4/22/26 - 2143: Building Bold Businesses in Minnesota

Jim: This is iWork4Him, where Faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Holly Misener lives and loves Minnesota. She also loves business, but more than anything else, she loves Jesus. How do you put all that love into one place and make an immediate difference? You launch the Minnesota Christian Chamber of Commerce. That's what you do as you.

Read in Esther, and as you read in Esther, Holly Misener was chosen for such a time as this. Minnesota isn't the same Minnesota I left 23 years ago. Minnesota has lacked ethical and moral leadership for decades and since Minnesotans aren't much for facing conflict, and it's certainly not doing conflict face on, Minnesota is in trouble. But God knew all this was coming, and for the last two decades, the rise of discipleship of Jesus following workplace believers has grown exponentially. Holly Misener felt the call of God to launch the Minnesota Christian Chamber of Commerce to take that encouragement of marketplace believers out into the open and formally take on the enemy who's trying to destroy her state.

Who knows, maybe you'll one day see Holly Misener running for governor. All kidding aside, but not really kidding, Holly Misener is on a mission in the marketplace where everyone plays. It's just that her marketplace is in Minnesota and it's now a spiritual war zone. Holly's here to share the battle stories and to celebrate all that God's doing in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. Holly, welcome to iWork4Him.

Holly Misener: Oh, thank you so much. I am excited to talk with you today, all about Minnesota and Jesus. Let's go.

Jim: Okay, so start off, every first time guest on this show always shares their Jesus story. Holly, why did you decide to follow Jesus?

Holly Misener: I said yes to Jesus, I was five years old, one of those that started out that way. Mom said, do you wanna know Jesus? I said, absolutely, said yes. Hold on, my friends. And then of course, fell away from the Lord in my twenties and have that typical story of finding myself in college and said, okay, I cannot do this on my own. I need help. I'm making my life a wreck. So I said yes to Jesus.

Fully surrendered my life in college, gave him my all, was on fire for him a hundred percent. But really to be honest, I'm so glad I said yes to Him in my twenties. I really got my foundations met. I really knew my theology. I went to a Bible college and got hit with a lot of hard things with my kids' medical and health issues, and so Jesus, to get through my kids' health journeys, very life threatening for about 10 years, Jesus was my everything.

So I said yes as a little girl. I really surrendered in college and I learned what it really means to give Jesus my everything when my kids went through their serious health issues. So now my children are doing well. Their health issues are stabilized, and I do have a daughter who is disabled, but she just loves Jesus as well. And so now I have new assignment from the Lord and new passions that I'm running after.

Jim: We like to say that those kids who, the people like to call 'em disabled, but they're really specially abled.

Holly Misener: Oh, she is.

Jim: That's right.

Holly Misener: She's a joy.

Jim: That's right. That's right. Yeah. So you went to a Bible school. Which Bible school did you go to?

Holly Misener: Good old Bethel.

Jim: Bethel.

Holly Misener: Bethel, yep.

Jim: Yeah. And Bethel College is one of those ones that's now University of Bethel, isn't it now? Or Bethel University. Again, those universities in Minnesota just need to go just a little bit deeper in their faith.

But one of those colleges that, I looked at it for seminary. I actually enrolled to Bethel Seminary and God said, nah, you can't handle having 400 bosses, so you're not gonna be a pastor for a local church. Alright, so why did you launch the Minnesota Christian Chamber of Commerce?

Holly Misener: I briefly mentioned that I had kids who had a lot of really serious medical and health issues, so my passion once they got healthy was to really help other people walk through health issues.

So I opened up a business. And I grew from a family of entrepreneurs. My dad is a entrepreneur. He owns a manufacturing company. And I always was that kind of, while I was raising my kids, that entrepreneur at heart, doing the stay at home business kind of things. And so now my kids are off in college and doing things, I opened up a wellness clinic.

So the name of my clinic is called His Healing House. And we help people in their, whatever their health issues are, whether they have digestion issues, brain fog, all the things. And I thought when I started the company that I was gonna keep my faith on the down low. I believed that idea you can't really talk about your faith in your business, it'll affect the bottom line. And so I figured the name of the company, His Healing House, if you knew who's "His," it's Jesus. It's His Healing House. And I knew right away the non-Christians would be like, what is that? Because I'm a female.

But the Christians always knew. That's as far as I thought I would take my faith in the workplace. But before I knew it, I fundamentally believe that Jesus is the ultimate healer. So here I have clients coming in all the time looking for physical healing, but they truly need spiritual healing and they need Jesus.

And so as I developed relationships with clients and was, and just would ask, can I say a blessing for you? Can I pray for you? My not so subtle, I'm a Christian business owner turned into a reputation of the girl who loves Jesus and will pray for you. And all of a sudden, people were getting healed left and right in my clinic.

And my, my reputation for loving Jesus just flowed. So as I built my business and realized i'm not gonna do the way "I'm supposed to do it." I'm just gonna love Jesus, respect and honor people in front of me, and just see what happens. My business flourished, but I realized in Minnesota, other business owners need permission to do that.

And because I was doing that in my own business, when I got presented with the opportunity to - I met Mina Carlson, is the vice president of the US Christian Chamber of Commerce, and I met her here. She's from Minnesota, and she said something about this Christian chamber, and I'm a business owner, so I do networking, I do all the things.

And I said, why don't we have one in Minnesota? And she said we're just waiting for the right person. And you know how the Lord tells you something? And you're like, uh oh. And so I said, oh, I'll pray on that, which really meant, I knew I was supposed to, but I'll pray on it.

Jim: Hoping that God would just tell you no.

Holly Misener: Yeah. That's what you're hoping. And he didn't, and so I said yes. I was like, okay, I think I need to do this. Now the interesting thing is that, my business is in startup phase as well, and so I really wasn't sure if I had the capacity to start the chamber plus keep my business going.

But I felt the Lord, this was a year ago, very much saying, you need to do this for, it's for such a time as this. I would have no idea what is gonna happen in Minnesota within the last few months. But I, the Lord knew. And so we launched last October, officially the Minnesota Christian Chamber of Commerce.

Jim: So very exciting, 'cause of all the places, those of you listening that don't know anything about Minnesota, you gotta go. It's a great place. And all I know on the news, it doesn't really sound like a great place. There's some political issues, seriously political issues there, but it's a incredible state.

Not only does it have 10,000 plus lakes, 20,000 plus ponds. It's got really neat people with great traditions. Weird food. Don't try the lutefisk. Don't. Don't even try it. Let it go. Just say, I'm good.

Holly Misener: Yeah.

Jim: Holly, the state of things in Minnesota seem to get dictated by the state of things in Minneapolis and St. Paul. And the really, the nine County Metro, they call it the seven County Metro, but it became nine county Metro 25 years back. What's the reality of the marketplace in the nine county, Twin city metro?

Holly Misener: It's been fascinating because there's hunger here. Every great thing has usually comes out of suffering. And so when the Lord said, Holly, you're gonna start the chamber. You need to do it. I held back for probably eight months, and then someone else came in " you have to start this now." So I started in October and then January hit, and yet, if you don't know, if you haven't watched the national news, a lot of things came out in Minnesota.

And really out of all of that, christian business owners, we need to unite. But now I don't have to tell them. They're seeing for themselves. 'cause if we don't unite, we're gonna get buried 'cause there just really is too much. And that excites me because oftentimes out of suffering, out of oppression, out of hardship is really when all of a sudden there's, the chaff gets blown away and the seed rises and we are ready for it to go.

Jim: Again, another farming reference, which if you've never seen them separate wheat from the chaff, you just gotta watch them harvest those fields in July and August. It's fantastic.

Holly, the reality is though, it's not only the business owners need to unite, we need to get Christian business owners, people following Jesus who own businesses to run for city council, to run for mayor, to run for Lieutenant Governor, attorney General, for governor, for crying out loud.

I won't say anything, but I'm pretty sure you could find somebody with a little more ethics and morality than your current slate of candidates. What's it gonna take for Christian business people to say, I've had enough.

Holly Misener: I don't know exactly. What I do know is what they need to do. We need to stop this lie that we need to keep our faith on Sunday morning and not bring it into the marketplace.

We need to stop this lie that says, oh my gosh, if I'm bold about my faith, i'm gonna either lose revenue or not be seen or not be respected. I don't think so. We are in a different world and people are hungry for the real and the truth. And so what we need to do is have wisdom and not be weird, but we can just have wisdom and bring our faith in entirely.

And I feel like that's what I wanna do in the chamber is empower people that you can run a business and be overtly faith-based. You can run a business and have people, maybe different communities that I don't agree with or maybe different beliefs or maybe lifestyles, all those things I see. And what I fundamentally do is show them Jesus, love them, but I hold firm. I don't hide my faith in order to love people.

And so I think that with the Chamber specifically, my role is to give people permission that you can be bold and we don't have to walk that same thing of saying, oh, we can't, we have to separate that. And then I think you're exactly right. We need to empower. If we really wanna make change, you start local, you start in your small government, school boards, your things, and you bring your wisdom and faith and integrity there. And I think the more I have talked about Jesus in my faith with honor and respect, not pushy, but people are actually very open to it. So that's what I think.

Jim: Absoluately. People want truth.There's no question about that. And I love that answer because the first thing people need to do is to realize that the other 167 is the most significant hours of our lives. We go to a church an hour on Sunday, but the other 167 is where our faith is supposed to be lived out. And too many of us have been told you just need to leave your faith at the door. You don't wanna offend anybody.

Guess what? Most other religions wanna be offensive. Why can't we just tell the truth? Because our truth, Jesus said, people will be offended, your brothers, your mothers, your sisters. But people also need the truth and it's amazing. I started learning how to pray in the marketplace, probably, I dunno, sometime 2010, 2011. I've prayed with thousands of people. Over at Panera, over a mountain dew or a cup of coffee at a Starbucks, which I try to avoid those, but over lunches all across the country, I prayed with people because people are hurting and when they share their story, they love that we'll pray for them.

Holly Misener: Are they offended? Do you find them offended when you ask?

Jim: No, because I always ask permission. I've prayed with, I've prayed with Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jews, atheists, agnostics, and I always say, Hey, thanks for sharing that. Can I pray with you about that right now?

Holly Misener: Yeah.

Jim: And never has anybody told me no.

Holly, Minnesota's a big state. If you start off in the southeastern corner and you drive all the way up to the Northwestern corner, it'd take you 10 hours or more at a pretty good clip. That's a lot of territory to cover and you got a lot of different cultures from the International Falls culture to the North Dakota on the Edge Moorhead culture way to the Iron Range culture on the shores of Lake Superior Way to the Western where the wind never stops blowing in Fairmont, Minnesota, way down to the Mississippi River Valley. Talk about a state!

How are you going to take the goodness of the Minnesota Christian Chamber and spread it across the state in an encouragement to people in small towns? Minnesota's got a lot of small towns. How are you gonna, how are you gonna spread that across the state?

Holly Misener: This is what I think, Minnesota's a very key state for a lot of reasons, and we are positioned right dead center in the top, north center of the nation. And I think that is more than just like our placement geographically, but I think that we are a key state for the nation. And so I know that our, my personal mission is to impact the entire state of Minnesota. And so how I'm gonna do that, I think God's gonna do it. I think God is gonna raise up leaders.

I think we are gonna start and we are gonna multiply and we are gonna expand the territory, span the 10 pigs because people are hungry for real. They're hungry for truth, they're hungry for Jesus. We're coming out of this place of continually, the oppression of Minnesota, politically, all of the things.

And so people are raising up. And so I think there just needs to be leadership at the helm, that there are more leaders, not just me, but there's a team of people around me that we're gonna raise up and then we're gonna expand one by one and we're gonna take over Minnesota. And guess what? I'll take over Minnesota, but then we will impact the nation.

And I don't, I am not giving up on the nation. I am not gonna give up on the US. I am not gonna give up on Minnesota. I love my state. I'm placed here. You cannot pray for a state you don't love. I love Minnesota. I see wounds that she has. I see sin that she's living in, but I have no doubt in my mind that God's heart is still for Minnesota, that he weeps for the things in the sin that's here in Minnesota, and that it's just gonna be a ripple effect of transformation. And I'm excited about it.

Jim: Love that. I love that. And people don't realize that Minnesota is actually the tech center for all medical devices in the world, between Boston Scientific and the Medtronic - Minnesota, that's, it's the headquarters for that stuff. And it's also the headquarters of 3M, which everybody knows 3M. Everybody's had post-it notes, so we all, and they've made a few other things besides Post-it notes.

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Alright, Holly, what's your main focus at the Minnesota Christian Chamber of Commerce? You're just launching, you only launched six months ago. What is your main focus?

Holly Misener: I really do wanna empower business leaders that are rooted in the word of God, carrying the heart of God, and following the Holy Spirit to lead us. He is the ultimate leader. I tell people all the time, Jesus is the best politician, the best governor, the best doctor, the best realtor, the best everything. And when we follow his leadership and we lead our businesses and our communities in this sphere of influence that God is entrusted with us, we're gonna do way more.

So some people have a small sphere of influence. We need to empower them. Some people have a bigger or a governmental, we need to empower them and back them up for the assignment God has for them.

Jim: But what does that look like? Gimme the practical. What's that look like to empower?

Holly Misener: So we're getting people together, we're building vision, and then we do the day-to-day, we do the networking groups. We're praying, we have a prayer team and intercession. Do you know how many people have not surrendered their business to the Lord?

Jim: Most of them.

Holly Misener: I know.

Jim: Maybe that was a question you didn't expect the answer, but it's 95% of believers don't realize that God has anything to do with business. Most of 'em been taught that business is a necessary evil instead of the fact that our savior grew up in a family of a small business owner. Yeah, we gotta look at it, but Christians just don't realize God gave us business to minister to the world, to solve the problems of the world, not to get rich and not to collect it all for ourselves, but to be a blessing and a pipeline to flow through to others. Okay. Sorry, this is your show.

Holly Misener: Yeah, we could go off, but honestly though, I really believe that Christian business owners should be financially stable. We should not have to go somewhere else. We should be the ones living on a generosity, right? And we're the ones who are stewarding our businesses by God, when then he's blessing them and financially, and we are living where we are not running after the status of money, but that we're living in generosity.

So practically we just gotta get, we gotta network together. We gotta do business together. We gotta pass money back and forth to each other. We gotta be aligned. We need to be in community so that we are emboldened to walk out these principles that we are given by the Lord and not be just on an island all by ourself. We will drown in Minnesota if we are island Christians, island business owners. But we're gonna unite. We're gonna come together, and we really are gonna impact the state of Minnesota.

Jim: Will that drowning be in the deep lakes up there in the Mississippi River Valley of northern Minnesota will be in the peat bogs in southwestern Minnesota? (chuckling) But that drowning can happen. Literally we need to understand that our faith will transform our business. 'Cause it's not about the, just about the revenue. How about the impact on your employees? When you dedicate your business to the Lord, you become the pastor of your small church, whatever that business is called, and those employees become your mission field.

Don't just go hiring a bunch of people and say they're believers. Hire people that need to meet Jesus and minister to those people on a daily basis. At the same time you're providing food and shelter for them. That's the incredible mission of a business person. You get a chance to do so much ministry. Alright, so what do you think some of the challenges are that you're gonna face in growing the Minnesota Christian Chamber?

Holly Misener: Right now at the moment, we have a lot of momentum and excitement 'cause people are hungry. I think that people wanna come together. I think that we're creating a community like what I've talked about, and people are ready.

The biggest challenges, honestly, is just breaking this lie that we have to keep keep our faith private. I just don't think so. I think we learn in wisdom, we walk in wisdom. We're not weird, we're not pushy, we're not, but Jesus wasn't any of those things either. So I think as we bring our faith in the way that each person feels called into the marketplace, and as you said, we minister to our employees, we minister to our clients, we minister to vendors, we minister to those meaning we love them, we show up with integrity, we are financially responsible and generous.

Do you know if Christians were the most generous people, how actually the testimony of who we are would probably impact more people than what we said? And so I just think as we show up that way, we're gonna impact more people. And so it's just getting people out of keeping their faith at home.

Jim: It's not just generosity, it's also, Hey, how about pay your bills on time? How about don't, if somebody gives you 30 days, pay the bill when you owe it. Don't stretch 'em out to 60 or 90 days. As believers, everything about us should be different than the world. We should be setting those standards and it should be impacting everybody around us, whether they believe in Jesus or not. Everybody that does business with us, whether they're vendors or whether they're customers, should realize that when they do business with us, it just feels different.

They're not sure why. But it feels different. Holly, one of the events that Martha and I are involved in this year is the Faith at Work Summit this coming up in June in Cincinnati. I don't know if you heard about this yet. We wanna invite everybody in the audience to come check it out.

It is a gathering of faith and work ministries and people involved in the faith and work movement. People that are discipling people in the workplace, people that are just workplace believers that wanna know what does this look like all happening at the Faith and Work Summit in Cincinnati, June 17th to the 19th. Check it out online at faithatworksummit2026.org.

Holly Misener: I'll be there.

Jim: You're gonna be there? So we're gonna get to meet each other face to face. Nice. I love that. All right. Fantastic. All right. I look forward to seeing you there.

So what are some of the victories you've already seen at the Minnesota Christian Chamber? What are some of the things that you've, " oh God, you did that."

Holly Misener: Yeah I'm a little humbled by the way, right away. The Lord is, he knows what he's doing, but some of the victories, honestly, are just the people that we're getting, we're already impacting. Amazing companies we're already impacting, amazing team to be able to walk out some of the small day-to-day things that business owners need, that prayer for their business and networking, all those kind of things.

But that we're also having amazing events that have such momentum where we are, we're living the gospel. I feel like we're actually even doing marketplace ministry in the chamber. Like we're living it out. We had one lady come in and be like, this just feels like my people. This could be my church. I'm like, yeah, let's just live life together, build businesses and impact Minnesota. So those are some of the victories, just the quick growth. We are growing and had a lot of growth right away. And yeah. I'm just excited. I know this year is gonna be a key year for what we're gonna be doing.

Jim: So you're running your own business, you're running the Minnesota Christian Chamber of Commerce. You got people on your teams, but you're also a mom, a wife. How do you make sure that the business and the business or the US Christian Chamber of Commerce, the both of them, don't interfere with your role as mom and wife?

Holly Misener: You know what? I am a firm believer on Sabbath-ing, that I do not work on Sunday. If I work on Sunday, it's just a mental check. Who's got my business? Do I really need to be there? 'cause I think Jesus will be fine. So I really do not work on Sundays and just spend time with my family and get filled up in the things. I also really believe, if we as leaders, we are not taking care of ourselves and our families first, we are no good to the places that we're at.

And so if I go and try to build amazing business in an amazing chamber or ministry, and my family's falling apart, I have lost. So my first sphere of influence is my family, and then I protect that by having a Sabbath and doing things with them. And then from there, then I love building businesses and doing everything, and I just run with it.

Jim: Oh, I love that. And I love your heart. You're making such an impact everywhere you go. What do you think is the next big thing, 2026, for the Minnesota Christian Chamber of Commerce as we finish up our conversation today?

Holly Misener: What do I think the next big thing is for 2026?

Jim: Yeah. And you've got, you got eight months left. If you could accomplish it by the end of the year, this is what you wanna accomplish.

Holly Misener: I have some goals in my mind. I just really wanna impact Minnesota and I cannot impact Minnesota as one person. So when I think about this, you are right, I wanna cover every sphere. I wanna go from the top to the iron range. And I do want this to spread out. So if we can double the amount of chapters that we're local, that we're meeting the local needs for each place. 'cause you're right, Duluth is different than Minneapolis. I'm gonna feel like, okay, Lord, that you are not only seeing the big picture, the state, but you're taking care of each person in their communities.

Jim: That's fabulous. I love that. And, I wanna make sure that I capture your heart in this interview. And I think we have. We didn't talk before this interview, but you've got a heart for Minnesota and you really wanna see believers in the marketplace who are running businesses, involved in business, have an opportunity to get built up in their faith. People wanna check you out. Where's the best place for them to go?

Holly Misener: Minnesota Christian chamber.org, but it's mnchristianchamber.org. Come check us out. We have a lot of events popping up. We do three or four events a month. And so find an event that you, that fits where you're at. I wanna meet you. I wanna meet you. I wanna shake your hand. I wanna say hi. And get an event, get plugged in, and more importantly, join our mission. I cannot do this alone. Join the mission. Let's impact Minnesota.

I don't want three years from now, people hear I'm from Minnesota and cringe. I want people to say, oh gosh, you're from Minnesota. Were you a part of that change? And that's what I'm running after.

Jim: I love that. Holly Misener, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for running and stepping forward to take on the Minnesota Christian Chamber and our hope is next year when we check back with you, things have gone all over the state and the impact's already being felt. Holly Misener, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today.

Holly Misener: Awesome. Thank you.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim Brangenberg. I'm a Christ follower. My workplace it's my mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.