2/11/26 - 2133: An Entrepreneurial Journey of Faith

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him 13 years of covering the Faith and Work Movement.

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Our mission is to release the testimonies of workplace believers who have learned to unleash their vocational and cultural contributions for the flourishing of the world. What can that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: 11 years ago we interviewed Brandon Pratt to hear about his adventure with growing his startup Pizza Ranch franchise. With a few stores under his belt, he was learning how to scale without compromising his kingdom focus and positive culture where employees flourishing customers love visiting his restaurants.

Well, a couple years later we checked back with Brandon and his number of stores had grown to eight. He and his bride Jennifer were on the verge of adopting four boys, and he had successfully lured our youngest child, Sarah, from Florida to Iowa to be part of his team. Fast forward to today. Brandon's success has now grown into a full scale development group with Pizza Ranch restaurants, commercial buildings, and so much more.

Because Brandon brought Sarah back into the Midwest, sarah eventually moved to Missouri where she married her husband Caleb, and now we live here too. So you can say that Brandon's success impacted our family too, and the great town of Marionville, Missouri. So let's catch up on the highs and lows of the last decade and see what God has next for Brandon Pratt in the decade ahead. Brandon Pratt, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Brandon Pratt: Hey, it's good to be here. I cannot believe the first time we did this was 11 years ago. That is crazy.

Martha: I know, right?

Jim: 11 years ago, live on the radio, and we did it nine years ago live on the radio too, and I miss the radio stuff a little bit. It is what it is.

Brandon, in the last nine years, you became an instant father of four boys. You celebrated 20 years of marriage and a ton of business success, even through COVID. I know you had some tough times. What have you learned most about her Heavenly Father during those times?

Brandon Pratt: Wow. What a great question to start. First of all, it's great to be back, but he is always faithful and his plan is always his plan. And we can't see how to get from where we're at today to how we're gonna get through tomorrow, the bottom line is he's in control and you just have to trust him. I think you mentioned COVID briefly, and I don't know if that's something we wanna elaborate on, 'cause it was definitely a difficult time in my world, but at the end of the day, we got through it because of his grace and just trusting the process and trusting his plan.

Martha: And just perspective, because Jim set it up, you were in the restaurant world and in a lot of things where people gather. So no matter what business it was, people being together, just the reality of that, and we all had some choices to make about whether we were going to keep pursuing and be persistent and offer what you could. And it's been amazing to see that now you've got that behind you, but I'm sure everything is stronger and shored up in a new way because of that.

So let's talk about your marriage because when you are a businessman and you have so many irons in the fire, it's important that you figure out a way to keep the business from affecting your marriage in a negative way. So you are on the other side of 20 years with Jennifer. Tell us what you have done to help keep that business from affecting the marriage negatively.

Brandon Pratt: Appreciate that. First of all, my wife is my rock. She is everything in the world, everything on this planet earth, that means to me. And we've got a process that works. I work a ton of hours. I'm always working - life of a serial entrepreneur. It doesn't just start at seven in the morning and end at six at night, right?

I am on the phone or at city council meetings until 10, 11 o'clock sometimes. So it is all the time, and she's unbelievable to understand that's what it takes. Now the goal is that I'm doing that now, so that someday hopefully I can have the freedom to travel and enjoy and spend some real, real good quality time with her, hopefully not in the too distant long future.

But we've got a process that works that's different. A couple things that we do that's unique compared to maybe a lot of people is I say she handles 90% of the decisions, and that's real. And I handle 10%. The difference is the 10% that I handle are the big decisions, the financing of a house, the buying of a vehicle, the retirement, what that looks like. She handles the day-to-day stuff and it doesn't work for everybody, but it works for us. We're fortunate that she's a stay-at-home mom. And that job is way harder than anything I do.

Jim: That's for sure. (chuckling)

Brandon Pratt: Especially in our circumstance. I'm sure we're gonna talk a little bit about our adoption process, but yeah, so it's not easy what she does, but we have a routine. Every morning we get the kids off to school and my entire team, executive team, knows that, hey, from that 7 to 7:30 timeframe, my wife and I sit down, we go through our schedule for the day.

Usually on Mondays we go through our schedule for the week, but then we go through our schedule for the day and she says, this is when I need you by. This is where you need to be to pick up kids. This is where you need to go and be here by this time. And she handles all the scheduling. She just tells me where I need to go and that, that seems to work.

But if you asked her the flip side, Hey, how many years do we have left on our mortgage on our house? She's not gonna have any clue. She's not even gonna know where the mortgage is at, which could be its own cause of concerns, but that's just how we operate and it works well.

Martha: Dividing and conquering, and knowing what lane you're in, and like you said, knowing that it works for you guys is really a key factor in that. I love the fact that you sit down and communicate though, because that's where the breakdown can begin in any relationship is if you just, it's on your calendar, or we talked about it two weeks ago on a Friday night at 11:30 when we had two minutes together.

Jim: You never talk about serious things on Friday nights at 11:30. It's a very bad idea.

But Bubba, I gotta believe the prayer fits in there somewhere and you may think it goes without saying, but I know in that time prayer plays a part in your marriage. What part does it play?

Brandon Pratt: Yeah. Everybody has spiritual gifts and everybody has different things that, that God puts on their heart that they do great and that they do bad. My mother, Martha, your sister, is a prayer warrior, and that is something that she instilled in me. So I am one of those guys that, multiple times throughout the day, I'm praying usually little prayers. Some people will say, you get that little, the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, and you walk by and you see something and you want to act on it, and then you say, oh, I'm not gonna act on it.

That happens to me so many times throughout the day, and I take that as an opportunity to just maybe see somebody walking down the street that is in a wheelchair, right? Or that's a bad example. Wouldn't be walking down the street, they're in a wheelchair, but maybe they're injured or they're hurt, or they're struggling. Or somebody in my office. I believe in not saying, Hey, I'm gonna pray for you. Instead, I say, let's just pray right now. And prayer is probably my biggest spiritual gift. That's probably the one place that I make a difference in terms of the family world.

Something that we've gotten in the habit of doing with our boys is before we have that quiet time in the morning with my wife and I, we usually pick up a daily devotional and we read that daily devotional as a group, and usually it's tied to a couple Bible verses. We'll talk about that and we'll explain what those mean and then we'll close into prayer as a group.

And if you ask my boys, every day the thing that I say every day to them, and I'll say some version of it, I'll say "follower of Christ." And they'll say, "leader of men," or I'll say "leader of men." And they'll say, "follower of Christ." And it's just our little connection before the family leaves for the day to say, Hey, we wanna be rooted in integrity. We wanna put Jesus first, and we wanna lead people. And so that's our morning routine. That's where I do a lot of my prayer time as a family and then obviously throughout the day a lot of quiet time by myself.

Martha: And I think that's really powerful, Brandon, for our listeners to hear that, because we do need to call out the man in our boys. And that is powerful. I'm just sitting here trying to process that, that they have no idea what that impact is gonna have on their life, but you are calling them to something great for the kingdom and it's a mantle for men to wear that and to lead well in whatever God's given them, whether it is business or whether it's athletics, or whether it is a civic duty, whatever it might be. Leadership from a godly perspective is something that this world can really use.

So let's talk a little bit more about your fatherhood. So you became an instant father of four boys. How many years has it been Now we're coming.

Brandon Pratt: We, yeah we adopted our four boys from Brazil in 2016. So we were nine years in December.

Martha: Okay.

Brandon Pratt: It'll be 10 years this year.

Martha: Which is just amazing to see how these little boys and your family has all changed and grown so much. So how did fatherhood impact your work life? We all think, oh, life's not gonna change. How did it impact you?

Brandon Pratt: Yeah, go back to your opening question on navigating the crazy world that we're in and just you have to have the ultimate trust that God's plan is that plan. And I bring that up because when we adopted our four boys, we had no clue what was gonna take place. We still don't have any clue what's gonna happen tomorrow.

And so we walk in trust every single day, that's the first thing. The second thing is, before we adopted children, I used to work all the time, anywhere, anytime. My wife could travel with us, if I had a project in Des Moines or in Missouri or Minnesota or Florida, we could travel and just go do that.

And obviously now, especially now, 'cause our boys are, we got some birthdays coming up, so I'm just gonna 16, 15. 13 and 11. They're in the heart of youth sports. My staff and everybody who's close to me knows Hey, no meetings after four o'clock right now. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna work. Doesn't mean I might not come back, but don't schedule anything.

Last night we had a game at four and a game at 6:30. So my point with that is it's definitely impacted the way I work, how I work, and is it is affected more than just me. It's affected my team. So one of the things, and I want to maybe I'll end on this point or bring it home here. It's made me actually focus on working more in the community that I live in.

We used to travel a lot. We used to be able to go and work wherever, and I just can't do that anymore. It's tough to do a project three hours away and make sure I'm here at home by four o'clock for a basketball game. So it's brought me back to my roots, which is in North Liberty, Iowa, and that's where the majority of our work is right now. And without my four boys, I'm not sure that's where we'd be doing all of our work. We're blessed to be here. I think it pointed us here for a good reason.

Martha: Okay, so that made me think of something I just wanted to comment on real quick. When you are a businessman and a family man and doing all of that in your own community, what kind of standard does that make you live up to?

Brandon Pratt: High ones for sure. And actually I don't use this for political reasons. I use it for truth, but that's one of the things that I say when I'm at a city council meeting, as an example. We've got a project that we're doing in our town that - not everybody likes growth. We're in one of the fastest growing cities in the state of Iowa and really almost in the country. We've experienced incredible growth here. And there's an old part of town that was the original part of town and we're doing a project right next to that old part of town, and not everybody loves that.

And I stood up at council a few weeks ago and said, Hey the great news is I wear my integrity on my sleeve. We're local, we're based here. You can see the other projects we've done. We're not gonna do anything that's gonna hurt the community. I'm not an out of town developer's gonna come in, do the right project or the wrong project, then leave town and not care what happens.

I'm gonna see you in the shopping centers. I'm gonna see you at Aldi. So at the end of the day, I've gotta do it the right way. Not that we wouldn't anyways, but there's that little extra maybe confirmation, not just for me, but confirmation for the community that, hey, this is the guy we want to do the project because he lives here. This is part of his community.

Jim: But you mentioned politics, and my question is... you've already got, you have a great governor right now in Iowa, but that doesn't mean you can't run for mayor in your own town. Or maybe is there a political future there for you?

Brandon Pratt: Did you run this question by my wife?

Jim: I did not run this. No, I did not. I didn't, there was no questions of Jennifer before the podcast.

Brandon Pratt: Okay. All right. So I have, joking aside, I have told my wife in the past that, given what's taken place in my opinion over the last eight to 10 years, that maybe there's an opportunity someday, not because I want to, but because I feel called to and because I need to. She does not like that idea. At all.

Martha: She and I can talk. (laughter) I get that. I get that full. I get that full.

Jim: And for the audience listening, just what Martha's referring to is that we are running for mayor in our little town in Marionville, Missouri, and it's because of exactly what Brandon's saying. There's stuff that needs to be done and it's time for believers to stand up and do it and get involved.

Martha: And you say we, because you are running, but it is a commitment as a family. And no matter how you're involved in your community, it's important to be a part of the decision making that's happening. And I know you get called to a lot of meetings for different reasons, but I just love the fact that you can go to a soccer game or you can go to a basketball game and still be the father and the businessman because you're being the same person wherever you go, Brandon.

And that really does speak loudly. So you know, as we talk about families, it is a reality that most of our families use our mobile devices and computers for not only listening to music and podcasts, but also for conducting our business and communicating with others. As Brandon says, as he's out on the go and doing all the different things.

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Jim: Brandon, like we said at the beginning of the show, nine years since we last checked in with you.

Martha: We've talked to him since nine years, but on the show. (chuckling)

Jim: And I have no idea how it got to be nine years. All right. What's been the highest high of the last nine years? How did you experience God in that high?

Brandon Pratt: I think right the highest highs sometimes come out of the lowest lows. And we talked a little bit about COVID earlier. Martha brought it up. But we were in the restaurant industry and not only were we in the restaurant industry, but we are a buffet concept in the restaurant industry. So we were really the tip of the spear when it came to COVID. We were the first to shut down, the last to come back.

We're still dealing with, five years later, transaction counts being lower than they were in 2019. So we're not back to where we need to be, which is tough to say out loud. However, I'm gonna answer your question by saying we survived. And it really is- I look back, it was only by the grace of God. Specifically Pizza Ranch is a Christian faith-based company. We're in 22, 23 states, something like that. And I can just remember through that whole process, anybody who wanted to, hundreds of people got together on Zoom calls and phone calls where we uplifted each other in prayer and just to protect our brand.

And we shouldn't have survived. A lot of brands didn't survive. If you could hand pick a brand and say they're not gonna make it through COVID, it would've been Pizza Ranch, and, I wouldn't say we're stronger than we were before. I think operationally we're better. We're doing things different and I have faith that we're going to be stronger than we were before. But just the fact that we survived is just a testament to God. It really is.

Martha: That is so powerful and I hope that people hear that and be reminded, it's hard sometimes to look back at those hard lows and what God did in the midst of them, but we've all experienced them in one way or another. And to remember that he is so faithful. And it doesn't always mean that things are better and survive more and but you can see his hand growing you in the midst of it.

Jim: And Brandon, we also have said on the show that God uses adversity in our lives to take us from who we are to who he can use more effectively. How do you see God using you more effectively today because of that high slash low period during the last five years?

Brandon Pratt: It's a follow up from your question that you just asked. It's a good segue. So probably the true high moment that I had, just took place in 2025. I was honored to be named from two different organizations as an entrepreneur of the year, and I was super blessed, super humbled. It was an amazing opportunity and one of them in particular had an opportunity to give a speech in front of I would argue a thousand of the most influential, successful business people in eastern Iowa. It was a banquet.

My whole family got dressed up in tuxedos. They honored us. It was spectacular. But the day before I went up, I had my speech written and the day before I went up, God just put on my heart that was supposed to take that opportunity to do more. And ended up basically telling our story, but really almost did an altar call and really spoke towards why I was there and talked about the good times and the bad times. And I think it really impacted some people. And I talked about Jesus and it was bold. I didn't clear it before I went up, but I did say, Hey, I need to make sure you guys are okay.

You said I can talk about anything I want to talk about. And so I took that opportunity to give the glory to God and praise him and I had people come up afterwards that said, we weren't expecting that and that was as good as I've ever heard at this organization, at this event. And so that was probably the true high.

But to answer your question, I wouldn't have gotten that had we not gone through that low. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have been able to sit up on that stage in front of a thousand people and not necessarily preach the gospel, but at least tell people about Jesus and, COVID might have happened just for that one reason. And you go back to the, your very first question, it was like you just gotta trust the process and trust the plan.

Martha: So powerful. I was gonna ask you about your kingdom culture and if you've been able to preserve that through all of the growth, but I will tell you just a comment on what you just said, is that I can guarantee you that those organizers were not surprised by you, by what you did, get up and share because you do live it out but what does that look like with all of your employees, with the franchises, the partners you have in different projects and things like that? Are your people feeling the effects of your faith in their daily work?

Brandon Pratt: Yeah. So I talked about Pizza Ranch. And Pizza Ranch is faith-based, right? Our mission statement is to glorify God, period. That's it.

Martha: It doesn't even say through pizza and roasted chicken? (laughing)

Brandon Pratt: No. So it used to be to glorify God while positively impacting the world. That was what it was originally. And then they just short it and said to glorify God. So that's known.

Lion Development side, which is, mostly the real estate side. We do most of the real estate development, construction management, et cetera. Same thing, faith-based company. I dunno if you can tell, the i inside of Lion is the stake that went through Christ. That's the symbol there. I dunno if you can see that, but it is a numbers game, right? So we're at the point now that we employ over 600 people, which is crazy to say that. And not everybody's gonna be a believer. Not everybody's gonna love that they work for a faith-based company. Doesn't mean we hide from it, right?

We are who we are. It's everywhere. It's our mission statement. It's who we are. It's what we talk about. It's, you go to LinkedIn, it's the first thing on LinkedIn. You go to our website, it's the first thing on the website. So we walk and we don't tell people, Hey, listen, you have to be a Christian to work at our company. Exactly the opposite.

Jim: Good. That'd be ridiculous, 'cause how would you ever reach anybody for Christ if you only hired Christians? Come on.

Brandon Pratt: Boom. There you go. We just, we hired somebody not that long ago, and actually in the interview they said, Hey, I just wanna be honest with you, that is not something I believe in, and is that gonna be a problem? And I said, absolutely not. I said, now I know what to pray for. So I'm excited you're gonna be part of that. One thing it does, because we do talk about it all the time, is it allows us to be open and transparent, right?

Yeah. We are who we are. We're not gonna run from it. We're not ashamed of it. And it's okay if you believe in something different, which just means we've got a new mission.

Jim: Wow. When you talk about doing things the right way, it's important to seek God's will. Ask him where you should spend your time and see if he'd lead you to join us this year at a couple of Faith and work events in 2026.

They're all listed on our events page. iwork4him.com/events. But a couple that I wanna highlight today include the US Christian Chamber of Commerce event in April in Orlando, online at swc2026.com with a theme of Yes&. what's God asking you for? He just wants you to be able to say "yes and" whatever else, Lord.

And also the National Faith and Work Summit in Cincinnati in June. Martha and I are MCing both events, so let's be sure you get registered and we can see you soon and experience both of those events together.

Brandon Pratt. You're no longer a rookie entrepreneur. You're a veteran entrepreneur. I know that just makes it so that you sound old. You're not as old as me, so that's okay. But you've got the scars to prove that you're a veteran entrepreneur now. So to those coming up on your heels, what's one thing, a powerful piece of advice that you would say to that budding Christ following entrepreneur of today?

Brandon Pratt: Yeah. Two things. Again, back to the first question. It's God's plan. It's not our plan. It's not by our hands, right? He's gonna, he's gonna set our path and the path's gonna be rocky and you just gotta keep pushing. And that's really the segue to the second part of that answer is it is not easy. People look at what we do and they see a fun vacation or he drives a nice car. He is in a great house.

But what they don't see is that I went to bed last night at 11 and I woke up at 12:30 ready to go to work today. Now I fell back asleep but my point with that is it's all the time. It's hard, it's stress on your family. The amount of stress that I carry is... spectacular is probably the word. And so you're gonna run into hard times and you just gotta trust in God and you gotta trust the process and you gotta keep moving. And when you quit and when you stop is I think truthfully when you go against this plan. I don't think he designed us to give up and I think he gives us the hard time to test us so that when we get to the other side, we can really see the true joy.

Martha: Such good words because I know all of us struggle at different times. I just can't do this anymore. I can't carry this. And I was even thinking this earlier when you were sharing your faith, it sounds beautiful that you got up and gave a speech, but getting to that point was not easy.

And so the reality is it's not you don't have blood, sweat, and tears through all of it. And so I don't want people to see this shiny polished picture and think, oh, that's the way it is. No, there's a lot of trials and errors and things that happen. You work with a whole bunch of humans that are fleshly and we all sin and all of that plays into it.

So let's talk about, we've been looking where have you come in the last nine or 10 years? And if you look to the future, that same amount of time. Okay, all your boys are gonna be outta high school.

Jim: Yeah. Nine years from now. Holy smokes.

Martha: Nine years from now. I imagine all these young men that you have been raising and then you will be in the next decade, fifties, in your fifties. So what is the legacy that you are really hoping will be developed in these next 10 years?

Brandon Pratt: Yeah. Fast forward, I'm hoping in nine years I'm retired. That really is the goal. I don't know that I'll ever fully be retired. I think you guys know me well enough to know it's in our blood. But at the end of the day, the hope is that I've got a sustainable business that I can pass on to the next generation. I think I'll still be involved.

I'll be crystal clear. I don't know that the, when I say the next generation, that means my boys. Just being honest with you. I don't know, for a hosts of reasons, that they're gonna be able to pick up the sword. But I want to be able to develop a team internally that can run with it, whether they become owners, whether we keep ownership and we do some sort of a employee profit sharing pool. I don't know what that looks like, but that's the goal.

To your point, my kids will be outta high school and I am gonna owe my wife some time. I go back to your last question. It's hard. What I do. It is a lot of sacrifices. And sometimes the wife does get the short end of the stick. She's already told me when the kids are outta the high school, that following summer, we're gonna go to Italy for a couple months.

So I already know exactly where I'm going to be eight years from now, and that summer, that's where I'm gonna be.

Jim: Eight years from now. Love that. Brandon Pratt, it's amazing to see. We get to live your journey behind the scenes as well, but it's fun to see how God has used you. When I look at how, when you and I worked alongside each other in '05, '06, '07 and '08, and, beginnings of '09, where you were as an entrepreneur then and where you are today and how God has worked incredibly in your life to be the kingdom entrepreneur that you are today, employing 600 people, impacting 600 families, is a great privilege that God doesn't hand to just anybody. So we're thrilled that you were able to share your story today. Is there any final things you wanna say to the audience today?

Brandon Pratt: You just gotta keep going forward. It's one day at a time. Don't worry about tomorrow's problems and don't look backwards, right? You could easily go back and say, man, I looked at COVID. I looked at the struggles of the adoption process. And that can't define you. What defines you is your faith in Jesus and the focus on today .And tomorrow, we'll worry about tomorrow when it comes. We took take it one day at a time. Root yourself in Jesus. Make sure your family is strong. Have the best wife or husband you can and everything will work out.

Jim: Thank you, Brandon Pratt, for being back on iWork4Him.

Brandon Pratt: Thanks guys. It was great.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4HIm with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.