Episode 118 - What is a Faith Driven Entrepreneur? with J.D. Greear
We are SO excited for today’s episode and for what it means for you, the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. As you know, our mission is to equip and encourage you along the journey.
Obviously, we hope this podcast is a part of doing exactly that, but we also know that there are more ways to create and share resources to help you live out your faith in your work. One of the ways we’ve done that is through our new 8-part video series in partnership with RightNow Media on what it means to be a Faith Driven Entrepreneur.
On today’s episode, you can hear from the man who helped make them happen, J.D. Greear. He’s lead pastor of The Summit Church in North Carolina, President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a fountain of wisdom. Listen in to hear why he’s passionate about the Faith Driven Entrepreneur movement.
Episode Transcript
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDE movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast J.D. Greear in the House. J.D., we're so glad to have you on the show. Thank you for being with us.
J.D. Greear: Oh, Henry. I'm absolutely delighted. Thanks for having me on.
Henry Kaestner: So I'm tempted to just turn the mike on to let you talk about whatever you want, go in any direction. But I'll also try to guide the conversation to I want to make sure that I'm respectful of our time.
J.D. Greear: Plus, you also know when you flip that microphone on, it could be not forty five minutes, it could be two and a half hours. So I think you're choosing the wiser path there.
Henry Kaestner: Well we might have to do it at some point. I mean, the other thing we need to do, especially with the backdrop and how good you look today, we really should be doing this in video. We're just going to do this for audio for today. But we will tantalize our listeners knowing that there's a better video version. In fact, it probably was mentioned in the introduction. We did do a video series. So everybody gets a chance to see just how good looking you and I are. Or in our case, maybe, aren't...
J.D. Greear: I'll just let you keep talking. You know, they can't even see anything right now, so I'm just not yet.
Henry Kaestner: No, you can't. But I love that muscle t-shirt you're wearing. So first thing we will talk about is life growing up. There's an entrepreneurial journey behind JD. But we're gonna get to the very beginning of it. What was life growing up? Who are you? Where do you come from? What do your parents do for a living? Bring it.
J.D. Greear: Yeah. Well, I actually start spiritual. My mom and dad became Christians the year that I was born and not not in response to me. I didn't lead them to Christ.
Henry Kaestner: They needed something.
J.D. Greear: They needed something, that's right. There were cultural Christians had grown up, you know, in church as a part of their life. But they moved to a new city, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. My dad was down there and he he's an industrial engineer and he just been transferred to a plant down there. And there was a church that just had a reputation for reaching people. And he got invited and said no and got invited and went. And he just I don't know how to say it other than to use some old fashioned language. He got saved and he got really saved. And because of that, I had the privilege of growing up in a house where Christ was not just a part of our lives, but he really was the center. And this church took discipleship very seriously. So the pastor personally mentored my dad and my dad became and is to this day the largest spiritual influence in my life. He and my mom. So I grew up in that environment.
My dad eventually at the company sara Lee Textiles early hosiery would manage one of their plants there in the North Carolina region. And my dad's never been in ministry a day of his life. Professional ministry never received a dime for ministry that I know of. And I just watched him, you know, just sharing Christ with people and investing in people and what it meant to put Christ first. And even after he retired, watching how his company is multinational company rehired him to go and over to what we call, in Christian terms, the ten forty window, which is where a lot of the people who don't know Christ, you know, what we call unreached people, groups where they are. And you watched him go and essentially go as a, you know, to do his job, but also to be there to get to know some of the local people and just share Christ with them, lead some of them to Christ and even be a part of an early church plant there. So I feel like I had a real front row seat to that.
Henry Kaestner: You talked about that a lot. It's one of the things that's really influenced me and a lot of others talking about how your dad went overseas and saw that as a way to reach the nations. And that has given you, I think, this kind of platform to be able to really encourage and challenge people that are at Summit Church in Durha,. And then now, as the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, just more broadly about getting out there and thinking differently about the faith and work movement, thinking differently about the missionary movement. Tell us a little bit more about that. As you've seen that you kind of leaned into that teaching in that concept over the last 10 years from the relationship and what you saw your dad do.
J.D. Greear: Yeah. You know. It never made sense to me. Having grown up in the house where my mom, my mom taught biology at a local college, that was her role and it never made sense to me to really think of what they call the sacred secular divide, where a lot of Christians will grow up thinking like what they do throughout the week is, you know, that's kind of what they do to pay the bills. And what they do on the weekend is for God by, you know, serving in the parking lot or leading a Sunday school class, because I saw how much my dad's faith in my mom's faith shaped just how they lived in their business.
And it didn't mean that, you know, they were constantly working Jesus jukes into the conversation. You know, like, hey, instead of selling you something, I'd like to offer you something to eternal life in Jesus Christ. Not not that kind of thing, but just me and my dad talking me about why he used to leave, you know, really early in the morning. And I was like, why do you go in so early? I think the shift doesn't start told 730. He's like, well, because I like to be there for the end of the previous shift so I can just connect with people, you know, just I want to hear what's going on. And I have a chance to pray for them. And I want to make sure that I'm also ready to start the day and be excellent at my work. And so I just saw this was as much a part of him serving God as anything that we did in the church. You know, I think one of the things that a lot of Christians struggle to understand is that worship and work really go hand-in-hand because how you do your work is a way that you can actually worship. In fact, you interesting in Hebrew, they come from the same root word. And when talks about God putting man in the Garden of Eden, it says he put him there not just to walk with God and sing Kumbaya and sing spiritual songs, but also he put him there in order to do his work, to be an entrepreneur or to invent things in the garden as a way of developing the creation of God to put him in. And I just saw that. I mean, even my dad talking about, you know, just why I should be a good student is like, well, you do this because God deserves it. God deserves your best. They never pushed me to go into ministry. You know, he was always saying, hey, God's made you good at some things and we need to figure out what those are because they're for his glory. And even apart from how you will use your position to witness to others, you just how you do your work is going to teach people about God. And it's going to it is part of his mission on in the world to just do excellent work, that is to his glory to the benefit of our neighbors.
Henry Kaestner: So we're bringing into the entrepreneurial perspective. You spent a lot of time, of course, talking about the broader faith and work movement, and that's a message that's impacting probably 90 percent of the people that come to Summit Church all the time. And yet you have a very high percentage of business owners and entrepreneurs, too, as a part of summit. And you yourself are an entrepreneur. So talk a little bit about that. So summit is in and of itself an entrepreneurial venture. You helped grow a church. I think maybe it had 300 people when you started, you reinvented it a bit. Now there's more than 10000. What did that journey look like?
J.D. Greear: Yeah, well, I think yes, about four questions in there. I will do my best to answer. Yeah. So first of all, I mean, you never want to a position where you prioritize jobs and which ones are God's favorites. Right. We know that pretty much the only two jobs that will not be present in heaven is going to be the doctor or physical doctor who give you no pain. And then also my job of being a preacher, because people, you know, they'll see God face to face and won't need me. But I know the guy who, you know, goes to the gas station and runs the counter is, man, his work is important, too. But having said that, Henry, I think when you read Genesis two and three, there's something very special about the entrepreneurial gift that goes back to the original what we call the creation mandate because God put man into a place full of raw materials. And there's not a lot of instruction in Genesis two and three about how God's like hey I've planted this garden. And I need you to take care of it. I think there's a lot of inventiveness. I mean, you see that even in him naming the animals, there's just this kind of like go and create. If you're here, listeners will understand what I mean by this. God put man into the garden as a co creator. You know, everything that God made. He said it was good. And as you and I have often talked about, good is good. It means without defect. But good is not perfect. Perfect means cannot be improved upon. Good means the more raw materials are there. The entrepreneur's gift is to take the raw materials and turn them into something and to invent things that aren't there, whether that's a garden from the soil or whether that's a work process or a new product or even an artist in some ways is taking raw materials of, you know, whether it's clay to make a statue or the notes of music to make a song. So I do think there's a sense in which entrepreneurs, even ones that aren't Christians, give us a taste of the divine when they're doing their entrepreneurial work because they really are doing something that corresponds to the image of God in them. I hear some people who are not Christians talk about the satisfaction that they're getting in their work and you're like tasting a little bit of the divine in that. It's almost a way up when a mother talks about a newborn baby and they're like the closest I ever felt to experiencing God was with the birth of my baby. That's because it is. The baby is not God, but it's so core to what God has made you that you taste that and see. So that was the first question I heard is sort of like, you know, the entrepreneurial plan specifically.
The second one that I heard was just kind of like even in my role as a preacher and teacher of God's word, there's been an entrepreneurial gift that because I came to that church that was you know, it's a sleepy kind of Baptist church, 300 people or so on the weekend that wanted their pastor to do what, you know, you pay a pastor to do to show up and, you know, shake hands and preach a sermon, make people feel good and, you know, marry their kids and bury them when they die. And that was sort of the that's not being totally fair. But, you know, that was sort of the general vision of the church. And, you know, I got over here in the triangle and there's like, you know, hundred twenty thousand college students within a 20 mile radius of our church and started to think also about the international populations. The fact that I mean, here we you know, we're technically in the Bible Belt, I think. But we all say that Raleigh Durham was like the hole in the Bible Belt, like the leather goes around it. But, you know, not just because there's so many transplants from around the world here and started to think, what would it look like to see not just a church that takes care of people's spiritual needs, but a church that was itself a movement. And so, you know, the tag line we've used now for a while is we want to be a movement following the Holy Spirit, to be a movement of the making disciples in Raleigh, Durham and around the world. And we realize that a lot of the people we invest most in will not actually live here for long, but they'll be set out. Some of them go on formal church planting teams overseas or in other big cities in the United States. Some of them just get trained as disciple makers and they go. But the goal is a movement of disciple making disciples. We capitalize on a lot of college students, you know, for that purpose, because we get them for Florida. Well, some of the slower ones, you know, eight, nine years maybe. But we get them for a limited time. And we're like, that's our first wave of sending right there. And he always joked that when college students first started come to our church in mass, I realized two things about our future. One is that we'd never have a lot of money if college students were going to make up a lot of our our population. I think the time that college students first came to our church, it was like one weekend five showed up in a Honda Accord the next week. Same Honda Accord is. Five hundred people got out. I don't how they fit them all in there. And our attendance basically tripled in one week and our average weekly giving went down that week. Thirteen dollars. You know, average giving. So we're never going to have a lot of money, but we knew we'd have a lot of people that could be an effective disciple making disciples. So God gave us the vision, a planning a thousand churches out of our church and our generation. And so if you like other pastors here that. Like what? You know, that's really audacious. And I'm like, well, yeah, it was a dream from God, but it also was just looking at the resources that we had. We had a lot of people naturally in the pipeline and asking what an entrepreneur does. Right. This looks at a resource that a lot of people have but don't know what to do with it. And we said, here's what we can do with that. And we turned that into a movement. And I'll say this as a testimony to God and as an affirmation, an entrepreneurial spirit and hopefully not bragging. But by capitalizing on that, our church last year, to my knowledge, planted more churches in the United States than any other church in terms of, you know, raising up and setting out. I think that's correct. We at least were among the top. And then the second thing is the international mission board, which is the largest missions agents in the world. We have more people serving through the IMB overseas than the next church, number two, by factor of seven, we have seven times more. And a lot of that is because we capitalized on a resource that got given us and started to dream things that weren't there and God gave it to us. So anyway, I feel like I've been rambling, but I hope that gives you a sort of a taste.
Henry Kaestner: No, no, it's very, very good. So I want to talk to you about some of the books you've written. And there's a new one coming out. I think 15 or 20 years ago, a lot of us picked up a book called Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. And for a generation it really seemed to encapsulate what God was doing and teaching them and us. And you know about it. You've got a new book coming out that is bringing a similar call to what's going on this season in the church. What's this new entrepreneurial project?
J.D. Greear: Yeah, well, I wish I could say it was called Don't Waste Your Life, you know, part 2. But the publisher will let me do it. I actually try. I said, well, how about, like, you know, because it's been about fifteen years. So the name of the book is What are you gonna do with your life? The straightforward question that I hear a lot of college students get asked and why young professionals, even people in their early 30s are. But it's I actually tell the story of John Piper first preaching that message. Don't waste your life to a group of, you know, twenty thousand college students at Passion back in the year 2000 talking about what an arresting question it was for me when I was a college student myself then and talked about, you know, the brevity of life and how there's a phrase that Piper used in that sermon, Only one life to live will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. And asking if you looked at your life through the lens of how brief life is and how long eternity is, what would you wish you'd done different when you look at your life? One of the heroes tell a story in the opening chapters, a guy named Count Nicholas von Zenendorff. And I think you named your first son after him then in Zensendorff.
Henry Kaestner: Yes, I did. Cause it was easy. Many people know that now.
William Norvell: ZZ for short.
J.D. Greear: Yeah. ZZ top another one of Henry's favorite bands right there. Anyway, this guy was the founder of the Moravian movement, which was one of the most effective missions organizations in Christian history. What most people don't know about it is they didn't send out only even primarily church planters. It was mainly people taking their careers and going over seas. And so, in fact, it's very personal to me because one of the communities they founded in 1753 was in Salem, North Carolina. And they planted a church and a church planting movement that ultimately I benefited from, that my parents got saved in.
So this kind of like idea of like, here's a guy who just challenged his generation to make their lives count, what are you going to do with your life? And he had a famous phrase that I just managed. It's just stuck in my heart. He said, you know, my goal is to preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. And he taught a generation to do that. Just preaching do very well with that. Did he? No, he did. He totally blew that last part. But preach the gospel Diaby forgotten. And I'm like, that's what I want my life goal to be, whether that's in secular ministry or secular work, so-called secular worker doing what I do professionally.
It's just, you know, God is called every person to be a part of his mission in the world. And calling is not something that is reserved for a few of us who have a Damascus road experience where God spells out in our alphabet soup that he wants us to become a pastor. Every follower of Jesus is called. Jesus said, follow me and I'll make you a fisher of men, which means when you accepted Jesus, you accepted the call to get a vote in the great commission. And that's what this book is about. It's about how to analyze your gifts, how to sense you're calling, how to know what he's calling you to and about. How do you evaluate life correctly?
Rusty Rueff: That's exciting. You know, I was thinking about it. I may be the only one on this podcast outside of JD that grew up Southern Baptist.
J.D. Greear: I didn't grow up Southern Baptist, you're by yourself.
Rusty Rueff: Well, you're a Southern Baptist. I grew up Southern. And William, you didn't grow up Southern Baptist?
William Norvell: I did not. Grew up Southern, but not Baptist.
Rusty Rueff: Well, I, I actually bring that up because, you know, so much of the church experience for entrepreneurs is the reinforcing message of, oh, maybe you ought to go into the ministry or maybe out of work, you know, in a nonprofit or, you know, the people that we see celebrated on the weekends a lot of times are those who sing and those who are, you know, a part of the church. And yet there's a movement, there's a movement that's saying, you know, inside the marketplace, as you're alluding to, J.D., you know, is where a ministry can show up. What do you think is triggering that movement right now?
J.D. Greear: Yeah, I think part of it is a reaction to that sacred secular divide. And I think people, you know, whether you're going on the campus at Google in California or even, you know, places that are following them, you're seeing how people are integrating so much more of their work into their life. And so if your faith fits into a little section on Sunday, then it just doesn't make that much sense.
You know, like, I want to know why would God have me spend of 168 hours in a week. Why would I spend one hundred and forty four of them in a place that doesn't really count? And I think there's a cry in the heart for more in particular here in the United States. Since our inception, we've had a lot of cultural Christianity. And I think one of things what's happening right now is we're seeing that recede and die. And by the way, I'm not excited about that. I mean, the loss of shared understanding of life and morality that has dire consequences for, you know, what choices government makes and how people live. So I'm not excited about the death of cultural Christianity, but what it does do is it allows those who want to see their walk with Jesus encompass all of their life, which includes their work life. And so I think it's part and parcel of the rise of authentic discipleship and not just cultural Christianity.
Rusty Rueff: That's good. So this leap from Sunday to Monday, kind of church. Right. What does it look like to champion business leaders, you know, to take that Sunday to Monday leap? What should be that challenge?
J.D. Greear: Well, a lot of this just talking about it. I mean, it's kind of amazing to me the aha moment that people have. And I'm not trying to insult them. It's probably in our church is going to be my fault. You know, when I'll talk about the connection, you just see these lights come on and people's minds are like, that's I've never heard that before. Never thought about that. I remember one year, the first year I preached on this, they were giving me the statistics at the end of the year of the most listened to sermons. And there were two far in a way that were listen to more than any other. And one was on sex. OK. So, you know, that's sort of a given now. And then even more than that one was the time that I really went through and talked about what a Christian view of business and entrepreneurship looked like. And people, you know, men, women, people of all ages just said this is. I've never heard this before.
Rusty Rueff: That's good. You know, this is not just a U.S. movement. It seems like it's a global movement. Right. Henry spends a lot of time in Indonesia and he invited me over a couple of years ago to speak to Faith driven entrepreneurs. And it's almost palpable, right. That in the workplace, this has become beyond just happenstance, but that believers are coming together and saying, you know, we can make a movement out of this. You've seen this globally. I mean, what's your perspective? Yeah. Outside of the United States?
J.D. Greear: No, you're absolutely right. And I actually have a lot history in Indonesia myself, because I served over there as a church planner for a while. But let me just kind of really emphasize something you said there. It really is a conversation and a movement because it's one of those ones where me as a pastor in a lot of areas, I'll show up as the teacher, you know, I teach and me I'll sit there and take notes when it comes to what it means to serve God in the medical profession as an entrepreneur. I don't bring all the expertize. I can certainly bring some knowledge of biblical principles. But it takes somebody like a Henry, for example, that God has given this ability here and the two of us together discussing what it looks like to serve God here. And I think there's an equalization, what you might call an egalitarian nature that I think is helpful. But it is not just, look, I'm the movement leader and you guys just show up and pay the bills. It's a no, we're partners in this.
One of the things I always point out is that, you know, in the Book of Acts, 39 out of 40 miracles happen outside of the church. And I'm a guy who works in the church. The majority of my week is inside the church, and so, you know, it means I got access to one fortieth of the power of God that's available throughout the week.
I know that's not great Bible interpretation technique, but I think you get the point. It's like the people that God wants the most use are going to be out there in the workplace. And if you go back and study every major movement in history, you'll find that workplace leaders are somehow deeply involved, even in the Reformation. You know, one of the leaders of the Reformation whose story I'll tell is the guy who translated Bible, William Tindell one of the first ones to put it in common English. We know his story. He's the hero. He's the biography you read. But what you don't know is that you wouldn't know his story if it weren't for a guy named Humphrey Monmouth, which is kind of a tough name for a kid. But Humphrey Monmouth was the business leader, the merchant entrepreneur that developed the ability for Tindale to be able to get his Bible distributed all throughout the English speaking empire so that when the king of England wanted to clamp down and shut down Tindell, he couldn't because Humphrey Monmouth had seen to the distribution of this. And that's been an integral part of the story.
So I think in places like Indonesia and places like Sudan and places like Afghanistan, India, you're going to see that the open doors are there in business and entrepreneurial or that aren't there for professional Christians. I was reading recently, Henry hasheard me explain this a lot. But if you look at the number of evangelical missionaries, people, they're being paid to share the gospel that are at work and what we call the 10 40 window, which is the part of the globe where the most unreached people groups live. India, China, those commonplaces, total numbers, 40000. The total number of Americans, just United States citizens that are living in the 10 40 window on so-called secular employment. That number is two million. Now, if 30 some percent of them identify as Born Again, because that's what it is, the United States. Even if you write off, two thirds of that number as not really that serious about their faith. That still leaves two hundred thousand, two hundred thousand spirit filled, gospel loving, faithful believers at work today, right now in the 10 40 window. What if they understood that part of their primary calling was to be a disciple making disciple and not to abuse their jobs? I don't mean doing things that are unethical, but just, you know, while they're there saying I'm here to share the love of Christ around me, that would transform how we saw the spread of the gospel in places like Indonesia. It wouldn't be just within a few more missionaries. Yes, we do. But we also need ordinary believers to understand their equally called the mission of God.
Rusty Rueff: Can you dive down one more level into that? And I mean, our listeners need this encouragement right there, Faith driven entrepreneurs. They're trying to do their best to represent the glory of God in their work. And I think you gave a good win there, which was just to make sure that they're loving on each other. But other advice, because, you know, they're trying to balance that. I don't want to be in people's face, but at the same time, I want to have an impact.
J.D. Greear: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I mean, you know, there's a lot of discussion on this and a lot of people who were in the field that some of your listeners are in. That's what I meant by conversation. They can speak more clearly about this than a guy who, like me, is sort of stands behind the pulpit and may give the principle that, not the application. I think what you've got to be guided on his first Peter 3:15, where it says to live in such a way that people ask a reason for hope that is within you. And that could be through the quality of your work when nobody's looking. You know, I mean, everybody does work when the boss is looking. Everybody does work when, you know, profit is at play. But what about people who do good work just because God deserves it? You know, C.S. Lewis says that famous thing in mere Christianity where he talks about the new world when explorers came into a, you know, a valley that as far as they knew, no human I'd ever laid on, you know, ever before, they would find some of the most beautiful species of flowers. And C.S. Lewis is like, does that mean that God wasted this beautiful species and all these generations of flowers that died on people who never saw it? And Lewis said no, because God saw it and God does some things just for himself. And so, you know, that can create in like why is there such a spirit of generosity in your work? And I'm not contrasting that with the profit motive, but there's a spirit of generosity that can go into your work where you're serving other people through. It's you're using places of advantage to lift others up, sometimes to forgive other people. Those things can be so extraordinary to people to see a truly servanthood person in the work that they ask you a reason for the hope that is within you. That's part of the gospel. I hate to say this, but gospel magic. When people live so distinctively as disciples of Christ, other people get. They get a whiff, an aroma that you're doing your work for another kingdom and by another motive.
William Norvell: William, here. That's that's really good. Thank you for joining us. Longtime listener. First time to get to meet you and. Wow. You know, there's no video. But I mean, JD has a ladder in his library back there to get all the books that he has. I mean, this is fastenings like. I know why he's so good now. This is amazing. I love that clutter. Reminds me of I heard Francis Chan one time say, I want people to look back in my life and for it to be unexplainable without the power of the Holy Spirit. That just doesn't make sense. Like, you know, don't to make decisions that are just so easily explainable with the human form, with our, you know, ourselves. And I love that's kind of a riff on that. And so I'd love to move a little bit. I'd love to shift to this. You and Henry and I believe Justin and the whole faith driven team has built a video series to dove a little deeper, specifically for, you know, Faith driven entrepreneurs and people that are going to kind of go a next level and want to take this podcast and go deeper. So I think it's like eight or 10 hours of content. I'm gonna give you about three minutes to sum it all up. So if you could do that for us, they'd be fantastic.
J.D. Greear: Wait are you calling me or Henry?
William Norvell: I'm calling you. I'm calling you. And if the answer is, you know, you did it because Henry made you. Then we get shifted to Henry.
J.D. Greear: Hey, look. As with most things in my life, I just basically I read the points that Henry put out there for me. Yeah. Okay. So three minutes. Here's all I would say it is.
We were trying to do something specifically for entrepreneurs that took the faith and work concept and applied it to that sphere. So there's a lot of general teaching on how to approach your work, period, but then specifically applied to entrepreneurs.
And we start with a thing called called to create that this is part of your calling that you are is called to what you do if you are an entrepreneur, as the missionary who sent to Indonesia is called God Owns My Business. Is the next session talking about the mentality of stewardship that we all have to have? That really it's not like, you know, God is asking me to give him a little part of my material. It's that all the breath in my body, all my talents, all my time, all my resources, they all to be belong to him. And so the question is not how much of this do I have to give to God, but what does he want me to do with 100 percent of what he gave to me? Don't worship work was the next section. And that was basically explaining how a lot of people take a good thing and turn it into an idol. An idol is when you take a good thing and turn it into a God thing. And a lot of people do get such satisfaction in their work, they begin to worship it and then it turns into a curse. And so how can you not worship your work but use your work as worship, which is fundamentally different? Excellence matters is the extension of that. When your work is really done for God, whether it's cleaning teeth as a dentist or whether it's, you know, inventing the next chapter of band with the way that you do, that is gonna say something about the creator you serve. Willful versus faithful really kind of gets to the heart of where a lot of us are when it comes to there's a possessiveness over our work and I want to do it my way. I even resent God asking me. And so is your approach. Is it more will for is it faithful? You know, our work becomes like Gollum's ring and, you know, the Lord of the Rings where it's like my precious, you know, it's mine. I want it in the ministry. And word is basically saying, hey, if you're a follower of Jesus, in addition to the essence of your work, you need to be looking for appropriate ways to point people to Jesus. And what does it look like in the workplace in ways that, you know, you would not be violating the privilege you have as a business person to you know, it's a show of your faith on people? Well, what does it look like? Ministry at work and in ministry, indeed is just the counterpart to that. How do you do your work in such a way that people get the aroma of Christ?
So I'm not sure that's three minutes or not. But I was super excited about it. Henry and I had a lot of dialog back and forth, choosing the best eight sessions. You know, I think we probably had about fifteen to begin with and had to whittle it down to eight. So I hope it's helpful.
Henry Kaestner: Well, there's an eighth one, though, to that. I think it's really important because I tell you, I don't think that I really appreciated how many people who have an active Christian faith are overseas in the 10 40 window. But one of the other things that you made a point of JD and you really helped us, as we're putting this together. We've collectively looked at the different marks that we have of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur that are up on the Web site. And one of the things that you and your team were able to encourage this on is this concept of being sent. How do we as a Faith Driven Entrepreneur in Topeka, Kansas, Raleigh, North Carolina. San Jose, California. How do we endeavor to be a blessing to communities overseas as well? And just having this more of a global perspective for most business owners were very focused on our businesses. Our families are local communities. But you also suggest that there's an opportunity to be thinking more globally as well, right?
J.D. Greear: Yeah. Well, I just realized I left out the eighth. You know, as I said, eight and gave seven. So learning to count that, that was why I never made it as an entrepreneur in the second grade.
William Norvell: That's prereading. Yeah. One of those we love here as you might imagine is stories. And I assumed from listening you talk for a little bit. I mean you've gotten to see this happen. You've got to see business leaders going. I assume that's why you're passionate about doing this and why you gratefully gave us time to do this video series. You've a lot of demands on your time. We partner with Faith and Co. as well, who puts out some amazing videos. I'm sure we'll link to that. If people haven't seen some of them. They're amazing, liveried, maybe highlight maybe one or two of those that you saw or one or two just stories of entrepreneurs that you've seen make some of these. Maybe not all of them, of course, but seen this in action live in companies and in businesses. You might share in a few those with us now.
J.D. Greear: Yeah. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is a guy who graduated from one of our local universities here, which are pretty prestigious. You know, Duke University, you can see and he stay there, national, internationally known colleges. He graduated, had a great degree. I think his was a sports marketing, got a job for the largest sports marketing firm in the triangle here. And then he was on a fast track and got a vision for what God was doing. And we always tell our students and our young professionals what it means to follow Jesus is to do whatever you do, do it well to the glory of God, but also do it somewhere strategic for the mission of God. And he said, I feel confident in what I'm doing in sports marketing and I think I'm good at it. Trained for it. But even though I love living here, God has put it in my heart. There may be somewhere more strategic. So he heard about one of our mission teams going over to the Middle East and does some research figures out his company has a branch over there. So he goes to his job and says, I'd like to be transferred over to this part of the Middle East so he can be a part of our church painting. His bosses like this is a terrible career decision, you know, because this is not where we send people on a fast track. You know, this is a way to be forgotten. He said, well, if you would do that for me, I'd be grateful. So they do. He goes over there, works there for three or four years as part of our team, contributes, you know, great, everything's going swimmingly. And then he just kind of said, I almost think I can do this better if I were to get my own. So in ethical ways, he came back, resigned from his company, then went over, started his own there. And not only was he able to be a part of the team there, but he actually was able to generate enough profit and funds that he could support other team members, give them jobs to be over there. And that's just a guy taking an entrepreneurial streak and applying it. The other one I'll share real quick is just what I, you know, open this podcast with is the one of my dad who's at a different place in his career. You wouldn't put him in the entrepreneur category, but a guy who just had the opportunity to go live in the 10 40 window and be there to rub shoulders with Southeast Asian business man able to lead a couple of them to Christ and be a part of a church plant. And it did not cost our church a single dime to send this guy my dad. In fact, we made money on the deal because he kept hiding while he was working for their back to us.
So, you know, it's just it's people understanding that God gave you what he gave you. He made you good at it for a purpose. And that purpose is not just to make a lot of money. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, make a lot of money. But it's not just that. It's to bring him glory and to be a part of his great commission. And you'll never sense the fulfillment that you can have until you figure out what that is and get after it.
William Norvell: That's amazing. And I don't know if this is part of your book or not, but it's so funny. And, you know, we're having this podcast today, but this week I actually had a saved sermon from you that I assume Luke or someone sent to make a living with purpose from January 12th and I listened to it three days ago. And you hit on so many of these points. So someone is looking for a pre book read. If they get excited about your book, I assume we can link to this. But in January 12th. Living with purpose. I thought it was just an amazing articulation of a lot of those points where you have a little more space and time than we give you here.
J.D. Greear: Well, thank you, man. It means a lot. Appreciate that.
William Norvell: It was awesome. And so I appreciate that. And as we unfortunately have to come to a close, I usually have one final question. But imagine the second one, because I feel I feel like, you know, we talked about being led by the spirit here so we can see what happens. But two questions. One, we always love to let our listeners in to where God has you and as a pastor and I know you're in the word of God and to where he has you in his scripture, something that's coming alive, you maybe don't even meditating on for a while. Could be the season. Could be this morning. So I'd love for you to share that with our listeners. And then lastly, you won't have a job in heaven. I'm a little concerned for you. I want to start thinking and I want to get our listeners thinking on who could employ you in heaven. So give us a little taste of what do you think you would like to do in heaven? And what job you think God may be using your talents for so that we can, you know, get your resumé out in front of.
J.D. Greear: Yeah, man, that's a great question. So the first one is spiritual. And the second one is, you know, more like about my future. So the spiritual one I into really quickly. The thing this week that God has been pressing into my heart is what you began in the spirit you can't finish in the flesh. That's what Paul said to the Galatians. And whether you're talking about your own, in theological terms, sanctification, which means growing to be more like Jesus or whether you're talking about your marriage, your parenting, or a ministry that God's given you, or a dream that you're pursuing. If it came from the spirit, it can only be completed by the spirit. And for me, you know, like most your listeners, they're probably high capacity men and women. And they've been used to saying, just show me the mountain and I'll get over it. And that's how I''ve lived a lot. And so God has been just working, just kind of tearing some things down to say you cannot finish this in the flesh. So that's a spiritual thing.
The jobs that I could have in heaven. OK, one is a hang gliding instructor, because didn't the dimensions of heaven say that the walls are like fourteen hundred. Like there's some humongous miles high. So I'm thinking how awesome would it be to climb up and then hang, glide down inside just like we're gonna need instructors. And that could be me. So since there aren't any preachers, they could do that or garbage man. And hear me out on this one. If you think about like in heaven most of the garbage will be cleanish, you know, but you need someone to throw away stuff. And what better way to hang out and talk with people the morning the riding on the back of a truck and just cruise miles to house, I'm leaning out the back of the truck and I'm talking to people and reconnect them with a lot of friends in a great way to do work and connect with people the same time.
William Norvell: Amen, it's probably going to be an electric truck truck to. So it's pretty nice and smooth.
J.D. Greear: And streets of gold, so no potholes.
William Norvell: I like that. I like that. So if you run a outdoor adventure company. Yeah. And or a waste management company, I will get you J.D. resume. Yes. E-mail me directly and I'll facilitate that.
Rusty Rueff: And J.D. clearly thought about this. This is not the first time. There isn't. And that's not off the top of his head. He's got these already lined up. I love it.
William Norvell: I think the dimensions and heaven info may be in one of those books back there, but the answer's not in one of those because I don't know the dimensions of heaven. So you're ahead of me there. J.D., thank you so much for joining us. I don't have anything else to wrap up. I just. Gosh, I know you're busy and not to puff you up, but just I know you got a lot going on. And so to share some time with our listeners is just a true joy. And so thank you so much.
J.D. Greear: I'm honored. I'm honored to be connected to all of you guys. Henry's been a friend for a long time and has spoken a lot of wisdom and vision into my life. And so to be connected with all of you and to think about what God is doing in the next generation and what is doing around the world is a privilege for me.