4/17/24 - 2038: Make Each Day Sacred

Bill Hollis: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Marketplace, A Kingdom Perspective. Tonight we have a wonderful guest all the way from America, and they have a ministry called iWork4Him. And I'm sure Jim and Martha Brangenberg will be able to share a wonderful testimony and to bring revelation to the listeners about how, when we go to the marketplace, God wants us to work with him.

Welcome Jim and Martha.

Jim: Thanks Bill. Glad to be here.

Martha: Thanks for having us.

Bill Hollis: It's wonderful to be with you and maybe we can just share a little bit of your journey, how to get you a small short testimony, and then we'll ask you a little bit about the more important thing about how do we work for the Lord when we go to work.

Jim: Our story, Bill, comes together as 13 year olds where we both committed our lives to full time Christian ministry at a youth conference three years before we met. We met at 16 at our youth group at church and quickly became friends and at 17, almost 18, we started dating and got married between our 20th birthdays.

So we've been married almost 38 years. We both had an entrepreneurial spirit. Martha grew up in an entrepreneurial family. I was an entrepreneur, but we had that commitment to full time Christian ministry. And in that commitment, we thought that meant we were going to work in a church or we were going to be on the foreign mission field. That's what Martha thought.

But yet we both loved business. And so we had this struggle. Twice we tried enrolling in seminary. Twice God said, no, It was embarrassing because he sent the senior pastors of our church twice to tell us no. But they couldn't then make the connection: hey, your ministry calling is really your mission field

Martha: Yeah, so after we wrestled with that and actually through some devotions of Os Hillman's started to understand what the scripture actually talks about our work, right?

It talks about, so many times we compartmentalize what we read in scripture and say this is, I'm going to apply this to my family, or I'm going to apply this to my neighborhood, or maybe some youth work that I'm going to do. But in our nine to five, how are we applying the scripture?

 If Jesus really transform me, he transforms all 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And so with that realization came some adjustments that we needed to make in our own thinking that we actually were in full time Christian ministry. As entrepreneurs that God gave us a mission field that no one else has and how are we going to handle that?

Jim: And so at about 40, that's when that realization came. That's when Os Hillman invaded our lives with his daily today got his first devotionals And we started studying this, started working this, and started recognizing our workplace as our mission field, our place of ministry, assigned place of ministry, The guilt was gone that we needed to quit our jobs to go work at a church, but we kept running into Christians who were in business.

And we just said, we just started telling people, please don't tell people, Jesus, if you're going to act that way. But of course the problem wasn't the people. It was that they'd never, ever had heard a sermon that said that their work mattered to God. They'd never, ever heard the truth that their workplace was their ministry place that God gave them those skills on purpose.

And so we started just trying to teach people. Five ways incorporate your faith into your work. We now call that the iWork4Him nation. And one day I was speaking about that and sat down in the room next to the only person I didn't know and she goes, Jim, you need to talk about that on the radio. And I'm like, no.

And she goes, yes. Long story short, we had asked the Lord several years earlier for a job where our success could never be attributed to our natural gifts, talents and abilities. And that was radio because we'd never have done radio. It wasn't on our bucket list. So we started going on the radio 11 years ago, almost 11 years ago.

Just Covering people's stories of living out their faith at work, covering authors, ministries, and just really encouraging people that their work really is their mission field. And that's where iWork4Him came from. It was birthed out of a networking group where some lady said, you need to talk about that on the radio.

And now today, 2700 plus podcasts later, interviews of over 4, 000 different people. We, you know, have influence over a lot of people and we're always just trying to get our listeners to connect the ministries that will disciple them deeper on how to connect their faith to their work.

Bill Hollis: I have a similar story where I was also waiting to go into the ministry and God put a DVD in my hands about the late Brian Power, who had started the World Day of Prayer, and his testimony of work.

And I'll never forget that night, I got on my knees in front of the TV, repented, and asked God to forgive me. Because I was waiting to go into ministry, and He was waiting for me to minister where I was. So it's a wonderful testimony. I think God is speaking to Christians all over the world in the marketplace and bringing together a lot of voices to build the kingdom and to - and the other night I was praying and the Lord just said - to unlock, I'm just going to get the words right... the sleeping giant.

Jim: And the way we put it in our really in how we talk about is unlocking God's purpose for your work or unlocking God's purpose in your retirement because that's another problem. I don't know anything about South Africa, but in America, American Christians think that when they retire their calling retires, that when they retire they're done. They get the next 30 years for vacation instead of recognizing the fact that retirement's just a different phase of life and that if when you retire, Martha, what happens?

Martha: Yeah, your calling keeps on going. And it may be refined. It may look different. You may get an opportunity to make some new choices, but all of those years of hardship, of learning, of training, of wisdom that we've gleaned in our work should not be wasted, especially for the kingdom.

Jim: You want me to say it? When you retired, your calling didn't retire. If you got a pulse, you have a purpose. If you're not dead, God's not done with you.

Bill Hollis: The interesting thing, I'm not sure how accurate I am, but I heard in Hebrew, there's no word for retire because God has no plan for us to retire. He just wants us to refire and fulfill the plan and the destiny He has for us.

So let's just chat a little bit about how people can find purpose in the marketplace, because I think that's the issue that really people lack. They don't realize that they have a purpose in the marketplace, for God to use them and that they are, which I call ministers for God.

Martha: I think first people have to recognize where they got the abilities to do their work and God gave me a specific set of gifts, talents and abilities to do a work, not just - a lot of people think it's a ministry work, but actual work. Like to do accounting, to do projects, to keep or things organized, to speak well into the people that I lead.

All of those things God has equipped me with. Number one is understanding that we have a purpose for why God gave us all of those abilities, right? And sometimes we're not in a job that's actually even using those abilities. And so it's a little harder to feel like there's purpose in our work. But it goes way beyond just that, because we may be providing for our family. We may be helping our community to meet a certain resource or need or a service that is a bigger purpose than beyond ourselves. So I think there's so many different layers and levels to that conversation. And then, in that work, wherever God has us for this season, it may be a three month job or it may be a 30 year job.

What is my purpose in being there beyond doing really good work? How am I touching the lives of the people that God brings to me? In our work, we don't even have to go find them a lot of times. They're either another employee or they're a customer or they're a vendor. What is my purpose with each and every one of those people and how am I fulfilling it every day when I get up and go to work?

Jim: I was just going to say, we used to open up the show with: Your workplace, it's your mission field. And in that mission field, you and me, we may be the only Jesus our coworkers and employees, vendors, clients may ever meet. The job that you hold, the work that you do, and the people to work with - none of that is by chance. The people that you work with, they need to meet Jesus and you may be their only chance.

But it's so much more than evangelism. It's being Jesus, wherever you go. When God gave us the clear vision for iWork4Him,, it was purposefully equipping Christ followers at work to be vibrantly effective at living out their faith. And that vibrancy is the kingdom. Everybody around us should be benefiting from our faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not.

And that's how we impact. We do good work. We are a blessing to our, to the business we're in or the organization we're in, we're a blessing to the community. Everybody around us should be benefiting from the work that God is doing in our lives because of Jesus, whether they believe in Jesus or not. They'll come to ask a question about why are you so different, Bill?

They're going to want to know but it's going to be because of the excellence of your work, your attitude. The transparency of you living out your life. That's why God has us in the marketplace. If you're not in the marketplace, if everybody that's a Jesus follower worked in a church, how is anybody that doesn't know Jesus going to meet Jesus?

Bill Hollis: Absolutely. I love the way you framed that, you framed it fantastically well. Because I remember when I first got this vision, I used to go to work and beat everyone up with a Bible. And I must probably chased more people out of the kingdom than I brought people into the kingdom. And I think you're framing it that it's we just need to live out a kingdom lifestyle and people will be drawn. So maybe you can share maybe your gift thing with us, Jim.

Jim: My gifting. Wow, okay, so Martha and I have a joint gifting that is incredible. Most couples don't have this but we have a joint gifting of cleaning up messes. Spiritual gifting that we literally can walk into a room, walk into a business, walk into an event, see a mess and know how to clean it up. That's our spiritual gifting. We share that one.

For me, it's really I'm a truth teller. But I'm a black and white, maybe velvet brick truth teller. I can walk in, I could sense a problem. I could see the solution, but I lack the mercy to present that solution gently to people. My gifting is,, we walked in and bought into an insurance agency that was a hundred, it was 98 years old when we bought it back in the late nineties.

And I'm like, I see the vision for how to make it successful, but I had to unravel 50 years of why do you do it this way? That's what we've always done it, but I could see the future. So my gifting is really speaking, it's speaking the truth. It's uncovering the truth when people don't necessarily - if you really were to summarize all my, wow, I'm sorry, Bill, this is a longer answer than meant to be.

My spiritual gifting is asking the right questions, even when I don't have the right to ask those questions, even though I shouldn't even know that I should be asking those questions. That's my prophetic gift. It's almost in reverse, instead of telling, it's asking a question that nobody wants asked. But I'm asking it and I didn't know I should be asking that question.

Bill Hollis: In Jewish, they would say, you've got chutzpah.

 (laughter)

Martha: this is true.

Jim: In Italian, they say, I got a whole lot more than chutzpah. Yes, . So I got Italian background and yes, I have a boldness that has been tempered by Jesus, but I'm still working on my mercy gift.

Bill Hollis: Between Janet and I when we minister to people, I think it's very similar to what you two do. I think one said to me I'm like a surgeon. I cut them up and then Jesus comes like the nurse and helps them bandage them back.

Martha: Yes. Yes. But what's really neat is so we've worked most of our career, we've worked together in business that we own and have developed or doing different things. And, but what Jim is describing works in all areas of life. So yes, he sees it in the business realm, but he also sees it in people's marriages or in people's relationships or in their finances, or in whatever area where there's a mess. Just how can we come in and help bring order that can then give them the ability to have a peace that surpasses all understanding?

Because in the chaos, it is really hard to see God's plan and God's purpose. And it's funny because over the years we've started to realize that it's not in just one area of life that God's given us the ability to clean up that mess, but to do it in, whatever area he sees as a pain point for people.

Bill Hollis: Now, I think that's such a fantastic thing to be like that as a couple. I don't know if you have a prophetic gifting?

Martha: Who, me?

Bill Hollis: Yes.

Martha: Oh he definitely does. And so I've learned to listen to that because sometimes he'll say something that seems quite random and I'll be why is that important? Why is that what we need to be focusing on right now? And or why did you even say that? And sometimes he says I don't know, but I felt like it needed to be said. And so then, we are like learning how to pay attention to that. And sometimes it's bad pizza or good pizza that didn't sit well, but not often.

Jim: So it is, it's important for your listeners to understand. So in, in America, in the United States of America, we grew up in white evangelical churches. Which means the Holy Spirit really wasn't talked about much and the supernatural wasn't talked about very much. So everything we've learned about the Holy Spirit, we had to learn outside of the four walls of the church, which is sad.

And so we've got good friends that we've met from all over the world that have really helped us to understand more about the kingdom. The first book I read about the kingdom - was not the Bible, even though I know Jesus talked a lot about the kingdom, but I didn't get it - was a book I was reading in preparation for the show and God's just revealed different things to us.

Martha's gift with people is when she walks into a room, and I don't know how to describe this yet, but she's a mother to people and she is a peacemaker to people. And when people, when she walks in a room full of women, they're all attracted to her because they want to hear her wisdom. She doesn't like to say stuff like that.

As a team, we've done marriage mentoring for a lot of entrepreneurial couples over the last 25 years, and we often end up with couples that are the opposite of us, where the woman is more like me and the man is more like Martha. And so we can speak truth into them in a way that people haven't heard before.

And it's, God just uses us in interesting ways. We're now planted in a small city in a small midwestern state in the middle of the country and God is using us to really bring back a heartbeat to this little town that was dying slowly. And he pulled us out of Fort Myers, Florida, a town of millions to a little town of 2200 in a town on, it's on a rail line, but it's in a town that had been forgotten many years ago.

Bill Hollis: And the name of the town, if I may ask?

Jim: The name of the town is Marionville, Missouri.

Bill Hollis: Yeah. That's an absolutely wonderful story. And maybe, I think the thing is that if you can just share a few nuggets here on about, on your journey, what you've learned and share with the viewers, what you've learned about God using us in our ministry, what you shared is God using your gifting. Each one of our gifting for his purpose. And maybe you can expand a little bit more on it in terms of work.

Jim: You want to go first?

Martha: Okay. I'm thinking of a couple things that God has just told us in the process - is that he doesn't want us to reinvent the wheel. He's not looking for us to waste our time and our resources on something that, that has already been created by someone else living out their purpose.

And so we really have a heart for collaboration. And it's just important in our work, applying this every day is actually easy if we are willing to lay down our pride and to lay down our own agenda, because maybe you work alongside somebody who does something better than you.

Let's work together on this rather than trying to be in our own lanes and wasting energy trying to do something you maybe don't do well, and the person next to you does really well, and working together, seeing them as your neighbor, again, using just biblical principles to say, you're my neighbor, I am by you eight hours a day.

How can we get to know each other better, work together and have a better result as a, as part of that process?

Jim: So I hinted earlier that I was speaking about five ways to incorporate your faith into your work. And God really developed this for me in a 90 mile commute that I got introduced to Oz Hillman's Daily Devotionals.

I was driving 90 miles each way to work from Tampa Bay to Orlando. So everybody knows where Orlando is because they think Mickey actually lives there. He does not, however, live there. No, he lives in Kissimmee, but it's right near Orlando. So to make a long story short, what God laid on my heart was this is the five step plan on how everybody can start their ministry at work.

It starts with pray every day for the people that you work with by name. Just start praying for them. At first, you're not going to know how to pray for them. You're just going to pray for them. You're praying for them. Learn the names of their spouses, if they've got them. Learn the name of their kids, if they've got them. And just start praying for them.

And then after a while, you could say, I've been praying for them. Is there anything specific I can pray about for you? Just keep it at random. The second step. And when you start to pray for people, God starts to change your heart towards those people. You can't look at them as problems anymore because when you pray for people, you start to see people the way God does, as his children, as people created in his image.

So that's the first step. Second step is serve the people that you work with over and above what your job requires you to do. So look for ways where your job says you got to do X, but look for Y and Z. If your job says do A, do B, and C, I don't know if the alphabet's the same in South Africa or not, I'm just kidding. I know you say Zed, you don't say Z, whatever that is, that's okay, we'll let you go with that.

But look for ways to serve people over and above. Don't just do the bare minimum, do what Jesus did. Jesus didn't just heal people. He forgave their sins. Jesus was always busy, but he was never in a hurry. He didn't miss the people that God placed in front of him. So serve people over and above what your job requires you to do. The third thing is befriend people. Everybody's got work relationships with people, that only goes so far. You just only know so much because what people know at work. Look for ways to befriend them outside of work in an appropriate fashion.

That'll depend on what your situation is. But Martha and I invited people that we work with into our home as a couple to have a meal together, because over a meal, you can have incredible conversations. And this isn't appropriate for everybody. Cause if you're a single woman, don't invite single guys into your house for a meal.

That's not a great thing, but you can go out for dinner or whatever as a group, but get to know people outside of work. Befriend them, because that's how they can get to know your story, your Jesus story. Then, the fourth step is look for ways to pray with people. Because when we work with people every day, Bill, we recognize, we know what their regular daily demeanor is.

We know this is what Jim is like every day. So when Jim is out like this, and Jim comes in, and I'm more like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Oh, bother. All of a sudden people are gonna go, Jim, what's wrong? Because you're going to know because I'm not being like me. And you say, Jim, how are you doing today?

And when Jim responds, I'm fine. Really - from The Italian Job- freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional? Really, Jim, how are you doing today? Really, I want to know. And then Jim shares from his heart and shares whatever has got him down for the day. You knew this because Jim wasn't the same when he walked through the door.

When Jim is done sharing, you say, can I pray about that for you right now? Never had anybody tell me no, because when people are hurting, they're open to the power of prayer. Never had anybody tell me no, never. I have prayed with Jews and atheists and Muslims and Buddhists. Never had anybody tell me no.

But the fifth step is what is the most important step. Everything about your work needs to be defined by excellence because we represent the King, and our work needs to be designed like Colossians 3 23 says, do your work heartily as if you're working directly for the Lord, because we are, we're serving him.

When our work is defined by excellence, all of those other things make an exponentially greater, larger impact. Praying for people, befriending people, serving people, praying with people - all of that is allowed because you're defined by excellence. Your attitude is different and everybody can feel the Holy Spirit of God inside of you. They don't know that's what it is but they can feel the vibrancy of the living God of the universe inside of you, whether they believe in Jesus or not. And that's how you transform any workplace, ANY workplace into a mission field.

Bill Hollis: Jim, that is absolutely fantastic. I couldn't have summarized it better than you. However, Janet and I have a prophetic ministry so there's one little addition that I would add, is that sometimes the Holy Spirit would give us a word of knowledge about a person's situation, and obviously when you speak to them and they would say how did you know that? Then you can share that.

It's only the Lord that showing us because he loves you so much and that he cares about you. That's why I would reveal it. And then also gives us an opportunity to pray for them as well. So I think that it's just fantastic the way you've put it. It's better than I ever expected and maybe you can also share some of the other things that you've encountered with working with sharing this message that will help the listeners to, to pick up what you're calling about, going out there and being I call a marketplace minister. Cause that's a good name to give it because they're waiting to go into ministry. So we call them marketplace ministers so they know they're working for God.

Jim: I would just put a little plug in there that we wrote a series of books. We wrote a trilogy of books: iWork4Him, iRetire4Him, and sheWorks4Him for the Christian working woman. All of those are available on PDF. I know that it's way too expensive to buy a book from here and have it shipped to there, but they're available PDF on the website and it really goes into detail on how to put those things into practice.

Martha, what's one marketplace idea that we've heard or do you want me to go first with one? All right. So generosity, we need to understand the business, the marketplace is about blessing other people. As a business owner, the business is supposed to be a blessing to you and your family. It's supposed to be a blessing to your employees and their families. It's supposed to be a blessing to your vendors and your clients. And it's supposed to be a blessing to the community that you operate within.

When it is not operating as a blessing in all of those areas, you've got something wrong. And if you have a great prophetic guy on your team, he can help you figure that out faster than not. But what we're seeing, is that business owners are not getting discipled to that effect. They've been taught like I was taught. Martha and I had two entrepreneurial couples in our lives as young people, as young marrieds. And this is what we were taught: business is business and church is church. They have nothing to do with each other.

\So make a lot of money in business and give it to the church. And maybe you could start a building committee one day. That was what we were told was the epitome of the business owner's experience. Instead of the fact - this is the truth - your Savior was a business guy. He knew a lot about business because he operated in the marketplace as a carpenter - whatever that meant in his day. Could have been a stonemason. Could have been actually working with wood. Could have been a furniture guy. We don't know. But he was a carpenter and when his dad died, he took over the family business.

So your Savior gets small business woes. Recognize that. And they're business owners and business leaders throughout the Bible. Yet growing up, as I said, in a white evangelical world, I'd never have ever heard a sermon about Jesus being a business guy. And likely Bill, 99 and a half percent of the people listening to your podcast also have not heard that sermon yet.

We've never heard that sermon. We've never met somebody who heard it.

Martha: I've heard you preach it.

Jim: Yeah, I've never heard anybody that's ever heard that sermon. So in the marketplace though, Bill, it's about generosity because as God created the marketplace, I mean, it goes back to the cultural mandate in Genesis: cultivate the earth and cause it to be a blessing to everybody. Be fruitful and multiply.

Everything that we've got above ground started off underground. Everything in this remote control came from underground. Everything that we're wearing came from underground. It grew up in a tree, whatever. We need to recognize that we as business owners and marketplace leaders have been given the ability to multiply dollars. Not so that we can increase our status of living, but that we can increase our status of giving. All of the problems of the world that the governments are trying to fix were meant to be fixed by Christ following business owners.

Because the government - doesn't matter what government, whether it's your south african government or my united states government or the new zealand government the australian government any of the 180 countries across the planet- they're trying to solve problems that the church was meant to solve. And the money is floated to business people's coffers and they get stuck there and then they invest into a boat or a bigger house or a bigger building or whatever it may be but it was meant to solve poverty. It was meant to, you give people jobs and give people worth.

Martha says I'm pointing too much. What do you want to add to that?

Martha: No no, I want to know what Bill wants to hear. What is it that, in this whole conversation of purpose and work, what is it that we can help with?

Bill Hollis: Yeah, I think the biggest place, and I think you've addressed a lot of it with the giving, because one of the thing is when you grow up in Africa with a poverty mentality, it's very hard to give.

So without realizing it, you're addressing it already. And maybe you can just from your side, maybe you've been on a practical basis of how you've had to deal with maybe with people and sharing about them receiving it because part of giving, the message is one thing. It's the other thing is how people receive it.

Martha: So I think as far as that goes, a lot of it goes back to this whole building relationships and being a real person in your workplace, being authentic. People are going to be receptive to who you are, and they can't dispute what God has done in your life. So being transparent, being authentic allows people that opportunity to lean in, to ask questions, and then to hear the truth and the truth behind why you are the way you are.

And so I think that is one way that people respond is through the authenticity and the transparency. And, you never know. I think a lot of people have some interaction with church that has either hurt them or has caused them to drift away and you may be like Jim said earlier, the only Jesus that these people, the people that you work with and interact with on a daily basis are going to encounter in the flesh, being the hands and feet of Jesus, doing that in a way that doesn't push them away, but draws them in because you're loving on them and caring for them.

Jim: One of the things I think that really grades on Christian, Christ-following business people is that ministries just want them to give them cash. Business people don't like to give cash because they see the cash just go, it's gone.

What we need to encourage is business investment. We need to encourage more business owners to create recurring revenue streams that funnel money to ministries to be done, but without diminishing returns, because that's creativity in the kingdom. And that's something you don't see a lot of. That's what we're trying to do with iWork4Him.

I hate raising money because it, you have to beg for it. Kingdom dollars are scarce because so many people are sitting on trillions of dollars, but let's engage business owners to say, let's create a business model that creates an ongoing revenue stream for Christian nonprofits. Because in the States, I don't know what it's like in South Africa, but in the States, a nonprofit can own. A for profit can't own a nonprofit but a nonprofit that runs a for profit to fund the ministries that they've been called to do. That's an incredible thing. But Bill, I think really the biggest thing and we've neglected, and I apologize. We're 30 some minutes into this and we haven't said it yet. One of the biggest things we realized here in the States, and I don't know anything about South Africa, is that Christian working women are not celebrated.

Christian working women, no matter what their title is, they can be a CEO of a fortune 100 company, but when they come into church on Sunday morning, somebody asks them to serve in the nursery. Instead of recognizing that God has given Christian women the same spiritual giftings that God has given Christian men, yet we celebrate this in the States.

I can't speak to that culture, but in the United States, we celebrate 99 and a half percent the giftings of men and not the giftings of women yet. God has spread gifts out to all of us who became believers. And so we created a sub brand called sheWorks4Him to celebrate what God is doing in Christian working women, because God has put a gifting and a calling on the majority of Christian women to work outside of the home, and we need to celebrate that and recognize what they're doing in the marketplace.

Bill Hollis: I can attest to that because when I married Janet, she had an international prophetic ministry. And so I had quickly somebody put a book in my hand by an author called Skip Moyim calling The Guardian Angel. And in it, God opened my eyes that we had this whole concept of women are called men's help mate.

Okay. And that's where this whole thing is derived from that the church teaches because they have the wrong concept of what that word means. So I don't want to elaborate it too much so Martha can carry on. The fact is they've got the whole wrong concept of what that word means. And when you go and look it up in Hebrew, okay it's called Ezra Kanachdu.

I don't know how my Hebrew is, but it's pretty close to what it is. And that, when you look that word up, Ezra Kanachdu, you'll find out what God's original intention was for women.

Jim: Which was?

Bill Hollis: Yes. Okay. You want the definition? She's called to be the spiritual guide. Okay. She's called to be the boundary set of the relationship. She's called to be our greatest encourager as well. And the one thing she will do is if you're not for God, whenever you are not with God, she will oppose you the most than anybody else.

Jim: I like that. That's fantastic. I'd love to have you write a book about that. But here's what I say :every woman on the planet has been given what we call women's intuition. Non spiritual people can't describe it, but spiritually women on this planet can hear the voice of God way more clearly than men can. And a man who doesn't listen to the women in his life are headed for disaster. That's why the church in America is heading for irrelevancy because we've ignored what the women in the church have been saying for hundreds of years. And we just have to be cautious.

I think one other word that's really misunderstood - then I want Martha to talk - is in Matthew, the great commission. In english, it's it's interpreted go. But in Greek, it means as you go. And that's huge. Instead of we call people to go to the foreign mission field, to go to the ministry, to go to the pulpit. But that's not what Jesus said. He said, as you go in what you're doing, as you're already doing it, as you go, disciple the nations, teach them what I taught you, baptize them in my name. As you go, that's a game changer. In English. I can't do it in other languages, but that's again, the difference between go, which we've been told the highest callings, the two tiers, pastor, missionary, and everybody else.

No. It gets wiped out because it doesn't exist. It's as you go. Martha, when we've run into Christian working women though, when we start to celebrate their giftings, what happens?

Martha: I want to comment on as you go, but I will comment on this first. Just that when women are really living in their calling, in their gifts, in the place that God has them, they come alive. They're vibrant, they're attractive to the world and the world wants to know why. There's just so many things that when a woman is truly living out what he's called her to do, and for a season that may look different. And that's why I wanted to comment on as you go, because in a season where you are raising babies, whether you're working outside the home or inside the home or a combination of both or working in the home with a side hustle or whatever that combination may look like, as you go about your day, living out what God is calling you to do that is huge because we have learning opportunities.

We have constant conversations around us, whether we're going to the post office to mail something or whether we're writing a contract with our biggest customer. It's as we go about that, what are we, how are we living out our faith?

Bill Hollis: That's wonderfully put because I have a great friend, or we have a great friend, a guy called Brian Blount, who has a great healing ministry and that's his ministry: As You Go. So wherever he goes, he's been on sidroth and he's been on the one of the new movies that they made, wherever he goes he's praying for people for healing. And God sees, I mean I've been on the township with him everywhere and miracle after miracle, because he says as we go. So his healing ministry is that's his gift.

Jim: That's awesome. And we've interviewed people that have, they've experienced the supernatural as they go in their marketplace job at all. We've interviewed people from all over the world. God is on the move in the marketplace. Supernatural things are happening. The gifting that God gave you is not just to be used in the four walls of the church.

The gifting that God gave you is to be used where you, as you go. Including your work, whether you're digging ditches or crawling, climbing poles or selling used cars, or you sell insurance, or you're a nurse or a doctor, a teacher, wherever you go, you maybe run a restaurant, or you work at a restaurant, or you're a cook, or you're a janitor, or it doesn't matter.

God's given you that on purpose.

Bill Hollis: One of the prophetic words that I received from Dr. Bill Hammond was to bring kingdom reality and power to people. So in my book, I'm busy writing it. It's just a composition of all the supernatural experiences that I've received in all the years. And there's so many I can't, you, you only ever remember the highlights.

And so I've just gone by memory to write about the highlights. And it's going to be quite a supernatural story because I've seen God move many supernatural things, and we need to expect the supernatural because God is a supernatural, Jesus is supernatural, Holy Spirit is supernatural, and if we go to the marketplace, we take Him, all three of them with us, and we need to see the supernatural every day in our workplace.

Jim: Amen to that. And when we do- in this country, according to data and research, 36 percent of the population claim to be born again believers. That would represent about 50 million people in the workforce or slightly larger, of which 47 percent are women. And the other 53 percent are men. If all of those people were activated, if everybody in the United States of America recognized that their work was their mission field, their place of ministry our country and therefore the entire globe because of the positive and negative influence our country has on the globe, think of the transformative processes across the entire globe if people in this country would just wake up to the fact that they don't need to quit their jobs to go into ministry.

They are already in ministry. They just need to shift their thinking.

Bill Hollis: Fantastic because they say my figures at six percent, would at six percent they started to pinpoint. So your 15%, if it would get hold of it, could change the whole of America.

Jim: Yeah. And that's what we want.

Bill Hollis: Yes thank you so much for spending time with me. It's just been absolutely a blessing. You've got a lovely sense of humor. And really what you had to share, what you and Martha had to share, has really been inspiring and thank you so much. This message will go to Africa and we trust that it will reach as many as it can because that is an absolute wonderful message that you two shared tonight.

Jim: We're grateful to be here. And as it goes across all Africa, just know brothers and sisters, God has you where you are on purpose for a purpose. Don't miss it. Don't think that if you just were somewhere else, it could just be better. Just let him use you right where you're at.

Bill Hollis: Thank you so much.

Jim: Thank you.

4/10/24 - 2037: Our Collective Call to Care

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 transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: On iWork4Him, we've covered workplace stories of literally thousands of Christ followers from all over the world. We've covered people living out their faith as teachers, gym operators, lawn services, car sales, nurses, doctors, moms, dads, CEOs, and business owners. Several years back, we talked about the foster family and its challenges and the needs of the system in every state. But I don't think we ever covered the topic of being a foster parent as a job and as a calling.

All of us are called as followers of Jesus to take care of the widows and orphans of this world. We're not doing a great job in this. The foster system is full to overflowing and there's a desperate need for families to host these kids and adopt these eligible kids out of the system.

It's not an easy task. Just ask Abraham. He decided to foster his nephew Lot and look at all the trouble Lot got into. Did he ever say he regretted it? Nope, he didn't. Today we're going to dig deeper into this topic and hear from an expert and a practitioner about the call to foster. Cindy King joins us today from the Keystone State, where she's the coordinator for Cumberland County, Pennsylvania for the Keystone Family Alliance. Cindy King, welcome to iWork4Him.

Cindy King: Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.

Martha: We're excited to have you, Cindy. And before we get into your job that we are talking about today, we want to hear your Jesus story.

Cindy King: I had the privilege of growing up in a home where I can't tell you the first time I heard about Jesus because I always heard about Jesus, but with that came a rich legacy of grandparents and great grandparents who not only loved and followed Jesus, but served in the same ways that he served. And I look at that as the beginning of why I do what I do. I particularly look at my grandparents who welcomed people into their home. People that didn't look like them, didn't believe like them, but just with open arms said, yep, we've got the room and the food and we'll feed you.

And so come on and go ahead and live here. And I look at my cousins, many of whom have also fostered and or adopted. And I think there's a reason for that because the legacy was set and it was modeled for us all of our lives. Of course, just like anyone else, we live in a broken world and so there were definitely times I needed to learn more about who this Jesus is, needed to learn that he's not sitting up there somewhere just waiting for me to mess up and zap me, and grow into better understanding of who he is.

But that's all part of the story of who I am and what I'm doing. My first job was as a teacher and a special ed teacher. And again, I think that came from just wanting to help those who maybe can't help themselves and being that person for them. And so those experiences that growing up in the home and the church and the school and the community that we're all connected, that made me who I am.

Jim: So how and why did you and your husband get into fostering? You just gave your grandparents as a great example, others, but what was the impetus that got you started?

Cindy King: All right. So my side of the story is that

Jim: Oh, so we should add your husband on. Is what you're saying?

Cindy King: We probably should have, but I can give you his story.

Jim: Oh, convenient!

 (laughter)

Cindy King: Then you can fact check with him later. But in middle school, one of my best friends, her family started to foster. And that's probably the first time I even heard of fostering and started to understand what it was. And I watched this family that had very little in the way of things open their homes and their lives to these kids that needed them.

And that spoke a lot to me, and I never forgot it. And I started reading everything I could find about foster care and adoption. And sometimes I wonder if maybe social work wouldn't have been the field that I would go into. In fact, in high school, back in the day when career forms were, they were paper pencil, and I took some kind of career assessment, and it came out saying I should be a social worker.

And I always had said I was going to be a teacher. So I went back and changed my answers so that it would come out for teacher. And I, and that was fine. I loved it. And I, that was definitely where God wanted me to be, but I think the skill and the desire to work with families and children was also there.

So I knew I was going to be a foster or adoptive parent. So here's where John, my husband, comes into play. When we were dating, I told him this, that I was certain I was going to foster someday. And he said, no, that was not in his plan. And so I thought if I just give him one of the books that I had read growing up, he would definitely see it my way and he would change his mind.

So to his credit, he agreed to read the book, a book about a family that had adopted, I don't know, about a dozen kids. All with physical handicaps and he read it and he still said, no, this wasn't for him. And so I look back at that and I wonder why neither one of us said then this relationship is not going to work out.

Because we did get married and my husband graduated from college with a degree in psychology and sociology, and there's not much you can do with that until you have your master's. So while he was working on his master's, what did he find? A job as a foster care case worker in inner city Philadelphia with medically fragile children during the 80s when, 90s, when the issue, the big issue was crack babies, cocaine babies born addicted to cocaine.

And so a lot of interesting stories coming out of that, but that was the beginning of God changing his mind. And yeah, through there it wasn't long. It was just a couple years later that we started to foster.

Martha: So you both had some amazing, background experiences. Just this journey that God took you on. But when you started actually fostering, did you really realize what it was going to take personally and physically and spiritually to do this for your own family?

Cindy King: No, I was a teacher and John was working on his degree to be a counselor, and then he did, he was a pastor for many years as well. We thought we had the skills to do this. We thought our biological children are doing well. We didn't go out to eat very often, but when we did, they were the kids that the people in the booth next to us would come over and say, Oh, your children are so well behaved. We thought we had this parenting thing down. And then when some more difficult challenging behaviors came into our home, we realized that no, we were not prepared for this.

Jim: So how many kids and we're going to go deeper into this, of course, during the next segment. How many kids though have you and John fostered and how many did you end up adopting?

Cindy King: We have fostered off and on for about 30 years and we have had 30 children in and out of our home. Four of them have stayed and have been adopted.

Jim: That's fantastic. Yeah, because I saw a picture of your family on the Keystone site. It's a, you have kids everywhere. They're like flying everywhere. It's just, it's great. Love that. Wow. So let's just take a listen for a second. There are other areas in our life where we need to foster and adopt new ideas.

And one of these areas has to do with where we spend our money. If we're spiritually discerning and asking God to direct our paths, we may need to adopt new ways of thinking about what companies we utilize for our daily needs. Take our cell phones, for instance. Are we using companies that directly work against our biblical values? Likely.

Check out patriotmobile.com/iWork4Him to learn more about adopting a more biblical approach to your mobile phone service, faith, family, and freedom. PatriotMobile. com forward slash iWork4Him.

Martha: So as we have this conversation, Cindy, it's so high level at this point. Seeing where God brought you guys hearts together and then now knowing that you have fostered 30 plus children and brought some permanently into your home. Let's talk for the listeners, is fostering, adopting, is it a calling or is it a biblical mandate? Help me sort that out.

Cindy King: That's a really good question. And I think the biblical mandate is that we are to care for orphans and widows but it doesn't say we're all called to bring foster children into our homes. And so I think that's the distinction that yes, we are all called to do something, but I think that it is a separate calling to bring children into our homes.

Martha: Wow. That was that is such a great perspective because we can, and this is where we're going to go in some future conversations that I hope our listeners are leaning in and going, okay, so this, we've seen the scripture to be there for the orphans and the widows, but what does that look like for each one of us individually?

And it may look different. And so how did you guys discern that? I just would love to, to hear for your own family.

Cindy King: How did we discern to foster? Okay, so it started when I was young, and then, coming into John, realizing, yeah, this is something we could do. So we started out doing some childcare for some of the children on his caseload.

And that was just an easy way to ease into it that. Okay they're not staying for a long time. It's a weekend or it's a day, we can do this, but then I think just both my heart was already there, but then his heart started to break too for the fact that this, there are so many children and there are so many needs.

And I will say that there was also a point of infertility there that also then for him was a, okay, so let's take the next step because maybe this is the way God has planned for us to grow our family. Then we ended up having five biological children as well,

Jim: I was gonna say, God back doored you a little bit.

 (laughter)

Cindy King: There wasn't a problem anymore.

Martha: Pause, put the pause.

Jim: All right, so you just mentioned something. So what is the state of the foster system countrywide?

Cindy King: Countrywide, everywhere, there are more children waiting for families than families waiting for children. And what does that mean? For each children and youth agency, it means that a child is removed from their home and they can't find a family for them. So caseworkers are sleeping in the offices with the children until a family can be found. Some of our counties and some of our agencies across the country, they're getting hotel rooms and the caseworkers spending the night or the week in the hotel room with the child.

Sadly, it often means that children are being placed out of county because they can't find a home in that county. And so they have to go to another county. That may not seem like a big deal, but it makes it more difficult to have visits with family members. It also means that families are split up more often. Siblings are split up because maybe they can find a family here that's willing to take one child, but they're not willing to take two.

Or they're not willing to take teenagers. And we've got a lot of older kids in the foster care system. And these are children's lives that we're messing with. Removing them is a trauma. Spending some nights in a hotel room is a trauma. Having to be separated from siblings is another trauma. Not being able to have visits because it's too far away. We're just, we're not serving children in the best ways that we can.

Jim: God's got you placed in the Keystone State, the state of Pennsylvania. What's the situation there? Is it any different? Is it worse? Is it better? What do you find there?

Cindy King: It's pretty much the same. The other issue that we have here in Pennsylvania, which is somewhat pretty much countrywide as well, but we have the issue of caseworker turnover. And so when we have caseworker turnover, that directly impacts the child. If a child has one caseworker throughout their entire time in foster care, they have a over 70 percent chance of achieving permanency, either going back home or being adopted or going to live with a family member.

If they have even one caseworker change, that goes down to less than 20 percent. So that is a huge difference. So we have to be able to support our caseworkers. We have counties that are, they're supposed to have about 30 caseworkers and they have less than 10. It's that bad in some of our counties.

Jim: That's because they have to make them sleep in hotels with foster kids. That wasn't part of the job description, I'm sure.

Cindy King: Exactly. Yeah. And what they see day in and day out there on the front lines, sometimes their lives are threatened and they have a position where nobody wants to see them show up at their door. So it's not like it's a friendly face at the door. And so that's not easy. When there's so much turnover, they're overworked. They're burning out. There's such a thing as secondary trauma. They can suffer from that as well because of everything that they're having to face and watch and deal with. So yeah, it's not an easy place for them to be in.

Martha: I love having this conversation with you, even though it's a hard conversation, Cindy, because number one, you are living in the midst of it. You have such great knowledge and wisdom and you you tell such a compelling picture, you show a compelling picture to people as far as the reality of it.

And so that's on one side of it. You've got the caseworker issue. So what about the foster system itself and just the struggle to even find families that want to foster? Let's talk about that for a minute.

Jim: Why? Why are they struggling?

Cindy King: Yeah, so a local news station just did a segment on this because they found out that, yeah, this is a problem and actually it's a problem that's gotten worse.

It's not like it, it's been the same problem over time. And so we talked about what could some of those reasons be. I think just the fact that trauma is so much more well known now, and so people are more aware of what kind of behaviors you might find in your home that, that deters them. Part of it is just foster parent burnout.

And so we can't keep our foster parents. And that's a struggle because if you can keep them, then you don't have to keep training them. There'll be natural turnover, but when you're losing them more than the natural turnover, then you have to keep finding them and training them. Honestly, I think as Christians, I think part of the issue is that we've lost that passion for living like Jesus did and going toward the brokenness and the messiness and being willing to step into that place.

And this is a messy, broken place. We are used to nice, comfortable lives here in the United States, and you have to be willing to step out of that to be willing to step into fostering. And so some of it, I think, is just that we've lost our calling. We've lost what we've been told to do. And so it's harder to get people to do it.

Jim: And having all of our kids involved in the foster system, having we've been involved in the foster system, it is exhausting. It is challenging and bringing kids from somebody else's family into your household. is a challenge. It is also rewarding. 30, how many years, 31 years later. It's rewarding.

We've, we adopted one of our foster kids. Another one's still doing phenomenal. Never needed to adopt her. She was able to blossom outside of the system and just we're still very well connected. I'm amazed though at how hard it is. It really is.

Martha: So as we talk about families I think it's important for us to remember how vulnerable our loved ones can be online.

We think about all the vulnerabilities of children in situations where they don't have control, but in our own home, our own loved ones can be vulnerable online. And so SaferNet is a service that helps us to protect the ones we love from the evil that's out there lurking on the internet. SaferNet. com can tell you more about how it works at home and in your office. And it can give you peace of mind for your loved ones.

Jim: It's an internet filter, a website filter, a VPN to protect you when you're online so people can't see. It's got so much to offer. Check it out online, SaferNet. com.

So Cindy, you mentioned that it's really maybe a calling to have people come into your home because it's so different. But is fostering a vocation, is adopting a vocation?

Cindy King: Now you brought up a controversial word, vocation.

Jim: Yes, I did.

Cindy King: Everybody has a different definition of vocation. So I think if you're looking at vocation as not a career, but as your calling, but more than your calling, as the person you are called to be, then I think that we are all called to model our lives after Christ. That's going to look differently for each one of us. So yes, fostering can be somebody's vocation, but they could also have other vocations as well. You can foster and also be a teacher. You can foster and also be an engineer. It's not its own vocation.

Martha: It's interesting that you say it that way because honestly, we are all called to be bivocational, in a sense. We reference pastors and say if your pastor also has a job, he's considered bivocational, but at the same time, aren't we all called to that? That's what you just said.

God gives us a calling, and sometimes our job fulfills that calling because of how he's gifted us, but sometimes our job for a season is truly just a paycheck. Our calling might be something in addition that we are doing on the side or, and that may be the fostering or adopting because it's choosing something else to be invited into your life.

And I love that. And I think it's a good challenge for each one of us to say, what am I doing right now in that aspect? So how have you seen God's hand in this whole process for your family?

Cindy King: It goes along with that question of vocation and that the person we are to be is to live a life that's modeled after the life of Christ, but also to be growing in holiness, like Christ.

And what better way to grow in holiness than to be in a place where your only choice is to be on your knees asking for wisdom and guidance and grace and love to be able to pass on to a child that may be acting out in the most unloving ways. And I know Gary Thomas has written a book about marriage where he says that something like this, marriage is not to make us happy, it's to make us holy.

I think the same thing is true of parenting, but especially of foster parenting. There are many days that joy was hard to find, but I look at this journey as one that has definitely brought me deeper in my relationship with Christ and has forced me to see those sin issues in my life and to work on them, because if I'm not working on myself and my struggles, then I can't help my children.

Dr. Karen Purvis is somebody who's done a lot of research in trauma informed care. And she says, we can't take our Children to a place of healing that we have not been to ourselves. And so that has been huge for me.

Jim: So talk to our audience. They're curious. They're going, okay, why should they consider becoming a foster parent?

Cindy King: Because it's so needed and it is so rewarding. I will add, you have to change your definition of success. Success is not that by age 18, this child is going to have it all together and say, thank you for bringing me into your home and thank you for leading me in this direction and thank you for all you've done and yes, now I'm going to follow Christ and I'm going to give my life over and I'm going to change all of my ways. It can take longer than that, but we do it because we are called to do it.

And I, when people always say, and especially when all nine children were still at home, we had a family band, they all played string instruments. We would pile them all into the 15 passenger van. We'd drive from here to there and we'd get out and people would ask, is this a daycare? Is it a youth group or are you on a missions trip?

And we would explain how our family came to be. And inevitably somebody would say, I could never do what you do. And I've had different responses to that through the years. And I think my response now is why not? We're not all called to do it, but I do think for some people, that's an excuse to not do it. I could never do that. It's just too easy to put it there. Or I could never say goodbye. I could never, whatever. I could never do that to the other children in my home or whatever the excuse is. But I think we have to lay that all down before the Lord and find out if they are just excuses or if maybe the response is okay, not fostering, but what are you going to do to serve vulnerable people?

Jim: And in a couple of weeks, we're going to have a podcast talking about what can you do to wrap yourself around some of those foster parents who say, I may not know how to do it, maybe I really can't do it, but I'm going to try? But they're going to need your help.

And we're going to talk about that in a couple of weeks, we're going to talk about wraparound grandparenting. Cindy, before we go, any final thoughts that you'd like to share just out of your open heart with everybody about fostering as a vocation, fostering as your job, and being involved in the foster system?

Cindy King: It is so rewarding to be able to look at a child, a teen, an adult and say you are loved, you are valuable, you are precious, you are important. We know from research that all it takes to help a child heal from past trauma is one caring adult that just keeps showing up and loves as unconditionally as is humanly possible.

 Any one of us can be that one caring adult for somebody, whether it's a foster child or somebody in your workplace or somebody at church or somebody in your neighborhood. What would it look like if every believer showed up for one other person? And so that would be what I would leave with everybody, whether it's fostering or not, we can all be that one caring person.

Martha: So beautiful. So tell people quickly how they can get ahold of you and learn more about Keystone Family Alliance.

Cindy King: So my email is cindy, C I N D Y at keyfam, K E Y F A M dot org. Also our website, keyfam dot org. As Jim was saying, there is a picture of my family on there, although it's not everybody because it's hard to get everybody in the same place at the same time when there's now in laws and grandkids.

But definitely check it out on that website. You can see which counties we are in. Keystone Family Alliance is county based. And so there's a coordinator in 18 counties now with the goal of eventually being in all 67 counties. But if there's a coordinator in your county, definitely try to connect and find out where you can serve.

We are the bridge between the needs of the child welfare system and the local church. So we find out what the needs are. Then we go back to the local church and we say, we are the ones who were given the mandate to do this from the Old Testament, from the time when there was a plan in place. When you harvest your field, don't go back over it a second time. Leave some, because there are people who are going to need it, and so from the beginning, this was our job to do, and we weren't doing a good job of it. We, and I say, we, the church, the big C church said to the government, Hey, could you help us out?

And then we let them take it over. And the government does not make a very good parent. So we at Keystone family alliance are trying to do what we can to let the church know that we have to come back and take our rightful place in this issue and we need to stand up for the kids and for the families and we need to be there for them and support them and encourage them.

Jim: Cindy King, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today. We look forward to getting back with you in a couple weeks to talk about wraparound grandparenting. But thank you, Cindy King.

You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplaces our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him!

4/3/24 - 2036: An Identity Reevaluation

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 transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your world? Let's find out right now.

Jim: I'd like to find out what it looks like in your workplace, Martha. Do you know how many times we've heard - I bet you probably do know this, maybe you've never calculated how many times we've heard - I just want my work to matter. I want my work to have meaning and significance. I'm thinking about quitting my job and going into the ministry or going to work in a ministry. We've heard this so many times we could write a book about it. Oh, yeah, we did write a book about this! Your workplace is your mission field and in the mission field that you've been assigned, in that mission field you may be the only Jesus your coworkers, employees, bosses, clients, vendors may ever meet.

The job that you hold and the work that you do and the people that you work with, none of that is by chance. The people that you work with, they need to meet Jesus and you may be their only chance. Is it really true? You may ask, is my workplace really my mission field? Is it really my assigned place of ministry? What does that look like? You may be asking, how do I get started? Today we're going to talk about identity, the kingdom, and the iWork4Him Nation. All that in the next 15 minutes, fast and furious. We're going to cover all three. Hang on!

Martha, this show - we're doing the show because we run into so many people all the time that are frustrated. They just want their work to mean something. And I think it really ties down to identity.

Martha: It really does. We struggled with it ourselves, Jim, thinking that there was a difference between who we were in Christ and our work, who we were in Christ and the job that we were holding, who we were in Christ and what we went to school to learn.

And we, we didn't understand that our identity in Christ included who God created us to be. The very gifts, talents, and abilities that he'd given us were on purpose, right? Not just to make money so that we could do something on the weekends, but so that we could be Christ in our workplace.

Jim: Almost everybody listening and certainly the two of us grew up in a church where it was intimated, maybe not outright said this way, but it was intimated that the highest calling in the kingdom of God is to become a pastor. Or to go to the foreign mission field, but the rest of you, you're staying home. You're there to support the pastor and the missionary with your cash. So make a lot of money and give it to the church. And maybe you'll serve in a building committee one day, but that's just so wrong. It's false theology. And it's just a bummer because everyone of you listening has a unique set of gifts, talents, and abilities, a set designed by God, talents given to you by God.

And as a very good friend of mine used to say, on loan from God, because one day you'll give them back as you'll be done with them. So what do we do with that information? It's important to understand our identity. We are exactly who we were made to be. And once we meet Jesus, now we have the talents that we need to be given in order to be able to succeed in really living on our faith vibrantly wherever we go. And we don't just need to do that within the four walls of the church or on the foreign mission field. Every workplace in America needs somebody like you to live out their faith.

Martha: I think it's always dangerous, Jim, when we have these conversations that people that are jumping in that don't have the context of what we're talking about, think that we are bashing pastors and missionaries and saying that they're not important. They are important because there are different ways of reaching people with the gospel, but we know for a fact that the people that we encounter in our day to day work are different people than the pastors and the missionaries are going to encounter.

So who's reaching them? And that's really this conversation, is each of us are on ministry. We are in ministry, in our assignments. In fact, we like to say we're fully funded missionaries in the sense that when you work somewhere, you're getting paid to be who you are in your workplace. You're being funded not to waste your time and not do your job, do your job with excellence. We'll talk all about that at the end of the show, so stay tuned for that. But to be a great employee, but while you're doing that, shine the light of Jesus. It's that simple.

Jim: And I want to talk about that because a lot of people think if I'm living out my faith at work, does that mean like I'm a walking Billy Graham everywhere I go? No, it's so much more than that. The gospel is so much more than just the words. What is the gospel? What is the good news? The good news is that Jesus came to the planet to fix all the garbage that Adam and Eve started in the garden. We got to remember the garden was there for Adam and Eve to both physically and spiritually flourish - on earth, cultivating the earth, maximizing the resources of the earth and utilizing that to create a living and to bless their community, and to bless the world with innovation and all those kinds of things. Jesus came back to restore all that because that was all broken.

So our work is not just so that we can go be a Billy Graham at work. Our work is so that we can go take the gifts, talents, and abilities that God has given us uniquely and put those into action to be a blessing to - if you're the business owner, blessing to you and your family, a blessing to the employees that you work with, a blessing to the vendors, a blessing to the clients and a blessing to your community.

It's the gospel, but it's so much more than what you think about just preaching the gospel. It's living the gospel in the freedom and sharing it everywhere you go.

Martha: Jim, let me ask you this question.

Jim: Yes, Martha?

Martha: You wanted to make sure we nailed, we drilled into the conversation of identity. Why is that? Why is that such an important thing to talk about?

Jim: Because until you see that you have been placed exactly where you are working on purpose, for a purpose, you're going to be inadequate in living out your faith there. Because you're thinking, I just want to go somewhere where my faith matters. Your identity is in Christ. God designed you, in your DNA came natural gifts, talents, abilities, personality, traits, all this stuff's hardwired. And then since you were born, you've had lots of things from this world shape who you are. But then when you became a believer, you were endowed with spiritual supernatural giftings that Jesus said we would use in order to do things the same as he did or even greater.

Martha: So there was a resource that really helped us to drill into this really this conversation of the workplace. And it's been a while since we've talked about that resource, Jim.

Jim: Identityanddestiny. com. Now recently, the Nehemiah project has adopted identityanddestiny. com underneath their umbrella, but Nehemiah project is another great organization for biblical leadership within biblical entrepreneurship. Identityanddestiny. com and that's the word and. Check it out. Get the book. You can do it online, but I say get the book. It's a study.

Martha: We'll put that in the show notes so that everybody can find it easily.

Jim: We went through this in 2013. It changed our lives. It gave us clarity on what God wanted us to do. It will do that for you too. It will help you figure out who did God create you to be, what did he create you to be doing, and what's your next assignment?

As we're talking about our next assignment, let's talk about SaferNet.

SaferNet's an organization that's come alongside iWork4Him, not only to sponsor our podcasts and be a part of our organization, but they're a kingdom company. They're a company that's focused on bringing the best of the best in cybersecurity through a VPN, through antivirus, through website filters to protect you and yours, whether that's you and your employees or you and your family from the evil people outside that are trying to use the internet in order to impact your life.

Whether it's tracking what you're doing or whether it's copying what you're doing or stealing what you're doing, SaferNet is there to help protect you. And SaferNet is run by an incredible kingdom guy named Brad Hawkins, who's become a friend of our ministry over the last 18 months. And we're so grateful for Brad, but I'm telling you, SaferNet, their software that we've got on all of our devices, it's changed the way we do our computing because we're no longer concerned when we're on the road because SaferNet is keeping us protected.

We recommend that you check it out. SaferNet. Com safer net dot com. Check it out and if you sign up make sure you tell them iWork4Him sent you!

Martha: Okay, so you said this was going to be super fast. We have touched the first topic. Two more to go! Let's talk about the kingdom. What is the gospel versus the kingdom?

Jim: Yeah, the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. He came to restore that which was broken in the garden, but he said he talked more about the kingdom than the church. I believe the number is somewhere in the 90s of he talked about the kingdom and somewhere in the five to 10 about the church. The kingdom is - I describe it this way, and we've said this way on the show many times.

As a Jesus follower, because of becoming a Jesus follower, everything about you is changing. It's called the sanctification process, just means that everything about you is becoming made more like Jesus. So everything about you should be changing. If it's not, you need to be working a lot deeper and following your Lord Jesus.

And everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not. And that's the kingdom. The kingdom is Jesus living in you, vibrantly flowing out of you to do the work that you do, to interact with the people that you work with, whether it's in your community, in your office, in your church, or in your neighborhood, and you're blessing other people through the good that you do.

It's not just preaching the gospel, it's showing the gospel applies to all of life. Remember, Jesus came to set the captives free. Those people that live on this planet who don't know Jesus are enslaved to Satan. We are servants of the Most High God, made possible because of what Jesus did on the cross.

Martha: So why is the kingdom an important conversation as we're talking about our faith and our work?

Jim: One day, we're going to live in the perfect kingdom, the new heaven, the new earth that Jesus said, he goes to prepare a place for us - that place. But in the meantime, He said, let us pray, Father, let your kingdom come, let your will be done, because each believer on the planet, which now there's somewhere over 2 billion of us on this planet, a little more than 25%, maybe it's close to 30, each one of us letting the kingdom of God inside of us, the temple of God living inside of us, vibrantly impact everybody around us through our work, through our words, through our actions. And obviously because of the difference of Christ living in us, people are going to go, but Martha, you just seem different.

You just, there's a peace about you. I want that. That opens up the conversation for the rest of the story. Our transformed lives are an obvious impact of Jesus. But we need to also connect the dots for people as well and tell them hey, it's not because I'm such a great person because i'm not. It's because of Jesus.

Martha: You know, I love it when we have this conversation with different business owners or people that have developed a product or a service that helps other people because often they're developing something and sharing with us how it's based on kingdom principles, but yet they don't keep it just for the Christians.

This is a concept a lot of people haven't even thought about. Is it like I've created this really great thing and I only want Christians to use it, versus all of the world can benefit from what God showed me and revealed to me, an equation that works right, or a process, or a product, whatever it might be. And I love that because you're sharing kingdom principles with the world for all of their benefit, and it's just a different way, Jim, a lot of people don't think that way.

Jim: For instance, we were sitting in Austin, Texas, six, seven, eight years ago maybe, sitting down with a guy named Tony Dale and his company is Sedera, S E D E R A Health. And he goes, Jim, this Christian healthcare sharing has been around for 30 or 40 years. Martha and I have used Samaritan Ministries for a number of years, and we recommend you check them out, especially if you're self employed. It's a great organization. Make sure you tell em iWork4Him sent you, cause he might send us a little spiff for saying that.

But, whatever, Tony said, Hey, Christian healthcare sharing, it works. It's a kingdom principle. It's everybody coming together, sharing with everybody else to help meet their needs. That's a kingdom principle. That's demonstrated in Acts 2. If you look at Acts 2, everybody was sharing and nobody had a need.

So Tony says if it's a kingdom principle, it should work for everybody. So I'm going to make healthcare sharing available to everybody. And he started making it a line item when people are choosing within their cafeteria plan for health insurance, they could choose to be healthcare sharing and be a part of a Christian health, be part of a health sharing network that's run by Christians. And it's been wildly successful.

Martha: When you take that idea and you apply it in all of our life, it's one of the journeys that we're on right now. And that is, saying, okay, Lord, we want to be consumers of kingdom products. We want to allow our dollars... We've had shows about this before, Jim, where we've talked about your dollars vote, right?

So where you put the money that you've earned to help support other businesses, that it be a way that provides for more kingdom responsibly things that are out there. So I say all that to say that we have been digging into our own personal lives and saying, what are we being consumers of that we need to shift so that we are putting our dollars towards kingdom ideas rather than the things that are funding the enemy? Going against everything that we believe.

So I'll put a link in to the show notes about shows that we've talked about that in the past, but a couple of those, Jim, that we've recently made decisions on is Patriot Mobile. Taking our mobile services and signing up with a company that is based on faith, family, and freedom and doing it with excellence, which again, we'll talk about at the end of the show, but Patriot Mobile, you can go to patriotmobile. com forward slash iWork4Him. And there you can learn more.

We have had friends signing up all throughout this month with just this idea that I'm already buying, have a cell phone service. All of us probably have it. And what are we doing with that? And what are we supporting? And that same idea goes for our payment processing.

So ePaymints is a solution that we have discovered that is being run with kingdom principles. And again, we just keep uncovering this, Jim, and finding out, okay, how can we make decisions, economic decisions, that are more in line with our values? And we want to share that with you, the listener.

And ePaymints online e pay M I N T S dot com. It's important to know the two largest processors of payments, online payments, are not at all in favor of anything having to do with Jesus. In fact, they fund things that are anti Christian, anti moral, anti biblical, anti life all day long.

And they actually cancel people that have the kingdom approach sometimes too. So if you're putting all your eggs in that basket, number one, supporting things that you actually don't believe in and then being vulnerable to possibly being canceled by them, you're setting yourself up for a lot of dilemmas.

Jim: So let's stop looking at the notes. All right, we're gone 16 and a half minutes. We said 15. It's because you've been long winded.

 (laughter)

Jim: Okay. All right, so here's the deal. So in 2006, when iWork4Him was really launched in my heart before we launched on the air in 2013, God revealed five steps for me on how to activate my workplace ministry, , my workplace mission fields to start living out my faith there. We now call that the, iWork4Him Nation Covenant and it is on our website. Martha, where do they find that on the website?

Martha: Under join the nation iWork4Him. com.

Jim: It's not a club. We're not asking for a fee. But if we had, we'd have a lot more money in the bank for iWork4Him! Should have done that.

Martha: No, but if you sign up i'll send you a bumper sticker.

Jim: Yeah, and really, how about this? The first person that signs up to join the nation after this podcast comes out, we'll give you a free iWork4Him book.

Martha: Oh, very nice. I'm going to hold one up for those that are watching on video. This is what it looks like if you'd never seen it before. We want you to want to sign up for that iWork4Him nation. So don't do it just for the book.

Jim: Here's what the steps are when you walk into the office tomorrow morning, actually on your way to the office tomorrow morning or on your construction site or on the way to your, wherever you're going to work... Your grocery store. Maybe you work at the grocery store. I don't know where you work. Start praying for the people that you work with every day by name. By name, every day. Lord. I don't know how you want me to pray for Bob, but I work with Bob and I ask that you'd reveal yourself to Bob and help me to be a just a great example to Bob, and you just start praying for all the people that you know and watch what God does.

But the second step is, we suggest that you...

Martha: serve. Go above and beyond what your job calls you to do and serve those that you work with. And, it really aligns with the prayer because you start praying for them. You might see where they're falling short or where they're struggling and you can, walk alongside them and say, Hey, can I help you with this? Can I maybe stay late tonight and help you get that project done? Cause I know it's hanging over your head, whatever that might be. Find a way to serve those that's loving your neighbor.

Jim: And then look for ways to befriend the people that you work with. And here's what we recommend. We all have work friends, people that we work with all day long. We know a little bit about them, but we don't really know them. We encourage you to get to know people that you work with outside of the office, whether that's go out for some dinner after work or have lunch together intentionally, or if it's appropriate, invite people to your home to have a meal. Cause that's the most powerful place of conversation is around the kitchen table.

It is absolutely a, it's like a portal to God when you're sitting at the kitchen table because conversations happen at the kitchen table that don't happen anywhere else, especially with the cell phones off. So befriend those that you work with. You're praying with them, you're serving them over and above what your job requires, you're befriending them. You're truly trying to become friends with them because again, remember we talked earlier about everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's part of this friendship thing. But all along, we're telling you to look for ways to pray.

Martha: One of the things, as you get to know people, as you get to know what they're dealing with in life and what's going on around them, when you see either their countenance change or they truly just have built a friendship with you and they come to you and say, Hey, I'm going to have this conversation tonight with somebody. I'm really stressed out about it. Instead of just going, Oh man, I'm really sorry about that or whatever. You say, Hey, can I pray with you about that? Can we pray right now for God to give you whatever the words to say, the peace for the situation, whatever it might be that they were communicating. Stop right then and say a prayer with them. It is powerful.

Jim: And you ask permission. You say, can I pray with you about that right now? Because when you've asked that question, we've never had anybody tell us no, never. But the bottom line is, the fifth step, everything about you needs to define, be defined by excellence. Your work needs to be excellent.

Your attitude needs to be excellent. When you show up for work, it needs to be excellent. When you leave for work, it needs to be excellent. You need to be defined by the excellence that your heavenly father has put inside of you. That allows those other things to really make a powerful impact. Your excellence defines you.

So the bottom line is, don't quit your job and go into ministry. Shift your mind. Not your job. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.

3/27/24 - 2035: Taking Church Outside the Walls

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

Martha: And we are your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg . And our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Does anyone do those old fashioned tent revivals anymore? Aren't they just a little passé? Can't God just do his thing conveniently on Sunday morning when we're already at church? But what if the people needing a revival would never darken the doorsteps of your church or any other church?

How would they get introduced to Jesus? At work, right? This is the iWork4Him radio program, but maybe it's in our neighborhood. Isn't the need even bigger than that? Surrendering to Jesus happens differently for everyone, and a good old fashioned tent revival may just attract the lost and hopeless in your town and introduce them to the truth for the very first time.

This September 26th through the 28th, right here in our own backyard of Springfield, Missouri, John Wilson is hosting a three day tent revival, and he wants your prayers, your volunteer hours, and your support to make that happen. Why is he doing it? Let's let John Wilson tell the story. John, welcome to iWork4Him.

John Wilson: Thank you guys. It's such an honor to be here and yes, we are pumped and excited about what God is going to do for our revival in September. And honestly, it's got me so shaken in my boots because I have no clue what I'm doing. I've never done a tent revival before and that's how I know it's going to be God and God's going to move through it and we're expecting lives to be forever changed for his kingdom and for his glory.

Jim: Amen.

Martha: Amen. And before we talk about that, because we do really want to do a deep dive into that and talk about Light the Way and all that's coming up with the revival, tell us your Jesus story.

John Wilson: Wow. So I have a Jesus story almost every day, but the one that really impacts me is the one when I met Jesus for the very first time, almost eight years ago.

I knew about Jesus. I knew about church. I knew about Christianity. But I didn't want anything to do with it whatsoever. As a matter of fact, when I see a Christian walking down the street, I would intentionally cross the street to be on the other side because I didn't want it to rub up against me you know. I would call Christians Bible thumpers and really just didn't want anything to do with them.

And I'd always been in the music industry. I was a country music promoter. I started way down in the bottom of the trenches as a bar guy just bringing bar bands into bars, and drugs and alcohol was my footprint, if you will, at that time. And my wife included. And so we had, you see those Netflix documentaries of backstage with partying with the artist and things like - that was us, we worked our way from the bar scene to coliseums.

And it just grew and I just was always searching for something. I was always searching for the big thing and trying to find it in these concerts or the bottom of a bottle or a bag of drugs or whatever it could be. Never could find it. Never could find it. And it wasn't until this one time living in a very small town, of my hometown. The town doesn't even have a stoplight.

I think a dollar general was the highlight of this town. And when you live in those small towns, everybody knows what you do and everyone knew that I was this big time Nashville music promoter guy. And never did anything there in regards to the industry but there was this guy that walks up to me - who I knew was a Christian, and he was actually the only guy that I would actually have a normal conversation with and not feel like I was getting the Bible thrown down my throat - asked me one time. Would you like to bring a concert to Stockton, in our hometown?

And I said no It wouldn't happen. The town couldn't support it and nowhere to do it and just through a series of different conversations he goes well, how do you do it in the secular world? And I said well in short I find a venue, find an artist, put tickets on sale, and hopefully make money And he said what if I have a venue? And I'm thinking I've lived here my whole life and I know there's nothing here. He goes, hypothetically walk with me on this journey. What if I had a venue?

I said I don't know, I don't know how we can make it work because this town couldn't support it. And he said you're probably right. They probably wouldn't support a country music concert or festival, if you will. He said, what about a Christian concert? And I'll keep it PG here, but in a few choice words, I said no. It wasn't my thing. It wasn't what I wanted to do. I didn't know anything about Christian concerts. I didn't know any Christian artist. And everything that I would throw back at him, he would have a reason for it. And ultimately, I just said I didn't think it would work.

I don't know if it would work. I don't want to do it. Plus, there's still nowhere to do it. He said I have a venue. And I said what is this? He goes, my church. And I'm saying that's the old bait and hook that you Christians use. And I'm like I don't know that I want to do that. And I said, plus I don't have, I don't know artists. I don't know a Christian artist. I only know country. He goes I know some artists. So everything that I rebuttaled against, he had an answer too. So ultimately I came down to this. I said, all right, fine. I'll do it, but I'm going to do it as a joke. 100%. I'll put very little effort in it.

You fast forward. It was on July 10th, 2016. Probably one of the smallest concerts I did. 203 people showed up. Most of the people I knew of this church, the capacity of this church was about 250. And the show's happening. I'm a nervous wreck, right? Like I'm not sure what's going to happen all building up to this. It was just a weird feeling, like a feeling I've never felt before and I'd done hundreds of concerts leading up to this, but this one was just... oh, it was at a church. I always felt like if I was ever going to step into church, the thing is going to blow up, or getting hit by lightning.

Yeah so I just throughout the whole day I had this feeling and music starts and my wife and I, what did we do? We went out to the parking lot. We stayed out there. We didn't want to be involved. And as we're outside and we're, just doing our thing that we do at shows, smoking and doing our thing. You could hear the music from the bass inside the, in this little church.

And then the music stops. And my back's toward the building I'm facing my wife. And then the music stopped. At any event, you're like, oh no. And I'm like, I'm not going to go inside. I'm just going to wait. And I hear a voice say, John, come inside. I looked at my wife and I said, who just hollered at me?

And she looked over my shoulder and was like, no one hollered at you. And I'm like, no, someone just told me to come inside. I quit what I was doing. I went inside. And the reason why I wasn't hearing music was this guy, the singer of this band was talking and he was telling everyone about drugs and alcohol and at first I thought this guy was talking about me and airing out all my dirty laundry to my hometown people.

And I was getting livid. And as he continues to talk more and more about his, about the story, I realized it wasn't me he was telling everyone about, he was telling them about him and his story. And I've never experienced this. I've always just experienced music going all day long, you know, just having fun. I never really knew literally what was going on. So one side of me was a little angry that there wasn't music. On the other side of me it was like this guy and I have some common interest here. And he said I tried to commit suicide And when I was in the back of an ambulance, there was a man that saved my life And I'm like now I'm interested.

Who is this guy? And I'm thinking it's a paramedic. I'm thinking it's a firefighter, someone in that field. And he looked around the audience and I'm in the very back and, got my promoter head on and I'm just evaluating, but I'm engaged, but not showing people that I'm engaged.

And he said who in this room wants to meet this man that saved my life? And I'm thinking, this show just got interesting. He's got the guy with him. He's going to come out on stage. And he said several people's yeah, we want to meet him. And he said, the man's name is Jesus Christ.

And he goes, if you want to meet Jesus, I want to see a show hands. And I remember just a powerful moment where 23 people raised their hands. They were fighting the same thing I was fighting inside. And they publicly said, I want to be changed. And at that moment, I'm thinking, what in the world is happening?

And I wanted to shoot my hand up. And I'll have to be honest with y'all, I didn't do it. I had pride. I had my promoter hat on. I don't want to show people that I was wanting that, what he was describing from the stage. But I'm like, I'm a hot mess. I'm like feeling wetness on my cheeks. I'm like, what? Am I crying?

What is this? It was just - I wanted it, but I didn't and I didn't know what I wanted. And about that time here comes that pastor and he puts his arm around my neck and he says Look what you did. And I'm like, I have no idea. He goes these people just met Jesus and their lives will have forever be changed. And from that moment I said Can you explain it? Because I want that and I surrendered to Christ. And from that moment almost eight years ago, the Lord gave me a vision, a dream to start this ministry called Light the Way ministry with the focus of taking church outside the walls and reaching people that were just like me, that hated church that hated Christians that didn't want nothing to do with anything religiously. But music could reach people and they would go to a concert and they would go to a concert any day of the week. So I knew there was more people like that, and so that's what birthed this ministry.

Jim: What a great story. And we're so grateful that you shared that story, John. And we invite people to go out and check out your website. Light the Way ministry.com. Light the Way ministry.com. John, your events are such a great tool for people to attend and meet Jesus and bring friends into the same. And I just want to make sure to remind people and our listeners that they can go to our events page to find out more about the events that we're going to be attending this year, which we're doing one with you, John Wilson. And maybe our listeners want to know about this.

Go to, iWork4Him. com forward slash events. And you'll find out about, we've got several events on the calendar for this year.

Martha: Including the revival we're going to be talking about, September 26th through 28th, right here in Springfield. We're pretty excited because we didn't know each other and then we find out about the revival and you're speaking at an event we're going to be at in Orlando. And here we are neighbors practically. So we have every expectation to be at the revival. So this is just a exciting conversation to have.

John Wilson: That's awesome! I'm excited to have you guys.

Martha: Thank you. You know, I love the fact that God took what you had been doing, your passion for music, and turned it into something that you could see personally that there was a different way to do it, to reach people for Jesus.

So I want to know, how did you know then that God was asking you to host a tent revival in 2024? That's a little bit different yet.

John Wilson: Yeah, and really, I knew that concerts and festivals have always been my thing. It's always been my gifting. Even before I stepped over and accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. I always say that we're all born with gifts but it's not until you're anointed with that gift, that you could use for the kingdom of God. And I wasn't using it for the kingdom until I surrendered and then that gift became anointed and we've done huge festivals. We've had as large as 43 000 people at a festival. And I didn't know that I was wanting to do or going to do a tent revival. So this is new for us in September and it wasn't until last year when the Lord really spoke to my heart at our festival last summer and I saw this long line of people waiting to get into a prayer tent.

We have a prayer tent that we do on the spot baptisms at our festival and prayer and people set free and delivered, and I saw this long line of people waiting to get in this tent. And I'm like what? I've never seen that before. I'm always just so busy with this festival running around and God says we need to take it back to the first love. And I'm like, what does that mean? I don't know.

And I just felt that I needed to create an event where people can be reminded of that first love, and not necessarily about who's coming to the event, artist wise, or who's coming as a speaker, but an atmosphere where we can just meet Jesus. And that's what we're going to be focusing on.

Jim: And that's why I want to ask this question. So you're planning an event, but you're inviting Jesus to be the center of this event, which means the Holy Spirit's going to be there. How do you plan for the unexpected move of the Holy Spirit in an event where you're planning things?

John Wilson: So that is a very good question. And that's where I pull my hair out and bite all my fingernails off because I'm a planner. A Promoter has to have a start time and end time and everything in between and things have got to be scheduled the way it's got to go. And what I'm hearing the Lord say is, John, get out of my way. I've got this.

So what I've done, and it's still in the works, but what we've got is we've got the start time and we have a projected end time. Everything in between is going to be up to God and him moving, and I'm not going to get in the way. And my team and our prayer, revival committee team they're keeping me grounded in that because I want to be involved. I want to be like - nope. We're not gonna do this, unless the Lord speaks it to me. We're gonna do it the way he wants to do it and not the way John Wilson wants to do it.

Martha: Okay, so as somebody who didn't really have many details or anything and for people that are outside of this area and they might not know this, I know that I've heard on the radio you're asking for prayer partners right now. And so I want to talk about that for a minute because that is how ultimately you're preparing for the unexpected, right? Is through the power of prayer. I don't hear a lot of promoting. I hear we need the community to gather together and to pray for what God has in store.

So talk about your heart of that a little bit, just because I think it's so powerful in all that we do every day that we have that kind of attitude.

John Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking that question because where I'm at and what is on my heart is man cannot bring revival. But prayer can. And we know the value of what prayer can do.

So we've asked for 5, 000 intercessors from across the country to join us every single day, from the day that they sign up, to say I'm going to commit to praying with you and Light the Way for a revival. Whether it's going to happen in September or whether it's going to happen today. We are asking for people to pray daily for revival, and we know that we want to bathe this specific event in September around prayer, but that's the only reason why we're doing it. That's what we're promoting right now. We're asking for a unity amongst churches and pastors in the community, unity to join us together. And what better way to start that than starting it through prayer?

Jim: So if somebody wants to find out more about the revival, can they just go to your website lightthewayministry.com ?

John Wilson: Oh, yeah, lightthewayministry.com. It's all on there, the dates you can even register right now. We are asking people to register because it is a tent and we're already going to overflow the tent, but we already know that we're preparing for that. But we want a good idea of the attendance that will be there. And as God downloads stuff to us and me and our team, we want to involve you guys as part of that so we're asking you to register.

It's free of charge. So register. Be a part of it. Commit to being a prayer warrior for us. Join us daily. We send out prayer, seven prayers every Monday for the whole, every day of the week, starting on every single Monday so that we'll help you with prayer. And so all that stuff is all on our website at LightTheWayMinistry. com.

Jim: All right. I want to shift gears on you a little bit. I appreciate that you shared all of that. It's so exciting. All that you've got going on here. Martha?

Martha: All right. One of the things that we were talking about is the fact that, an event like what you are doing takes a lot of sponsors and a lot of volunteers in order to make it actually happen.

And one of the things that is near and dear to my heart is that at iWork4Him, we are grateful for the affiliate sponsors that we have that help bring great services to the table so that our listeners are able to hear great stories like the one you're sharing today, and the events stirring in your heart to make happen. So I just want to encourage our listeners to go to, iWork4Him. com forward slash sponsors and view and visit their websites. And a couple of particular ones I want to shout out to are Patriot mobile, SaferNet, and ePaymints. Those are just a few of the ones that I want to name today and they help make these kinds of stories possible and sharing them with our listeners. So I just, I'm excited about that.

Jim: John, in April we share the stage together at the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce Business Expo in Orlando, Florida, April the 8th, oh my gosh, all of a sudden, 18th, no, how about 17th through the 19th, 18th to 19th, April 18th to 19th.

Martha: It's on our events page on our website, and we'll get there, it's on our calendar.

Jim: Yeah, we'll be there. We're going back home to Florida. All right, but you're doing a ted style talk there at the Christian Chamber Expo where Martha and I are going to be the emcees. We love doing that so if anybody's listening you got an event that comes up and you want some great emcees to keep things lively, you should check us out online!

So the Expo, people can find out more about the Expo at USChristianChamber.com, but they can't know what you're gonna talk about, John Wilson. Just give us a little sneak peek. What are you gonna be talking about?

John Wilson: So I feel like the Lord is gonna, He's been downloading some stuff to me. And I think the biggest thing is unity in the corporate world, you know, because you don't need a church for God to move. So I think what he's going to allow me to speak about is the importance of unity, intertwining with my story and how God has taken me from the bottom of the pit to where we're at today and how I personally had to put myself aside for business and put God first.

So I'm excited to see what all it's still downloading. It's still developing. But I know we're going to talk about my story and we're going to talk about unity and we're going to talk about revival all in the short amount of time that they're giving me on that stage. So pray with me and pray for me on that.

Martha: That's so awesome. One of the things that we love so much about the U. S. Christian Chamber and this expo that's coming up is the fact that God has equipped each one of us in different ways. And what you talked about earlier, that we have these giftings that then become anointed when we, when we surrender them to him.

And what we know in the business world is that we reach people that a pastor in a church is never going to get the opportunity to reach. And so helping to equip business people to live out their faith in a very purposeful way in the arena God already has them in, right? Using the giftings He's already given them.

And that's what this expo is all about, and learning that from a biblical perspective. It's a couple solid days of great teaching, great interaction, great networking, great all kinds of opportunities. And we just are so excited for that atmosphere of people to come. So I just want to encourage our listeners, you may have never heard of the U. S. Christian Chamber before. You may never have heard of this expo opportunity, but it is a great place with God's people just like you that want to gather together. You can go to uschristianchamber. com. We'll have that all in the show notes. All of these links will be there for everybody so they can check it out and it's on our events page as well. But, we get excited when things like this are on our calendar.

Jim: John Wilson, before we go, we got a minute left before we go, talk to me about, this is people listening, going, wait a minute, John Wilson can do a old fashioned tent revival and just outside of Springfield, Missouri? Maybe I could do one in my town.

Once you get this one done, are you willing to help other cities across the country figure out how to do it in their city?

John Wilson: Thanks again for asking that question, because that is actually what is happening right now to this day. We're getting calls from people that want a revival in their communities.

And they can also, we help you, we can bring this to your community, we can help you, we can train you. And we're learning ourselves. So as we're learning, we're wanting to expand that education to you in your community. So if you're asking and you're been praying, God, I want a revival. I want it. I want it. I want it.

And you don't know how to do it. That's okay. Go to Light the Way ministry. com, hit that contact us form, and we can reach out to you. We could pray with you. We could see what God wants to do and help you bring a revival in your community. It just starts with one person. And that's you.

Jim: John Wilson with Light the Way Ministry online at lightthewayministry. com. Thanks for being on iWork4Him today.

John Wilson: Thank you guys for having me. It's been an honor.

Jim: And make sure you check him out at the U. S. Christian Chamber Expo in April. We'll be there, too. Check that out online, uschristianchamber. com. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.

3/20/24 - 2034: Putting Theory into Practice

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. Our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.  

Jim: Sometimes God moves you down the street and sometimes he moves you across town and sometimes he moves you to another state. Imagine if the Lord said, leave England and move to Redding, California, and then leave Redding, California and move to Austin, Texas. 

You may ask why? But if he's really your Lord, you would just say yes and be along for an adventure. Our guest today did just that. And she found out that God was lining up training and preparation for the mission field of using spiritual gifts to impact business. This is Lisa van den Berg story, and she's here to fill in all the blanks. Lisa, welcome to iWork4Him.  

Lisa van den Berg: Jim and Martha, so good to be here. Thank you for all that you guys do to encourage us.  

Martha: Oh it is our pleasure, and it's really our pleasure when we get to dig in and hear a little bit about our guest's Jesus story to start off the show. So give us a little take of what Jesus, how he has intersected your life. 

Lisa van den Berg: I never wanted to be a Christian. I grew up in South Africa, and all that I ever saw of the Christian world was that you couldn't be ambitious. You couldn't want to help a lot of people unless it was just serving in the lowest positions is all I saw. And so I was like, no, I don't want anything to do with Christianity because I'm ambitious. 

I want to affect a lot of people's lives. I've got things to build and things to do. And so the two just never met in my mind. And, as Jesus so beautifully does, and as I've learned over the last 21 years of being a Christian, He makes all of us unique, and He'll meet us in those ways. So one day we had moved to England from South Africa, and there was a park across the road, and a huge banner that said, God in the Park. 

And my mom in law was visiting and wanted to go. So I said to her, fine, I'll take you. I was 31 at the time throwing a teenage tantrum because I didn't want to go anywhere near this God thing. We walked across the park. I heard this amazing music and I looked at her and I said that can't be church because I've never heard music that good coming out of church, right? 

And just as God does, the couple that happened to be preaching that night were ambitious, had achieved a lot, were doing great things for the kingdom. All the things I thought Christianity wouldn't let me do. And so that night, I think it was a Tuesday night, I gave my life to the Lord on a Tuesday and found out that I'd been pursuing Him all this time, but actually He'd really been pursuing me. 

And He found me that night. And I said, yes. And it was Tuesday. I was volunteering on the Thursday, in church on the Sunday. And I haven't left.  

Martha: Such an amazing story.  

Jim: So then God moved you from England to California, which I don't know. That's a long way. 9, 000 miles. Why? How and why did God move you from England to Redding, California? 

Lisa van den Berg: I was, my husband and I were hungry to take what we learned about in our beautiful church in England but a lot of it was theory. There was some practical that the normal good works and things like that. But we were hungry to really see the fullness of what Jesus means in John 10:10. What does it mean to live this abundant life? 

And I remember asking early in my journey with the Lord, I said, look, I want to know how to take what we hear on a Sunday morning and practically put feet on that. How do I use that on a Monday morning when real life is happening? How do I take a verse and go? How do I apply it when I don't have enough money for rent or this person's really irritating me and I just want to box them, but I'm supposed to be nice to them. The real stuff that happens. I'm worried about my child and my marriage is falling apart. And so I've been on a journey with the Lord for the longest time of how do we practically live out the theory that we hear in church? 

And so we had heard of this church in Redding, California, and my husband and I just said, you know what, Lord, you send us wherever you want to go. We knew we needed to go somewhere to study. Our daughter had left home by this time, so we're empty nesters. And so I just said to me, you know what, wherever my husband says we'll go and study, that's where we'll go. 

We landed on this church, Bethel Church in Redding, California. And one of the things that really attracted us was this mix of you could learn theory in the morning and then go out and practically do it in the afternoon. And that time transformed our personal lives with the Lord as well as our lives as a couple and helped us to really start walking out what we believed. 

Jim: You, in fact, got involved in the Heaven in Business curriculum there at Bethel, right? Tell us about that a little. We covered Heaven in Business years ago and it's a phenomenal study. Talk, talk to us about what did you learn in Heaven in Business?  

Lisa van den Berg: In the UK at the time business people were being sued for wearing the cross to work or perhaps taking their Bible in with them. And I got so frustrated and, God often uses those frustrating periods to birth something in us. And I said to him, Lord, I know that you are the answer and I love business, but at the moment they don't seem to be able to meet. I can't go to any of my business friends and say, Hey, but what could it look like to partner with Jesus at work? 

Because I might get sued, right? And so we actually went across to Redding with this frustration in my heart, I'm like, Lord, there has to be a way, there has to be, if we're not allowed to wear a cross to work and we're not allowed to take a Bible, the only ways I knew to talk to people about Jesus at the time were to do those things, right? 

And you had to pray, in Jesus name, Amen, at the end, otherwise it didn't work, right? I had all of these things that these are the only ways you can evangelize or do things at work. And what I found at Heaven in Business was this, and at the church, at Bethel Church, was this beautiful invitation from God to even more than that. 

What would it look like to be able to pray for healing for somebody because the Lord gave you an insight into what was happening? What would it look like to be able to encourage somebody with a word from God, more than just, Hey, that purple scarf looks great on you today, or you did awesome in that presentation, but actually to be able to partner with God? 

Let him give you something about the person in front of you and say that and it produced miracles that fascinated me. And that's what I discovered - this meeting of the theory and the practice in workplaces and part of the early things that I did at having a business was just help record these literally miracle testimonies in the workplace, hundreds of them. And it fascinated me that we could actually live this way in our business.  

Martha: And I'm going to put a link in there for Heaven in Business, just as one example of the resources that are out there for people, if you're just wanting to know a little bit more. But Lisa, you guys have traveled a lot of miles in your moves. And you even made one more from California to Austin, Texas.  

When I think about it, all of those miles, I think about the fact that Jim and I do a lot of driving for iWork4Him, attending conferences in other cities around the country. And we do all of that in our minivan. And it's so important for us to have good cell service everywhere we go. 

I often am in the backseat of the van working on show outlines or marketing materials while Jim's driving through the mountains or the deserts or the plains, wherever we might be. And we recently switched our cell service to Patriot Mobile, and the good coverage was really mandatory because we needed to make that switch and know that it would be a good one. 

So now, after probably five or six thousand miles where we've been testing it, the coverage is great and we have not been disappointed. So we have great coverage and support, faith, family, and freedom. You can check it out at PatriotMobile.com/iWork4Him and make that switch today yourself. 

Jim: Lisa, God then took you from Redding, California, and in a perfect sense of humor for somebody from South Africa, who's also lived in England, moved you to Austin, Texas. Why? What, why, and, how did God move you to Austin, Texas from Redding, California?  

Lisa van den Berg: My husband and I have been married for 28 years, and one of the things that's come out of our faith journey together, and we were not Christian when we got married, right? It came to us later in our marriage. But one of the things that we always know that we're hearing God is when both of us click with something. So I remember that we were just getting this feeling that it was time to move, right? You get that shifting feeling. And one morning the Lord woke me up with an invitation and He said, Hey, come let's go and sit in the sitting room and let's Google Austin, Texas. 

Now a little bit of the backstory was that when we knew that we were shifting, getting that same shifting feeling from England and we were coming to the US, we investigated Austin, Texas. My husband worked for a big company at the time, and he could actually get an intercompany transfer from England to the US, to Austin, Texas. He'd been here for seven, eight weeks writing a specialty paper in his field so he checked the place out. He knew what it was like. It was very much like South African culture. So we thought that's the place we'll go. And we made all of these plans to do this intra company transfer to Austin. 

God just intervened in all of that and all of the circumstances changed. And he redirected us to Redding, California for seven years. He wakes me up and says, let's go talk about Austin, Texas. And I said, Lord, you have such an amazing sense of humor. You just took us on a seven year diversion to the place we wanted to go in the first place. 

So we sat talking and Googled a bit of information in that. And I said to the Lord, if this is where you're taking us to, please, will you confirm it to my husband separately? I don't want to be the convincing factor here. And that night when we got together to pray before going to bed, my husband just looked at me and said, Hey, What do you think about Austin? 

And then I told them what had happened that morning and I just, all right, thank you, Lord. This is the next place we get to go.  

Martha: Such an amazing amount of background that God, like you said, you took a detour to get to where you thought you were going to go. Why do you think that God did all of that moving in your life? 

Lisa van den Berg: First of all, it's one of the ways he created us. My husband and I love to travel. We love to be in different places. So I always encourage people, go with how God created you to be. But second of all, he knew that, and particularly the diversion, he knew that we needed to see him do things that only he could do. 

It was well within our scope as two individuals to be able to plan an intercontinental move to, to do all of that, plus it's something we like to do, right? So that was all within our own sphere and he needed to take us on a diversion to go: let me show you something that is completely out of your box. Let me show you who you are.  

And I remember standing in worship the one day and I said to God, I was frustrated. Things weren't happening. And I said to him, I need you to do something. God, why isn't it happening? And he said, Lisa, I need you just to show up. And I said Lord, I show up all the time. I'm like the person that puts in the most effort that I know. And he said, but here's the difference, Lisa. If you will show up, which just means giving me your yes, I will show off. Because I am God.  

And that thing blew my mind and I made a commitment that day. I said, Lord, I wanna live the kind of life where I can show up in all that I have, but that you show off in everything so that my life is marked by you and not my own ability to do stuff. 

Martha: Wow. So powerful.  

Jim: So God moves you to Austin, Texas, and into the business of everyday life with Jesus. Talk about what you and your team do today.  

Lisa van den Berg: You see the common theme, right? It's all of this. Lord, how do we move from theory to practice? And I have just always been fascinated with human potential. 

What is it that Jim does that nobody else does? What, what happens when Jim and the Holy Spirit walk into a room? That's different to what happens when Martha and the Holy Spirit walk into a room. Or you talk to people, right? What can it really look like? And Andy Mason from Heaven in Business really helped to unlock this for me. 

What can it look like when we've reached the highest potential that we can as human beings and just in our everyday walk, right? What can it look like to really partner with God and see things that he sees? Just as I mentioned, to be able to get downloads from him about somebody in front of us. And there's a key question I always ask a lot. 

I say, look, how can I love on the person in front of me? Because I am me and I only know a fraction of you, but God knows everything about you. So how do I get to be me and you get to be you and God help us to connect with each other. And so out of that has come this fascination with coaching people. How can we help you to partner, bring all of you and all that the Lord has, and as the two of you do this together to you be the fullest expression of you on the earth? That abundant life really does look like that? That Matthew 5:16, which is our guiding verse in our business, is how do we let your light shine and the word there is let, right? We have to let it happen.  

So that's the first key is how do we say yes to God? Let our light shine, the fullness of what he's put in us coming out. And the verse carries on to say, then men will see your good works, and the result will be that they will glorify God. We love helping people get to that place where whatever blockage is standing in the way, to get that blockage out of the way so that you now want to let God shine. 

Then discovering what your light is. What is your purpose? Who are you created to be? And then helping you to express that. How do your good works naturally bring glory to God? And that is just our lifeblood. We love doing that.  

Jim: It sounds to me like this is working in business with an unfair advantage because you're using the Holy Spirit. Isn't that what you're really doing?  

Lisa van den Berg: But this is the beauty is that this is how the world gets to see who we are, that we love one another, but that they look at us and go, but that's so strange. Other people get angry in that situation. Why don't you? Or other people have been trying to invent that thing, but now you just come along and it happens. 

I remember one story, one short story where a guy was on a coding team and they needed to sort out a computer coding thing in order to give a presentation the next day, and they just could not do it. This guy went home and he said to the Lord, what do we get to do about this? And the Lord said to him, I'm the one that created the zeros and ones in binary code in the first place. I can give you the answer. So he just went for a run. He went to sleep. The Lord woke him up at three o'clock in the morning, gave him a little tiny little phrase. He put into the code, walked into the presentation the next day, and it all went flawless. In that moment, he let his light shine, and the natural result, when men saw the good works, was that God was glorified. 

Because what was the question they came to ask him after. Dude, how did you do that? Thursday, we didn't have that answer. Now, Friday, we're rocking the presentation, and we won the bid, right? That's the beauty of partnering with God.  

Jim: We've experienced that as newlyweds, as I was, I have a programming degree and I would often be stuck. I don't know how to fix this. I don't know. And I'm like, Lord, I need a solution. And I would always get it in my sleep and solve the problem. And that was when we really started to realize that God cared about the intimate details of our lives, even a programming project. It was so much fun.  

But speaking of unfair advantages, we really do need to have protection against evil forces that are trying to take advantage of us digitally on the internet. SaferNet is what we use at our work for him to protect us from the evil that is trying to constantly take advantage of people through their computers. You can use SaferNet at home and at work, and we highly recommend you check them out. Safernet. com. You get antivirus, you get a VPN, you get website filters and internet controls. It is the best thing you could do for your business and it's the best thing you could do for your home. Safernet. com.  

Martha: So Lisa, how are you seeing your spiritual giftings and those of your team being used to transform how the kingdom business is being conducted?  

Lisa van den Berg: One of the beautiful things is that we, what we do for our clients in being able to help them understand who they are, we started with us. 

Lord, what do we bring? And that's why there are three of us together. And there's actually a whole team behind that as well, that we bring in as well. And we sat and we said, Lord, how did you make this one person? How did you make the other person? And how did you make Lisa? And how do we work in combination? Because one coach is great, but different coaches that see things from different angles has just bought a real vibrancy to our business and help our clients, right? 

So one of us has this prophetic gift, this ability to be able to hear from God and go, oh , that's where the blockage is. And he calls them ceilings, chains, and walls. So how to bust through those things. The other person on the team has the ability to then, once the lie has been identified, to say to God, what's the truth instead? What do we really get to believe? And then I have this gift of strategy and clarity that helps you to practically walk that out in your business and in your life.  

And so we just love being able to acknowledge the beauty of each other's giftings and spiritual giftings, and then how they work together, which is a picture of the body of Christ, and bring that fullness to our clients, help them to not only do that for themselves, but then their work team or their family or the people they get to do life with too, because when we appreciate who we are, and that our differences are beautiful and made to work together, Oh, man, that's the picture of love and the Gospel that causes everything to work together. 

Jim: And it just exemplifies that God wants to get involved in our daily lives, especially in our work, because he equipped you and your team with three different kind of giftings, but all of them applicable to how do you run a business successfully and bring glory to God? Give us an example of something that the three of you were sitting down with a business owner and he or she was stuck. And God gave you guys a solution in this business. Give us that story like that.  

Lisa van den Berg: So one of those was a couple. She was mostly the entrepreneur. Her husband had recently come out of long term employment, but they had this vision from God. They knew what they were doing. They said to us, come in and help us do a strategy session down to the tactics for the new year. 

So we went with them for the new year. And so the three of us, we're all sitting in the living room, the three of us are sitting on the sofa and the two of them have this whiteboard and they've put everything on this whiteboard, all their thinking. And so the prophetic gentleman comes and he looks and he says, okay, this is where I see that won't work. This is how, let's put things this first, the second, right? And he started putting things in place. Then the lady that brings in a healing said, okay, but this is where I know you guys and you don't believe that this can happen. So let's ask God for that truth instead. And they did this swapping lies for truth exercise. 

And then I came in with a tactics and said, so this person needs to be on that team. This person needs to be here. Let's do this next, right? And we put steps and strategy steps and tactics in place for the next year. But the beautiful thing was that we never want you to have to come to us for your solutions. 

So we partner with our clients because they have giftings too. And so we're not business consultants. We just come along as a support network around the ones who are called to business. So the beautiful thing is that as we were doing this, it sparked them and it turned into the five of us. It's listening to the Lord and creating a plan for their business, because it's them that will go away and walk it out. 

And then because we love supporting people, we just walked that plan out with them for the next year, right? As check in points, as accountability, as helps along the way. And it was beautiful to see all five ignited and walking out the plan that God has.  

Martha: I can imagine that our listeners right now are like, Oh, I want that. I want that help. And you have a simple resource that can help people to get a little, I don't know, sneak behind the curtain or whatever you want to call it, called Three Simple Ways to Invite Jesus into Your Day. Why don't you tell us about that resource and then I'll put the links in the show notes. 

Lisa van den Berg: Sure. Thank you. We found in the decade that we have been coaching and the years before that, we were doing this voluntarily, that some of the biggest blockages can be, oh, but that's my spiritual life and this is my work life. What the two of you open this podcast with - what does it look like for all of life to be integrated, right? 

And so we find that, when I go to work, this is my Monday to Friday. And we do leadership practices and best world practice and things like it. But then I'll talk to God maybe on the Saturday because I'm leading up to Sunday and then Sunday is our God day. And what we've actually found is that when we break down that separation and we merge all of life together, what it looks like to actually live everyday life with the Lord and go, Lord, these are the meetings on my calendar today. 

What do you think about them? How do I talk to Fred? Because Fred was a little upset with me last time. Or how do I get Jennifer to, to really shine in that thing that she's too shy about, right? And you involve the Lord in your thinking, in your decisions, as you go into the meetings, you let him speak, give him room to be, you let love lead. 

Business, our own personal lives, our interactions, our communications, our businesses flourish because we're doing everyday life with Jesus instead of the separation, right? Because truly, we think we may be the CEO, CFO, whatever our C's are, right? But what if Jesus was our CEO and we got to run the business with him? 

What if he was our CFO, our chief marketing officer, our HR personnel, right? And we let him have a voice in all of those places? Man. There isn't, the sky isn't even the limit, right? The limits are off then.  

Jim: As we talked today with Lisa van den Berg from Everyday Life with Jesus. She also has a podcast, Adventures with Jesus Today podcast. Do you share these stories of success on your Adventures with Jesus Today podcast?  

Lisa van den Berg: Yeah. They are typically just stories of real life scenarios. I get really authentic in those and just say, you know what, this situation happened and this is what it looked like to talk to Jesus. And you know what the encouraging thing is? That it breaks down this, Oh, it's only the people on the platform. It's only the people who, you know, who are in positions who can hear God and interact with God. And it's not true. Every single one of us in our everyday lives can hear God and walk through life with Him. He loves to do that with us.  

Martha: And yes, listeners, if you are wondering right now, Lisa's podcast is on Awaken Podcast Network, our network that we have as a resource, as a curated place where you can go and find podcasts that are really speaking into your lane, where you are either seeking the Lord, where you work in industry, whatever it might be. 

So go check out Awaken Podcast Network and on our website, iWorkforHim. com, you'll see it right on the front page, and you can go and find Lisa's podcast there.  

Jim: Lisa, before we go, any final words of advice to those listening today that are, that they're just learning to trust God with those details in their business? 

Lisa van den Berg: It's easier than you think. Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And it's true. We think we have to put so much effort in. We think we have to study and be good and that we put a lot of emphasis on our own effort. And the truth is that God wants you in relationship with him even more than we do. 

So just take the pressure off yourself. One of the things that I do each morning is the moment I open my eyes, I put my hands up like I imagine my dad is giving me a hug. And I just say, Good morning, Abba. Good morning, Jesus. Good morning, Holy Spirit. Thank you for being with me in my day. And it just takes all the pressure off us and just becomes a relationship that we get to walk through each day with him. 

Jim: Fantastic. You can find out lots more about Lisa van den Berg at everydaylifewithjesus. com. Lisa, thanks for being on iWork4Him today.  

Lisa van den Berg: Yeah, thank you both. Thank you for the encouragement you send around the world. It is truly making such a difference in people's lives.  

Jim: Thank you. 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!  

3/13/24 - 2033: Wear Your Values on Your Sleeve

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 transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: We live in a world today that neither respects freedom nor religion. The whole DEI movement is not diverse, does not value equity, and is far from inclusive. That is, unless you believe all the things that they believe. The problem is that as Jesus followers, most of what they believe directly contradicts the life that our Heavenly Father desires for us to live and the workplaces of today.

So how do we respond? We respond by seeking out businesses that are involved in the freedom economy. Businesses that reject being woke and stand up to the tyranny by providing excellent products and services and letting customers decide if the company survives or not.

It wasn't until recently that I realized that even the online job posting world had gone woke with some of the major websites discriminating against major Christian organizations. Introducing Red Balloon, online at redballoon.work and Andrew Crapuchettes, the largest woke free talent connector in the country, celebrating kingdom values and providing great connections to great employees. Andrew, welcome to iWork4Him.

Andrew Crapuchettes: Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Jim: Hope you say that and really believe that at the end. I hope you actually, at the end of the show, you're like, yeah, that was really great. So we're going to get to the story of Red Balloon here in a minute. But first, tell us your Jesus story.

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah. So I grew up in a Christian household, which I'm very grateful for. In fact, Christian many generations back, which just gives you a rich heritage. And I'm very grateful for and as I was involved in my church, I was involved in the Awana program and everything else.

I've always just had a heart for people, which is funny that I ended up in the job board business. My previous job was I was leading a huge labor market data company, which I know sounds super boring. Economics is the dismal science, labor market data. But the point of it was I wanted to give people decision ready information so they could make better career decisions for their life.

So what skills are going to drive to the best occupational outcomes? And so we built it into a 50 million business. And I strive, I was striving every day to be a Christian CEO. I didn't use it as a prerequisite. I didn't jam my worldview down anybody else's throat, but I live my values out loud.

And as a consequence, the company was highly successful. We had a lot of people who just loved what they were doing. I had a lot of people came to the Lord, not because we handed out tracts but because I had people would come to me and say, Why are you people so joyful at work? Like when something bad happens, you're still joyful.

What's going on? I'm like, you know what? I'd love to grab you a beer after work and talk about that. And I think my Jesus story is I have lived a life that is just deeply blessed. I'm very grateful. And then I've had the opportunity to be able to bless other people with that and created thousands of jobs, started a lot of businesses and tried to glorify God and glorify his name in all of those things.

Martha: So was there a point where you actually realized that your job was in the marketplace was your assigned place of ministry?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, absolutely. I think there was probably a moment when I started my first business I was just trying to make a living and provide for my young family But I remember sitting down with a gentleman who was working for me who clearly had an anger problem. He was struggling, he would snap at people at work and I'd say look, so and so, this is not allowed. What you're doing here is unhealthy. And I realized in that moment that sin doesn't stay nicely confined in the workplace or at home.

And so I'm like, okay so and so, you need to deal with this. You need to get pastoral advice or whatever it is. You need to get to the bottom of this. And he did. And I found out from his wife later that his marriage was in far better shape because I was able to deal with that anger problem in his life.

And I realized as a boss, I am in a unique position. I have a lever with people that maybe a pastor doesn't have. Maybe their community member, their family doesn't even have because I sign a paycheck. And I obviously need to stay within my lane. My job is not to give marriage counsel at work necessarily, but the nice thing is, as I said, sin doesn't stay in these nice, confined things. And so if you can deal with stuff at work, you're actually helping everlasting souls be better people. And that was a moment, I'm like, okay, so what am I trying to do at work? What's my goal?

And so that's when we adopted these three principles of bless the customer - we want every customer to be better off because they interact with our company, whether they buy anything or not. Bless the employee - we want every employee to be a better person for their time with us, but even if they go to another business, we want them to be a better employee for that business because we care about them. We care about their soul.

And then we want to bless the shareholders because we are under authority. We understand that. And that's fine. And if you bless customers first and employees second, and then shareholders third, if shareholders realize that's their position, they're going to actually receive more blessing.

Not just the monetary blessing, but the cultural impact blessing, the families with great living wages blessing, right? There's a lot of blessings that kind of come from that. And so that was my moment that I got to do that.

Long story boring, unfortunately, living my life as a Christian CEO did end up costing me my job about three years ago. And I'm still grateful that I did it.

Jim: Okay. That's the story. What do you mean? I didn't know about that. So I'm just going to interrupt what I was going to ask. And what do you mean you lost your job because you love jesus?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Three years ago kind of 2020, you know actually coming into that my board- so I'd sold this business I'd helped start this business. Built it to a 50 million dollar tech business. Very successful, growing rapidly. Very profitable, but sold it a number of times. So I didn't have a lot of ownership left. Didn't have a lot of say. And as we went into 2020 my board basically said look you are welcome to be a CEO who happens to be a Christian on the weekend but you need to check your faith at the door and not be a Christian CEO.

And I said, it sounds a lot like you want me to not bring my whole self to work. And I know lots of Christians for lots of years, you're not threatening to throw me to the lions, but you're definitely asking me to not live out my faith in the way that I work. It's not a prerequisite. It's not a weird thing. Everyone here is comfortable. I've never had a complaint from a customer or from an employee. We have, hundreds of employees. Everyone's happy.

Anyway, so they decided that I was not the right person. I didn't have the right social media platform. And they literally told me, you're welcome to be a CEO as long as you're willing to check your faith at the door, but you can't be a Christian CEO. And so I decided that I would take door number three and left the company. And my wife got me a really nice bottle of scotch as a way to go, you lost your job.

 (laughter)

Jim: And that's, I imagine that's where Red Balloon came from, but before we find out about that, I want to know- so as a CEO, a leader, who do you hang out with to keep your priorities straight so that you can honor God, honor your wife, honor your family, honor your employees, your customers, your vendors, and your community? Who do you hang out with? Who's helping you to be discipled and holding you accountable?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. And it's, and it is a struggle for a lot of CEOs, right? That's why we have G7 and C12 and these CEO groups, because, even non Christian CEOs, Ben Horowitz talks about being a CEO, it's a tricky spot. I think he talks about the heart of the hard thing, about hard things. He, you don't have someone to talk to. Your executive team, I've got an amazing executive team and we're on the same page. We're striving to redeem the world of work through the work we're doing at Red Balloon.

But at the end of the day the buck still stops with me as the CEO. My wife is my best counselor. We talk about work all the time. And then I have various men in my church community who are not part of my business who I work to make sure that I maintain a relationship with because I need people who are gonna speak into my life. I'm, of course, have a lot of blind spots.

I'm gonna have situations where I need counsel. And you need to make sure that there's people outside of your business that are speaking to that. I don't have a great c12 group in town just because we're in a smaller town in Idaho here, but I have absolutely our pastors other elders at church. Make sure that I'm grabbing lunch, grabbing coffee, grabbing an opportunity to have people speak into your life because it's easy to get so busy that you never spend that time and you're going to have a blind spot.

And the funny thing about blind spots is they tend to grow if you don't deal with them. And so I am constantly asking, I'm like, okay, full disclosure. You can say anything. I'm not going to get offended. What are you seeing in my life that I need to be striving on? And I've gotten some amazing advice and pointers.

And. I'm a better person for it. I'm very grateful for their time and energy. And I try and do the same thing for other CEOs in town who are not connected with my business and just make sure that we're spending time and I'm speaking to their life as well.

Martha: That's so good. And I hope that the listeners are hearing how that might apply in their own lives and be looking for and asking other people about blind spots.

So Red Balloon is your newest venture. How did God shape you in the process to be ready for launching Red Balloon?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, it's a great question. Honestly, I went through this nine month battle with my board of my previous business. And it was clear that they were using a different standard than I was, right?

My, my goal was happy employees, right? Blessed customers, blessed employees, blessed shareholders. I want happy customers, I want happy employees, and I want to be delivering enormous financial benefits, right? So we were growing 25 percent a year with a 40 percent margin. Rule of 65 on a tech business we were successful by every category except for perception.

And I realized that people are going to be judged based on things that historically have not been the case in America in the marketplace, right? We open this talking a little bit about DEI and what that means right now. And the funny thing is DEI, those are actually Christian words, right? You think about the Trinity is diversity and unity, right?

Diversity is not a bad word. Inclusion is not a bad word, right? Everybody is welcome to our church. right? There's no, everyone is welcome. We want everyone there. But the problem is those words, D E I diversity, equity, inclusion, have been used as a bludgeoning device against a lot of Christians. And it's effective because they're words we actually believe in, but the left is using a different definition for those words than we are.

And so that's was this moment when I realized I'm getting beat up just because I'm living traditional Judeo Christian American values out loud in the workplace that are highly successful. That when you go through a battle like that- also I have this last name that's really terrible and everyone thought I had major learning disabilities for a chunk of my early life.

And so when all these bad things happen to you, then you don't care what people say about you, which is really nice. And God builds us up to that moment, right? And my wife pointed out, she said look, we wouldn't have the New Testament if Paul didn't go to prison. We wouldn't have Pilgrim's Progress if John Bunyan hadn't gone to prison.

And her comment, she actually- and you need to understand, she's Dr. Crapuchettes, I'm sub GED Crapuchettes, so she's the smart one. Just to be clear, she wrote an article in the Federalist shortly after I lost my job and she says, My husband didn't lose his job. My husband was redeployed.

And when the king tells you to go take another hill, who are you to say I don't want to? And when the king says the workplace in America needs freedom because we know that freedom is a distinctly Christian value and those who can be free in the workplace are going to be more likely to be free in other areas of their lives, you just need to go do it and stop being a whiner about it.

Cause no, I don't like losing my job. It wasn't fun. And the nice thing is all of it's played out that way. I have gotten hundreds of thank you notes from perfect strangers saying I found a new job through Red Balloon and it's changed the trajectory of my family. I'm going to church again. My kids are plugged in. Had three people write so far and say, I just want you to know you saved my marriage because of the job that my husband got through Red Balloon. So we've been very blessed to just be part of those stories. And it's clear that God just said, no, Andrew, you need to go take that hill. No matter how painful it is to get kicked out of your previous job.

Jim: Yeah. We love to hear how God shapes his followers so they're ready for what's next, their next assignment. Just like Andrew's been telling us. Not long ago, we heard the story of how God launched Patriot Mobile as an answer to a need in the cellular world for a conservative freedom, family, and faith option. Martha and I love how Patriot Mobile aligns with our values and supports causes we believe in, especially iWork4Him.

It's easy to switch. You keep your phone number. Just go to Patriot Mobile. com/ iWork4Him. They're a great partner in our ministry. We love to have it.

Okay. So what sets Red Balloon apart? There's lots of websites where you can list your resume to try to find a job. What sets Red Balloon apart? You're getting thank you notes. Something must be there.

Andrew Crapuchettes: Something must be different here! So what we do is we just tell employers we need you to sign a pledge if you want to post your jobs on Red Balloon. You think the constitution still matters and you're going to protect the freedom of your employees and your future employees, right? That's not super complicated. In fact, five years ago, that wouldn't even be novel. But it is surprisingly novel today. The news not too long ago called freedom a far right construct. What? No, that's what made America great. That's clearly a Christian value. And so that's all we ask of our employers.

And for the employees, you need to sign a pledge that basically you're going to show up, work hard, and not be a whiner. So again, you don't have to sign up for a statement of faith. You don't have to - all those things. We just want people to be hired based on the value they bring to the business, based on merit, not based on some other category that has nothing to do with the value that you're bringing to the company.

Because when you work hard and you're rewarded for working hard, it brings dignity to individuals, right? If you believe that you have your job merely because of who your parents are or, my brother in law owns this business, so I have this job, we all know that that's not going to bring the deep satisfaction and dignity that comes from working hard.

Earning it, right? And we learned this in kids sports. We learned this all the way along. When you work hard and you win and you earn it, that is actually what builds up your soul and makes you a better person and a better Christian. And so that's what we want to get back to at redballoon. work. And it's work because dot com sounded too much like communist to me.

And we want hard work and not communism. It's called Red Balloon because if you've ever been on a hot air balloon, it's this floating sensation. You don't have a lot of control, like looking for a job. And then people are traveling, they're going to red states or red businesses or places where they can be free.

And so that's why it's red balloon dot work. And for job seekers, everything's free. You can come in, you can download the Employee Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, which is an amazing document written by a labor lawyer. You can go to our resources page, you can get free training, you can put in your profile and employers might just reach out to you and ask you to work for them.

And then if you're an employer, it is not that expensive. You can post a job for as little as 75 a month. Or if you want us to take over the entire hiring process where we write the job posting, do a compensation review, source and screen candidates, interview them for you to make sure that their values align, we can do that too.

Martha: Wow. There's just so many great things that you just said, and I know that our listeners are getting excited and want to check out redballoon. work. I love that Red Balloon is offering such great resources for people to know their rights from a safe and conservative point of view, and I'll put that link in the show notes as well.

But it's often hard to know who to trust, to give you good information and have the best interest at mind. SaferNet is a company that we trust to protect our computers from all the bad unknown that lurks around on the internet. We have peace of mind here at iWork4Him because they have our best interest in mind.

So learn more about this easy to install protection at SaferNet. com.

Jim: Alright, so Andrew, why did Red Balloon become part of the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce online at uschristianchamber. com?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, absolutely. I am excited not only about the conference, but about the work that Krystal's doing with the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce. And let me point it out this way. When you think you're the only one that thinks the way you do, it is really hard to be brave. And we all know that. When we think, man, I guess I'm the only one who thinks this way. And the mainstream liberal media wants all the Christian and conservative businesses to believe that they're literally the only one that thinks this way and they're crazy and that just is a lot harder to be brave.

And let me give you an example. We encouraged employees a couple of months ago, hey, live your values out loud. You can come to red balloon dot work. That's great. But if you're at your current work environment be brave, just live your values out loud. You don't have to jam them down anybody else's throat.

You don't have to push your worldview on anyone else, but you can just not be afraid of the fact that you went to church on Sunday. And if someone asks how your weekend was, say, I had a glorious Sunday at church with my family. That's okay to say. People are asking you, right? And and I had a lot of people write me and say, when I did this, I found out that there were a lot of people at my workplace, who go to church or who shared my values. But we were all self censoring because we're worried what the other person is thinking.

And so what the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce is doing is it's reminding businesses, we're part of a large movement. There's a lot of businesses out there that are seeking to succeed in the marketplace, bless their customers, absolutely bless their employees and provide jobs, but also glorify God in the way that they do all of those things. And if you think you're the only business that's thinking that way, it's a lot harder to be brave, it's a lot harder to do it well. Additionally, we also need to be learning from each other. There's so many good opportunities to be God honoring in a very legal and polite and respectful way to your employees and your customers.

And you need to learn what other businesses have learned through this whole process. That's my encouragement to people and why I want to be part of it. We want to be a blessing to all those employers. We want to learn from them. We want to make sure they're learning from us cause we're all in this together.

Martha: And I can guarantee you that the things you're saying right now, our listeners are leaning in, and they actually probably want to learn more from you, Andrew. And you are a keynote speaker at the U. S. Christian Chamber Business Expo in April. Give us, without giving it away, give us a little sneak peek into something that you're going to be talking about that might entice these listeners to take that step and get registered and meet us in Orlando.

Andrew Crapuchettes: Absolutely. So there's, I'll give you two things that I want to make sure that I hit in that talk. The first one is how do you hire in this world? I was actually recently speaking at a Christian booksellers association and they really struggle because I had one book seller say, I just accidentally hired a Satanist and that really didn't play well with my customers.

I'm like, yeah, I could see that. And so hiring is very difficult. You don't want to, in one way, if you ask the wrong questions in an interview, you get a lawsuit. But if you don't ask those questions, you get a bad culture fit, and then you get a lot of heartache, and then you get a lawsuit.

I'm going to talk about some really practical things that you can do to hire values aligned people without getting yourself into legal trouble. So that's a very practical thing. And then the second thing I want to focus on is, what are things that we can do as Christian business leaders to be a blessing to our employees in a way that is going to be winsome, is going to be joyful and is going to be effective in not only the marketplace, but for their souls?

I've been blessed to manage and hire thousands of people over the years and really given this a lot of thought. And I want to make sure that I'm sharing those thoughts with those business leaders.

Jim: I love that. I'm excited that we get to share a stage with you as the emcees of that event. Please check out the US Christian Chamber Expo online, us christian chamber.com. Before we go, Andrew Red balloon.work. You see a lot of people experience a lot of things. Any final thoughts or encouragement for our listeners out there who are being impacted by the whole woke world at work and need a solution today?

Andrew Crapuchettes: Yeah, the big takeaway that I would give everyone is look: I started RedBalloon.work a little over two years ago and we almost have 4, 000 employers who are part of the platform or have signed up independently. We have over a thousand new job seekers every week and over 2 million people have been on the site looking for freedom. So freedom is in demand, this parallel economy is a market movement that you're going to want to be part of, and for a business to grow that quickly, it's not my brilliance.

It's obviously God's blessing, but it is clear that there is a moment in American history right now where people are willing to stand up. They're willing to push back. And so I, I would encourage people join the Red Balloon Movement, come to the U. S. Christian Chamber of Commerce, because the temptation when you read the news, you read what's happening in Ukraine or China or D. C. or any of these places, is to feel helpless, right? What can I do? I'm one vote, or I'm one person. What can I do?

But sitting on your couch and wringing your hands and watching Fox News is not going to solve any problems. Get off the couch and go do something. Come to this conference. Sign up on Red Balloon. And tell your friends about iWork4Him. Go do something because if every Christian and conservative in America today decides that they're going to change one thing about their life and do one thing different to support people in their community, I think this nation changes in a hurry. So I guess that's my encouragement. Red Balloon has grown quickly because people want it and my encouragement to everybody is get off your couch and go do something for him!

Jim: Amen. Andrew Crapuchettes from RedBalloon.work. Thanks for being on iWork4Him today. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.

3/6/24 - 2032: "Aha" Your Way to Transformation

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 transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.  

Jim: It's been 11 years now since the Lord launched iWork4Him. It wasn't our idea, it was all His. In that time, we've with over 4, 000 people and done over 2, 000 podcasts and highlighted the mission behind over 500 faith and work ministries. 

Most of those ministries are focused on discipling business owners and CEOs. There are a few that are focused on young professionals and people in the rank and file of a large organization who want more from their faith with regard to its impact on their work. And this, today's podcast is dedicated to one of them. 

Introducing Lifework Leadership, Dallas, Texas. We've covered Lifework, different Lifework Leadership cities over the years, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, and maybe even mentioned Orlando, but today a new city is being added to the international listing of Lifework Leadership. That's Dallas, Texas. 

Everything is big in Dallas and everything is even bigger in Texas and Lifework leadership is gonna be huge. John Dembeck - He's been given the mantle by the Lord to set up leadership right there in Dallas, Texas, and he's here to tell you all about it and how you can get involved if you're in Texas. If you're not, maybe you can ask how you can bring it in to your city! 

Lifework leadership is life changing. John Dembeck, welcome to iWork4Him.  

John Dembeck: Thank you. It's great to be here, Jim and Martha. Awesome.  

Martha: We're glad to have you here. And one of the ways we love to start our show, John, is by just having you share a little bit about your Jesus story.  

John Dembeck: Sure. Yeah, I was a raised in a home where we went to a denomination. 

I like to say that I knew all about God, but I didn't know God. I had all the guilt, none of the grace. And yeah, and I was raised in that and I was successful in business and doing real well, but then life started falling apart on me and that's when I had a radical encounter with the Lord in 1994, running a software company. And then shortly after that, I've really felt the call to ministry and went and got my education and my seminary degree and all of that and entered in full time ministry. And as we sit here, I wound up taking that experience and taking that into the business world. 

Jim: So at what point in time did you realize that your work mattered to God, even though you weren't a church pastor anymore?  

John Dembeck: Yeah, and it was a little bit of a transition, Jim. I was actually pastoring when we plumb done ran out of money and then I had to go and get a consulting job just to pay the bills. And then I realized in that time as I was making such a difference in the workplace with my consulting job and making some difference in the church, but realizing that there was a big, huge vacuum of need in the workplace. And there's a lot of pastors doing wonderful work, but what God had called me to do is minister in that workplace. And and it's been a thrilling, thrilling ride.  

Jim: And we're going to hear lots more about it today. John, it's funny how so many of us don't realize how important the day to day work is that God has us doing. Our friends at SaferNet work really hard day and night to keep our workplace safe, our work environment safe, by protecting us from viruses and hackers that might be trying to destroy our good work. Please check them out online safer net. com Safer net. com. A powerful tool that works in any office environment.  

Martha: So John, you were talking about, Jim said a little bit at the beginning, gave it away. Lifeworks leadership is coming to Dallas and you are such a big part of that. How did you get introduced to Lifeworks leadership yourself? 

John Dembeck: I was living in Fort Lauderdale at the time and I was an assistant pastor at one of the Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale campuses. And it was actually a Pastor that was part time, it was actually one of the pastors on staff that had been through the program says, John, you really got to go through this. 

At the time I was working for the Seminole tribe of Florida with my day job. He said, really, to be able to go through there and have an impact in your workplace is something that you ought to consider. So my work actually paid for me to go through that. And so it was in Fort Lauderdale in 2015. And it was life changing. 

Jim: How long did that last? How long does a Lifework leadership class go?  

John Dembeck: It's about nine months, once a month for nine months, a half day class and and a couple of full days in there for a retreat. So yeah, it's a one year semester, so to speak. And then you're inspired and equipped to go out and make a difference in your church and your community and your business. 

Martha: So tell us about that a little bit. What was something that you learned or that you were inspired to do as a result of going through Lifework leadership?  

John Dembeck: I told you about the beginning of my calling when I was out in the workplace and pastoring a church, but it really became refined in that season and going through that class with Stephan Tchividjian and understanding that I was anointed for business and I was anointed to be able to go into the workplace. 

They clarified my calling in that time. And that was over the whole time. But I tell you the one specific moment that stood out at me in that session was going through the compassion session with Tony Campola and going through that session and going to a halfway house and a field trip and visiting that stirred my heart with affection for people and for the needs that were out there in a way I've never really experienced before. And it was Lifework that introduced this, and that with that piece changed my life.  

Jim: What do you mean it changed your life?  

John Dembeck: I mean I recognize I went through that and I said, what kind of needs do you have here? 

And they said we need everything. And ironically, I had just been to a Christian thrift shop and tried to take my books and drop some things off. And they said, we don't take books anymore at the thrift stop. And I went through there and they said, we need everything. We need books, we need magazines, we need this, we need that. But mostly what we need is we need clothing for people to go to interviews. And I went and I, my heart was aching, my heart was breaking. I went home and I realized I got two suits. I wear them once a year. I, took one suit and gave it away. 

I cleaned my closet and that has stuck with me through the rest of my life of just having and using what I need versus accumulating stuff.  

Martha: And I just think about the fact that how many of us don't get those kinds of opportunities intentionally, like what you were just saying, because you went on a field trip. We don't do that. 

Jim: I was thinking she was going to say, I was thinking about that. My closet's so full of clothes. Maybe I should give some away. I thought that's what you were going to say.  

 (laughter)  

Martha: He knows I do that. So he just likes to egg me on.  

But everybody could do that. Everybody that's listening. I love the fact that you said that they were like, we need everything. Let's really talk about, how people, I bet you they need accounting skills, they need help with certain things. I think that so many of us forget that the gifts that God's given us to do in our daily work is for a reason as well. So that's so powerful.  

Jim: I interrupted your question. I apologize.  

 I just had to say something. All right. So when you look at your work life before and after Lifework leadership, when you went in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, somebody has to suffer and you had to go. 

Look at it. Give some comparisons. How did what you learned at Lifework impact your day to day in your job? And you've had multiple jobs since then. How has it impacted that?  

John Dembeck: Yeah, what it has me do is to understand first of all that work is important, that we can work as worship and work is important. 

And so too often sometimes, I don't want to say sometimes, you can go to church and you can think that the most important thing for you to do at your job is to witness and to, to be teaching Bible studies at your job. And those are certainly important elements, but that's not why your employer hired you. 

Your employer hired you to work and it's through working hard and being there and being that kind of witness that you really have an opportunity to share the gospel and be a witness for him. So what God has really showed me as I walk into any place now, my heart breaks for those, particularly Christians, that are there and are feeling less than fulfilled in their work. And wherever I go, that's a burden. I have a burden to be able to encourage people to what I call fully express who God has created them to be. And so when I walk into a place and see somebody that's languishing and they have a faith, what are you doing with it?  

That is a difference between before I went through Lifework and afterwards even though as a believer, I recognize the value of work and faith. Of course, I have a ministry named work and faith and that those both matter enormously to the Lord.  

Martha: That's so good. And the fact that you just learned that it was important to articulate that to people: what are you doing? Seeing where they're at, it gave you that, like you said, it just pains you when you see people that are not living in that. So talk about your long term relationships that you got out of your time involvement with Lifework Leadership.  

John Dembeck: With the whole Lifework community, Stefan, I'm sure that, Stefan might recognize my picture and maybe my name, but I've been able to get connected with the Lifework community, with Steve French who's the global ambassador. And to be able to have connections in, and now in the other cities that are around and there's some alumni that I'm associated with. One of them is on my Work and Faith Matters board, as we continue to have work and faith as a priority. When you gather together for a period of time under a common mission and a common goal, it unites your hearts to each other. 

Now, unfortunately- no, I wouldn't say unfortunately. Oh, I just did - but I was in Fort Lauderdale and at the time when I graduated, I intended to go back as a coach and just continue and continue, but the Lord had other plans and he used the lack of finances to move us to Dallas Fort Worth. 

And so I couldn't continue in Fort Lauderdale. It's taken a little bit of time. But now I'm excited about bringing it to Dallas Fort Worth.  

Jim: So it's great to have a perspective on what bringing Lifework leadership to Dallas, Texas will make as an impact on Dallas, Texas. So maybe we should talk to somebody who brought Lifework leadership to another city to hear what they've got to say. 

John, I'm just I wanted to surprise you. I got Tammie McClafferty joining us today from Lifework Leadership in Jacksonville, Florida. She's getting her computer coming in. She's coming in hot. She's always running fast and furious, but Tammie McClafferty has been running Jacksonville's Lifework Leadership for a really long time. 

Tammie McClafferty, welcome back to iWork4Him!  

Tammie McClafferty: Hi, guys. How are you? Hey, John. How are you? Good to see you again.  

Jim: Tammie, it's been a lot of years since you hosted- you actually hosted some iWork4Him shows back in Jacksonville, Florida for us. You've been doing Lifeworks Leadership for a long time. How long have you been doing it?  

Tammie McClafferty: I've been doing it seven years here in Jacksonville. But Lifeworks been in Jacksonville 14 years.  

Martha: That's awesome. So Tammie, tell us a few statistics about Lifework Leadership in Jacksonville. How many have graduated from the program?  

Tammie McClafferty: We are up over 600 alumni here in the city, which is amazing. We are working with or have had over 65 nonprofits come through and have had people come through the class with over 200 different churches being represented in the city, which is awesome. 

Jim: So what are some of the comments, Tammie, that you hear from your graduates a year or two down the road about their experience at Lifework and how it's impacted their day to day?  

Tammie McClafferty: Yeah, I think the biggest feedback we get is the fact that Lifework is here for them when they need it. I was telling somebody the other day, it's almost like when you have kids, that my kids are now gone, out of the house and there's still this understood you can always come home when you need it. 

Life might be doing whatever life is doing, but if you need it, you can always come home. And I think that's what's been so impressive about Lifework here in the city is, work may be going well, marriage may be going well, church is going well, you're doing well, and then all of a sudden, you need Lifework and you need the connections that Lifework brought. 

And so we just see alumni returning because they need it. I need a job. I need to hire somebody. I need a lawyer. I need a whatever that is. And they want that camaraderie that Lifework brings. And so we see them just reengaging years down the road sometimes because they know the family of Lifeworks always here for them. 

Martha: So Tammie, you just recently told us some amazing things about Lifework leadership and alumni in the city there, like what kinds of roles and influence they're having within the leadership of your city. Tell us about that.  

Tammie McClafferty: Yeah, it's been impressive. I have to give credit to the director before me, really pushed to get into the political world in Jacksonville and get christians engaged there. And so we have seen that continue. So our last three elected sheriffs have all been Lifework alumni. Six city council members who have all been elected are all Lifework alumni. We have three or four different school board members that have been elected, a congressman, the mayor just paid for somebody to go through the class this year, and so we've been able to watch Lifework, like literally boots on the ground, change policy and change laws and literally change the dynamics of this city through our Lifework alumni. So that's just been amazing to watch God work.  

Jim: And that's fantastic! Some listeners are gonna go, Christians shouldn't be involved in politics. People, Jesus said bring the kingdom to the earth and that means bringing our leadership Jesus centered everywhere we go and It's so powerful. I was so excited when you told us that recently. I'm like, Oh, we got to bring that up on today's show.  

Talk to me about the employers who are paying money to send employees to Lifework leadership. What are you hearing from the employers a year down the road after their Lifework grads come back to work, they start implementing what they've learned? What are you hearing from them?  

Tammie McClafferty: I think it speaks for itself because they continue to send people through. So we probably have, in a class of 40, I would say half of them are paid for by their employers. And we do it every year. Big companies here in Jacksonville - Fanatics sends somebody through Lifework every year. 

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, our Sheriff's Office pays for someone within the organization to go through every year. Florida Blue. FSCJ, which is a Florida State College of Jacksonville, sends someone to go through every year. CSX, the train company. And what I think is amazing is we're starting to see these companies realize the benefit of what Lifework brings to the employees and the people that are going through it. And so it's now just budgeted in for some of these companies that they're just automatically sending people through every year. And it's changing the culture. We talked to the, CEO here with Fanatics and he said, it has literally, we've now sent probably 10 people through from Fanatics and he said, it's changing the culture on the warehouse floor within Fanatics. So it's just been so fun to watch.  

Jim: You've been doing it a lot of years and in the midst of that, you had a doctoral, it's really Dr. Tammie McClafferty. I apologize. I should have introduced you as that because I read your dissertation. It's extremely impressive. Why do you keep on doing Lifework leadership year after year there in Jacksonville, Florida?  

Tammie McClafferty: That's such a good question. At least for me, it brings everything that I am so passionate about together. It brings our faith and our work just into greater conjunction. 

And although people talk about that Hey, I know my faith and my work, lifework is the only thing that I've been able to get my hands on that's not just a leadership conference or a faith conference or, just a class that you go through that you walk out of and it's done. You can check the box, put it to your LinkedIn profile and be done.  

But in Jacksonville, it's boots on the ground. Like you finish Lifework and you've been tasked with something, the Holy Spirit's talked to you. Somebody in the classes said something and you leave this journey, as we call it, and you get to go out and do it. Like it is an action, an actionable program that you don't just sit through it. You actually go do it. And that is what keeps me coming back year after year is because we're watching - it literally changed this city for Jesus Christ. And I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather be.  

Martha: That is so awesome. As John Dembeck is looking at bringing Lifeworks leadership to Dallas, speak to the people that might be listening that are either in Dallas and going to have this opportunity, or even in cities that don't yet have it. Why would you be excited about it coming to their city?  

Tammie McClafferty: Yeah, I think John's amazing. We've had the opportunity to get to know each other. He came to Jacksonville to visit, which was great. So just have been in awe of what he and his team are doing there in Dallas. I think what makes it so unique and so special for a city is it crosses denominational barriers. It's not like a church where and again, nothing, nothing wrong with that. But a church is typically going to reach a particular demographic, a particular belief style whereas the life just erases all that.  

It is young people. It is old people. It is professionals. We have two people that are retired this year. They just sold their company and they're like, all right, Lord, what's next? We've got kids coming out of college that are ready to do this thing, right? And so you have this diversity among the professions that are represented. 

But you have a diversity among the faith based organizations. So in this year's class, we have 40 in the class. We have nine different denominations represented in the class. And I think that just brings such a unique perspective to faith and work. And it just, we like to say here, it just oozes unity among the city. 

And so I just think that we tap into something that the churches can't all get. The faith community in and of itself can't get, but we get to do that, and then we get to do life together. If you're in Dallas, and reaches out to you, I cannot recommend enough that you take part in Lifework. It will change your life, and it will change the city. It absolutely will change the city.  

Jim: Look out, Dallas, Texas, Lifework leadership is coming. Dr. Tammie McClafferty from Lifework leadership in Jacksonville, Florida. Thanks for joining us this afternoon here on iWork4Him.  

Tammie McClafferty: Thank you. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. John, good luck with everything. We'll catch up later.  

Jim: All right. Bye!  

Martha and I recently switched our mobile carrier to Patriot mobile and that was a big decision that we absolutely do not regret and we would do it again. And Patriot mobile has excellent service, coverage, prices. 

And it's a faith, family, and freedom company. It supports the causes that we believe in, and not the causes that the enemy believes in. Anyone can do it today by going to patriotmobile.com/ iWork4Him. Everybody that switches, a little bit of your monthly bill goes to help support iWork4Him. 

Martha: So John, you're bringing Lifework leadership to Dallas. Why are you doing this?  

John Dembeck: It's been in my heart since I got to Dallas. We moved there in 2016 and when we moved there, I wanted to do it right away. I called Steve French and I asked him about it. He said, that's great. You need a community of believers. 

You need to have it, some network, and have some nonprofits. You have to have all of these things, and I thought, Oh my gosh, I just moved here. I don't know anybody. But it's been in my heart. It pumps through my veins, the work and faith matters and I wanted to do it. 

And then in March of this year, there was an event. It was seemingly small, but it wound up being very large. When we made the decision that we're not leaving Texas, we've lived in seven different States, 26 different homes. We've moved a lot. When we made the decision, my wife and I were not leaving, God began to open doors and made the introductions and that's how I met Jim and others and introduced me to people in government and people in the medical community and people in the business community and it seemed that the time is right to have this come together and make a difference. And it's one of those things I like to say I can't not do it. I have to do this and I'm excited about what God is going to do through it.  

Jim: So would you say your goal is getting started here fall of 2024? What's your goal?  

John Dembeck: My goal, by God's grace, I would love to have 50 people come through the program. And I went through a life planning a couple of years back. And my life's mission is to engage others to fully express who God has created us to be. That is my goal, is to have people come through and fully express, as Martha, you brought it up, their gifts, their talents, their ability. And that was it's called whole life generosity. I'm using my influence. I'm using my talents. I would love to have 50 and begin to have 50, change 50 lives, which changes 50 families, changes 50 companies, and potentially 50 churches. And then have that multiplied every year for the rest of my life, as long as God gives me the grace to do it.  

Jim: All right, let's go into some of the details. Who is it for? Who is Lifework Leadership Dallas, Texas for?  

John Dembeck: It is for the professional. It's for somebody that finds themself leading in some capacity, whether it is in government or medicine or business. It's someone and somebody that's a believer that's committed to their faith or wants to be committed to their faith and says, God, I am searching for what it is that you would have for me to live a fully expressed fulfilled life. That's who it's for.  

Martha: And when can they expect it to start?  

John Dembeck: It will start on September 12th of next year, by God's grace. 

Jim: Not next year. September 12th of 2024.  

John Dembeck: That's right. September 12th. Yeah, gosh, this has been brewing for about 18 months. But it's going to be in various places throughout the Metroplex. We say Dallas cause that's where I live, but it's going to be in Dallas and Fort Worth. We're going to rotate around the Metroplex in Arlington. We have a couple of meetings and it'll be the nine month program, which will end in May of next year.  

Jim: And you've got some incredible speakers lined up. What kind of, give us a name, a couple of speakers you got lined up. They're going to come in and just speak to your Lifework leadership classes.  

John Dembeck: Oh, Tammie McClafferty is going to come in and she's going to speak to us.  

Jim: That'd be Dr. Tammie McClafferty.  

John Dembeck: Dr. Tammie McClafferty. We have Stephan Tchividjian, he is going to come in and he's going to speak to our group. We're trying to get Ron Blue to come talk to us about generosity. And we have case studies. Heath Hill from Line Media is coming in and speaking to us how God radically transformed his business when he became radically obedient to what God was telling him to do. And just we're so excited about who we have lined up and who's coming. 

Dr. Steven Creme, who's the chief medical officer for total care clinics is going to come in and he's going to be speaking with us. We have, I just, I can't wait for it to start. All we need is registrants.  

Jim: Before we get to the registrants, cause I know that we need to give out a phone number, you need to get on our website, but what's the guarantee? If I decided someone of my employees or leadership, what's the guaranteed impact on my employee?  

John Dembeck: Your employee is going to go through this- I haven't met someone yet who has gone through it and hasn't had an aha moment, a moment during the program. It's different for everybody that goes through and says, aha, this is what God would have for me. They're going to have an aha moment and their lives, the guarantee is it will change your life. 

It will change your life for the better and give you meaning and purpose.  

Jim: So if somebody wants to get ahold of you and talk to you about this, talk about getting registered, maybe getting several other employees registered, what's a phone number they should call?  

John Dembeck: It's 954, still a Fort Lauderdale phone number, 895 9992. 

One more time. 945 895 9992.  

Jim: Excellent. Alright, and website, go to LifeworkLeadership. org and click on Dallas and it'll run you out to the website talking all about what John Dembeck has planned for Dallas, Texas, LifeworkLeadership. org. Click on the beautiful picture of Dallas and find out more. John Dembeck, we are excited. We're ecstatic for what God's doing there in Dallas, Texas. We know that this September, things are never going to be the same in a really good way in Dallas, Texas. Thank you for bringing your story to iWork4Him today, John.  

John Dembeck: Yes and amen. Thank you, Jim and Martha.  

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

2/28/24 - 2031: Do GOOD with Your Money!

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

Martha: We are your host, Jim and Martha Brangemberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Martha, before we get to our guest, Sean Kouplen, for the day, I really wanna check in with Krystal Parker from the U.S Christian Chamber of Commerce online at uschristianchamber.com to find out more updates about the upcoming expo.

Krystal, welcome back. So, Krystal, we got four weeks to go. Wait a minute. No, we got six weeks to go from the date of this podcast release before the expo, so it's very exciting. We're getting down to the wire though. Tell everybody about the U.S Christian Chamber event. Is it too late to register?

Krystal Parker: It's not too late to register. Just go to Uschristianchamber.com and it's conference 2024. You'll find out all of the information there, but there's something exciting if we're just six weeks out. We've got 10 teams that are focused. They're just ready for all of our guests to come.

We're not leaving any detail left out. Every team's focus is for the attendees to have the most incredible experience from the moment they get on the property at Doubletree SeaWorld, all the way to the moment that they pack their bags and leave Orlando, Florida. So come and truly just experience what God has for you and your business and your family.

Bring 'em. It's an amazing resort location. It's a great opportunity to connect with God, to bring and invite Him into your business. And if you bring your team or your family, get some bonding time with them as well. Come back to your work situation full and ready and postured to take 2024 by storm.

Jim: Yeah, really 2024 has already taken us all by storm. The weather here in the Midwest this year has been horrible. Right now as we're recording this, it's 55 degrees outside. Oh, the terrible weather. It's just terrible!

Alright. But the U.S Christian Chamber event is the 18th and 19th of April, and then you guys have partnered with the International Christian Chamber of Commerce, where they're gonna be meeting right after yours on the 20th of April.

All of this happening in Orlando right down the street from Mickey Mouse, that's where it's being held. What are you most excited about, Krystal, about this event?

Krystal Parker: Besides our incredible emcees, which are you two amazing leaders, what I'm most excited about is the fact that we're gonna have 650 business owners - Christian business owners- from around the globe that are going to hear five key things that are gonna help them in their business moving forward.

They're gonna have a clear identity of who they are. They're gonna have a foundation solid on Christ Jesus. They're gonna be able to hear from the Holy Spirit and be obedient to the Holy Spirit. They're gonna have a new insight on being collaborative and unity in the body of Christ. And most important, 650 people from around the world are gonna leave Orlando with an idea of what it means to be a co-worker in God's service.

Their biznistry, using their business as a mission field to reach more, do more, and share more of the gospel and the good news of Jesus Christ. I can't wait.

Martha: And I can't wait either, Krystal. And I hope that just this little bit that you've been able to share is helping people to lean in and say, number one, what? U.s Christian chamber of Commerce? So I want you to tell people where they can find out more and I want to encourage and challenge our listeners. If you're like me, when you go to a website to learn more about an event, poke around the whole website, learn more about the US Christian Chamber, and if this is something that resonates with you, maybe you can participate in a deeper level as well.

But I think the expo is a great way to get people exposed to that. We'd love to see you all in person and hear from you while you're there. Tell us.

Jim: And just a clarification though, if you don't have a touch screen, you won't be able to poke around the website. You may have to click around the website.

But Krystal, why don't you tell people where they should go?

Krystal Parker: Just go to Uschristianchamber.com. You can poke, you can stylus, you can move your mouse and cursor, you will find us there. And we can't wait to see you in Orlando.

Jim: Krystal Parker, thanks for being with us on iWork4Him today. Thanks for this exciting news. We're so excited about this event. Thanks, Krystal. We'll see you there.

In the last 20 years, Dave Ramsey has made famous the line: "you got to be knowing where your money is going." And of course, Dave was talking about a budget in our households. But today we're gonna be talking about how important it is to make sure we know where our money is going, supporting and funding once it leaves our households.

It matters where you bank, which credit card you use. It matters what retail outlets you frequent. Your money, once it leaves your hands, goes to work for other people. And their agenda could be very different than your agenda as a Jesus-following workplace believer. So who do you bank with? Where do they invest their donation dollars?

Is it in pro-Christian causes? Probably not. Pro-Biblical morality causes? Probably unlikely. Or are they supporting the enemy's campaign to destroy the family and our country? Martha and I had a realization about two years back. During the Covid crisis, we realized our bank and credit card organizations were all pushing an agenda we completely disagreed with, and we were helping to fund it through their profits.

We needed a change, and we found Regent Bank out of Oklahoma. There's a story here, a miracle story that you need to know, and it's gonna change the way you start banking tomorrow. Sean Kouplen joins us today as a CEO of Regent Bank. Welcome Sean Kouplen to iWork4Him.

Sean Kouplen: I don't have anything else to say. You've already said it all. Meeting adjourned.

Martha: We know that's not true. Yeah, because God's story that He's written in your life is something that we are really wanting to focus on and let our listeners hear about. So let's start with back when you were growing up, did you always plan on being a banker?

Sean Kouplen: Ha! No. So I grew up in a very small community south of Tulsa, Oklahoma, called Beggs, Oklahoma. B-E-G-G-S. There are about a thousand people there. My grandfather and father were both ranchers. My father still is. That's what he does to this day. And I thought I was gonna be a rancher. I was about a semester from graduating from college.

I was helping my dad on the farm and he informed me that I was fired. And the reason that I was fired wasn't so much of my performance, although I did tear up a lot of farm equipment back in the day. It was really more because we were struggling financially and he just couldn't afford to pay me. He knew Angela and I were gonna get married and he basically said, Hey, you need to go get another job.

Short version of a long story, I drive back to Oklahoma State University where I graduated from. I had been in student leadership there. I was praying, Lord, what am I gonna do? I had no business background whatsoever. I was invited to a Board of Regents dinner on Tuesday. So my dad let me know this on a Sunday. Two days later I'm at this Board of Regents Dinner. It's me, the university president, four members of the Board of Regents and Dr. Halligan, our president said he called me Mr. Beggs. He said, Mr. Beggs, what are you gonna do whenever you graduate from college?

And of course, I didn't know and I was too embarrassed to say that I didn't know. So I looked to my left and this guy had a nameplate that said Bruce Benbrook, Chairman Stock Exchange Bank, Woodward, Oklahoma. And I thought that sounds good. This guy's got on a nice suit. He was on the Board of Regents there. He was a big deal. And so I literally made it up.

I said, actually I've been thinking about going into banking. Everybody around the table was shocked. They were surprised. We had no idea you were going into banking. And I said, oh, yeah. I said, it's a very recent career decision.

Jim: Real recent. 30 seconds ago.

Sean Kouplen: Exactly. And so I bluffed my way through the dinner. They asked me all these questions about banking. I knew nothing about banking. As we were walking out he offered to help me get an internship at a bank. And that's how I got into the banking business. I loved it. Was a bank president by the time I was 24. Had the opportunity to buy Regent when I was 34. And now I've been here 15 years.

Jim: Let's talk about that. Why did you buy Regent Bank? Because you did it in 2008. Not a great year tp be buying a bank, but you didn't know that when you bought it probably. Why did you buy Regent Bank? What was the real reason? And then tell us that story.

Sean Kouplen: So we had an inkling that things may be getting a little tough but the problem was I already had the bank under contract. So here's kinda how it played out. I was running a bank here in Tulsa and at the time it was called Grand Bank, and a wonderful organization. Got a call from a friend of mine who was looking for a bank president at Regent Bank in Nowata, Oklahoma.

Nowata is another Metropolis. 3000 people, forty-five minutes north of Tulsa. And so as we get to talking, it became really clear to me that my friend who had inherited the bank, he was the third generation owner of this bank- Regent Bank had, has been around by the way, since 1898- it's amazing. So he did not love the banking business. You could tell he, he just, it was not his passion. He was really owning and running the bank out of obligation to his family. And so I just asked him in a conversation we were having if he had ever considered selling the bank and going and doing something that he loved, something that he was passionate about.

And he said, no, I can't do that. It's been in my family since the 1940s. And I said, I'll see if I can help you find a good bank president. And he called me back two weeks later and said, I've been talking with my sister. We've been praying. I do want to go do something that I'm passionate about, and we wanna sell the bank to you.

And I was like I'm thirty-four years old. I don't really have any money. How in the world is all that gonna happen? And long story short, we negotiated a purchase. I resigned from my position at the other bank and just began to raise the capital to buy the bank. The Lord blessed me.

I was able to raise 15 and a half million dollars in 90 days. We bought the bank on April Fool's day of 2008. It was looking a little, I know it was very ironic given what happened in 08, 09, and 10. And so it was, everything was okay in the fall of 2007 when we contracted to buy the bank. Then things began to look a little rough, but even in April of 08, we had no idea what was on the horizon economically.

Jim: 2008, September, the end of September, 2008 comes along. You own a bank. If things were rough there - I was in the construction business managing IT and insurance for a large development company out of Orlando.

So needless to say, between the end of September and the end of October, we laid off everybody 'cause cash was gone. There was no cash. No cash. How did you keep Regent Bank afloat during the toughest economic times since the depression of the thirties? 'cause I know what it was like in Florida. Unemployment was 20 to 30%.

They never published that, by the way. I'm not pointing fingers, but the government lied. So 20 to 30% unemployment. I know that banks were in trouble 'cause they had the fake inflation on property values. Just all that stuff. There was so much stuff going on. Was that an easy job to keep the Regent bank afloat then?

Sean Kouplen: No, it was the hardest time of my life, to be honest with you. So think about this. We buy the bank. Okay? I'm thirty-four. I feel like the king of the world. We'd raised all this money. I'm gonna hire my team. I had this vision of what the organization was gonna be, which by the way, initially it was we raised the money as a, a faith-based organization that would operate under Christian principles, but it was not near the central focus that it is today. The initial focus was we would be a great bank for small business owners. That was our niche, was we were going to be a, an entrepreneur's bank for entrepreneurs. And that's how it began.

So for about six months it was awesome. It was so much fun. It was every day I was learning something new, meeting new people. And then it became obvious, like you said, by the fall of 08, that things were getting really bad and by the time we began to have loans charged off. Just like the company that you were with, Jim, they just couldn't, they just couldn't make their payments.

It wasn't their fault. Everything froze up. So by the time we got to February of 2009 and it went, I remember it was the third Sunday in February of 2009. I was in church and I thought we were going to go under. I was certain that we were going to go under. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Honestly, it was every fear that I'd ever had in my life was coming true. Not only was I going to lose everything, all my investors were going to lose everything. I had already called my other major investors to ask them if they would invest additional capital. And they had all politely told me no and that they didn't want to put good money after bad money.

And they were all fighting for their lives. You can't really blame them. But I was in a very dark place on that Sunday morning.

Jim: But you got an incredible phone call, which we'll talk about in a minute.

Martha: Yeah, so I can't wait to keep on digging into this story. But, one of the things that I think about when we're talking about business issues and how we can allow God to direct our decisions, it reminds me of the many stories that we've put in our books: iWork4Him, sheWorks4Him, and iRetire4Him.

Each one of these titles are filled with individual stories of how God has been involved in people's work and their retirement. Much like the story we're hearing today. So listeners you can go to, iWork4Him. com/bookstore and learn more about all of our titles and all the different formats that it comes in. So I just encourage you to go there. The link will be in the show notes.

Jim: Sean I've heard you tell the story, and so I wanna get to that day that you were sending letters out to all of your investors to say sorry but it's not bleak. It's worse than bleak.

Sean Kouplen: So first of all, to your listeners, I have read iWork4Him. It is a great book. I highly recommend it. They didn't ask me to say that. I just feel like I need to share that.

So here's what happened. That day that I'm in church, we end up sitting on the front row and the band is singing a song called Healer. I believe you're my healer. I believe you're more than enough for me. And as they are singing this song, I am thinking, this is a bunch of baloney. There isn't any healing occurring. I've been praying forever. Everything's getting worse in my life. I'm about to go under, about to go broke. And in that moment the Lord asked me a question, do you believe I'm your healer?

Very clearly, and I always joke and tell people, I was raised southern Baptist, so this wasn't a normal, this wasn't really a normal thing for us. I'm not one of these people that always heard everything, but it was so clear to the point that I lost it on the front row of the church that I had founded.

I was an elder in the church. I couldn't stop crying. And I basically said, okay, Lord. If you're gonna save the bank and the jobs and the investment and all that, you're gonna have to be my healer because I don't know what else to do. I turn everything over to you. Please help me. I'm at the end of my rope.

So we go home and a few days later I was up at the bank in Nowata that we originally bought, and this is what Jim was talking about. We had put together 80 letters that would go out to our 80 shareholders. One of which was me, I was broke. So you can rip that letter up, put it in the trash can.

Seventy-nine letters are going out to the other shareholders that basically said what you just said. I'm so sorry about the investment. If we don't raise $3 million by the end of the first quarter, we are absolutely gonna get shut down because 430 banks have already closed and we are very close to that.

And please reconsider and please make an investment with us. So Sandy Moore, who was our board secretary and my assistant at the time, is walking out the door with these letters and the phone rings to my left and Arlene says Sean, you have a phone call from the U.S Treasury Department.

They are the, they're the people that shut down the banks. And so I yell out to Sandy and I think so much for that prayer. I reach out to Sandy and say, Sandy you don't need to take those letters. You might as well come back. It's too late. And I walk around to my office, the longest 20 foot walk of my life, and I think that's it.

They're gonna tell me they've seen our numbers and they're gonna shut us down. And so I pick up the phone and there's a lady on the other line and her name is Lisa Taylor. And she says Ms. Kouplen, it's Lisa Taylor with the U.S Treasury Department. How are you today? And I say Lisa... I can't even, my, my ears are ringing. My heart is K-K-K-K. And I just said Lisa, it depends on how this phone call goes. And she laughs, and I'm like, this is really not funny. And she said the reason I'm calling today is because Regent Bank has been chosen for the Capital Purchase Program, which is a community bank program to help actively loaning banks loan out more money.

And we would like to invest $3 million in your bank. And I was like, this has gotta be a dream. And I said, did you say $3 million? And she said, yes. And she said, would you like to know the terms of the loan or the investment? And I said sure. And she said it's 1% interest.

You have nine years to pay it back. There is no board seats, no dilution whatsoever. And all you gotta do is fill out a little simple form and we'll wire the money in. So I was thinking don't cry. Don't, you know, don't let her know how desperate this situation is. So I said a We would love to participate in the program. She sent me the form, I filled it out. I sent it back. The money came in that day, the same day we were on the phone at 10:57. The money came in at 2 :57, 2 :58 that day, and the bank literally was healed. And from that moment, it literally changed my life.

And all the scarcity, all the fear that I had my whole life went away. It was literally like a miraculous healing. I've been blessed to see these on mission trips and such, and it was the same thing. And so from that moment, we dedicated the bank to God. The bank has grown from seventy-two million dollars in assets to, we just today passed $1.6 billion in assets.

We had forty-three employees. Now we have 220. We were in one location, now we're in seven different markets. And it has truly been the blessing of my life.

Martha: No matter how many times I hear that story, I still am just so amazed at God's handiwork because often we have to get to the end of ourselves and then we actually can see what God is doing and no one can refute what God did through your life, Sean, and through the bank.

And because of that healing process, like you said, the intentionality of the bank and, really giving God the right seat in the bank has made all the difference in the world. So I want our listeners not to just hear that, to hear that God showed up and saved the day because that did happen.

But the ongoing effects of that in how you service your customers and what you guys are doing with the money that is put into the bank, talk about that for a minute so that the listeners actually see where it's becoming an important part of the day to day.

Sean Kouplen: Yeah. Martha what happened on that day was I learned that I did not have as much control as I thought that I had. I learned that God really loved me and that he wanted to take care of me. I'm like you. I've told the story hundreds of times. I'm about to cry now. I can't even, I still cannot get through it without tearing up. And so it just changed everything.

And briefly, a number of things came out of this. One is we changed our purpose statement as an organization. It used to be the best bank and provide good service and blah, blah, blah and all that stuff. And it now and has been for many years, the purpose statement is to show God's love to our employees, clients, and communities.

And we, the Lord called me to start a daily devotional about eight years ago. And it was petrifying. I didn't even, I thought it was illegal. I didn't even think you could do that within a company. And now I know that you can, and obviously we have the 94X movement that has come out of that.

But this devotional started with seven people and has now reached 226,000 people. We started a prayer team within the last few years that about 50 or 60 of our employees all day long, pray for those that need it. It might be our employees, it might be our clients, might be our communities.

The person that leads our prayer team is our internal auditor, believe it or not, and she literally documented- I didn't even know this- she documented the answered prayer requests from the prayer team last year, and there were a 157 answered prayer requests, many of which are legitimate miracles.

If you read her document it, it is mind-blowing. We began Faith in Business series where you guys have spoken for us. We began Faith in Business series events in all of our markets. So in every market we have a free breakfast or lunch event where on a monthly basis business leaders can come share the stories, much like what are in your book.

It's very encouraging. And the net result - we have prayer teams, we have Bible studies, we have all of these types of things. But here's the net result: this, I just cannot get over this. Four days ago - I meet with all of our employees once a month, all of our new employees, once a month.

Okay. So they all come in and we have lunch together, and they come in from the different locations. It's super fun to get to meet 'em all, and they all really haven't ever been in a culture like this, and everybody thought it was too good to be true.

They had heard about it and thought, oh, there's no way it can really be like that. And then they find out it, it really is. You really can bring the Lord into your business and it really does change everything. So we are going around and I asked them all to tell their story and this this lady who's probably three seats down from me says, I just have to tell you, she said, I've been working for thirty-four years. Since my thirty-fourth year of work, and I've never been at a place where I felt loved before I came here. And that is cool enough. And then it went to the next lady and she said, oh, I can one up you.

She said, I'm fifty-seven years old. And she said, I've never felt loved before, before I came here, period. And I thought, man, that's what it's about. That's why we want to do this. I have had over 30 salvations in my office in the last six months. We've had multiple miracles occur. I could tell you stories for hours that you just wouldn't believe.

Jim: It sounds like you should have a Regent Bank podcast to tell those stories!

I wanted to, I wanna ask tough questions. Okay. Your bank makes money. You invest money in communities that you operate in by making donations. How is your philosophy towards funding donations different than the typical big banks that seemed to fund things that I don't really agree with? What's different about Regent Bank and how you're investing in those communities?

Sean Kouplen: Yeah, it is, it's pretty clear. We don't invest in any organization that doesn't follow biblical principles. It really is that simple. So if they are if they're killing babies or if they are supporting lifestyles that are not pleasing to God, we don't participate. And so all of our dollars go back to ministries or to organizations that we feel like are following God's teaching.

Jim: How important, just talk to the audience- gimme a little credit advice. How important is it to know where your money's going? Because there's a lot of banking choices out there. A lot of banking choices out there, and a lot of people don't realize that every time we put our dollars in the bank, they're getting invested other places. How important is it to know the philosophy of where we're checking and using our credit card?

Sean Kouplen: You said it extremely well at the beginning. It really does matter. People, I think they think this bank's closest to me, or this bank has a bunch of branches, or this bank is a mega bank, and so I'll bank there 'cause they got a bunch of ATMs or whatever.

But I think it's critically important to understand the philosophies of those organizations. So I'll just, let me just give you one story, which is public, so I'm not sharing this publicly for the first time. My friend Nick Vujicic, is a gentleman who's a worldwide evangelist. Okay. And he has been very outspoken about. Pro-life matters. But Nick has no arms and no legs and has touched millions all over the world, but was almost a victim of abortion himself.

And so he feels very strongly about these matters. He was banking at Chase Bank and he will tell you this, he has said this very publicly and he went in one day and they told him that his accounts had been closed and all of his funds had been frozen. And for 30 days he tried to figure out why. And nobody at the branch knew or would tell him, and ultimately he got a letter in the mail that basically said they had done some, we've done some research on you and don't fit the values of our organization. And you're shut down and you need to go find another bank. And if you don't do that, he says, they said, we're gonna keep your money. And so we shut down his line of credit, shut down his checking account.

I have heard this countless times. I will be honest with you, it is difficult for me to imagine that. I've not had it happen to me personally, but I've been told this so many times that I know that it is the truth. So I think one thing is it's important to bank somewhere, and it doesn't have to be Regent. A community bank is where you need to be. And you need to be somewhere that you don't have to worry about being canceled. You don't have to worry about them shutting your account down 'cause that is a huge, for a business, it can be a killer.

It's an inconvenience for an individual, but for a business, you don't have a line. You don't have access to cash. You're done. You don't have the luxury of, figuring it out. So one, you ought to be somewhere where you're not gonna be canceled, but two, you ought to be somewhere where you can do good with your money.

Let me tell you guys something that's never been announced publicly that I want to announce here, which is very exciting. We are building out a national digital banking platform called Believe Bank, and when you bank with Believe - and Believe is a subsidiary of Regent, so it's owned by Regent.

It's only us. It's just a different brand that we think will do well on a national basis. When you bank at Believe, we're gonna take 1% of what you deposit. Okay, let's say you put, if you have a hundred thousand - we'll do a hundred thousand 'cause it's an easy, it's easy math. If you put a hundred thousand dollars in the bank, that's your average balance.

Every year that you bank with Believe we are gonna donate a thousand dollars to the nonprofit of your choice. Now that non-profit has to be consistent with our values, okay? So we have guardrails there, but we believe that you can change the world with your banking. So you can do it with Regent today or in about 60 days you can log on and do it with Believe. It's all the same. It's just packaged a little bit differently.

Jim: That's unbelievable and I wanna talk about that in a minute, but I just wanna make sure this conversation about where our dollars is going is such an interesting one. Martha, you and I have been digging deeper into the concept for several years, and first, we adjusted our investment methods, made sure they were all biblically responsible in our investment portfolio.

Then we recently changed our cell phone provider to Patriot Mobile because our cell phone provider, again was investing our cell phone dollars in places we didn't approve of. Patriot Mobile is actually proud to support faith, family, and freedom everywhere they go. Listeners, please move your cell phone service to Patriot Mobile.

You can learn more by going to the link in the show notes or going to PatriotMobile.com/iWork4Him, and a percentage, 0.5% of your cell phone bill will go back to iWork4Him by moving your stuff, but you'll also get access to the same towers, pay probably less money, but none of your money is going to those causes that the other companies support. PatriotMobile.com/iWork4Him.

I was gonna ask you, Sean if we could bank with Regen? we didn't have a branch nearby. You just answered that question. Believe bank is at Believe Bank.com. Believe Bank.

Sean Kouplen: Yeah. Yes, it will. It will be a BelieveBank.com. But we have customers all over the country today. Guys, anybody, if they want to go to Regent.Bank, we welcome them. We have very good online banking capabilities free ATMs, 10 per month, anywhere in the world. So you're not gonna give up anything if you would like to bank with us. And I promise you, you can tell we wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for the Lord, and we will always honor him in everything that we do. So you can rest assured that your money will be put to good use.

Jim: I'll tell you what, your customer service is out of this world. I had to get just, we moved to my parents' banking over to Regent Bank 'cause it was just, we really wanted to do that.

And what was incredible is my mom's very hard of hearing and we had to get on customer service and one of your sweet ladies with a very great accent from Oklahoma, it's just sweet as all get out. She was so patient with my mom just, I'm like, oh my word. I forgot that customer service could be like this. It's just amazing.

Sean Kouplen: Yeah. And let me say guys, and it's because we are always talking about the greater purpose, okay? And business owners, if you are listening- and Martha, forgive me, this will be real quick- the difference here is if you can bring God into your business, it creates a greater purpose.

It'll change everything with your employees. All of a sudden, they're not just making money for Sean and the owners of Regent Bank. It's not about that. It's about trying to be a light, trying to change one life at a time, trying to encourage somebody, trying to, it's a game changer. That's why your mom had that experience. Is because I think our employees understand it can be about much more than just doing a transaction for somebody.

Martha: Amen. I believe that our listeners right now are really paying attention and hearing what you're saying. Sean, thank you for sharing about Believe Bank and having the heart to pursue that because I am sure it wasn't simple to work out all of that, but we're just grateful for it.

Before we go though, I just want you to touch on 94X, your book and the movement, because we haven't even had a chance to dig into that at all. Give us a high level, but that could be show number two, there you go. Give us a high level view for our listeners, because if they're drawn to this conversation, they're gonna be drawn to some next steps. So talk about 94X.

Sean Kouplen: Thank you very much, and I'll come back as often as you guys want me. 94Xmovement.com is the website. The movement is very simple. It's actually very narrow. It answers two questions. One, can I bring God into my business? So we do, we've done a ton of work legally and otherwise to show that you can. And what you cannot do is force somebody to worship the way you worship, and none of us want to do that anyway. But you can absolutely invite them to a Bible study, into a prayer team, to a daily devotional, whatever the case may be. You can do that all day long.

And then once business. Leaders learn that they can, many of them just don't know where to start. How do I do this? How would I even begin to bring the Lord into my business? And so we work to answer the question how. And so we've studied tons of businesses all over the country to see what did they do. And so at our website, you'll get all of those resources.

We are going to be rolling out a certification program within the next three or four months. We're working on it right now where a business can become faith-friendly or Faith-based certified. And we'll take, basically take you through a curriculum where you can learn how to do this within your organization.

And we think we're gonna have a hundred thousand. We believe the I, I truly believe the Lord has shown me we're gonna have a hundred thousand certified businesses by 2030. And so the movement has been crazy. I think I have 35 speaking engagements this year to talk about 94 x. It's really man, it's a God-sized, it's a God-sized effort for sure.

Martha: So we'll put all of those links in the show notes because we have covered so many details, but ultimately, I want our listeners to hear the heart behind the leader that's leading such an organization within a, within an industry that is not necessarily one that we think we're gonna have this kind of conversation, but you are changing the tide, you're allowing God to use you, and we're so grateful for that.

Jim: Sean Kouplen with Regent Bank, thanks for being on iWork4Him today.

Sean Kouplen: Thank you. My pleasure.

Jim: Make sure you check out his organization online at Regent.bank. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him!

2/21/24 - 2030: Personal Connection, Profound Impact

Jim: You've tuned in to iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the Faith and Work Movement.

Martha: We are your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Martha, before we get started with our guest, Bob Willbanks, today from G7 Networking, I think we should go to Krystal Parker from the US Christian Chamber for one more update.

Krystal, we got really just a couple of months before the expo. You gotta just tell us what's going on. Tell us, our listeners may not run a business, but is this still a place for them in the US Christian Chamber Commerce expo coming up in April?

Krystal Parker: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.

Anybody that's in business, that's a Christian in business, whether you own your company or you're working in a company, we wanna see you at this expo. This is the premier Christian business event of the year. So you've gotta come out to Orlando, Florida, April 18th through the 20th.

Martha: So exciting, and we'll put the link in the show notes for listeners that may wanna go back and spend some time checking out the website, learning about the different speakers and the things that you'll be offering.

But why don't you just give us a little high level today?

Krystal Parker: We've got thought leaders coming in from all over the world. They're experts as Christian business owners and believers in the marketplace, and they want to impart wisdom for those that are in attendance. But I think the bigger part of what people tend to get from these conferences is just the growth in their network, the ability to collaborate and build relationships.

Just like Bob with G7, they'll be there. We're so excited. Our emcees are going to just keep it light, fun and entertaining. And that's you two amazing leaders. And we've got, seriously, we've got exhibitors that are coming in to showcase their Christian businesses. We really want people to understand what it means to create Kingdom Commerce, do business in the Christian faith.

Keep it in the kingdom. Keep those dollars circulating in the kingdom, and truly grow as a believer in business and grow with people around you. Iron sharpens iron, and this is the event to get to in April 18th through the 20th in Orlando.

Jim: So what are you most excited about, Krystal? When you look at the whole agenda, which is a two days of action-packed, kingdom commerce kind of stuff, what are you most excited about?

Krystal Parker: What I'm most excited about is what's going to come as a result of this expo. Every year after the event, we survey people and ask them what was their experience like. We use that to get better and better, and what I'm most excited about is to see how God's gonna take 650 people from around the world to take that into the marketplace and make a significant difference, not only personally but professionally and spiritually. So I'm most excited to hear the stories that come as a result of people taking three days and coming into Orlando

Martha: And not to go to theme parks. They can come before and after. There is so much available for people to enjoy while they're there. And you've set that up beautifully as well.

So I just want our listeners to check out the website and find out more about it. That will be in the show links. But Krystal, which website are we sending them to?

Krystal Parker: Uschristianchamber.com, go to Uschristianchamber.com and click on conference 2024. We'll see you there.

Jim: All right, Krystal, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for sharing a little bit of that. We're so excited. No, Bob, it's not your, okay, Bob, go ahead. It's not your turn yet.

Bob Willbanks: I just wanna say I went to the last one and we were exhibitors there and it was amazing. Don't miss this. Make sure you mark your calendar. Make every effort to be there. You will be blessed.

Krystal Parker: Thanks, Bob. We can't wait to see you again this year. Bye y'all.

Jim: Bye-Bye. Now there are networking groups, there are business Bible study groups, there are collaboration groups and there are LinkedIn groups. Now put all these ideas into action and you find G7 networking.com and Bob Willbanks at the helm.

We've been friends with Bob for many years now. We watched him develop a nationwide network of groups with as much power as BNI groups, but with Jesus at the center. Now in 15 or more cities across the country, G7 networking groups are exploding. And you can start one in your town too. Just think BNI with Jesus at the center.

Love that. Kingdom businesses, investing and doing business with Kingdom businesses. It's a God model. Here to tell you all about it and give us an update is Bob Willbanks himself. Bob, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Bob Willbanks: Thank you so much. It's awesome to be here. Always great to see you two.

Martha: It's great to have you, and I'm so excited that our listeners are going to get to hear more about G7 and what God is doing across the country. But we know your Jesus story is quite an amazing story. So can you give Us…. Is it even possible to give us the short version for those who haven't yet heard it? And I will link to previous interviews so we can get the long version.

Bob Willbanks: Absolutely. And I've been working on the shorter version of this quite a bit because I realize we need to shorten it down.

So I just like to say that my, my life was, as an adult was led as a miserably saved Christian. I basically walked around with a get outta jail free card in my wallet. And when people said, what's your faith? I'd say, I'm Christian, but don't look at the way I'm living my life. I had a big alcohol issue.

I was totally into the American dream. It was all about the cars I could drive, the house I could live in, the vacations I could take. It was about the money. That was my God. And you throw in that alcohol problem and a type A personality, and it got pretty messy quite a few times in my life.

It led to a divorce from my first wife. I had many times in my life where I made it to the top of industry, so to speak, worth millions, only to lose it all, thanks to doing something stupid, most often because of drinking too much. And I had a watershed moment in 97 where everything came together.

And I ended up telling God where to go. I had sold my payroll company, divorced from my wife, had injuries to my knee. I was physically broken, professionally broken and personally broken. And I don't know, I'm laying back on my back looking up at the night sky with that third knee injury and decide that might as well go for it all.

And I told God literally where to go. Praise God, over a period of time, six, eight months later, pure darkness. He sends my wife, my second wife, Barb. And just through that relationship I desired to be a better man. And then asked her to marry me. Somehow, someway she said yes, and he sent church plant pastors to come in right next door, move right next door to us, and he took an interest in me and helped to disciple me into the relationship with the Word reading the Bible in a year program.

And over time, 10 years of doing that, finally the Holy Spirit convicted me. It was time to give up the alcohol. And one day after some pretty bad episodes, I just looked up to heaven and said, would you please take this? And praise God, he did. And not only did he take that, he took all the other garbage right then and right there.

I never had to go to treatment and I never had to do anything. He just took it all. That changed me forever. It gave me a heart to reach out to those that are miserably saved in this world, that are running through their life, not understanding what it is to be completely and totally forgiven. To experience the grace of God and to have the fruit of the spirit exuding from your life at all times.

Imagine walking around with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control every single day. Thanks to the Holy Spirit. And that only comes through that relationship that builds with Jesus Christ and opens up the door to that relationship with Father God. So praise God for that.

That's the primary purpose behind everything that I do. I wrote out a purpose statement as my journey was really getting going. And that happened all the way back in 2014. And look where it led me. And that purpose statement was to use my God-given gifts, talents, and abilities to show people what is possible in and through him. That's it.

Jim: So powerful. Yeah. We love that. Bob, I appreciate so much and we're gonna go to break here for a second.

But I wanted to just make sure that our listeners go to check out SaferNet. SaferNet is one of our major sponsors of iWork4Him and they're out there to protect you and your family and your business.

They've got an online VPN portal that you get into that has web filters and porn filters and makes it - you can have blockers and you can have people that you can totally control your internet experience and honor God at the same time. Check it out. Safer net.com. Safer Net.com. We'll be right back.

 (commercial break)

Jim: Hey, welcome back to iWork4Him as we're talking with Bob Willbanks today from G7 networking. Check it out online. g7networking.com. If you're looking for a networking experience that is as powerful as you've ever experienced, but has God at the center of everything you're doing, you gotta check it out. G7 networking.com.

Martha: Bob, I am so grateful that you shared just that high-level overview of your testimony. And I know we were teasing about it's hard to make it short 'cause God has done a lot in your life, but it has gotten you to where you are today because you have experienced things that molded and shaped you into who God wanted you to be for this season.

And I believe that without a doubt. So I would love for you to bring us to today. What is it that God has you, is working on in your life? And how is he honing in on you right now?

Bob Willbanks: Oh, there's so much to share on that side of things. I think when you're called into certain roles you'll experience times in the desert where God is just, it's a testing phase. And I really sense that over the past five to seven years, there's been this refining process that's been going on to ready myself and G7 networking and our leadership for what's coming. A lot of what we focus on is personal development and spiritual growth within our organization, especially at the top, because if we don't model that behavior, how are the rest of the people that come into our environment going to be challenged and held accountable and encouraged to grab for that next rung on their spiritual growth ladder as they're growing their business? Some of the big things we're doing right now. We have…,

Jim: hang on. That's not it. We're talking about you. We're talking about you. How, I just wanna know,

Martha: we're still teasing about the G7.

Bob Willbanks: And that's true. And so one, some of the big things we are doing right now, all really hinged around all of this, Jim, where I knew leadership. That's what Maxwell says.

The law of the lid . You can, the organization can never go above the level of the leadership that's there. So we've gotta work on our leadership capacity and skills. And we happen to run into Ford Taylor or I did at a conference that Krystal was at as well in Texas, and God placed us together in the car, going to dinner, just me and Ford.

And we had an opportunity to really talk through things. And he gave us the gift of transformational leadership, which is an amazing platform that Ford has developed over the years. And we've rolled that out with all of our regional managers. But I went through it first. So getting back to what have I been doing that really challenged me in so many spots of my life to really hand everything over, to really look at the covenant relationship that I have with the other leaders of this organization and getting our social contract laid out and what are we promising for each other and how are we gonna be truthful and honorable? And it was just an amazing experience and it trickles down into life. How are we actually working day to day with our spouses and paying attention to that relationship and with our kids and our grandkids?

And it was just useful everywhere. So that was a big piece to the puzzle. Another big thing that we're working through is some strengths-based training through an organization that we partnered with, with Ambassadors for business, called Partner to Learn. And they're gonna be rolling that out throughout all of our Chapters, where we can really help our chapter leaders understand their strengths and how does it fit together with the other strengths of the leaders in their chapter, and where are their partner up opportunities at?

We don't have weaknesses. We have partner up opportunities. So it's just really interesting what's been happening. God's just continuing to gift us with so many relationships, tools, resources that are biblically-based, and strongly impact us personally, professionally and spiritually.

Jim: So let's start stepping into the whole networking idea. Why is networking, what value does networking provide somebody who's operating in the marketplace? Just really quick, why is networking so important?

Bob Willbanks: I think it's the fertile ground. Plain and simple. If we, first off, people have a negative connotation in networking because of what's out there.

I think that's confused with prospecting a lot of times. So people say, oh, I'm going into this networking event. Tell me more. It's I at the Chamber of Commerce and there's gonna be 500 people there. And that's not networking, that's prospecting. You're going there to meet people that you hope maybe you can do some business with or might build business relationships with.

True networking to me is building relationships of trust so that we can bless into the lives of those that we're building those relationships with. If I have a networking chapter with five to twenty-five members in it, and I take the time to truly get to know those people and build those relationships of trust, my spheres of influence can now bless into their lives.

That's the key. I'm not there to receive their blessings. I'm there to bless them with all that God has given me, whatever their needs are- personal, professional, or spiritual, I've got relationships that can help them. If we build that fertile ground through working on those trusted relationships, we will see 30, 60 and a hundred-fold return back into our life.

But that's not why we're doing it. Okay. We're doing it to bless others. So it's that grow-by-giving mindset that we stress throughout the entire G7 network that I think really unlocks the true benefit of networking. Members that do it right no longer have to cold call. Cold calling's the thing of the past. Yeah. We just lean into the relationships that we have.

Martha: So tell us why every believer that's out in the marketplace, why they should be a part of a G7 network and look to see if there's one near them and all of that, all of the scenarios there.

Bob Willbanks: I don't know if it's for everybody. I'm not gonna make that blanket statement. Okay. I think as long as people have a top line revenue responsibility within their job description, then it makes a lot of sense. There are others where it might make a lot of sense that they're looking for a resourcing group where I can find what I need when I need it.

They're not so much trying to grow their business, but they're resourcing. Those two items. And then on top of that, just people that are wanting to grow in their faith, whether they're seekers or just getting started in their faith or they're full-blown all in, disciples.

We need all of that within our network. You don't have to be Christian to join G7. Just know that you're joining a Christian Networking Group that's gonna have prayer and gospel, and everything we do is based on biblical principles.

Jim: We talk about how every believer who's got a top-line revenue responsibility out there in the marketplace should be a part of a G7 networking group.

There are so many resources that we would like to share with our listeners. Another resource is Patriot Mobile, the only conservative Christian cellular service provider in the United States of America. Likely everyone listening to the show pays for cell phone service.

Okay. Everybody listening to this show is paying for cell phone service yet, do you know that your monthly payment with those major cell phone companies goes to support totally anti-Biblical agendas totally? Patriot Mobile, has great cell phone service, great pricing, and supports great agendas like iWork4Him.

Go to patriotmobile.com/iWork4Him. Support iWork4Him with your cell phone bill. Get great service right here in the United States of America and support iWork4Him.

Martha: So Bob, when you first told us about G7 networking, it was like a dream. It was this really big dream.

But today, that dream is becoming a reality. Tell us about the G7 model and what actually G7 stands for.

Bob Willbanks: G7 stands for the seven Gs we walk through inside of every monthly meeting. We require all chapters to meet at least once a month. Some choose to do it more often than that but at least once per month and we run through the seven G's, which are gospel. We have a brief time of devotion and prayer.

Then we go into group introductions, and that's different than your typical networking groups. This is something more like name, rank, and serial number, but then something more personal about yourself, like what brings you joy is a common question that we will ask to unlock some things with our members as we go around.

It's 30 seconds to two minutes, depending on the size of the group, but it's a chance just to get to know people better. Then we move into grade because you have to measure what you wanna manage. We don't measure referrals actively within the chapters. What we measure are the behaviors that drive the results that we're looking for.

G7 networking is twofold in what we're looking to accomplish. First off is our goal of driving business for our members, and that comes back to Josh Tolle's book Evangelpreneur that brings up the Muslim community recirculating a dollar 14 to 16 times before it leaves their community. The Jewish community, 10 to 12 times before it leaves. Christians, less than once.

I don't think we're called to hold onto our money and recirculate it that many times like the Jews and the Muslims. I think we are to hold on loosely, but it certainly calls out the fact that we need to be more intentional about doing business together and more importantly, driving business for each other.

So how do I unlock my spheres of influence to drive business for people?

Jim: Did we get all seven G's yet? I don't know. I feel like you got off the seven G.

Bob Willbanks: This is an important piece and the grade part because we measure that side of it. And how do we measure that? We're not measuring how many referrals a person gives. We know that the referrals will happen if we build trusted relationships. So how many one-to-ones do we do every single month with others in our chapter? And how many guests have we invited to come join us? Because guests, whether they join G7 or not, are the lifeblood of any networking group. Who knows if those people need what we have or if we need what they have? So we want them to come in. So that's the grade portion of G7. Then we move into God. And that's where we have either a personal testimony or we popcorn God-sidences that have happened over the last month, where's God has shown up in our businesses.

Then we move into grow. And that is grow content that helps people grow personally, professionally, or spiritually with biblical principles involved. And that's the part where the second part of our mission comes in, growing people spiritually. We're very serious about that. And it walks equally with driving business.

And then finally we finish up with Get and Give. So the get would be your elevator pitch and ask. And the give is who can you help?

Jim: So are you just doing local groups? Are there just local groups or do you have an online group available for people? Maybe they don't, they're not in one of the cities that you're in.

Bob Willbanks: Great question. So yes, we have local groups that are forming. We really want the in-person experience. I think that's the secret sauce. But what we're finding is in the Virtual Zoom environment it works just as well. And we have a virtual USA 1 chapter. There's another chapter that just started up in Chicagoland. We have another one starting in Cincinnati. Looks like Arizona. We're trying to cover every time zone, first off. And virtual groups are certainly a possibility for a landing space when you first come in.

Martha: A big focus for iWork4Him is the conversation around unity and harmony. So what are you seeing your groups, how are they bringing unity into the marketplace? And do you see them creating more harmony be between believers?

Bob Willbanks: I believe so. I had a word years ago, back when I was first forming G7 that diversity without unity is chaos. I think being unified in the word of God and as a country, one nation under God, as we get away from those things we tend to fracture. But also the unity without diversity becomes blind. And so we have to seek diversity. When's the last time you went to dinner or invited a person of another color or nationality into your home for dinner? Those types of things, it's very important to us to have that, but we need to unify under the word of God.

And keep those biblical principles in the center of everything that we do. So that's our focal point. And then from that business and so forth deriving the relationships are knit together as only God can. Where two of em are gathered in his name, he's there.

Martha: But don't you find specifically in your groups that people are not as concerned about what denomination people are? We have this whole mindset of unity comes by everybody going to the same church and things like that. But what are you really truly seeing with your members? Does that even matter for them to be unified?

Bob Willbanks: It's a melting pot. Every single group is a melting pot for sure. And the central theme that we really can all agree on is finding that common ground of standing on biblical principles. And that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that we are washed by the blood of the Lamb. We can start there. And find that common ground. And the rest just starts to happen. We learn from each other.

Jim: Give us an impact story. Somebody that's heavily involved with G7, that they're facilitating some kingdom impact in the marketplace. Something that you have seen happen because G7 exists.

Bob Willbanks: So there was a amazing moment in my home chapter, that I attend most often.

Jim: That's right there in Minneapolis then?

Bob Willbanks: It's there in Minneapolis. I won't mention the exact group because it might expose who this is, but I don't think he would mind. But a business owner, very successful, we meet at their house that has an indoor pool, to give you an idea.

So we're a poolside in their home. He owned a restaurant that also did a lot of different recipes and things like that, that were fairly popular. But it was a losing proposition for him. It was just a passion project that he'd had for years. And he told me on the side one time, he was literally dumping $150,000 a year into that just to keep it going.

And it was just a passion project, something he loved doing. As the market and his other business was going through some transitionary times through covid and all the other things that went on, he began to realize that maybe $150,000 a year wasn't the best place to put some money for a passion project, and he was really wrestling with what to do with this.

During that period of time at our G7 meetings, we had really been unpacking what it is to hear God's voice. And all of our devotionals were centered on that. Our God moments, people were talking about hearing from God and the month before this happened, he piped up with all kinds of questions about hearing from God.

And he had never really engaged in the conversation at that level during our gospel moments and so forth. And I pulled him aside afterwards, gave him a couple other resources that he could tap into for helping that. Told him I'd love to talk more about it whenever he had time. And over that next couple months, I could tell he was really seeking God's voice.

The next meeting we come to, right before the meeting I got an email saying, the restaurant is being sold. I'm unplugging from the restaurant and da-da-da-da-da. All these things, right? It was just, it was like all this stuff he's been wrestling with just boom, overnight he's doing it.

And I reached out to him right away and I said, Keith, what's going on? He said. God told me, I gotta get rid of this and get rid of it now. So he said, I didn't wanna hesitate with what God said. I said, God told you? He said, yes, I heard him. I heard his voice last night. He said, just amazing. Fantastic.

Long story short, normally something like that to unpack it would take a year to sell it, right? To get it unpacked and everything else. He had a lease that was a three-year lease that, was gonna run him $80,000 a year just to continue to lease the space. He had all these proprietary barbecue sauces and everything else, and all this other stuff that he'd done.

And he had six people reach out to him within the first 48 hours that wanted to buy it, and by the end of two weeks he had sold it to one of those six, keeping him in a position that he could still participate in the restaurant and have his passion still there. They took on everything. He was completely washed clean of it, and off you go.

So he's telling this story at the G7 meeting, and he breaks down in tears when it comes to the point where he said he heard God's voice. He said, it never happened to me before. And here's this man that everybody just respects and we, and he's just a puddle, right? A literal puddle.

And his wife comes up behind him, who's also in the group, and she starts rubbing his shoulders and she just looked out at everybody and said, this would've never happened if it wasn't for G7.

Jim: Fantastic.

Martha: We absolutely love hearing impact stories like that, and we all wanna be able to make an impact in the things that we're doing, but yet a lot of people don't know how to do that.

And many of our listeners have committed to the, iWork4Him Nation and learned how they can make an impact at their work by reading through and committing to the things in the covenant. It's not a membership. It's just a guide to help you in the process of committing your work to the Lord.

So go to our website iWork4Him.com and look for the nation. And there you can go and learn more about making an impact in your workplace today.

Jim: It really is just a short, it's the guide to turn your workplace into a mission field.

Bob, really quick, as we come to the end of the show telling everybody about G7networking.com , how many cities are you in right now?

Bob Willbanks: So we, like you said we're in at least 15. We've got thirty-three fully activated chapters, and when we say that, that's when we have at least three of the five leaders for the chapter in play. So that's when they're fully activated. There's about 15 others that are in formation and there's digital chapters forming, all the time.

Can I mention one thing?

Jim: I don't know. It might cost you. That check will be coming to, iWork4Him, that's P. O Box 5 1 8 MARIONVILLE Missouri 6 5 7 0 5.

Bob Willbanks: And please do that, for sure.

 (laughter)

Bob Willbanks: We struggled when we first launched G7 because we thought we knew it all and wanted to build an app of our own.

And so through the first three years while we were inside of Ambassadors for Business in the first year and a half , after we pulled it out of the nonprofit and really started going to town, we were just sinking a lot of money into what ended up being a dead horse. And praise God, we had a redeemer come our way, sent by God, I swear.

Dana Dunmeyer from TQI Solutions. Dana, I'm doing a shout out to you right here. They have this platform that's about a $70 million platform. That's how much development has gone into this thing over the years. It literally has all the bells and whistles that, that anybody could possibly ever need.

80% of what you need's already there, and then we customize the other 20%, so we jumped in. He made it possible for us to do that. After we launched just the preliminary launch back in August of last year, about 30 days into it, my partner and I, Chris, we looked at each other and said, what we have here is a Christian LinkedIn, so I want to place that little bug in everybody's ear.

Basically what we have here is a Christian LinkedIn environment. It starts at a complementary membership level where you come in, you fill out your profile, and you can start connecting with others of like-minded spirit, to do business together and drive business for one another while encouraging each other towards a stronger faith. Should the digital levels or in-person meetings resonate with you, fantastic.

But we are constantly seeking out additional collaborations and relationships with organizations like iWork4Him. You might find something else out there that is more your bread and butter. That is fine. We just hope that you find what you're looking for when you need it.

So come in, connect, fill out your profile, start connecting with others of like-minded spirit. And if a G7 networking group is for you, God will lead you there.

Jim: Do you got room for more cities? I know there's 19,580 incorporated cities in the United States, and you're only in 33. So do you got room for more groups?

Bob Willbanks: We have, all we need is leaders, Jim. So people that want to actually launch, we've got a recipe for launching that works. There's about four or five different paths we can take dependent on the profile of the individual that wants to start. We know what works. We know what doesn't. We're your guide.

We'll help you get it up and running. It will bless you personally, professionally, and spiritually to lead a G7

Martha: chapter. So talk to those people that might be interested right now. What would they have to do to be qualified to lead a group?

Bob Willbanks: Number one, understand that if you're going to do this, there's a spiritual mantle involved in it. You will be leading a group under the G7 brand, and we take that side of it very seriously. The enemy doesn't want this to come forth. There'll probably be some attacks. You need to be steadfast and prepared for that and willing to go the distance. And if you're willing to jump into that with us, really we can work with just about anybody to help 'em get this moving in their city.

Jim: Amen. Check out Bob Willbanks and G7 Networking. Online at G7networking.com. Bob Willbanks, thanks for being back here on iWork4Him today.

Bob Willbanks: God bless you guys.

Jim: Thanks for all you do. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha brangenberg. We're Christ followers our workplace. It's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.

2/14/24 - 2029: Living in Tandem

Jim: Hey, you've tuned in to iWork4Him , the Voice of Collaboration for the Faith and Work Movement.

Martha: And we are your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. And our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Martha, before we get to that conversation, it is Valentine's Day and I love you. But I really wanna talk to Krystal Parker. Can we talk to Krystal Parker? I wanna bring in Krystal Parker, the president, CEO, Founder of the United States Christian Chamber of Commerce. Krystal, welcome back to iWork4Him.

I'm just excited about, you've got a big event coming up in April. I wanna talk about that in a second. But I wanna say, what's different about a Christian Chamber of Commerce versus that other chambers of commerce?

Krystal Parker: I think the greatest difference is we all connect with our values from a biblical worldview. And Christians doing business should be and is different than other people doing business with a worldview. And so we really support one another in that sense.

Jim: So really you could have given us that Sunday school answer, Jesus. Jesus is the difference between the US Christian Chamber and others.

But I love what you just said there, that Christians doing business should look different than the world doing business. And that's something that I didn't grow up hearing and I love that you're talking about it.

Martha: So Krystal, you are the president of the US Christian Chamber of Commerce. I'd love to just have you tell everybody why. Why is that where you, God has you right now?

Krystal Parker: I would love to know that answer as well. But really when I look back on this tapestry that God's put together for me, my background was oil and gas. An undergrad in psychology, marketing masters, and then Harvard Business School. God really placed me strategically to grow up, cut my teeth in business from a publicly traded company. And I really got to understand the landscape of business from a non-Christian perspective.

Through my faith walk and where I get to be today, I get to bring that integration of faith and work from a business perspective. Also a kingdom-advancing perspective. And I think I am the right person for the job, but certainly God had to really work on me for many years to get me ready.

Jim: Alright. Talking about this event coming up in April, your biggest expo ever for the U.S Christian Chamber of Commerce. Talk to us about it. When is it, where is it? How do people find out about it?

Krystal Parker: Orlando, Florida, April 18th, 19th and 20th. And this is the place to be if you are a business owner and a Christian. This is the mecca of conferences in Orlando, Florida. You can find out more about it on Uschristianchamber.com, but basically believers from all over the globe are coming into Orlando to grow their network, to grow their business, and to understand what it means to bring God back into the center of their business so that they can reach more, do more, and achieve more with the Holy Spirit and with one another in unity.

Martha: Awesome. And we will have the links in the show notes for people that didn't grab that right now, but give us a little sneak peek. Who are some of the speakers that we'll be anticipating and some of the topics we'll be hearing about?

Krystal Parker: We have this really cool panel that we're going to do. It's the Odyssey of Love and Purpose. We're told in the Bible we need to have our priorities straight, and when those priorities get out of bound, then it's hard to have a solid business.

And that's really important from a biblical perspective. I did it wrong the first time, and we are bringing in power couples just like the ones that are on this show today to help. The people that are there understand what it means to have a strong foundation, strong marriage, and have their priorities straight.

So it's God first, family, and then our businesses. And you bring that topic into a room of business owners, they may think that is absolutely crazy. So we're bringing in industry leaders, thought leaders, to help us deliver topics that are aligned with the Bible for businesses, to help businesses grow the right way.

Our emcees for this event are awesome and it's the two of you! And so we wanna have fun and just by bringing you guys on stage and helping be that glue for this expo, it's gonna be high energy, lots of fun, lots of connections, and it is the place to be in 2024. So don't miss it.

Jim: So the website Uschristianchamber.com. Krystal, and then all the information on the expo is right there?

Krystal Parker: It's right there. Conference 2024, click it and you'll learn all about it.

Jim: Krystal Parker with the U.S. Christian Chamber, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Look forward to talking to you next week, but thanks for giving us a little sneak peek into what's coming up in April. And Happy Valentine's Day!

Krystal Parker: Happy Valentine's Day!

Jim: All right, so as I said, it is Valentine's Day. Is this really a holiday or just a hallmark excuse for cards and roses? The world may never know. When we were on the radio five days a week, Martha and I did a weekly show called Together on Tuesdays with Jim and Martha, where we talked about the intersection of marriage and business.

We loved those episodes because there's so much to learn about how our faith, marriage, and work are related. Now, most of our episodes focus directly on faith and work related topics, but today is Valentine's day, so we need to step back into our role as marriage mentors and share some time with you.

We've invited some of our friends from California, Robert and Kay Lee Fukui from. I was gonna say power Couples by design, but that's the old one. It's now Marriedentrepreneurs.co. They're gonna join us for our conversation about how business can encourage healthy marriages. Robert and Kay Lee, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Robert Fukui: Hey, Jim and Martha. It's great to be back. I know it's gonna be a fun one.

Kay Lee Fukui: Yes. Thank you so much. Yeah, we're gonna have a great time today.

Jim: Each of us, we've had Valentine's days all of our lives and sometimes there's favorite memories or maybe Valentine's nightmares. Robert, why don't you share one of your favorite Valentine's, memories or nightmares?

Robert Fukui: Well, God bless. I have not had the Valentine's nightmare. They've always been very pleasant. None of those. So really good one. All of our Valentines sounds like a cop out. All of our Valentines are great, right? But one of the thing interesting things about our Valentines is we don't, we don't go out to dinner or to a restaurant on the day of.

And so what we do is we cook a really, we like to cook anyway, so we cook a fabulous meal, whether it's, duck breasts or ossobuco or something like that. And then either before or after, then we go out to a nice restaurant because the practical side of me says it's too expensive, it's too crowded.

The wait staff can't really tend to you like they normally would. In fact, one of our waiters at our favorite restaurant, one year when we went the Saturday afterwards, he even said. Don't come on Valentine's for the exact same reasons. And so I said, oh, because I felt justified. But last year we went to Park City the week before Valentine's.

And we already, on Valentine's day, we're already gonna make a nice meal at home anyway. But there in Park City, we're skiing. We had a nice dinner. We were sitting outside the, outside the hotel in the fireplace. It's a ski-in-ski-out resort. So you see the slope is right there.

They did a a light show on the snow and then they ended with fireworks in the sky. And so that week, valentine's for us is like a whole experience. It's not just one day.

Jim: It's just a whole experience. Aw.

Robert Fukui: And so we just really just, we just milked it for all it's worth.

Jim: I think fireworks in the mountains where there was a lot of snow seems to be like a bad idea. Avalanches occur to anybody? I don't know. It seems like beautiful, nothing's gonna catch fire.

Martha: Oh, you did, you did plenty of them in Minnesota but we didn't have hills and we didn't have mountains.

Jim: Yeah. So Kay Lee, what about you? You got any of those Valentine's nightmares or memories maybe before Robert came into your life? It was around one of those ones you're like, yeah, Valentine's day. Not good.

Kay Lee Fukui: It wasn't Valentine's, but I remember it was before, way before Robert, now that you mentioned it. We were in Santa Barbara in California and it was a weekend and he had asked me out and he said for a date, and it was probably like a Friday or Saturday.

And I said, sure, fine. So we get in the car and we drive up there. It was in Ventura, so it was like an hour away. We're driving around trying to find this restaurant, driving around. Took forever to find it. And then he finally finds it. We get in, we walk in. I'm like, of course you know we have reservations 'cause it's Santa Barbara, which is very busy, especially in downtown. Walk in, no reservation.

And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So I think we ended up going across the street and just getting like a quick bite or something to eat. But we went to In-N-Out Burger. Yeah. I was not happy 'cause I thought who in the right mind goes out on the weekend in Santa Barbara and doesn't have a reservation and no plan? Unlike you, Honey. Mr. Planner. So that was probably my biggest nightmare because I wasn't happy 'cause it just didn't turn out well. There was no thought involved.

Jim: I actually don't know the answer to this question, Martha, for you.

Martha: I thought you were just gonna maybe share a little bit about our, prenup. Yeah. So I'm gonna share our little story. We, when we got married, we had not really an official legal prenup as most people would think, but a binding, emotional contract. I had asked him to please go bold gracefully, and to not end up with a big comb over.

Jim: Why is it with the Japanese guy with all the hair is laughing? That's what I wanna know. Why?

Martha: So there was generational reasons for this. Let me just tell you. So I was like, please don't do a comb over. Just, do whatever you need to. At that time people weren't shaving their heads, but thank the Lord. Trends have helped with that. But anyway, Jim says if I'm gonna agree to that, then there needs to be something that I get in exchange for that. So Jim, what did you come up with?

Jim: So I said, after thinking about it for just a little bit, I said, okay, here's the deal. I'll go bald gracefully, but only if on Valentine's day and Mother's Day, there's no expectation for flowers, none. I can buy 'em if I want, but there's zero expectation. And she agreed, and I was good with that. I was good with that. And so not only have we saved thousands of dollars on flowers, but tens of thousands of dollars on haircuts over the last twenty-five years.

Martha: We just shave it. So yes, that was our, it's cute. It's fun. It's a. Fun thing for us to, joke about, but it was something that we just early on in our marriage we're like, we're just gonna agree on these couple little principles that are gonna help us in life. And they sure have.

Kay Lee Fukui: Did she get roses 363 days? The other days?

The other two days?

Martha: It's so cute. 'cause actually he loves to, like, when you go to Sam's or Costco, flowers are so inexpensive there and so he, and they're big, huge bundles and he always wants to buy me.

Jim: Did you just call me cheap live on radio right now?

Martha: Nope. Not gonna go there. No, practical. So practical. So he always is oh, I wanna buy you a bundle of roses. I said, you can buy me flowers, but let's just get something beautiful and colorful. Like roses to me are they're so symbolic and I guess I just, anyway, so I let him buy me flowers whenever we're, he wants to when we're out and about, or he'll bring them home periodically and now he lets me grow gardens that I can just cut all my own flowers.

Jim: It was a group participation plan. Now that we live in Missouri, we have lots of land. She has lots of gardens, but yeah, I always thought Valentine's day was an evil day, especially in elementary school when all everybody's sent in a little Valentines and you're like, that was just evil. It, seriously, that was just an evil time because you always felt bad for the kid that got two Valentine's. Or none.

Kay Lee Fukui: When we were kids, you took one for everybody in the whole class.

Martha: Yeah, I know. What kind of class were you in? I hope that our listeners are having fun so far. It's just set it up today for this great conversation 'cause it really is about what we want to dig into, in how important our marriages are.

Jim: And how business can encourage marriage. Yes. People are like, how does that have anything to do with each other? The statistic in our minds is we got into marriage mentoring in ninety-nine. So a long time ago already.

This is our twenty-fifth year. And what we saw is that business people accomplished all these incredible things so they could provide for their family and their kids. And yet they did all of that and they neglected their family and their kids and their wife in doing it, or their spouse in doing it. Wasn't just always the men neglecting, but they destroyed everything they were working towards.

And we see the same thing in pastors that they work so hard to grow a big church, they forget the very people that it was their number one and two ministries in life anyway. And we became marriage mentors because we got sick and tired of seeing people's marriages implode. It happened right before us in a small group where all of a sudden this marriage just went (explosion sound) in front of everybody just like that.

I'm like, I don't ever wanna see or experience that again. How did you guys get into it?

Robert Fukui: It's interesting, 'cause talking about pastors as well, and we felt the same way. My dad was a pastor. Was a pastor. He's passed now, but he was a pastor. Kay Lee's dad was an entrepreneur.

Like when we got together and we're comparing notes, it was like it's the same thing, and when you think about it, running a church is very much like running a business. I mean it's, in principle, it's the same thing. You're running an organization, you've got people coming, you've got income coming in, expenses going out.

But yeah, how we got into this, and I always cringe when someone calls us marriage experts or mentors because that's not what I ever thought I'd be doing. But also, we're primarily business consultants. We just have a heart for these married entrepreneurs.

Like you're showing, saying how we noticed. That they're accomplishing some great things in their business, but yet they're neglecting home. And just from childhood, experiencing that ourselves as parents that were I won't say they're purposely neglecting, but they were doing what they knew how to do.

Culture teaches us to achieve these things at the cost of, sometimes at the cost of the family, and they just think that as long as they achieve financial success, then everything else takes care of itself, which of course we know it doesn't. So just from our own childhood upbringing, then as we noticed ourselves, as we were building our business and then noticed the business owners we're consulting with, seeing that disconnect.

We're like, Hey, something's going on here that no one's really addressing. It's the elephant in the room no one's really addressing. So that's how we walked or fell into it.

Kay Lee Fukui: Yeah. And then with my upbringing, the business became the mistress in our family.

My dad worked six days a week and a lot of times with the entrepreneur when we don't know what else to do, the go-to is we just work harder. We put more time in as a, as opposed to trying other things that can help you.

Martha: Such a good point. So what is something common that you guys are seeing in the marriages of the business owners that you're working with?

Robert Fukui: So it's just that tension, like you're saying the tension of, how do you prioritize marriage? As you're building this thing, the thinking goes, and it's, again, it goes back to how culture has ingrained in us that in order to just achieve financial success, in order for the business to succeed, you gotta put whatever time it needs, whatever it takes.

And hopefully relationship takes care of itself as you build financial success. And so the tension is how do you do both well? And you think that if you prioritize marriage and family, it automatically means you're taking your foot off the accelerator in the business and it's, the business is gonna suffer.

And that's the thinking. And so there's the, we wanna focus on marriage yet what, what's gonna happen in the business? The business is gonna implode. And so that's the commonalities, to set that tension of how do you do both of these things?

Jim: Kay Lee I saw pain in your face when you talked about your dad having a mistress, his business.

How have you worked through that? To make sure that you and Robert don't suffer from the same thing? Because that's a tough deal. You guys are successful entrepreneurs and you're successful marriage mentors. And you're marriage experts, Robert. That's what you said. What, how do you deal with that? How do you process that?

Kay Lee Fukui: Yes, that is a lot to process through. We knew one thing . We loved our parents and our families, but we didn't wanna grow up in the same situations. So we are very intentional. Some of the things we do is we have a weekly meeting once a week, and we talk about our finances, we talk about our calendar, so I know what the expectations are.

Is Robert gonna be traveling? Is he gonna be doing a lot of speaking engagements? Because if he is, then we need to be able to put some time in where we're gonna be together, like in the next couple weeks, things are gonna slow down. So I have expectations, I know what to think, and then that kind of just brings me peace knowing I'm not gonna, just be off to the wayside while he's running the races.

And we talk about our finances. We talk about, oh, one great thing. We give a, an encouraging word to each other each week. We're intentional . And we do, we pray together every morning.

And it's pretty hard to do that when you're upset with each other. You might start out praying together, being upset. By the time you're done praying for each other out loud, that's passed because there's no way you can, you can do that, at least from my experience.

Jim: Oh, that prayer thing. It's super powerful. We teach couples that all the time. What was it that you say, Martha ? Couples that pray together,

Martha: stay together.

Jim: Yeah. What a great thing.

Robert Fukui: And do you know there's actually stats to back that up?

Jim: I'm sure there are. I love that. I'm not a stat guy, but, okay. What are the stats?

Robert Fukui: So peer research, which is a secular research company, actually I think it was about 20, 25 years ago, did a research on couples that pray together daily. So not just meal time prayer, but like actively praying together, and they showed that the couples that pray daily together, that the divorce rate was one in over 1100.

So basically less than a fraction of 1%. And so the saying is not just a saying, it's not just something you say from the pulpit, but it's backed by data. And psychologists will say the same thing, that not so much about prayer, but you can't praise somebody and criticize someone at the same time.

Yeah. So prayer and praying for each other is a blessing, right? It is a blessing and there's encouragement. And when you're doing that daily, it's really, it really changes the atmosphere and it also sets the tone, especially when you do it in the morning like we do. It sets the tone for the day.

Because you know how many couples, and I'm guilty as charged, before we started praying daily together, I didn't encourage her daily. I didn't say positive things daily. It was almost about what we need to do. Or what you need to get done or what you didn't do. And there's nothing about really encouragement.

So you miss that. When you don't get that, then of course you're gonna backfill it with criticism or something. So anyways.

Martha: Okay. So I have a thought right now for everyone listening. This could be a gift to the your spouse, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whatever the relationship that comes to mind when you think of Valentine's day.

Take this opportunity to initiate praying together and I would love to hear what kind of results that brings. And we're not saying pray so that. We're just saying God will honor that time together. And when you are praying together, I know what we've experienced is that you're more unified. When you're together saying, God, show us. Show us what we're supposed to do next. We have this tough decision. We have this person we're struggling with. There's a health issue, whatever it might be.

When you're walking that out together and praying together about it, there's something that - God created us to be more unified because of it and to be in alignment with him.

And Jim, we do the triangle thing and it's we're at the bottom of the triangle and God's at the top. And the more we both grow towards God, we grow closer together. And so that whole concept on Valentine's Day, it's fun to really look at that in its special way and say there is a purpose behind that. There's a reason why that is such a powerful part of the relationship.

Jim: So that triangle thing came from the c-rated movie Marriage Retreat. A Christian marriage retreat. Not the other one.

Martha: Yes. Yeah. A really good, a really good movie. But it was a little bit on the cheese factor side in some of the, filming.

Jim: It was all Wisconsin. That's right. Alright. Listen, as a couple, Martha and I are together a lot. We work together, we serve together, we do DIY projects constantly. We've been friends for forty-two years. A few years ago we took time to write a trilogy of books together. Now that was a project that stretched our marriage.

Needless to say we love sharing our resources, this resource, this trilogy with our listeners. If you make a donation of any size to iWork4Him, we'd be happy to send you a copy of any of those requested titles. iWork4Him, iRetireForHim, or sheWorks4Him. . I guess you say it's our Valentine's gift to you.

Just go to iWork4Him.com/donate and we will get a copy out to you when you make that donation. Alright, so let's talk about the topic of the day. Besides what we've been doing already, 'cause we've been having a lot of fun. I am convinced that a Christ-following business owner can encourage marriage at work.

What do you guys think that looks like?

Robert Fukui: Encourage marriage at work, like to other people or just,

Jim: I'm just leaving it open there. I'm not leading you up. Just we're, I'm convinced that it's possible to encourage marriage at work. I know that can be twisted.

Kay Lee Fukui: What comes to mind for me is I agree with that and I think a big deciding factor in that is making sure you're each in the right seat. Because if we are doing something that we love, then you wanna go to work, you wanna spend time with your spouse. It's a lot more harmonious as opposed to take it from me, I've been in the wrong seat before and it's caused a lot of friction and frustration for both of us. ' Cause a lot of times we marry someone that has different giftings than us, so making sure they're in the right seat and you allow them to use their giftings and encourage that.

Jim: Martha, add to Kay Lee. What is something, some way you think business owners can encourage and help grow Marriages? To encourage marriage?

Martha: So, one thing I think of is even when we had one season where Jim and I didn't directly work together every day. We still had side gigs and everything, but I had a job in Christian retail. And even though we weren't working together my employees knew a lot about my marriage, my spouse, how I respected him, the decisions we made together. Like I, I shared that just in conversation to model to them what it maybe should look like.

I employed a lot of younger people and so I knew that everything I did, they were looking to the future of what would that look like for them. And so I think that we have opportunities every day to to model and to be an example for those around us. And I know you guys work with couples that are working together and think of the opportunities, how they handle conflict, how they respond to each other in front of other people, not only behind closed doors, but in front of other people.

And that example goes such a long way because they've probably, the majority haven't seen it modeled well, and so that opportunity for people to see a Christ-centered marriage is one that, my goodness, that is such a mission field right there.

Jim: It's such a loaded question, but Robert, what do you think? How can business encourage marriage?

Robert Fukui: Yeah, I follow Martha, which is saying, I think regardless of, like for us, I mean we work directly with couples and we're trying to help them. But we're always modeling whether good or bad, we're always modeling marriage and so you hope you wanna model a Christ-following marriage.

And so whether it's with clients or with employees or with just friends and family or people at church, you know everything that we do and how we interact with each other is gonna be a demonstration. And so we're always, we don't feel like the light is on us only when we're on a podcast or when we're working with a client.

But we feel that we should be authentic in our marriage no matter what the circumstance and no matter what the location and just how we treat each other. Like even if we have a disagreement in front of people, how we respect each other in that moment, even if we disagree on something. Instead of arguing, having conflict, we can take it home, but we can do some things and just even how we're sometimes just being honest about, what we've gone through. If another couple is going through something, instead of us just giving advice, we share from our experience when we've had this issue or this argument or whatever.

 We can be authentic in showing that we have our flaws. And then, but his is how we've gone about it. And when we can demonstrate, hey, the one thing that's helped our marriage and we say even our own podcast and some of our stuff, not all of our clients are Christian, but we'll say it. One of the things that helps our marriage is praying daily together. And so we can say that, with true authenticity, because we also share our flaws.

Jim: So I love that, I love all your perspective and mine is just even a little bit more different because I think that so often... first of all, every Christian business owner listening and every pastor listening today, just understand that if your marriage is a mess, everything you touch has the danger of being in a mess as well. Because if what God has given you to steward at home is not being stewarded well, who wants to listen to you? So business owner, if you're saying marriage is a priority, then show everybody that works with you and for you that your marriage is a priority. And show your people that work with you and work for you that their marriage is a priority - above you. Because that's something we don't see demonstrated.

And pastor, you need to show—I'm speaking to you. I've been a volunteer pastor for decades. If your marriage isn't a priority and you're putting the church before your marriage, you're setting a horrible example for everybody else. Your marriage is more important than your quote-unquote ministry to the public. And if everybody sees your marriage is secondary to your your ministry, your marriage is second to your ministry, people don't wanna hear what you gotta say because they're like how can he just keeps disrespecting her? She just keeps disrespecting her husband or he keeps disrespecting his wife by all the time he spends. Who wants to listen to those people?

And I think as Christian business owners, I've seen a lot of them where they make their marriage a priority and everybody else has to work overtime. And that doesn't communicate. We need to make sure that people understand. Now, we met a guy, one of our sponsors years ago, the guy's name was Skip Stanton out of Sarasota, Florida.

And and not only was his marriage a priority, but he held a marriage retreat for his people every year so that everybody who worked for him and with him had an opportunity to work on their marriage. And he gave them 250 bucks, either attend their retreat or another retreat every year.

Martha: To invest into their marriage. Even today if people are listening today on Valentine's Day, it's not too late. I can even put a simple recipe in the show notes. You can go to the store and in a very short amount of time, get a really, if you don't have reservations already somewhere you can get a special dinner on the table for your loved one to show them that they are a priority.

And it's not just about Valentine's Day, Jim, it's about doing it every day. But this is just a day where we highlight it and we focus on it. And it's really pretty special because we get an opportunity to talk about something that a lot of people don't have. A good example in front of 'em.

 It's been a while since we've had our listeners call in and leave us a message, but we would love to hear from you. So...

Jim: a Valentine's message this time!

Martha: So call our listener line at eight, six, six, seven, one. 3, 9, 6, 7, 5. And that is 8 6, 6 7 1 3 work. And you have up to a minute to leave a message and you can tell us today anything you wanna tell us about, responding to this, to the conversation that we're having.

Maybe you have a good example that you can share with us or just something encouraging for us to be able to share on the air in a future episode. But 8 6, 6 7 1 3 9 6, 7 5. Those last four digits are work. And I'll put that in the show notes so you don't have to remember it.

Robert Fukui: I'm just gonna call and leave a message says I love Jim.

 (laughter)

Jim: So Robert and Kay Lee have a couple of really powerful resources, but before we get to that I want to just finish up this conversation on just giving people ideas on how they can show love to their spouse today. Because I think you said that, pastors preach it from the pulpit.

I've never heard a sermon where a pastor told me to pray with my wife. I've been going to church fifty-seven and a half years. We're telling you the four of us in Unanimousness. That's a new word. In Unanimousness are saying pray with your spouse. It's the secret sauce to a great marriage. It's fantastic.

But what's one other way, Robert, you really work on showing love to Kay Lee on a daily basis in addition to prayer?

Robert Fukui: Yeah. It's, it really is just that encouraging word. Because one I have, and this is for me, right? One, one is she likes words of affirmation. And. I wasn't brought up with that which means I'm terrible at giving it.

So I really have to work at it and be intentional about it outside of just the prayer time, but to give those words of affirmation. And it is that, and it is that quality time. Just learning the love language. That's the easy one is just learn your partner's love language and give it to them 'cause we often tend to give our partner our love language, which may not be the same. Mine's gifts.

Jim: And if you don't know about the five love languages, go to Fivelovelanguages.com.

Kay Lee, how do you show love? What's one way to, an example, a suggestion you can make to our listeners saying how to show love to their spouse?

Krystal Parker: Yeah, I love that book. That's great. I would say check in with your spouse and see how their day was, how are they doing? And when I say that, not on your phone. Look 'em in the eye. You are not cooking. Just give 'em a couple minutes and see how everything's going. Sometimes you can just tell by looking at their face how their day was before they even say anything.

I remember my sister was multitasking when my nephew was young and she thought she was really good, but she wasn't. And he just said to her, his mom, he's mom, I need you to listen to me with your face, because he knew she wasn't listening. So I'd say, give them a couple minutes and ask how they're doing, how their day was, what can you do for them?

Robert Fukui: Oh, and I take out the trash.

Kay Lee Fukui: Oh, that's so romantic.

Robert Fukui: She loves that.

Martha: Isn't that great? I have posted pictures over the years of Jim washing windows and doing different things, and I'm like, this is love right here. Love it. That is exactly right. Okay, so Jim alluded to a little bit about you guys. You guys have so many resources.

Jim: Don't you have any suggestions on ways to show love to your spouse?

Martha: Oh yes. I go to Casey's and I get a Fountain Mountain Dew, a Fountain Dew for my, for the love of my life.

Jim: And I get her at Diet Coke. Actually, it's now Coke Zero.

Martha: But again, I think it we love the Five Love languages and think it's a great way to really be able to speak the love that your spouse is looking for. But I really wanna get into their resources. Jim.

Jim: I know but I get a chance. We're gonna get into the resource. We are not gonna stop before we talk talking about the resources, but here,

Martha: hang on everybody. It might be a little longer episode today. Go ahead.

Jim: Learn these three sentences: I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Say it again. I'm sorry.

Those awesome sentences. Those sentences can change your marriage. Now, Robert and Kay Lee have a phenomenal download on their website, which is Marriedentrepreneur.co and it's Balance Marriage and Business Better. We're not gonna go into that today because they've got a new book and we really wanna talk about their new book. Tell us about Tandem.

Robert Fukui: Tandem, the Married Entrepreneur's Guide for Greater Work-Life Balance, right honey? It's a mouthful. So I figured I'd jump in. But the book is really just a compilation of kind of what we do for ourselves and for our clients of how do you do marriage and business, the term work-life balance? I know it brings up a lot of things.

Jim: It's just a fake thing. Balance is, there's no such thing as work-life balance. It's give and take. Yeah.

Robert Fukui: Yeah. You win on both sides. That feels good. And when, and you know when things are a little outta whack, right?

You feel out of balance when things are outta whack. When it's really more business and not enough honey time and all that. You can tell, you can feel it, right? So how do you get things in balance? How do you win on both sides is a big thing. And two, two key things from the marriage side is just knowing how to do conflict. Fighting fair.

And on the business side, it's working smarter, not harder, not about putting more time in, but how do you be more productive? So that's just the, in simplest form is what the book entails. And then we, of course we go into some detail around that.

Martha: I love the whole visual, like the mental visual of a riding in tandem on a bicycle. Our neighbors had a tandem bike on the beach in Florida. Did we ever get, try to get on it?

Jim: We did. It was a disaster.

Martha: I think I blocked that memory. It was a disaster. But that's not easy. It is not easy to actually ride a tandem bike. And so I love the fact that there's so many lessons and I love that you guys use that idea when you're having this conversation because it works so well.

Kay Lee, what do you have to say about it?

Kay Lee Fukui: I was gonna say, and we've got on, we got on, actually got on a tandem bike. You're right, Martha. It's not that easy. For the first time on our book tour because Robert in the past, I think he was afraid to get on the bike with me. Yeah. 'cause he didn't know what to do with me 'cause I always wanted to ride it at the beach. And he said I can't put her in the front because she's gonna be looking at all the shiny and the dolphins and the whales. Afraid I'm gonna run over a roller blader. Can't put me on the back 'cause he's afraid I'm not gonna pedal, so he doesn't know what to do.

Robert Fukui: Wow. So of course when we got on the tandem bike, she didn't pedal. 'cause obviously she had to spite me.

Kay Lee Fukui: 'cause he said, I can't put you on the back. You're not gonna pedal. So I'm like, okay, I won't pedal then. Good idea.

Jim: Yeah. It's it, yeah, the tandem bike thing, they were cute in another world.

Martha: I don't know, but I love the whole concept of it. And I do wanna talk just briefly about the download that you have available, because that is your gift for Valentine's Day to all of the listeners, right? What are they gonna find when they go out and download the Balance marriage and business better?

Robert Fukui: Yeah, there's is some guides on how to communicate better, how to resolve conflict, how to prioritize, how to make sure that your marriage is a priority. And we have a little checklist of how do you do that? What are some things that you can do on a daily or weekly basis that make sure your partner feels fulfilled and loved and served.

And on the business side, it's really looking at the time and the money you spent in the business and how do you be more productive and are more effective with that. So it can grow without you having to put more time in, but it can actually grow so you can actually get more time back and get some freedom.

Martha: I love that you actually talk about both sides of that. It's not, all focused on marriage. Let's be practical in the business. Like you said, winning on both sides. So what a great resource.

Jim: And if you're struggling to try to figure out how do I really fix this? Ask your spouse. If you're not in business with your spouse, but your spouse owns your business with you 'cause they do, 'cause if you're married, you have a spouse that's a part business owner.

If you're really struggling, ask your spouse. Don't be an idiot. I'm talking to the guys out there. If you're just stuck, ask 'em. And if you wanna know what's wrong with your marriage, ask your spouse! Don't be an idiot and try to figure it out on your own. They'll tell you if they think you're working too much. They'll just say, you know what? You work too much.

Robert Fukui: So Jim, can I add something to that myself?

Jim: You can. Absolutely.

Robert Fukui: I had to learn how to listen to my wife. Because early on in, in our marriage, before we even started the business, she had some feelings about a certain investment.

And I had done all the numbers and I said, this is a good investment and we're going all in. And she didn't have a good feeling about it. Of course she was right. So the mistake, talking about investments, cost us some money. Won't tell how much 'cause it still hurts. And then there's a second instance similar to that. And so finally I decided, I may be a slow learner, but every time she has a feeling, I probably should listen.

Jim: There's a whole other session we could talk about that one for sure. Women's intuition is a direct lane to God. Women hear the voice of God way easier than we do as men and yes, if your wife tells you don't do that. I have a bad feeling. Run like the wind in the other direction because when your wife doesn't have a good feeling, you are heading for serious trouble. There isn't a single guy on the planet that has said that story. My wife said she had a bad feeling, but it worked, all worked out fine. Never heard that story. Never.

Robert Fukui: There's still guys that continue not to listen.

Jim: You know what we call them? Knuckleheads for Jesus. That's right. Knuckleheads for Jesus. That's right. I used to own that website. Knuckleheadsforjesus.com. Because it's a thing. It's just a thing.

Robert and Kay Lee Fukui, we're so grateful for you guys. We're so grateful for all of the resources you've got out there free on your website. Marriedentrepreneur.co. We're also grateful for your ministry to power couples, and really just feeding your lives into others in the business world. Thanks for spending time with us here on iWork4Him. Happy Valentine's day to the two of you and thanks for spending it with Martha and I.

Robert Fukui: Happy Valentine's Day, Jim and Martha!

You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ Followers and our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.