7/23/25 - 2104: Lean Manufacturing... or Biblical Stewardship?

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the Voice of Collaboration for the Faith and Work Movement.

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. And our mission is to inspire every workplace believer to recognize their workplace as their ministry place where they work with God every day. What can that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Furniture. Who makes the best furniture in the country? The best furniture is made by craftsmen and it's made to last. Where do you find fine quality furniture like this? When it's built by the craftsmen within the Amish community, of course. There are so many things the average American and average Christ follower don't know or understand about the Amish community, but we all know when they build something, it's built to last and it's built with quality. From their farmsteads to their furniture. Quality is evident. Everywhere.

Today we get a glimpse into the Amish community and the best furniture made in America, built to last for generations. Ernie Hershberger joins us today from Homestead Furniture in Mount Hope, Ohio to share his story of faith, family, and furniture. Ernie, welcome to iWork4Him.

Ernest Hershberger: Thank you. When I was listening, I was thinking, wow, I wouldn't mind being Amish.

 (laughter)

Jim: There you go. You'd have great furniture then, wouldn't you?

Ernest Hershberger: That was quite a bio, so I appreciate that. But yeah, we do build a couple pieces of furniture.

Jim: Yeah, and we're gonna get into that in a little bit, but we always start off a show with a first time guest, Ernie, just talking about Jesus. When did Jesus impact your life? When did you, when did Jesus become your Lord and Savior? Tell us that story.

Ernest Hershberger: That always a kind of a loaded question for me, and I've grappled with that because, so I don't remember. I never had like an active conversion per se. And people would ask me all the time, when did you meet the Lord? And how did that transaction go?

And so I finally ended up reaching out to a pastor or like a counselor, and he said, my kids don't have that radical conversion either because we read to our children when they were still in the womb and we talked to 'em about Jesus and all that. And so the same thing happened for us. I grew up in a Christian family, very strong faith. And for the biggest conversion, I wouldn't call it conversion, but the acceptance of the baptism, I went through at I think 19 or 18 or 19, but as far as Jesus being my Lord, I never don't remember him being my Lord.

And spiritually, you go through ebbs and flows and there's questions. And sometimes you wonder, where am I going? It's fleeting and you always come back to scripture and you come back to the word and it's the truth. All the answers are there, but as a human being, sometimes I forget about that. But Jesus has been in my life as long as, I never remember him not being part of my life.

Jim: That's a beautiful thing and everybody's faith story is so different. And we interviewed somebody earlier today that said the same thing. He's, I don't know. There wasn't a date because I knew Jesus and knew about Jesus from the minute I was born. And that's fantastic. But the good news is you didn't say, I don't really want what mom and dad have. You're like, no, I want what mom and dad have. I wanna reproduce it in my own family.

Martha: So thank you for sharing that, and I know we're gonna continue to unpack, a better understanding of where God has you in life, but one of the things we really wanna know is when did you realize that our Heavenly Father had given you this gift to be able to run a large furniture company?

Ernest Hershberger: I didn't. (laughter) I struggle with those types of questions because I was taught from a young age to be a good steward of the talent that God gave you, be it mowing the lawn or doing your chores or whatever it may be. And so I have people still today ask me like, what would you do if you could do anything that you wanted in the world?

And I honestly, at 56 years of age, my answer's always the same. I don't know. All I know is I want to be a great steward of the talent that God gave me. And yes, I have manufacturing in my history. I'm a fourth generation woodworker coming from high end custom kitchen cabinets, married a girl in Mount Hope that their family was all in retail, and my wife and her parents started Homestead Furniture six months before we got married. And so I married into that, but I was still very much vested in the kitchen cabinet company. It took me a while even as owners of this furniture company to come home and dive deeper into it.

And I still today, as economies ebb and flow and, we have our ups and downs in the workforce and even in the field of furniture. I'm not married to furniture production. I just want to be a great steward of wherever Christ placed me with the talent that he's given me. And he, and I think he expects me to constantly work on that talent so that I'm prepared to serve at whatever level and capacity that he wants me to serve. Because there are days that I would just that I say, Lord, why do you make me work so hard?

 (laughter)

Martha: So does he give you an answer?

Ernest Hershberger: Here's the answer that I get back and this kind of ties in with the whole stewardship thing of talent, is I am under the full understanding on my side that my reward is not going to be on this side of the grave.

Jim: Correct.

Ernest Hershberger: And so I will put in every effort of what it will take to be a great steward of whatever is set on my path, be it easy, be it hard, be it a struggle, whatever it may be. And so that has really helped me over the years is that I don't expect the reward on this side. I'm working for the reward on the other side by serving him from the bottom of my heart. And, I'm not perfect. I don't always get it done, but that is what I want to do.

Jim: And that's a phenomenal answer because you're right. We're called to be stewards. We're called to be good steward, called to be faithful stewards. And there's so many things you could probably do with the talents that God built into your DNA and then built into your family line. But right now he's got you running a furniture store. How many employees do you have?

Ernest Hershberger: We don't have that many employees. We're very specific with high-end custom furniture, so we have about 20 employees at this point. It ebbs and flows. And so I don't really, I guess specifically keep track of the employee side. What I care about at the end of the day is that we have raving fans of Homestead Furniture that love telling their story of how we serve them.

And we have customers in every state of the United States and 10 countries, and we only advertise in a small arena around us within the state of Ohio, maybe a hundred miles. All the rest is word of mouth. And that's part of our generational stewardship plan is taking care of customers to the level that they really want to tell our story and spread it. And so it ties in with all that, yeah.

Martha: Okay. So you just used the word generational stewardship. So you're second generation then for the company?

Ernest Hershberger: So I'm fourth generation in woodworking on my mom's side of the family. That goes back to 1918. I'm first generation in the furniture retail side and manufacturing. So I tell people I'm a fourth generation woodworker, but first generation in Homestead because my wife started that company six months before we got married.

Martha: Fabulous. When we talk about you, why do you do what you do? And Ernie just telling us about the stewardship call on our lives. It's such a great question and sometimes people actually ask Jim and I that question, why do you do what you do?

And if I had to bottom line it, I would say it's to help others learn how important every day of their lives is to the kingdom. All of life is critical - our work, our home, our play, our volunteer hours, our financial stewardship, and our relationships. iWork4Him as a resource for believers to see how much every aspect of life, including work, is to be stewarded. So go to iWork4Him.com/jointhenation to learn more about how to implement these values into your every day.

Jim: Ernie, you've chosen to follow Jesus and live the Amish lifestyle. How do those two things mesh together?

Ernest Hershberger: So we get this question a lot being a retail store, and I understand the kinda isolatedness of being Amish. It's our culture and our lifestyle, and people, think it's a cult, but it's not. And so we grow up - I don't know of an Amish guy that's not, or any Amish families that aren't Christian. And so it's, the best I can explain is why do we want to live more conservatively?

And one of our older bishops puts it, I think, really good in perspective is, church standards help create the absence of temptation. Does not take the temptation away. And I drive a really nice black friesian horse. I can have all the pride in the world. I don't have to have a Lamborghini to be prideful, I can do it with my horse.

So I'm not talking about those types of things. But I do value, as a person, and if people ask me those types of questions, I say, you don't have to be Amish to create a holistic hedge around you. God gave Job that. If you know your weaknesses and strength as a person, then think about what gets you into trouble and what keeps you at peace and what makes you sleep at night. And then create that type of hedge.

And so I look at myself as being fortunate to grow up in a conservative Amish community, but by no means do you have to be Amish to get your reward in heaven. Bible doesn't talk about that. Jesus doesn't know us as an Amish person. He knows us as a Christian but the Amish lifestyle is a Christian lifestyle wrapped around the Christian principles of our salvation. So our salvation is no different than, and people get this mixed up.

They ask me all the time, do you know Jesus? Oh, and I say yeah, Jesus, I recognize myself as a sinner. I found Christ. He died for my sins. He rose. And I have a living hope and my faith in him, and they say, hallelujah. And I'm like what do you think we are? But they get it mixed up. They think Amish is some form of something. I don't know.

I appreciate you asking that question because it's one of my goals in life is all the movies, all the books, all the things that have been written about the Amish have missed the point. They try to represent that, oh, this happened, or that happened, or they talk about the black sheep of the family that was upset, and we're no different than any other culture in life. I think what's important is that our faith is in Christ, and if we so choose to live a conservative lifestyle, then so be it.

There's some value there, and if you don't, then I think you ought to build a little hedge around you to keep yourself safe from crisis points and that's my perspective of me growing up as an Amish person.

Jim: It's a great perspective and we all should be doing things to put ourselves in an area to not be surrounded by temptation. Obviously we have to make choices. Martha and I live in southwest Missouri. It's a lot easier to do that here in southwest Missouri than it was in a big city, but there's pros and cons to all of it, but it's a matter of being led by the spirit. And the spirit led you there and has kept you there and is using you as an influencer there.

Martha: Yeah I think that's probably where that question comes from, Ernie, is that in our own experience within churches we've been a part of, there are people that take their faith very seriously and some that don't, and some, or some that don't even understand what they're missing.

And so I think that's probably the curiosity. And getting this opportunity, which we are so grateful, you have been so kind, and I just feel like we've known you for a long time already, just by your openness and your willingness to talk with us.

So let's talk a little bit more about the business. You've been running Homestead Furniture for 35 years, is that correct?

Ernest Hershberger: Correct, yes.

Martha: Okay. So how does your faith impact the operation of the company?

Ernest Hershberger: It's integrated throughout ,I mean, it's how we implement the biblical human relationship laws of how Christ set the example and talked about biblically of how we treat each other, how we love each other, how we serve each other. And all those things. And even with the lean manufacturing perspective that we bring to the factory, if I waste an hour of motion, you as a customer have to pay me more because I gotta cover that cost. And especially in America with American labor, American hardwoods, all that. So it's extremely important.

And so people in the world out there call it lean. I say lean is the heathen term of biblical stewardship. And so biblical stewardship of us serving each other and loving on each other dictates everything from our culture, the vision for our company that's on my shoulders as a steward, and then my responsibility. I'm on our local hospital board and I call 'em our sheep, and our employees are our sheep. As a shepherd, our sheep, if our sheep are hurting, I'm hurting. If our sheep are at peace, I'm at peace.

And so if our employees are at peace, that means we've gotten underneath them, we've lifted them up, they have direction, we've given them the tools to be successful. They can serve their customers, our customers that come through the door at a high level of whatever needs to be done. And even to the point, like I give ownership to employees to take care of a customer.

If a customer's upset, the question that should be asked is, what is it that I can do to make you happy? And they do it. And we serve clients across the world that way, and that's why we have raving fans and customers all over, and we only advertise in a small local area. And so it's part of our DNA and culture at our family and our businesses of how we treat people. I don't know how else to put it.

Martha: I love what you said though is that that lean manufacturing to you is a biblical principle because you're being a good steward of all that. I think it's comes down to what you're saying is the spirit of why you're doing it, because there's lean manufacturers that do it because of greed. They want a tighter expense so that they can make more money. But you're honoring your customer. Like your heart is in what you are explaining there. That is so beautiful and I think that makes a big difference and probably draws a lot of those people to be repeat customers too, which is wonderful.

Ernest Hershberger: We have a lot of customers and talking about that, we're actually, we started this in 2001 when we opened the new store. We do an apple crisp and a homemade ice cream in the fall, and then the first week in June we have homemade strawberry pie and ice cream. So starting tomorrow we have homemade pie, strawberry pie, and ice cream.

And we'll serve anywhere from 200 to 400 pies to customers that come and we'll have, like there's been years that we had 4,000 people come through our store on that week. Now, this week we're not expecting quite as much just because of the economy and things like that. So it's scale back, but we'll probably have close to 2000 people come through our store this week.

Jim: I'd drive to Ohio for a good piece of Amish strawberry pie. Are you kidding? Oh man. (laughter)

Martha: We should have timed to this a little bit differently.

Jim: We should have done this one on location. That's what we should have done.

Martha: Next year. Next year. Okay. So you said you have about 20 employees. Are most of them family?

Ernest Hershberger: No. We have seven children and the girls, two of the girls that are married, their husbands have great jobs, and so they're homemakers. And then I have four boys. And all four boys are involved in the business at this point. And then the rest are neighbors, church members, people in the community, woodworkers that wanna be woodworkers, or woodworkers that wanna learn how to work, and stuff like that.

So we're all over the place, between sales, delivery and, finishing and manufacturing, all that.

Jim: Alright. Is everybody there working for you already a Jesus follower? Do you invite some in so they can find Jesus working for you?

Ernest Hershberger: Both. And it ebbs and flows, depends what's going on, but yeah. The answer's yes. Yep.

Jim: Okay.

Ernest Hershberger: We hope to influence the ones that aren't.

Jim: Absolutely. That's your mission field. That's an incredible mission field. And you're providing for their family and you're introducing them to Jesus. What better job is there than that?

All right. So I studied your website 'cause it's incredible. I'm a furniture appreciator. I can't build furniture. Amish furniture is very typically very conservative with a relatively few finish options. You go nuts. You could go conservative to totally modern French expressionist with over 3000 different finishes available. How in the world do you serve such a wide audience? That's an incredible palette.

Ernest Hershberger: It all started off with me never wanting to say no to a customer. And I was a student as a young kid to lean manufacturing. I traveled to Toyota, toured their plant, traveled to Ford Rouge in Dearborn, Michigan, toured their plant, started, percolating those ideas.

And then when the light bulb went on that this is just good biblical stewardship, I got out my stopwatch and I created a flow code troll sheet and we mapped every process of everything that was happening, and we just leaned everything out. And so it, that is the nuts and bolts of, other than me wanting to serve, I hate saying no. And here's how I tell people, I think it's the biblical way of serving each other - why should I manufacture a piece of furniture in a box and send it to a warehouse that then sends it to a retail store that then the salesperson's job is to convince the customer that this is what they want?

If you walk into our retail showroom, we have 27,000 square feet of show space. We have all these different hardwood pieces. We have 10 different brands in upholstery. And our goal is to be all American made, which we're not a hundred percent because the accessories. I can't buy a lamp from America anymore, almost. Here and there I can. So then you think about it, nothing starts till you tell me what direction you want to go.

And so as a salespeople, we create furniture for you in a short lead time. So you can get a custom bedroom set or a custom dining room set that you control the species, size, chairs, fabric, whatever that it is that you want, and you gimme a deposit. I say go, about on average 12 to 14 weeks I'll have that furniture set in your home, and it's specifically built for you. And the only reason I can do it is the lean manufacturing technique and the whole team wants to serve. We love serving customers.

And you think about it, when you build something special for a customer that they're gonna keep for their lifetime and past down to the next generation, and it's exactly what they've been imagining, and it's such a wonderful feeling. And a different feeling than if you just sell something outta the box and deliver it the next day. And listen, I wanna clarify this because I have, we all need Walmart. And I don't have a problem with anybody that is building something for Walmart.

I don't have a problem with that. I don't think it's unbiblical to build something for Walmart. It's just not my calling. To steward the talent that God gave me is to do this, and I followed along, and I have peace with it, and we have great love and what we're doing for our customer base by doing that.

Martha: That's beautiful.

Jim: All right. But you didn't answer my whole question now, so lemme just go back to it. The question was, okay, typical Amish furniture is pretty conservative. It's wonderful. It's beautiful, but you've got this other brand line that's not Homestead Furniture. It's, I can't remember the, even the name of it.

Ernest Hershberger: Abner Henry.

Jim: Abner Henry. That it is wild. It's crazy. It's colorful, it's unique shapes. Where did that come from?

Ernest Hershberger: By listening to customers. And in 2008 we launched Abner Henry. So Abner is my great-grandpa, Henry is my dad. So that's where the family name comes from.

And so Homestead serves the residential customers, and Abner serves the design industry. So when you get into the design industry, there's a whole different level of scale and refinement and flexibility in the design. So we're more conservative at Homestead, but not necessarily.

If you look at the Homestead website, we have a broader spectrum because we have a fairly broad spectrum of customers that are asking for this. You get to the design arena, now, they want glass and wood and metal and, like our creation with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there's a whole collection of about 25 pieces that's all inspired by the facade of the Met.

And it's just a different customer. And we have the ability to serve both. And I sarcastically sometimes point out to designers, 'cause they look at the furniture, they look at me and then they look at the furniture again and they look at me and they say, you're Amish.

And I say, yeah. And? And they say you're not supposed to be able to do that. And I'm like, why not? And so I sometimes, like I said, I sarcastically say, tell me what's Amish about that. And they're like, it's good quality but it's just it's a different platform and we have the greatest fun with it. It's just, it's so much fun.

Martha: Okay, so this is how I see it. You're working for Homestead and you kept having these crazy, this customer wants this crazy thing and this crazy thing. Hey, let's create a company so that every time I come in, I don't have people saying we can't make that.

So I just see this scenario here. You're creative. And you're willing to make the customer happy and create the beautiful productions that no one could get anywhere else. And that is why you have the reputation that you have and that you have the customer base from every state in America as well as you said 10 other countries, customers that are coming. And the demand is there. I just think it's fantastic.

Jim: It is unbelievable. I just get giddy, think about all the options that Ernie has to offer and all the resources that we have to offer here at iWork4Him. Just like Ernie can offer thousands of finishes for the furniture that they built at Homestead and Abner Henry, we can offer you, our listeners, thousands of podcasts, blogs, ministries, books, and a host of other things in our website.

Go to iWork4Him.com today and click around and make sure you check out our sponsors because they're the people that help keep our show on the air. I know you'll be glad that you did. There's something for everyone literally - man, woman, retiree, employee, boss, and so much more.

Ernie, one of the things we know about business is it's there to be a blessing to the owner, be a blessing to the employees, be a blessing to the vendors and the customers, but also be a blessing to the community.

How, and I know you said Mount Hope's pretty small community, but your community is bigger. Ohio's got all kinds of fantastic communities in it. How has your business impacted the community that you operate within?

Martha: In addition to Strawberry Pie and apple crisp. (laughing)

Jim: Strawberry pie, ice cream, imagine homemade ice cream, homemade strawberry pie. Why weren't we doing this show on location? I'm just trying to figure that out. Okay. But talk about impact on the community.

Ernest Hershberger: Listen, we're stewards for Jesus. And so when it comes to cash, people as a rule, or I shouldn't say as a rule, because I don't wanna point any fingers because I was caught in the same trap. And that is that I used to ask myself a question - I need cash, I need profits, I need all this, and that's all true.

But when I switched it to asking myself a question of how much of Jesus's money do I need for myself? That changed the whole perspective of what tithing means and how we serve the community, the widows, the poor people, the people that need help. They might not all need cash, they might just need a loving word, a pat on the back.

We had an old bishop that I grew up underneath and he said a good pat on the back is really good for everybody, but just make sure it's not too high up on the back. (laughter) And it's all a perspective of how we serve each other. And so my goal is that we look at it from that perspective and when we reach out and organizations need help, employees get involved, we donate pieces.

Maybe it's cash or whatever it may be, but it's really His, I'm only a steward. And I preach this is I want Jesus to live his life through me. It's one thing for me to live for Jesus. It's another thing for him to live his life through me. And I try to keep that front and perspective for me.. That helps me stay straight and narrow and not get greedy.

Martha: That's awesome. Okay, so you said that you have four boys working in the company with you. Is this intended to be a generational company for the family? Will they be the next to carry it on?

Ernest Hershberger: Our goal is to be a generational company.

Martha: Okay.

Ernest Hershberger: Everything is tailored toward that. I've told my children from a young age up that they're not obligated to work at Homestead or Henry, but, they feel the magic and they love the company and they're a vital part of it at this point. And we fully expect them to continue in the culture, the stewardship of their talents, and with our hope that this company will be around for a long time.

Jim: How many pieces of furniture do you think you guys have built in the 35 years that you've been running the business?

Ernest Hershberger: Oh. I honestly don't have any idea. I know, oh, there have been years that we shipped over 5,000 pieces of furniture.

Martha: Wow.

Ernest Hershberger: We've shipped a lot of product.

Jim: Wow. So a hundred thousand plus pieces, that's amazing. And so you're families, like you said, in every state in America and in 10 additional countries. And just knowing that stuff's gonna be there forever 'cause nobody, amish furniture doesn't ever make the dumpster. We know that for a fact because it's just so incredible.

Martha's sister's got a bunch of it that she got when she was living in Iowa. I'm always hoping maybe we'll get a hand me down or something.

Alright. Your values as an organization for Homestead Furniture, I got this off your website, see the future, engage and develop others, reinvent continuously value results, and value relationships and embody the values.

How does that play out? What's that look like on a day-to-day basis there?

Ernest Hershberger: I created that, I shouldn't say I created, I loaned that acronym from Serve. So I forget exactly where I saw it, but I loved it. And so we integrate that into our culture and we don't do this a hundred percent perfect, but our goal is to give every employee a one-on-one every month or as they progress through. Maybe they're a newer employee and we try to give them that opportunity and build that trust and create the vision for them and give them their, we call it running lane and their job description, and we empower them within that running lane to do do their jobs.

And so we go through this. And so one thing that I didn't have on the website, so under see the future, I've got wisdom, discernment, and resourcefulness. And so we literally grade ourselves by these words of value to help us grow and strengthen ourselves and see the future. Wisdom is at the top of the game. There's just nowhere biblically to get around knowledge we gain just by what we do day by day. Wisdom is a hundred percent godsend. If we can make a decision today that is right for tomorrow, we have to have wisdom. We need a lot of discernment, be able to weed through the clutter and then make a decision.

I'm one of these guys that I use the Trinity pattern. Father, Son, Holy Spirit is three. I discovered years ago that a lot of things work in threes, and when I started paying attention to it, God has given me a lot on my plate. But when I hear three vibes, and it could be in the uniquest place. It could be my wife at dinner, just out of the blue, make a comment about something. It could be an employee that says something, could be a customer, could be a friend at church that says, Hey, I've been thinking about whatever. And I'm like what? And it is the final straw to a decision.

And so I try to stay within that and it's really kept me safe in a lot of areas if I pay attention to it. And then the resourcefulness of see the future is that you have to be willing to make an adjustment. If you made the decision yesterday, so if I made a decision yesterday with the best of my knowledge and wisdom, and tomorrow I recognize that it's not quite right then I encourage people to not then - I meet so many people that think they're dumb and they made a mistake, and it's no, you didn't make a mistake as long as you adjusted because here's the other trinity pattern. And I see it all the time. It literally happens all the time, is we make a decision, we adjust it, and by the third time it's like perfect, and it's running full steam.

And I see my competition and competitors, they're stuck on trying to make the perfect decision and then they fall behind. And I even see it in other industries, if people ask me, I coach other businesses, and it's no, you gotta go. You feel good about it? Now go for it - tomorrow, next week, three months from now, six months from now, make the adjustment as God gives it to you and stay running.

So that's very important. And then they engage and develop others. We have to have a high level of empathy. I mean you read about it more, never heard of this term till a couple years ago, is emotional intelligence that ties right into the empathy side. And so we need to communicate that.

We need to show empathy and that creates trustworthiness and then we can engage and develop others. I tell people, you might be on my payroll, but I'm the steward and I learn as much from you as you will from me. And so don't be afraid of that. I need to build that trust so that people can lead up.

And then reinvent continuously: you gotta be bold, you gotta be courageous, and you gotta be decisive. No, you can't reinvent and decide that I'm gonna do 10 species, 3000 finishes, unlimited sizing, width, height, and depth and then say, oh boy, it'd be nice if I could dive deeper into the lean manufacturing. No, you gotta dive in. You gotta go, we're serving at a high level. Who's telling you to not go? It's not the good spirit that's telling you to not go.

And so then value the results and relationships. It's very important that everybody feels and takes ownership and that they want to be great stewards of their job descriptions, what they've got, and then we have to have a whole lot of humility because we're not perfect. We're sinners, we're not perfect. And we need a lot of latitude among each other and lift each other up. And as soon as we start pointing fingers or I call it sideways energy, then we just tear each other down and we just don't allow it. I get caught with it sometimes. And if I get called out by an employee, I thank him.

And then embody the values. We have to be accountable to the values. We need to be able to teach, and we should be teachable, and then we gotta have a great attitude about it. And so that's our, we call it our great purpose. Serve with excellence. And I got a little pen here that I engraved and makes me, I didn't think about this till it's engraved, it says Relentless Pursuit of excellence. And it ties right in with this. I've been carrying this pen for years. It's a wooden pen. Walnut. No, it's rosewood. And I don't lose it. If I lose it, I go find it.

Jim: Yeah, because you love it. Ernie, when you describe all that, it sounds like a phenomenal place to work and a great place to buy furniture because if those things are being embodied, every piece has that kinda love that kind of investment made into it.

And that's phenomenal. We encourage everybody listening to the show today, check out Homestead Furniture online.com and Abner Henry, I think it's abner henry.com, isn't it? Yep, that's right. And you're gonna be blown away 'cause it's beautiful stuff. I wish I had a house that, that stuff would fit into. Ernie, we're outta time. Is there any final words you'd like to leave with our audience today?

Ernest Hershberger: Serve. Get rid of self. Serve at a high level. Let Christ lead you. Trust, and move forward and expect your reward to be after the grave.

Jim: Beautiful. Ernie Hershberger, thanks for being on iWork4Him.

You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers in our workplace. It's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.