They keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same ill effects. He’s feeling disrespected. He’s defensively reacting without respect. Defensively he reacts offensively without love, without love. Defensively she reacts offensively without respect. And they don’t see that their defensive reactions continue to step on. The air hose of the other person. And so it gets ugly. And the only thing they know to do is to pull away from each other until the next fight.

Joseph Honescko: So I’m thinking about me on my worst days, right? And I think our listeners might resonate with some of this, because I can think that, like, I’m working hard for my family. I’m out here doing good things for God, paying our bills. My wife should respect me, or even entrepreneur. My team should respect me. I’m owed that respect. And I could almost see someone being like, yeah, that’s right. You know, if my wife gave me more respect then I would love her. Well, so how might we redirect that thinking even now for our listeners who might be feeling this, like, yeah, I haven’t gotten enough respect, and that’s the problem.

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, I think we begin with this self-awareness, particularly men, because we’ve been told as men you shouldn’t feel disrespected. You’re narcissistic, and so many men end up, you know, sidestepping what’s really going on because they don’t know how to put a voice vocabulary this. And then she will also say we haven’t earned it. And so this becomes problematic. But I begin first with the awareness of the crazy cycle. We need to have a vocabulary that allows us to identify. I mean, to your point earlier, Mike, I’ve said what I just said in five minutes to I don’t know how many men. And they said, you just put a voice and vocabulary to everything I’ve been experiencing for 30 years, but I didn’t have a way of even understanding it. So we want to first of all, start with the understanding. Now, given that everybody kind of oh, I get it. That’s crazy. Now you’re bringing up Joey. The question well, am I going to be justified to assign blame? Hey, I wouldn’t be unloving if my wife was respectful. That’s exactly the problem, Emerson. She’s triggering the crazy cycle. And if a woman’s out there. Well, that’s exactly right. I’m disrespectful because he’s so unloving. So now we’re in a stalemate logjam as to what we do. But that’s another topic. And that is a very important topic. How do we jump off the crazy cycle without saying that the other person is always causing us to get on the crazy cycle? One way is for me as a husband. When Sarah is reacting to me negatively, I say, honey, and I wrote the book, but you’re coming across in a way that feels disrespectful. Did I say or do something earlier that felt unloving to you? Or your husband is reacting unloving shuts down. Honey, this feels very unloving. I’m threatened by this, but did I say or do something earlier that sounded disrespectful to you? That was my intent, but that would help me coach me. Now this becomes a delicate issue because the other person might be dismissive. You’re always doing that. That’s exactly right. So we’re so afraid of that criticism, which is odd, maybe because most of these people would die for Jesus Christ, but they can’t handle a little social ostracism, you know what I mean? But we’re all in it. But we are very vulnerable this. But the solution is to give your spouse the benefit of the doubt by using that script and that kind of language. And if you stay on message over a period of time, it’s very disarming. And usually the other person will soften. Why? Because we’re getting in tune of their core need. And most people who have goodwill are going to appreciate that. Now, if they’re having an affair, all bets are off because you’re going to be the enemy. But if there’s basic goodwill there, they will eventually soften. They react a little bit initially because this is too good to be true. But you stay on message and watch what happens.

Mike Sharrow: Okay. So our audience are often doers. These are CEOs, people building stuff. And we like to win. We like to build stuff we’re good at and we do hard things. But you are things with a payback, whether it’s financial or applause and marriage […] For you to maybe get the wins as easy in that you feel like you’re just stuck in that crazy cycle. So I would love that. Let’s see the conversation a little different. A few years ago, speaking at Texas A&M University to a bunch of aspiring leaders, and this young lady walked up to me and she said, my dad is one of those people that your organization’s impacted. I grew up, he was immensely successful, gave away tons of money, did lots of things, and she said, I always the other one said, you must be so proud your dad is changing the world. But at home, my mom and I used to wonder. I wish we were in the frame of the world he was trying to change. It feels like all of his success is outside the home, and we were never part of the world. He was trying to change. And then that change when people started hold him accountable to the idea of like marriage matters and how your love, your wife matters, and that created generational change refer, which is cruel. But part of what the data we see is a lot of entrepreneurs just kind of settle and accepts, okay, that’s where it’s at. I’m not being horrible, not beating my wife or she’s not abusive. Her husband. And I’m doing all this for the kingdom. I’m making money. I’m solving problems. How would you challenge leaders to not settle for just a not dead marriage?

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, the larger issue, and I just spoke to 2300 entrepreneurs, husbands and wives on this idea that almost every crisis following couple believes what Jesus said that God joined us together. I mean, in Matthew 19, Jesus is very clear that our Heavenly Father joined us together. And this sense of being joined together for a bigger purpose, a kingdom purpose, is in the hearts of almost every husband and wife who love the Lord. And they get married. They sense there’s going to be this satisfaction in the relationship, but they sense a bigger call. And I’m writing a book called The Win Win Marriage, based on first Corinthians seven, where Paul addresses mutuality, goes back and forth in a barley, back and forth, back and forth between two believers who are married with each other. He interweaves celibacy, singleness, married to an unbeliever. But when you pull the verses out that deal with husband and wife, who are both Christ’s followers, it’s just powerful. But in that text he says nine times that were called. It’s not just to the believing spouses, but also the unbeliever, the believer, married unbeliever, also the widowed singles, etc. but it applies very clearly to the husband and wife who love the Lord and marry together. So we believed early on that we were joined together. We believe that God called us, but we get derailed and I believe it’s because of the crazy cycle. And now we’re looking in that rearview mirror at that calling. It’s a light that’s in the past. Individually, we are seeking Christ. And this is what’s always interesting. We’re being use of the Lord individually, but we’re not being used as a team. And we are to represent Christ in the church. And there should be a melody coming out of our lives that those who look at us say, give me the lyrics, give me the words to the melody, I want to know more. And there was that sense of vision and purpose early on. But now there’s this undercurrent of resentment. And this is the challenge, then, that we extend to, let’s say, the CEO, if it’s a man in this case, what does he do in this situation? Do you just kind of settle now and kind of do this dance as best you know how until death? Or is there a skill and knowledge you can have to kind of make this a little bit better. One thing is that the reason that you’ve shut down is you feel that you’re getting disrespect you don’t deserve. So the question is, how do you give voice to your deeper need without her dismissing that as narcissistic and egotistical, that there is a way that you can have this conversation, but there’s also a set of landmines that you’ve got to avoid. You can’t just say that, you know, you’re so unlovable. It’s hard for me to love you and I pull away from you. You’re so disrespectful and I’m sick and tired. You go, you start using that kind of language and you’re sabotaging the whole process. So I wrote the book to give you the skill and to the love and respect. Well, to be able to enter into that in a way that your needs as a man for this need to be honored for who you are, apart from your performance that your wife would feel about you the way Jesus feels about you. I mean, the Lord knows you’re not always honorable or respectable, but he who called you, you know, he who began that good work in you, perfected until the day of Christ Jesus. And you have the sense that the Lord favors you more than your wife does. And so you given up on this, or is there a way that you can maybe present this and she will be all in? It’s not that she’s unwilling. She just doesn’t understand.

Mike Sharrow: Part of what you’ve been tapping into here isn’t just me as a CEO of a wife, Jackie, or a female entrepreneur to her husband, this is male female stuff. So could you maybe begin a bridge into. If I had this issue at home with my spouse, where might I be getting into crazy cycles at work that are also full of male female dynamics? What does that look like for me at work?

Emerson Eggerichs: All right. And right now, media had me make a presentation on the crazy cycle in the workplace because it’s true. I mean, Jesus said in Matthew 19, have you not read? He made them from the beginning, made them male and female? He didn’t say, Sarah says at a conference in Magus husband and wife. You made us male and female. And that distinction is a difference. And there is an important point here, then, that there’s going to be a pink and blue perspective in the work arena. Now we become a culture that says because we’re equal, therefore we’re the same. We become a culture that’s very apprehensive about stereotypic thinking. And I get all that. So my point, though, is you can have a woman got great leadership gifts and so on, so forth. But if you don’t understand how she has a sensitivity, a caring instinct, how she’s going to read in to uncaring remarks, and if we don’t, then maybe pull back and say, wait a minute, that came across way too harsh. Can I have a redo on that? If we aren’t doing that, we’re just barging forward and they should just get the content and do well. You can be right, but wrong at the top of your voice. That I had a fellow come to me and said, you know, I can’t believe it. We’re in this big organization, in my department. I’ve got 100 women. There’s another department, a guy overseas, he’s got 100 women. Those women over there never quit. I’ve got women quitting on me, but I provide better medical coverage. I do better this, I do better that. And he says, I am completely baffled why these women are quitting on me. But they’re staying over. Are there when he doesn’t even offer some of the bonuses that I do. I said just one question. Does he ask Sally about how her 16 year old boy is doing in school? Yeah, he’s doing that all the time. I said, let’s just think about that for a moment. Now you have to make sure you don’t cross lines that are inappropriate. But the fact is, when you care for those things, she’s working there, perhaps in this as a blue collar person, and she’s got pictures of her family there. She’s doing this to bring in the extra money so that they can do x, Y, z for the family. And when that employer understands that and is in tune with that, there is something that women just feel. They just appreciate that so deeply. Now you can manipulate. There’s a fine line between motivation and manipulation. If you use this information to gain for yourself, they’ll sense that soon enough. You got to be genuine in that. But when you are, this is where that dynamic plays out so powerfully in the work arena.

Joseph Honescko: One thing that you’re hitting on here is that there are habits and kind of long term effects of this stuff. What would be a way to identify if you’re in the midst of the crazy cycle, or if you’re just having a bad week at work, like where, where are these things kind of becoming permanent problems versus natural up and down relational dynamics at work?

Emerson Eggerichs: Yeah, if I’m taking up a fence because I feel that my boss is uncaring, and then I’m coming across in a way that appears disrespectful and negative and contemptuous, you’re doing yourself no long term favor there. You can’t use unholy means to achieve a worthy end. He’s not going to awaken to that. So that’s why there needs to be a different approach. It may be saying, sir, you know, how can I honor you better? Sometimes I feel like, you know, I don’t have value in the organization because the way you react, I’m probably misreading that. So I probably have contributed to that. Can you help me better understand that and better honor you and your request to me? I have found that when we begin to introduce that kind of language, so the bosses are still the same as everybody else, but not toward her anymore. It’s an amazing thing. And so to the man you know is in the board meeting and she’s having a bad hair day, I had a woman come to me. She was on the upper team. She was up to the top, and there were all men on this thing. She was the only female. And she claimed that they ousted her because of the glass ceiling. When she heard me talking. And she said, one day I just had a bad moment, and I just ripped into the CEO with I just went after him like I did my husband, because I felt we were all friends, and I could almost see some of the guys around that table white knuckling it. And soon enough, I was out. And the problem I realized, I thought it’s because I was female, but I undermined it. Trust. Based on what you’re saying. He felt like he could no longer trust me. And I said, that’s exactly right. So you need to go back to him on a private thing and say, look, I need to seek your forgiveness. I dishonored you that day. I was not having a good day. I see how that’s undermined the trust. I hope you will forgive me. I’m not bringing this up to be reposition, but I realize I was wrong on that front. And I’ve also apologized to the other men around that table. I was just out of line. I wanted you just to know that and then turn around and exit. Those situations get redeemed quite quickly, because one of the strengths that men have is if you honor them on the heels of dishonoring them, particularly if you say, I didn’t intend to do that, men are very forgiving. This is the thing that’s so powerful about men on this front. And this is why many ladies need, though, to understand that there’s a language you need to use. Now, having said that same thing, if you’re a man dishonoring a man, you got a problem. If you’re a female who’s coming across in a very ugly, uncaring way toward the female, you’re going to have a problem. And then you add to that if you’re being uncaring disrespect, I mean, it’s just you can see these are core virtues in core concepts. We’re not talking about a thousand different things here. We’re talking about asking this question is that which I’m about to say, going to sound caring and loving to my team and respectful to my team, or are they going to feel that I’m really not respecting them and I really don’t care about it? If your team senses that you don’t respect them and that you don’t care about them, you have put yourself behind significantly. And the only reason they’re staying there is because of the incentives, or they don’t have other options. But given there’s a better opportunity, they are not loyal to you and they will exit quickly. And that’s my challenge. You cannot violate these core qualities and expect to be a success long term. Or put it this way, if they stay with you for 30 years, they’re not coming to your funeral. They don’t care you. You shut them off.

Mike Sharrow: So I love the fact that you can build a crazy cycle for days, months, weeks, years and it doesn’t mean you’re stuck there. So I’d love to hear your encouragement around some of those. Like minute I hear all this, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years a different way. Hello. I suddenly you leave because I’m stuck.

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, why should you? Well, yeah, you could say you’re stuck, but sometimes the responses. Why should I change? It’s working for me. I mean, I’m a success. Yeah. We’re not divorcing. We’re living our independent life, you know? I mean, I’m 80% of the way there. I don’t really have an interest in doing the 20%, particularly if, you know, I guess this whole idea of, you know, I, I’m more familiar with the chaos and I’m more comfortable with that than risking the possibility of peace in this uncertainty blowing up in my face. And so people will come to a point where I don’t want to risk changing. And furthermore, if I’m a successful person, I’m not convinced that I’m all that wrong. And furthermore, I’m not convinced that the people out there aren’t really the culprits here. And there could be. True that you referenced earlier about the mother and the daughter in the home, and he was very successful outside the home, and she came up to you, and it could very well be that they were tender, loving people. But if they negatively reacted on an ongoing basis and contemptuous and disrespectful ways and had emotional meltdowns with the hope that he would rescue them, he’s a deer in the headlights. He does not know what to do in that. So there’s a contributing factor over there that I understand. But that’s where you regardless, if the man is the victim here or he is the victimizer, he can diffuse that if he wants to with just a little knowledge, little skill, and it’s actually going to bring a lot more meaning into his life. It’s well worth it. It is not a situation where you have to say, well, I guess, you know, I have to say I’m wrong and everything. I know you done very well. We’re just talking about and proving. I mean, even Pat Riley talked about just improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the basketball game. Just a little percent. And he had that mathematical formula where we’re not talking about major changes, we’re talking about just incremental changes at a very fractional kind of length here. And over time it’ll improve. And so my appeal to that CEO, you know, and here’s the deal. If you’re a male, you’re going to fear being dishonored in this. And so again it that just reinforces what I’m saying. But you’ve got to be willing to move forward on this if you want more. And if you do then that’s why I wrote the book Love and Respect. It’ll give you the script honestly stated to soften the heart of your wife and your adult daughter. If she’s still in the home, it’s just worth it. And you don’t lose space in the process because I will help you then be able to communicate to them how it will be helpful to you for them to word themselves a bit differently. And can we create a win win here? Can we create reciprocity here and explore and experiment with this over the next several weeks, and the joy that comes to people because they think, I never thought this was even possible. So it’s well worth the effort. Yes.

Mike Sharrow: One last thing. You addressed an interesting dilemma in your boast, and I want to enter it here for whether I’m a spouse. I’m not very good man. I’ve been stuck for years with my partner. We’re just coping. We’re surviving or at work. I’m in this feel disrespected, dishonored by my staff. And it’s their fault, right? Well, if I’m the one feeling like I’m the victim here, I’m owed. So what would be your advice in the dilemma of who should act first?

Emerson Eggerichs: Right. And that’s one of the most common questions that are conference who moves first. They get us off the crazy cycle, for instance. And my response is the one who sees himself or herself as the most mature, most first. And we do see ourselves as the most mature because we see the people around us. It’s childish. It’s about it’s really a statement to corner us, but it also is a statement that you have the power to make a change if you want to. You can’t control the outcomes in another person. You can only control your actions and reactions to that person. But the Lord has allowed us to motivate people, to influence people, to energize people. And he does so by saying, look, they’re going to probably respond to you if you meet their deepest core need. It’s really got to be a bad dude or bad. Do this for them not to respond to you. When you attempt to be loving or respectful toward their core need. And you can begin by saying, did I come across as unloving or disrespectful? You don’t even have to be proactive in this. You can just be apologetic for perhaps stepping on their arrows, and that’s using their mother tongue. Speaking to my tongue. That in of itself, if you say to your wife, you know, I think I came across and loving you here again, watch something just release from her body almost instantaneously. And if you say to your husband, I think I really dishonored you here, you die for me if I don’t kill you first. But I think I dishonored you here, and I need to really seek your forgiveness. Watch what happens, watch what happens. But see, you can’t do this with the idea that the marriage is going to become perfect because everybody’s going to have a bad day. But it’s a process. And these are principles, Sarah and I. I mean, Sarah chased me around the house with my love and respect book one day saying, what would you say to a husband who has been treating his wife the way you’re treating me right now? And I said, I’m not going to answer that. I just wrote the book. I don’t do this stuff. So, I mean, we all have our moments, and so no one’s going to be perfect on this. But the challenge for us is to believe that if we stay on message, it’s just going to work. And why should we do it? Well, what man wants to continue to be disrespected and dishonored and in you’re not going to be motivating her to show you respect by treating her and lovingly. That’s that unholy means to achieve a worthy end. You can’t say I want to teach her. No you won’t. You’re just going to close her off. So in order for you to achieve, ultimately your deepest need, you’re going to have to put a voice and vocabulary to what you’re feeling. So she understands it. But you’ve got to do it in a way that doesn’t appear unloving to her. And so to a wife out there saying, I really do want him to love me more, but you can’t communicate to him that he’s inadequate and you don’t respect him as a way to awaken him. He’s not a woman. He hasn’t got to say, oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. Please forgive me. What can I do to change? Every girlfriend you have is going to do that. Men don’t operate that way. So you cannot be negative to motivate him to be positive. So you have to use his mother tongue to get through to him. And it’s not a vocabulary that you naturally speak, which is why you’re under divine command to respect. And it’s not natural for a man to be loving. That’s why we’re under divine command to act. It’s not within our nature to do this, particularly when we feel unloved or disrespected. So it becomes an issue of trust and obedience and believing. As we apply this over a period of time, the Lord’s not mocking us. He’s simply not mocking us. Instead, he’s saying, why don’t you trust me here and just keep on message and watch what happens?

Joseph Honescko: I love these practical steps, both in marriage and in the teams. I love that idea of experimenting, like just giving it a shot and committing to it. As we come to a close here, we always love to end every episode asking our guests what the Lord is teaching you through His Word recently, and it could be something that happened today, could be this week, or just a passing thought that’s been on your heart. So what have you heard from the Lord recently through His word?

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, in fact, that was interviewed on a radio program yesterday and the same question was asked and I went to James one five, which, you know, I’ve known through the years of any of you lacks wisdom. Let him ask of God who gives to him and generously and without reproach. And I think it’s so important as I communicate with people even in this situation. And this is so rich to me, when I landed on that without reproach, I mean, there are many times I acted foolishly, particularly during trials, and didn’t really listen to the way the Lord wanted me to move. I didn’t even pray you had not because you asked not. James later says, I didn’t think about the Lord, didn’t even ask him for wisdom. Now I made a mess of things, and then you kind of come back sheepishly and you think he’s going to slap you from heaven. Early in my Christian life, that was the feeling, you know? And God, he’s a cosmic killjoy who’s going to whack me because my dad had rage issues. And so there was a projection there a little bit. But then that passage, generously and without reproach, I’m thinking, wow, without reproach. It’s not like, well, fine, how do you do? You turn to me now when you made a mess of things? Do you want my wisdom to get you out of the mess? And so he reproaches us. That’s the way we think he’s going to do it. But he won’t reproaches. And not only does he not reproaches, he says, not only am I going to give you what you need, I’m going to give you a little bit more. So I think the message to the man or woman out there listening who said, you know, I think I’ve really made a mess of this. I’ve been on the crazy cycle unnecessarily for 20 years. I don’t even know if I have the wisdom or the strength to be able to move forward. And let’s just begin by saying, Lord, give me wisdom and how I need to take the next natural step. I’m going to believe you want to give this to me generously, and I’m going to believe that you’re not going to reproach me because of the mistakes I’ve made in the past.

Joseph Honescko: What a beautiful way. Then you mentioned God doesn’t make you. God isn’t trying to slap you down. God is loving us generously and lavishly. Thank you so much, both of you, for joining us today. We’ll leave all the resources, the books, things like that, that we mentioned. We’ll leave those in the show notes so listeners can check those out. And then be sure to follow review, share the show if you found it helpful, and we’ll chat more next week. Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms, and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at FaithDrivenEntrepreneur.org.

Recent Episodes

Do you ever feel like you’re so fixated on what you’re building next that you forget to look at the opportunities right in front of you?

Right now people around the world are looking for meaning, purpose, and value.

And many of them are searching for those things through their jobs.

So that means you, as a founder, have a chance to provide these people with the very thing they long for most.

In this episode, we talk to Stephen Phelan, the Chief Pastoral Officer of Movement Mortgage about the radical programs they have implemented to care for their employees.

Stephen has helped businesses all around the U.S. care meet the needs of their employees, and the best part is that these programs aren’t out of reach or super expensive. In fact, throughout the conversation, Stephen shows just how realistic these are for any company, no matter how big or small your team is.

5 Key Takeaways:

• Implementing programs like Love Works can have a significant impact on company culture and create a community where teammates feel loved and valued.

• The Love Works program helps teammates in crisis and demonstrates the love and care of the company.

• Mentoring processes can be implemented to further support and develop teammates.

• Funding for programs like Love Works can be achieved through the support of teammates.

• Overcoming barriers such as uncertainty and busyness is essential to implementing programs that care for and support teammates.

You can contact Stephen directly at Stephen.Phelan@movement.com.

You can also hear more about the work of Movement Mortgage in the first edition of a new podcast segment called “Stories of the Movement.” Listen to the episode here: https://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/podcast-inventory/episode-283-stories-of-the-movement-the-2008-turnaround

If you enjoyed the show, please rate, follow, and share the episode.

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: Do you ever feel like you’re so fixated on what you’re building next that you forget to look at the opportunities right in front of you? Right now, people around the world are looking for meaning and purpose and value, and many of them are searching for those things through their jobs. So that means you, as a founder, have a chance to provide these people with the very thing they long form most. And look, maybe you’ve felt this call before you’ve come out of a church service or a conference and you were so excited to make a difference for your team. But then reality hit and you started thinking, where’s the money going to come from? How are we going to actually implement this new initiative? Quickly, you move past the opportunity and decide that it’s just too complicated to get into right now. But what if it actually wasn’t that complicated? Today we’re talking to Stephen Phelan, the chief pastoral officer of Movement Mortgage. Their team has implemented some radical programs for their employees, and Stephen has helped businesses all around the US do the same. The best part is that these programs aren’t out of reach or super expensive. In fact, in this episode, Stephen is going to show us how realistic these are for any company, no matter how big or small your team is. I’m Joey Honescko, and you’re listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let’s get into it. Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I’m here with my co-host Justin Forman, and we’re recording this just days after the Super Bowl. And Justin, we’ve had some side conversation, and you seemed much more excited about that Dunkin Donuts commercial than you were about the game.

Justin Forman: How can you not be as a Lions fan that is heartbroken watching a terrible game happen in the first half, thinking we missed our moment. This was our once in a generational opportunity to win the Super Bowl. So no, I was not excited about the football game. I was excited about the ads wars and Dunkin Donuts. Hands down the subtleties. The Easter eggs. Come on Joey, you have to appreciate that.

Joseph Honescko: Oh man, I loved it. I love the commercials. Second place only too. Well, I guess it’d be kind of third place. Second place would be the usher halftime show. And for me, it was just a great win to have Taylor Swift there, because I’m a far bigger Swift fan than I am a football fan. And, I have a feeling I’m the minority. Not just in our listenership, but probably in this recording room with our guest, Stephen, today. Stephen, you a big swiftie.

Stephen Phelan: Well, my daughter is, I’ve become one through my eighth grade daughter who has all the albums. There’s all the songs is playing Swift relentlessly in our house. Everyone else analysis going no more Swift and she’s on it. So I’ve become a fan through her.

Joseph Honescko: But you’ve also got a football background too, right? So it’s a little bit of a two for one special for you.

Stephen Phelan: No doubt. Yeah. Played in college at UVA, so love the game. And actually I thought the first half was brilliant because it was a defensive game. So I love the first half. I’m a defensive guy.

Joseph Honescko: That’s awesome. I definitely have enough knowledge to know the difference between defense and offense, but that’s about where my knowledge stops. But we are excited you’re here and excited to talk about caring for your team, all those kinds of things, because you really have a unique role at Movement Mortgage. We’ve had movement mortgage videos, we’ve had stories, they’ve been on the podcast. We’ve talked about it in different ways, but we haven’t had a chance to have you talking about this role as chief pastoral officer. So that’s a really unique title. Can you start us off with just a bit of an overview about what that means and how you, as a pastor, came into the private sector? What does all that look like?

Stephen Phelan: Well, honestly, Joey, I had two phone calls that changed my life, and both of those phone calls were from a faith driven entrepreneur. And the first phone call that changed my life was from a guy named Casey Crawford, faith driven entrepreneur who call me this back in 2008, early 2008, and he said, hey, man, I think God is calling me to start a mortgage company. Would you fast and pray with me on that? I was like, no, I won’t it’s a bad idea. You need to turn the TV on, man. You got to get out. The world is blowing up because of that industry. And he goes, I know, I know, but it’s that’s all driven by greed. Like subprime loans has collapsed. The world’s driven by greed. And but what if we started a company that was all about loving our neighbor rather than preying on our neighbor for personal financial gain? And so I said, oh, man, I could get behind that. And so we began fasting and praying about that. And he had a day away with God, him call me on the way back. Hey, man, like God spoke to me. It was awesome. I said, yeah, that’s awesome what he said. He said, well, he told me to cap my income, live moderately and give it all away. If this company really goes, if God really blesses it, man, I think I’m called to build God’s kingdom with this, not my own personal kingdom. And man, that was so inspiring to me as a man. Listen, I love that you’ve heard from God on this. And I said, it’ll be my pleasure to hold you to that for the rest of your life, because you’ve heard from God to start a company that’s all about the kingdom of God and not the kingdom of Casey. And at the time, it didn’t matter, right? Because it was like me and him, and there was no money, there was no nothing. And so he has his Jerry Maguire moment and like, bangs out this manifesto and sends it over to me. And, and then we started dreaming about what would a company look like. It was really about seeking first the kingdom of God, loving your neighbor. Really, the great commandment, how do you live out loving God and loving people? And so that conversation changed for me, and that didn’t set the trajectory of a company that’s built around loving teammates, doing everything we can to love teammates with eternity in mind, their long term best interests in mind. So I tell you what, that one phone call changed my life and changed the way I think about the Great Commandment. And later in the call, we can get to the second phone call from a faith driven entrepreneur that also changed my journey. But that one really took me on a journey. With the faith driven entrepreneur to think about how can we reimagine faith in the marketplace, integrating faith and work at every level, built around fundamentally loving your neighbor and loving your teammate?

Justin Forman: Man, there’s so much in that, Stephen, when you’re talking about the idea of like, man, there’s a decision. That’s being made early, and it’s before the success of before the growth. It’s so important and so critical that God gets a hold of our heart when there is nothing. So that when those big things come, when the growth comes, that we have the ability to handle it. When I look at being around the movement for the past 20 years, and I think of leaders of the green family at Hobby Lobby, I think of Casey, I think of the Barnhart story, and I think of that. There’s a consistency there of people that have made a decision before. They made a decision early. And I think about just kind of the joy that you see in those stories of how it’s unlocked this opportunity so that whether times are good or bad, there’s more freedom to say, this is not about me, but this is really about something more. And I was thrilled to be with you guys last week, because I think that there’s this question that entrepreneurs are asking, and they’re saying this question. I mean, I know I’m supposed to do more. I know I want to do more. I might even go in church on Sunday morning. I feel convicted, I need to do more. I mean, I just looked at that budget and I look to things and it’s tight and I don’t know how to get there. And when you talk about finish lines and you talk about creativity of things, you guys have found a way to innovate, to find a way to do some things. But that came from some inspiration, some ideas, some immediate needs. And you kind of started doing some things and you didn’t know what to call it. And then you found, you know, a fellow traveler kind of heading in the same direction. What was the story and how does all those dots connect?

Stephen Phelan: Yeah. So it’s started member back with we’re going to build a company around loving God and loving people just fundamentally. And so our mission statements, we just love and value people in everything we do. We exist to love and value people. So when we’re small and we were just a few people, we’re trying to say, how can we really fundamentally start with our teammates first, we’re going to love them so well. And then if we love our teammates, well, then we’ll have some customers and we want to love them well. And if we love our customers will have some profit to love marginalized communities. So back to how we love our teammates. Well, what we knew was that all of us land in crisis, and one time or another, it just happens. Like it doesn’t matter whether you’re poor, rich, middle class in the middle. All of us are either in a crisis coming out of one or we’re heading into one. And so we said, when crisis strikes, we are going to show up because we found there’s three fundamental needs of human heart. When you’re in crisis, you want help. When you show up to work, you want a friend. And everyone wants to build a life of purpose. And so the first one, when you’re in crisis, you want help. You want to be loved by people who show up and help you. And so we know theologically this is the story of the Good Samaritan. Like, don’t walk by on the other side of the road. Stop. Bend down and deal with the issues that are facing your team mate who’s in crisis. And so what happened for us? You know, Justin is we had a teammate who came to her boss and said, hey, listen, would it be okay if I worked remotely on Thursday and Friday and this is way before working remote was a thing. This is when we just had a few people. And, you know, we’re trying to. Why would you want to work remote? She said well, paydays Monday and I can’t put gas in my car. So if I could just stay home Thursday, Friday, she said, I think I can make it once payday hits Monday. So she took that to Casey, and Casey said, well, if she can’t put gas in her car, then I bet she can’t put groceries in her fridge either. So let’s do both. And so. We gassed up her car, put groceries in her fridge, and it didn’t have a name, but it would later become Love Works. That’s what we fundamentally, theologically believe is that love takes action. Love does. And so we just started loving our teammates when we were small. And then we said, gosh, this is beautiful. This is right. And we commissioned everyone. Just keep loving, keep loving. And so we built scale to love as we grew. And we call it love works. And now. We have been able to love over 2500 teammates in crisis for over $5 million of very tangible ways. But it started when we were five people and Justin this is important. The way we fund it. It started off with Casey and Toby seeding it with a gift. But then you know what we did? We just invited our teammates. And so we created a way for them to give out of a payroll deduction. And so now this is funded entirely by our teammates.

Justin Forman: You know there’s so much there I want to come back to you. But a couple of things I want to say like that. What I just heard that I hope our listeners are hearing one is as great as the growth has been with movement. And it’s exciting is that has been the ability to impact others. You acted, you were talking about its action and you acted early. And it wasn’t like this program. It’s just sometimes we make love so complex, so inaccessible, so programmatized that we miss the simple obedience that’s wrapped up in this. And I love the fact, when confronted with that, that you stepped in, you did something. And when, as our listeners hearing this. I think that’s a key thing. And so whether a team is big or small, we need to be thinking about ways to do this. You know, one of the things I want to take us into is, and I think you’ve got a really unique perspective on this, Stephen, as is coming from the pastorate, coming from the church. You know, Joey and I have been thinking about kind of some research as we’re partnering with our friends David Kinman and the group at Barna, just to try to better understand the relationship between church and entrepreneurs kind of has its kind of thinking about man, what is the state of the state? And we came across a Gallup poll that talked about just the trust factor, and it talked about this idea of like the typical heroes that we’ve turned to in the past, politicians, movie stars, whatever it might be. You know, our trust factor, especially when in government, it’s low. I mean, it’s like in the single digit when you talk about the church, it’s more trusted. It’s probably 2 or 3 times that. But the fascinating thing for us was that small business owners are six times as likely to be trusted than government. And so there is a moment here that I think what you guys are talking about and you’re talking about this program, there is a chance here for us to lean into that, not to take away from what happens in the church, but for us to have eyes to see there is a trusted relationship that is standing right in front of us. How do we lean into that? So as a pastor, when you hear that and you hear that statistic, what do you think’s going on there? What are you seeing when you wrestle with that?

Stephen Phelan: Well, yeah. So I was a pastor of a local church and planning churches for 13 years, and now I’m a pastor in the marketplace. And so what I saw pretty clearly was that people were leaving the local church and not going back. The nuns and the others in our country were growing. America is becoming more secular by the day. But where are they going? They’re going to work. And so to your point, the good news is they have a higher level of trust in small business owners in their community that they’re finding at work. And so we can leverage that and actually multiply their trust. When you show up and you say, hey, we’re going to pay your utility bill that you were going to have cut off. Like what that does is that builds up so much trust. You like, why? Well, because we love you. Like, we’re so glad you’re here at work and because we love you, we’re going to build a community of love and value. And that just escalates trust. That was already greater anyway. Okay, now you have a community that is high and trust. And when you’re high in trust, you can do so many things. So let’s go back to the second phone call from a faith driven entrepreneur that changed my life. Remember, you’ve got this community at work, it’s high and trust. And we fast forward in the development of movement a few years and I’m pastoring and planting churches, and I get a phone call from this faith driven entrepreneur named Casey Crawford. And so he said, let’s leverage what we already have by relational connectedness, a high level of trust. Let’s leverage that to live out the great Commission at work. And so on top of love works, what we did is we built a mentoring process to love people. And our definition of love is to act with their long term best interest in mind. So mentoring is just acting with their long term best interest in mind. And we built an explicitly faith driven track called the Faith and Life Track. And we have seen so much fruit. So many lives transform, marriages get better. They become better parents. They become better humans pouring into them in every way. And then we develop other tracks for the mentoring process a leadership development track, a life planning track, and I grab the key track. But all of that was built around how do we love people? How do we love them with eternity in mind? And when you pair? Love works with a mentoring process. It is so powerful because you are living out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission at work, and the impact is extraordinary.

Justin Forman: It is extraordinary. And the thing that I love is, is when you talk about the Love Works program, if resetting for our listeners here, that’s a program to step into those times of crisis, those times of struggle. But then there’s a part of it that you want to go on the offense and you want to get ahead, and you want to help people to make sure that like, whether it’s life goals, life planning. You guys have talked about the power of just what home ownership, things like financial decisions, major financial decisions, what that does for generational opportunity, and wealth preservation, wealth creation, what that does. And I think the way that you guys are framed, those plans and those goals and those steps, it’s an offense and a defense. If we started off with the football kind of talking to the game. That’s really what this is. But here’s where I want to get specific. So like for one, I can hear the joy in your heart and your words and I love it. I love seeing a pastor that is talking about man these are the opportunities we have dreamed of in the church. They are right in front of us and they’re all the time right here in the marketplace. So I want to get specific. When you talk about like programs like Love Works and maybe with them will work to mentoring, but some people listening to this are going to be saying, well, how how does this program work? How does love works? What does that look like? So you’re talking about a program here that has a payroll deduction system. Everybody is able to contribute into that’s got to do big things I’d imagine for the culture. I mean, what percentage ballpark are people are participating in a program like this?

Stephen Phelan: Yeah. Justin great question. So currently over 50% of our teammates are contributing through payroll deduction. We’ve had as high as up to 71%. And let me tell you you want a massive culture when start love works like there’s not a single person who’s gonna be like, you know, we really shouldn’t when people are in crisis, I don’t think we should help. Like, it’s just kind of. We’re all like, we all want that, right? And so I think this is one of the easiest culture wins that every business can establish. There’s absolutely no downside. And there’s an enormous upside. And it’s just a commitment for love sake, for the sake of love. And yeah, literally like we can help you set it up in a way that people will actually get, you know, a tax deduction as they’re giving. You can handle it either internally like we’re doing, or we can help you set it up externally through some partners with helping hand some different ways. So if anybody’s interested in that we’d love to help you talk through the specifics of that. But yeah, if you cast a vision for it, this is the kind of community that we’re going to build that we all want to be a part of, and then we just kind of go all in of loving on our teammates when they’re in crisis, and you start to share those stories and the culture starts to, elevate. Yeah, everyone says, I’m so glad I work here. I never would have thought that I would have been love like I have when I showed up to work. This is what I’ve always dreamed of.

Justin Forman: Yeah. It’s a team that everybody wanted to be a part of. It’s the thing that they’ve wanted to feel seen. And I think this is an important distinction that I want to make. Is, love unconditional? It struck me that love for love sake like that, that is our call. That is our commitment. That is what we’re called to step into. And we could end the podcast right there. And yet there’s something of what you’re alluding to that we also need to talk about, because I think often times we think about trade and we think we’re sacrificing, we’re trading down, but we’re really trading up because you’re talking about we’re trading up for a culture that everybody wants to be a part of, that you’re going to have buy and that you’re going to support that you’re going to feel joy going to work. There’s different ways that it kind of comes full circle in this perpetual flywheel of good happens. Can you talk about some of the ways you’ve seen that culture change? Or, you know, how has that affected recruiting or turnover, some of those other things that are part of that equation.

Stephen Phelan: When you show up to work, you don’t want to be treated like a commodity, but it’s traded that you feel transactional, not relational. Love works helps you show up and feel like a human being who is loved in tangible ways. And so that creates such a culture shift, because if you’re a part of a company where you feel like you’re a cog in the wheel, it’s just churn and burn, then the retention rate becomes a challenge, and it really just becomes all about the numbers of a salary. But if you know you’re building a special community, you’re building, and for a follower of Jesus, you would say, you’re bringing a little bit of heaven down to earth. You’re giving people a taste of heaven as it is on earth. And so we get to step into that together. That is a game changer.

Joseph Honescko: Stephen, I’m hearing this and it sounds like there’s such great wins here. They sound like very winnable wins, for that matter. And yet something about it still feels rare, unfortunately, in the business world. So what are some of the barriers that stop people from entering into this? Is it a matter of just uncertainty, like not knowing the next steps? Is it a fear of the unknown? What has been some of the things that you guys have consulted with, others that has stopped people from entering into something like Love Works?

Stephen Phelan: Well, I think one of the things is maybe a misunderstanding of how to fund it. And you’re just thinking, man, like, I gotta make payroll and things are tight. I’m strapped already. I don’t know if I can, you know, put a bunch of money up front and to create this. And the idea there is like, yeah, maybe as the owner, leader, entrepreneur, you go in, but you’re just you’re casting a vision for others to help build this community with you. And so you don’t have to be the funder of this in perpetuity. All you have to do is cast a vision and allow your teammates to say, we’re going to build a special community, come be a part of this. So one, I think the funding structure and a misunderstanding of how that would have to be funded keeps people from doing it. Now, we also know this Joey, the battle we fight is actually not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. Satan doesn’t want a community like this at work, and so he’s going to be fundamentally opposed to this kind of community. And one of the things he’ll do is, you know, Kevin Young’s book Crazy Busy, he’ll just keep us crazy busy and you just feel like I don’t I don’t have the bandwidth all the time to think about, you know, that’s sort of working on the business and the business, and there’s so much working in the business that it’s hard to kind of take time to pull back and go, man, like, here’s some easy things we could put in place. And this one’s easy. And so I think that crazy busy mentality and the funding are two of the things that we see as obstacles to overcome. But they’re easily overcomable.

Justin Forman: Yeah. Yeah. Well one thing that we are deeply passionate about here is making sure that, maybe it’s a Texan phrase, but this idea that there’s no pep rallies without a football game, that there is no hype without something to go do and to get after it. And we’ve mentioned this on the podcast a couple of times, but that is why it was so great to be with Stephen, the team last week, to capture some of the heartbeat of this story. And so one of the things that you might notice on the faith driven entrepreneur app is a growing list of courses that will continue to highlight specific issues, places where we get hung up as entrepreneurs and we get stuck and we want to break free from that. And so whether it’s a course on what does it look like to find, right fundraising and partners to financially support on that journey? We’ve got a course that we’ve done with friends like Jessica Kim and that. And so this is another one, specifically about caring for your team. We’ve got a three part session here. Story of Love Works, where we go deeper into the. Program here to see how it’s run and talk to other team members, and just kind of the different roles that come together to form that program. So we don’t have a specific date of when that’s coming out. But in the coming months, stay tuned for that, that we are thrilled to be able to put that in the hands of faith driven entrepreneurs to say, hey, how do we get in the game? How do we take that first step? How do we make sure that we get past the fear and the hurdles there? So very, very much looking forward to that. Stephen, so grateful for your team being a part of that last week and just the whole movement team come together to pull together that series.

Stephen Phelan: Yeah. Thanks, Justin. It’s an incredible joy. I think that the movement that is developing among faith driven entrepreneurs is inspiring. The church is awakening in the marketplace, and the church is winning in the marketplace. The church is on the move. The church is God’s instrument to shatter the gates of hell. And when we build communities, he has shown you, oh man, what is good, but to do justly and love mercy and to walk humbly? Love works. Is Micah six eight lived out? It’s the Good Samaritan lived out. And so we can demonstrate the gospel, and it may never have the name of Jesus attached to it, but it’s just an expression of love. It is a demonstration he has shown you, oh man, what is good to love mercy, walk humbly, do justly. And so let’s extend those kind of communities. Let’s proliferate. Let’s make them ubiquitous, in the marketplace. And the prophets spoke of the mercy of God rolling down, you know, Amos speaks of this great day. What if we get to step into that and help create that? It’d be our joy at movement. I mean, if you would contact me, you don’t know how much joy I get and come alongside other entrepreneurs who are like, yes, I’m in. We’re going to do that. We’re going to do that. And some and I learned from the entrepreneurs, Justin, who innovate, who take this and go places we haven’t even thought about. That’s what’s such a joy, is to see the innovation of the church capital C in the marketplace funneling, you know, this movement of God’s Spirit and love into people. It’s a beautiful thing.

Joseph Honescko: Man. I love that, Stephen. We always end every episode trying to center on God’s Word. And you just brought us there without even the question. So, just so grateful for what you are doing at movement and through the Love Works program in your company and in the companies that you guys have worked with outside of that. So thanks again for joining us. It’s great to have you on, and I know our audience will be blessed by the insight you offered. So thanks again, Stephen. Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms, and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at Faith Driven entrepreneur.org.

Recent Episodes

Why would an entrepreneur start a Mortgage company in the midst of the housing crisis?

In this new segment called “Stories of the Movement,” we take a narratively compelling, high-production look at the work of Faith Driven Entrepreneurs living out their call to create.

The goal is to unite the movement through stories because every Faith Driven Entrepreneur, no matter what industry or what community, focuses their attention on solving problems in the world.

The details may differ, but the plot stays the same. We’re all part of God’s story.

He’s using each of us to bring hope, redemption, and light to a dark world for the glory of God and the good of others.

This episode highlights what God is doing through Casey Crawford and the team at Movement Mortgage.

But you’ll be able to see yourself in their story, too. It might inspire, equip, and challenge you as you pursue your call to create.

If you like this episode, be sure to follow, rate, and share the show.

For more on Casey Crawford and Movement Mortgage check out these links:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnyrnjZm0Ww

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhgy5nLdmqI&t=2s

Episode Transcript

Joseph Honescko: Picture yourself on a hiking trip. You turn a corner and all of a sudden you’re standing before a large, plummeting hill. It’s not a cliff or even a massive drop, just a steep decline. And you know, it’s your only way down. So you start to cautiously make your way through it. With every step, you can feel the dirt under you start to slip. You lose balance a little bit, but catch yourself on a branch. You keep moving, sidestepping little by little. And then it happens. You slip. Start sliding. Excepting that the only way down is through. Now imagine in the midst of that downward slide in a plummeting environment, you decide to open a mortgage business. The 2008 housing crisis was a lot like that plummeting hill. Prices dropped aggressively for an extended period of time known as the Great Recession.

Casey Crawford: And that Great Recession echoed around the world. But it centered around the US banking system and more particularly, the U.S. mortgage market.

Joseph Honescko: That’s Casey Crawford, co-founder and CEO of Movement Mortgage, a company he founded in the midst of the plummet.

Casey Crawford: Yeah, at that time, incredible amounts of greed and deceit took place where mortgages were created that had very little chance of ever being paid consistently over time.

Joseph Honescko: As many of us know, this led to a time of chaos, confusion and economic instability.

Casey Crawford: It almost shattered and broke the entire world banking system.

Joseph Honescko: While the economic effects rippled throughout the whole world. The housing crisis also brought new social challenges. It didn’t just break the economy, it broke people. Families lost homes. They lost jobs. And they lost a great deal of trust in an institution that was supposed to help them.

Casey Crawford: We began to mistrust the very banks that held our money.

Joseph Honescko: That’s the opportunity Casey saw.

Casey Crawford: To step back into banking and tell a new and better story, where banks became known for how we love and serve communities, not for breaking trust and robbing that fundamental relationship between borrowers and their banks.

Joseph Honescko: For Casey, this was a chance for a business to empower a community and make a difference in the world. The story of Movement Mortgage is the story of the entire faith driven movement. The story of every faith driven entrepreneur who responds to their call to create. You may be meeting different needs, but all of us are united in our pursuit to make the world better for the glory of God. We all want to see heaven meet earth. You’re listening to faith driven entrepreneur stories of the movement. Let’s dive in.

Speaker 3: So, Casey hired me in oh seven. I really sort of figured he was going to be a once in a blue moon client. I was wrong.

Joseph Honescko: This is Aimee Dodson.

Aimee Dodson: A I M E E with […].

Joseph Honescko: Aimee is the national director of affiliate Relationships, a title she says her husband thinks she made up. But she has been with the team since the beginning, originally taking them on as a client for what she calls her CFO to go business in Charlotte, North Carolina, where movement is based and her early impressions of Casey didn’t go as you might expect.

Aimee Dodson: I really sort of thought he was crazy because at that time, the other mortgage clients that I had were in panic mode, starting to dismantle the business. The writing was on the wall for the industry. So the idea of starting a mortgage company at that moment in time felt insane.

Joseph Honescko: The thing is, Casey and his co-founder Toby understood the harsh reality of the industry. They also thought it was insane. They knew the risks going into it.

Toby Harris: What if you woke up tomorrow and there was no internet?

Joseph Honescko: That’s Toby.

Toby Harris: Or what if it was a week and you could have lost it at any time? Our financial system was so stressed. That. The very core of how people operated was being questioned.

Joseph Honescko: Business owners were scrambling, wondering, where do I put my money? I’m only insured for X amount or this amount or whatever it was. And so they started putting their money in different banks, hoping that they could do something to get some of it back.

Toby Harris: There was so much fear because nobody had lived through a financial crisis like that.

Joseph Honescko: And let’s not forget that this crisis affected real human beings. This wasn’t something that was far removed from regular people. This was something that touched everyone.

Toby Harris: There was so many people losing their homes, they would come knock on your door and say, you know, you [….] and so long and we told you were foreclosed. If you will be out by this weekend, we’ll give you $1000 or $2000. And I went in many of the homes after people had moved out and the child’s toys were there. A lot of their clothes were there, their lives, what’s left in there? Maybe photos and stuff. They literally got in their car and drove away. It was that bad.

Joseph Honescko: So Casey and Toby saw the effects of greed, of unchecked ambition and arrogance. They saw how people’s lives were changed forever. And like all faith driven entrepreneurs, they wanted to use their giftings to do something good. All they needed was a gap in the market they could fill. So they found one.

Toby Harris: Some of the biggest players in the mortgage business were banks.

Casey Crawford: Banks at that time. We’re having a really hard time giving even the most qualified Americans a home mortgage.

Toby Harris: They were the 800 pound. They had the financing. They had all the stuff. They had owned the mortgage business for so long, and they had this system of processing once that was just so low. And, the banks were taking 60 to 90 days to do the simplest. Long.

Joseph Honescko: This is where Toby and Casey saw that they could make a difference for the economy and for the people affected by the downturn.

Casey Crawford: Homeownership has always been really central to, the American dream. And so we saw an opportunity to step in and help Americans access the federal credit subsidies that are offered in the U.S. mortgage market and do it more efficiently than the big banks were doing, because they were still reeling from this incredible meltdown that had happened a couple years earlier.

Joseph Honescko: Even Aimee, despite her early skepticism, was struck by Cassie’s leadership and passion to see this dream realized.

Aimee Dodson: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, he was pretty transparent that this was a new endeavor for him. But, you know, he had cast such a beautiful vision about what he wanted to create, that I was curious and excited to see what was going to happen.

Joseph Honescko: Casey’s vision was clear from the very first meeting she had with him.

Aimee Dodson: I remember he said three things. He said he wanted to, create a financial services company that treated every borrower like his little sister. And then the second thing he said, as he wanted to build a company with people that he loved doing life with and that he felt a strong bond and connection with. And I think that resonates to anyone. Right. You want to do life with people you care about? And then the third thing he said was he wanted to give his profit away. And I, I might have laughed out loud at him, to be honest, because it’s really easy to talk about how generous you’re going to be with money you don’t have yet. Right? But he was so honest about it. And man, I love what I heard. I thought he was probably crazy. I thought he probably was out over his skis, but I wanted to see what was going to happen.

Joseph Honescko: So she jumped in with Toby and Casey, and they rounded up the team with few others around. This very clear mission to love and value people. That clarity on mission and vision empowered them all to take a leap, and they were amazed at the unique ways God moved almost immediately.

Aimee Dodson: That very first year, we did a whopping $36 million worth of loans, which, you know, we were really proud of ourselves. Every single bit of that business was hard earned, right? Like nothing came easy, but it had a huge sense of satisfaction each step of the way.

Joseph Honescko: For Toby, the huge sense of satisfaction came not just in the good work they were doing, but in the way that God miraculously showed himself through the business every day.

Toby Harris: Everybody knows the story of Noah and the Ark, and he gave you 100 years. That’s not what he gave us. He let us start building the ark. After it started raining, we had every day. Every day was a miracle.

Aimee Dodson: You know, I look back now considering we did 33 billion last year. To think that we were so excited about our first 36 million. Yeah, it’s wild, but it was really fun. It was a challenge and we were doing exactly what he said.

Joseph Honescko: So you might be wondering what exactly did they do? What was their secret that allowed them to innovate in a time when everybody else in the industry was in this massive downturn? Well, like we said, the banks were taking a long time to process loans and then some new legislation came out that made it even more complicated for these large institutions to meet the needs of the people they were supposed to serve.

Casey Crawford: Yeah. So this is a little bit of inside baseball in the mortgage business, but a statute called Dodd-Frank came out. And what that did, it really tried to prevent a relapse of what happened during the 07-08 mortgage collapse.

Joseph Honescko: The good news is that these rules and regulations did help protect consumers from predatory lending practices. But those same rules and regulations made it really difficult for the big banks to navigate. And that’s where movement saw the opportunity.

Casey Crawford: We stepped in and said, we are going to process every single loan that comes in in seven business days and give consumers many weeks and months of peace of mind, knowing that their loan is fully approved and fully processed before they have to go buy a house.

Joseph Honescko: The fact that they were new, the fact that they were a small company, actually gave them an advantage.

Casey Crawford: Banks were just having a really hard time reorganizing themselves with all these new processes and changes, and we were small and nimble enough to make those changes without too much trouble.

Joseph Honescko: Customers appreciated how quickly the team worked, and slowly but surely Movement Mortgage was creating trust. It was healing, a fractured relationship between the borrower and the bank and people were starting to notice.

Aimee Dodson: You know, we were treating every borrower and transaction as the most important transaction of the day, and it was a lot of fun.

Joseph Honescko: So they had the strong processes, the strong business. They had the big vision to care for their people and their communities and all that ultimately led to a very successful business.

Casey Crawford: That process and that commitment to excellence actually led to an exponential market share gain and growth over the next ten years, where we grew from about five employees to 5000.

Joseph Honescko: Growth brought new opportunities with it, but it also brought new challenges. As any entrepreneur of scale knows, it’s one thing to build a company culture around a tight knit group of leaders. It’s another thing to sustain it across tens or hundreds or thousands of employees. And as Movement Mortgage continued to grow, they weren’t immune to these challenges. They had to figure them out, too.

Aimee Dodson: Our biggest organizational hurdle was going to be finding a way to maintain our culture as we made the leap. I think that struck Casey pretty hard because we were so proud of the culture we had created, you know, in the markets we were in. Everybody was bought into this notion of loving and valuing one another and doing life together and making a positive impact. But the bigger we grew, it was much more dependent on the local hires that we made in different markets. And sometimes we got it right and sometimes we didn’t.

Joseph Honescko: Even in the moments that they didn’t get it right, they were always evaluating. They were always thinking about the best way to continue building that culture. And a lot of that is because Toby viewed business as a pyramid. And the base of that pyramid is culture.

Toby Harris: The first thing you’ve got to have at top of the pyramid is vision, who you are going to be. And we had decided we’re going to own the mortgage business. That was our vision. We are going to be the best. If you work for us, you’re going to do the best job on the planet. And if you borrow money from us as a mortgage company, you’re going to be so happy. We’re going to serve you. What is all about service? The second level of that pyramid is a process. We were fortunate to understand the complete process. What you really needed to do and how long each step should really take. And then the bottom of that pyramid is culture. None of it’s going to work if you have massive turnover. You need to have great culture. People need to want to come to work.

Joseph Honescko: That core conviction to make people want to come to work meant instilling some programs to help people enjoy what they were doing and who they were doing it with. That included hiring Steven Fallon, a guy who had been pastoring local churches for over ten years. But 2017, he joined movement full time to be their chief pastoral officer. And here’s what he has to say about the culture of the company.

Speaker 4: People ask us to have movement all the time. Hey, what’s the secret sauce? I think it’s pretty simple. We’ve made a fundamental commitment to doing what God has asked us to do, he said. The summary of the whole Bible is love God and love people. We’re just trying to do that.

Joseph Honescko: These can feel like nice ideals and good values. But what does it actually look like to love others? Can you scale that and make it a process? Well movement has. They’ve developed a clear plan and programs that help them care for their teammates and maintain that strong culture, even as they’ve grown to thousands of employees.

Speaker 4: For us, to love means to act in their long term best interest. So we want to act in their long term best interests of our teammates first, our customers second, and marginalized communities third.

Joseph Honescko: You might have noticed that this too is a bit of a pyramid. The foundation is caring for teammates first. It’s that message we’ve heard other leaders like In and Outs Lynsi Snyder. Share on the podcast. Care for your people and they’ll care for your customers and for movement. This centers around three major fundamental needs.

Speaker 4: When we’re thinking about loving our teammates. That means when our teammates are in crisis, we’re going to stop. We’re not going to walk by on the other side of the road. We’re going to get down in the ditch with our teammates when we’re in crisis together, and show up in love. The second way we’re going to love our teammates is to meet a fundamental human need that we all have to be mentor. The third way that we all want to be loved is we want a purpose. We want something bigger than ourselves. A vision to expand our vision for a big God, doing big work in an amazing world.

Joseph Honescko: These commitments have led them to create clear programs like one they call Love Works.

Aimee Dodson: Love works is the cornerstone of how we as an organization say that we’re going to love and value one another. When an employee is going through some sort of a crisis, we want them to understand that they’ve got a safety net, that they’ve got a community of people that have set aside resources from the beginning to meet their needs when they’re in crisis. They should never, ever feel alone because they’ve got a community of people that loves them and wants to help them navigate through that situation.

Joseph Honescko: We’ll spend some time next week in an interview with Stephen, really unpacking this idea of caring for your teams. But right now we just want to highlight one particular story of what can happen when a company steps in. Like this.

Aimee Dodson: The dollar value of the grants. You’d be surprised. It’s actually lower than I think most people would think. Because often the stories that we do share are the bigger ones, right? But sometimes it’s not a big dollar figure, right? It’s like, gosh, we could get them right with like 600 bucks and get them financial coach and help them work out a budget. That means that the 600 bucks is the last help that they’re going to need, because they’re going to be on a path to sustainable, you know, healthy economic picture. But then there’s plenty of scenarios where it is the big the big uglies. You know, we have a loan officer who she’s got five kids and her husband was injured in a workplace accident, a chemical fire, a chemical fire. He was burned over 50% of his body, and he had to be in a burn unit for something like 21 weeks. And she’s a loan officer. And if you’re a loan officer, you only get a paycheck if you close loans. And if you can’t be there to close loans, you’re going to have a cashflow crunch. And, you know, love work stepped in and made it so that she didn’t have to choose between paying her bills and being with her husband as he was going through his treatment. And that’s what Love Works is.

Joseph Honescko: Love works exist to serve the employees of a movement, and movement loves customers by doing excellent work. But if you go back to Steven’s framework, you might remember a third leg of the stool. Loving marginalized communities. And that happens through the Movement Foundation.

Casey Crawford: So really early on, movement had pretty significant success. And the Lord really convicted me that we weren’t just going to take 10% of our profit and put it in a foundation. You know, we wanted to take a substantial portion of our earnings and give it to our foundation. But more than having that capital sit in the foundation, we want that money to hit the streets where it was actually doing what the Lord intended for it to do, loving and serving the marginalized. And that took a huge leap of faith. I can tell you, we always could have used a little more capital in the business or a little more capital in the foundation, but we just kind of pressed into what we felt the Lord was leading us to do, and he was always so faithful to provide that next project to love and serve folks and the Lord seems to meet us with just the right projects. And then, you know, he does what he says he does where, man, you just can’t out give him. And he seems to kind of refill the coffers to continue to pour out, you know, capital to do his work. And it’s been an incredible, faith stretching, faith growing experience to give and to see God meet that commitment to giving with just these perfect projects that we feel like he’s held back just for us.

Joseph Honescko: We’ve got a whole video that summarizes the work of the Movement Foundation, but one particular initiative that we want to hit on here is this vision they’ve had for schools in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Casey Crawford: We saw the schools actually as a sustainable platform we could invest in that would create a profit, and it would create generational impact in the lives of children that we serve. And not only that, it would create a model for others to go follow. One of the things I love about the free market is that we attract capital to solve problems if it creates a profit, and so what we wanted to do was create a profitable business that solved one of the most profound problems in America of our urban poor, never changing that in their lifetime. In Charlotte, North Carolina, if you’re born into poverty, 97% chance you will die in poverty. So only 3% of kids that are born to poverty are able to escape that in their lifetime. That is a statistic that we knew we have to address. And the best way to address that persistent problem in our community was through the institution of education.

Joseph Honescko: So here you have a company that is profitable, that is caring radically for their team members, and it’s generously pouring into their communities. On paper, it might sound too good to be true, or it might even feel like it’s just one big positive journey for them. But these decisions have come with sacrifice, particularly at the top. The level of radical commitment to the vision really started with Casey. He models it by implementing what’s been called a financial finish line. You might have heard others talk about this concept, like Randy Alcorn or the recent episode we published about resisting the love of money. But Casey also experienced the blessing of this model firsthand, and it shaped the way that he ran his company.

Casey Crawford: So my first year in the NFL, I was really lucky to have a mentor named John Casey. John was a kicker, multiple time All-Pro, and he’s just one of the most respected guys in the locker room. So I asked John to mentor me. And, the first lesson John sat down and gave to me was about setting a financial finish line. And I thought, that’s kind of an odd lesson. But, John, you asked me if I was happy with how much I was making a league minimum as a rookie. I said, yeah, John, like more than happy man. And John asked me, you know, can I give generously with that? I said, John, I can give you know, I’ve given more than I’ve given, like probably in my whole life. And so do you, Michelle. Like, you know, get to go out on dates with that amount of money, say oh gosh, John. Yeah. Like it’s fantastic. How do you like your house? Oh my gosh John, we have a two bedroom condo and we we don’t even use one of the bedrooms. It’s amazing. And John asked you to write that down and write down just how incredibly content I was. And then he said, Casey, you know, as your career in the NFL progresses or maybe your career business progresses, you’re probably going to make more and more and more. And what I want you to remember is just how content and happy you are at this level.

Joseph Honescko: Again, here’s the part that maybe just feels like sacrifice feels like trading down, oh, we as Christians have to live below our means and miss out on all these big things that we would rather have. But that’s not the case for Casey. He doesn’t see it as a sacrifice. In fact, he sees the financial finish line as a gift.

Casey Crawford: There’s been absolutely no sacrifice in setting a financial limit for myself and my family. In fact, I think the Lord has saved us from so much heartache, so much suffering, so much angst and concern over trying to manage and maybe in some ways, my own heart hoard wealth. That end zone, that in line has been an incredible place of contentment and peace. And then the indescribable joy we’ve gotten from getting to pour into ministries and our schools and building hope centers around the world, and the new friendships that the Lord’s brought into our life through giving. it frees you up to experience so much more life that God has for you. Conversely, in my own life, in the lives of so many of my friends. And that I’ve talked and walked with. Man, when you don’t set those limits and creep sets and creep sets and creep sets in, there’s always one more thing, one more thing you can buy one more investment. You can make one more year to wait until you start giving. And I think Satan uses that to rob you of so much joy and partnership and work. The Lord’s called you to right now.

Joseph Honescko: Look, you might hear this story about movement in picture. It is some perfectly operating, well-oiled machine with no challenges. Some of you might be listening and thinking, yeah, I would love to do some of those things, but God hasn’t given us that special favor that Casey seems to have. But it’s worth pointing out that Casey would be the first to remind you that it hasn’t always been easy with movement. In fact, entrepreneurship, no matter what it looks like on the surface, never is just up and to the right. But it’s still worth doing.

Casey Crawford: The mortgage industry in the United States is famous for its peaks and its troughs. I mean, if you’re going to be in this business, you are signing up for bumps and not just bumps, but, you’re just signing up for dramatic ascents and then dramatic descent. So, I mean, we there’s almost not a year that goes by that we don’t experience some of that. And, you know, it’s just, I think a long term mindset that you have to have in in any business that you’re in, man, there are going to be moments of success. And then there’s going to be those moments where you question yourself and question your ability to even navigate. And I think was certainly has kept me walking forward in and through those low times and low moments is my relationship with Christ and a commitment to say, Father, you know, if you give me the strength, I’m going to keep stepping on the field and I’m going to trust in you that whether the business has massive success or or goes away, or that you’re weaving and working all things together for good to accomplish your purposes, Lord, and you can even take my failures and setbacks to accomplish your good purposes. As long as I’m faithful to serve you and use all that you’ve entrusted to me for your glory.

Joseph Honescko: You don’t have to have it all together to follow what God is asking you to do with your business. The team at movement laid the groundwork for these programs and initiatives, even when the business was far from a sure thing. But they just kept taking the next fateful step.

Casey Crawford: The truth is, we weren’t investable early on like we were fledgling. We would have been a bad investment. I actually wouldn’t have taken money, I don’t think, because I would have been scared. I couldn’t repay it. It was a real honest fact. And then as the company progressed and began to have some more success, we did have opportunities. We had people that came in and said, hey, I’d like to invest or whatnot, and I’d really pray about it and think about it. And ultimately, I never felt any peace about taking outside capital, because what I always felt the Lord had called us to do was to give all of our profits. And so I was kind of saying, we’re going to be a really bad investment because we’re called to give all of our profits. And I didn’t know how that would ever align with somebody who’s making an investment to get a return on their capital. And that today has been a transformational attribute that we’re enjoying being totally privately held. And in fact, we’ve been able to gift about 49% of the company in the NCF. And what that’s done is reduced our taxes to almost nothing. And because our taxes are so low, it’s just increased our ability to push dollars out the door. And, you know, I know that’s a really tough thing for a lot of growing businesses, a lot of entrepreneurs to do is to create that free cash flow. Because, man, our business is really capital intensive like so many. And, you know, we’ve gone from five employees to 5000. And that takes increasing your balance sheet in dramatic ways. But I think because of our commitment to give. And then that led us to partnering with the National Christian Foundation. And then by giving away stock, we reduced our taxes. And that’s allowed us to push out almost $500 million now in cash, you know, out the door to ministries that I think are going to be generationally impactful.

Joseph Honescko: So what do we actually learn from the movement story? We see an example of steady faithfulness, consistent excellence, and a determination to love God and love people above all else. And we also see that you can do all those things and make great returns. Now, you might not start the same kind of programs that Casey and Toby did. Your situation might look different in a bunch of ways, but every entrepreneur with a team has been entrusted with people to care for. You can have an incredible influence on the people who work with you and for you. And that influence can ripple out to families, communities, cities and cultures. But it starts with listening to God’s call in your life today, thinking strategically about how you can live out your faith in your context. It requires prayer and community coming around one another asking God what he would have you do with your business. Thanks for listening to stories of the movement. Tune in next week for another episode of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. And in the meantime, visit our website to learn more about the groups we offer to watch videos or read the blogs. And don’t forget to follow and read the podcast. That kind of stuff really helps us out. Thanks for joining us today. We’ll see you next week.

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