10/1/25 - 2114: Bold Faith in a Hostile Culture

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

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

Jim: Your faith is under attack. Everywhere you go, the biblical ideals you hold firm to are ridiculed as out of date and old fashioned and definitely not inclusive. In the past 20 years, the government of the United States has ruled against you. State laws have been passed that prohibit the free exercise of faith on sidewalks. You've been told you must comply or you'll be destroyed, deplatformed, silenced or canceled.

So where do you turn when the government you elected turns against you? For decades, the National Center for Life and Liberty has been defending churches and Christian ministries, caught off guard by lawsuits, government overreach, and unexpected legal issues. David Gibbs III has been on this show many times, but in the last four years, national Center for Life and Liberty has been so swamped with legal challenges on behalf of many believers across the country, we've just said we're not gonna bother David 'cause he's just been so busy being in front of the Supreme Court and all these other things.

We have missed David's incredible wisdom and pointed humor. So David is back with us today to share how God's been working and what you should be looking for and preparing against. David Gibbs, welcome back to iWork4Him.

David Gibbs: I am delighted to be with you, Jim, and before we went on the air, we were talking about, you're a pen and paper guy, so you know, back when payphones and dinosaurs roamed the earth (laughter) and so you're gonna do it the traditional way. You're gonna hold firm. But we will remind everybody, God gave us a book, not a video, so you know, you're probably in sync with how values get handed out.

Jim: That's right. And it started with rock and chisels, so let's just, at least I'm not carrying a rock and chisels.

David Gibbs: We don't know that. We hear pen and paper, but we don't know that.

Jim: I just showed it on YouTube. (laughter) On YouTube you could see the pen and the paper right in front of me. David, last time you were on the show was August of 2021. How would you describe these last four years in light of the calling on your life?

David Gibbs: Busy, and incredible, in terms of what all has happened. You think about the last four years. We have gone through massive changes in the world. We use a word like COVID and people go, oh yeah, I remember that. That was a little while ago. And the reaction of our culture and our government and what that did to the legal system, kinda wildly. Courts backlogged.

So today as we look at like disappointments, I mean trying to get your case to court, trying to get judges, everybody was working at home and criminals go to the top of the pile. So if you're not charged with a crime, getting your case in court can be difficult. Lawyers all went home for a while and a lot of 'em figured out they want to get paid more and work less. And so all of a sudden in the church world, where churches don't have necessarily unlimited resources like a big corporation and don't have the ability, and so we have been unbelievably busy.

Now, on a positive side, there's afternoons where I sit, I am here with you and I'm in court in 3, 4, 5 different states and never leave my office. The Zoom world has really changed how the legal system works and the process and so I think as people look at that, they think of a justice system. But the reality is try to get your case to court is expensive and time consuming. And then what is also tragic is you can go from judge to judge. You wake up one day and you know what rights you may have. This judge says yes, and then you go to another court or another even judge in the same area and they say no.

And I don't think people understand just how our system is so dependent on the men and women that have the ultimate voice of authority and how that's done.

Martha: Wow. It's amazing when you think back to, I think of when you said, thinking back to COVID and like all the things that had changed, we got to the point where we didn't even say that word. We would say "in this time that we're in." We all know what that means, right? This unfamiliar and uncertain time that we've all experienced and what has happened in it.

I am a cup full person. But I wanna start with, what are some of the low lights? When you sit around the dinner table, you always hear families say, give your highlights of the day and low lights of the day. When you look at the last four years -

David Gibbs: by the way, that's a pretty heavy dinner table. (laughter) Mostly what are we gonna eat? What are we doing afterwards? And what's on tonight? Yeah you're talking a pretty serious table. But go ahead. (chuckling)

Martha: Yes. So we have some friends that are very intentional as parents, and that's something that we learned from them is give us your highlight of the day, give us your low light of the day. 'Cause then you learn a lot about the people around the table.

So in this table we're sitting around, David, what do you think of as some of the low lights of the last four years in respect to the justice system?

David Gibbs: I'll give two with the courts. I think I mentioned them, but I think we can definitely touch on. The speed with which justice is meted out in this country is too slow. To have a case that you file today and then to be adjudicated two, three years down the road and then appealed for another year or two. Is justice in five years justice? And it can be a marathon really 'cause you just keep going and the reality is, businesses don't stop. Families don't stop. Life doesn't stop. But litigation just moves at its own pace.

So I think you have to look at that. The inconsistency is troubling. The judges not being anchored to absolute truth. I think we had a legal system that was more based on common law, and this is what the law is, this is what the legislature did, and we see this in big federal cases, we see even at the Supreme Court. Law is now what a given judge thinks on a given day. So that's a little scary for people and businesses, trying to base their life on what judge do we get? Whether this is going to go one way or the other.

I think culturally you've gotta look at a couple big shifts. One is in the area of life, I think we're watching over the last four years, a lot of trend towards what I call the quality of life lie. And let me just tell you what that is. If you don't have sufficient quality of life, your life isn't worth living. I was the attorney for Terry Shiva's family. You remember that back in Tampa Bay now 20 plus years ago. And back then it was traumatic that we would take the life of a disabled woman that was alive. Now we're talking about, Canada has right to die. The west coast has right to die. Now all of a sudden, people want to go to their doctor and end their life because they're depressed or miserable. And you start looking at a culture that says, is life a gift from God or is life just what we think it is and we can end it at any point?

And then I also think you've gotta look at maybe a cultural shift towards the church or towards ministry. There used to be, you say the word Bible, you say the word minister, you say the word pastor, you say the word church, there was a cultural respect. They didn't always agree. We knew there was disagreements, but there's a respect. Now all of a sudden we've moved past indifference and I would say over these last four years there's a cultural mistrust. I think in some instances a cultural hostsility. There's some marginalization. It used to be, boy, isn't it wonderful the church is trying to reach a community? Now it's, oh, are they abusing children?

And so I think societally we've watched where the perspective towards charitable work and towards even teachers and educators and others that are involved in nonprofit type work, are now deemed as more suspect. And so it is a little unfortunate. And again, there's other areas you can look at that. Law enforcement, used to be, I grew up and was told, obey the police. He's your friend. Now, it's the policeman might beat you up and take you somewhere because you're the wrong race or because you upset 'em.

And again, i'm using simplization, but the cultural trust for law enforcement, the cultural belief in church and ministry, the cultural looking up to teachers and others that are investing in the next generation, now we've moved into a highly judgmental mistrust in culture and it just makes it that much more difficult. So over the last four to five years, I'd say those are probably some points where I go, wow. A lot has happened. Times have changed in this country.

Jim: And you left out the distrust of governmental organizations is astronomically high today. It was always a little low. Like people thought yeah, i'm not sure. Now yeah, nope. I don't trust them at all.

David Gibbs: And I'll add to that, Jim. I was gonna throw government in. I just didn't know if that was the last four years of the last 40 years. You know what I mean? (chuckling) Because we've reached that point.

Jim: Eisenhower brought it up 75 years ago. Hey, the government industrial complex. Watch out boys. You don't know what you're getting.

David Gibbs: Yeah. Ronald Reagan's quote - I'll be close - "some of the scariest words in the government language is I'm from the government and I'm here to help." (laughter) You know what I mean? That's never a good thing. So you have to look at it. It's been a problem for a while.

Martha: So let's look to the positive side then. What do you see as some of the highlights that have come out of it? You already mentioned even just the ease of Zoom calls to be able to more efficiently maybe do some of the work. What else have you seen?

David Gibbs: I think while technology can help things, it's still helping people. When you talk to a person, so a pastor calls me, a businessman calls me, a leader calls me, and they have a spirit of fear. I'm in trouble. I've been sued, I've been attacked, I've been challenged. What can I do?

And for me personally, there's tremendous joy in being able to say to them, here is the law. Here's what can be done, here is something that can help move this forward. And so I think, maybe over being able to communicate. So it used to be like you would say, can I go to a meeting with a church? And that may be like, they're in Idaho. That's gonna be really expensive. And for just one meeting. But now all of a sudden you're able to say, get 'em together. Let's have this ability to talk. So while technology is maybe less personal than a face-to-face meeting, it's also been able to bring the world really together in some ways for communication.

Even around the globe, you can talk to missionaries and others differently. Your podcasts -look at the people that would never be able to sit in your living room and have this conversation, or even if you had a church or a building, they just couldn't get there. Yeah, but now you're able to get to them on their time.

So I look at the ability to help real people with real problems take away that spirit of fear, give them confidence, let them move forward. My cases have a different feel good. A lot of lawyers, it's, they got paid well or they made a bunch of money, or they made their client a bunch of money and it's got a financial side. There's nothing wrong with that. That's the business side. But a lot of my cases may have a, there's a child that's alive. There was a baby that they were going to end the life in the hospital and that child's alive now with his or her parents and doing well. And so you almost have a, like this child is the result of this. There's a person here. So that's exciting to see.

Or a ministry that could be on the verge of collapse or death and you say this organization is going to no longer be able to minister in this community where they've been, some of them hundreds of years in our nation's history. And to see them continue to move forward and again, I'm a big believer in not just surviving. So the idea is not just to survive. It's to thrive. We wanna go forward and we wanna minister in a really effective way.

And then probably on a personal note, since we're just chatting, I have two grandchildren in the last four years, so I guess I've crossed over that being a dad and now being a granddad, that's a great highlight. And I gotta tell you this too. My kids were all into the names and I was like, nah, whatever the kid wants to call me, I'm fine with grandpa, granddad, whatever. I wasn't too particular. And they're like, dad, you gotta come up with a name or we're gonna name you.

Jim: Oh yeah.

David Gibbs: And so I was kinda like, what are you gonna name me? And I went to Duke, had the privilege of going into their law school, so the kids were like, we'll call you Duke. I'm like, I don't know. That sounds like a dog. Sounds like a school. Sounds like a lot of different things. I just don't, Duke and Duchess sounds like royalty. It's a little snooty, and they're like you come up with a name or we've got it for you.

So I saw a t-shirt that said, in a world full of grandpas, be a fun paw. And so I thought, I said it as a joke. I said, I'll be fun Paw, figuring that would be good marketing with the kids. It picked up, so now I'm fun paw and these little granddaughters have figured out I am good for things, I'm good for toys, I'm good for trips. Fun, ice cream. They like it. And then the nieces and nephews figured out, Hey, we're gonna play into this too. So now I'm uncle Fun paw. And they have jumped into that in a good way, but it is fun to see that next generation coming along, and I don't envy my kids.

You guys talking about change. Social media, it's dangerous, but the kids gotta be able to function in today's world. Technology, what a tool, but what a scary world, the premature everything. Knowledge, information, what gets to... and so how do you balance that? I'm watching my adult children and their spouses now moving through that with their own children. And it has you pausing. So celebrating for those kids and trying to be there for 'em, but on the other hand, it's a wild world we live in right now.

Jim: Sure is. It is. And we didn't talk about a lot of judicial victories, but I'd like to do that after, just wanna make sure I highlight one great thing. 'Cause one of the greatest things that came outta the last four years is the birth and the explosion of the US Christian Chamber of Commerce right there in Orlando, Florida, but spanning across the country in now 23 subsidiary Christian Chambers all over the country. You can find details about their upcoming event in 2026. IWork4Him.com/events.

Martha and I will be MCing the US Christian Chamber Expo in Orlando in April. Go to swc2026.com and enter the code iWork4Him. You'll get a discount. And there's also another great event, the National Faith and Work Summit in Cincinnati in June. So lots of great things going on there.

David, in the last 10 years we've seen free speech come under attack. We've seen the right to assemble in our own church come under attack. We've seen prayer come under attack. In some countries it's now illegal to pray in your head anywhere near any place they don't want you to be praying. We've seen the right to maintain our religious beliefs come under attack. What's next and how do we prepare?

David Gibbs: I'm a big believer - and by the way, whether you, again, politics is a hug or duck, right? There's people that just love what's going on and there's people that don't in any given state and in any, even nationally. Okay? But the reality is we do have a current more conservative, at least national direction, with less regulation, which again, can be good and bad. Maybe less taxes. That's generally good. And trying to instill a little more fiscal restraint into the government.

And I think all of that is a healthy combination that allows business to have more opportunity to thrive and grow and to go forward. But I'm a big believer, Jim and Martha, when you think about business, if you have good people, and by the way, your listeners are good people, and you give them good information, I think you gotta be careful. It's not just what chat GPT spits out. We live in a world where there's a lot of misinformation online, or even scams or spoofs or I just talked to a couple of pastors that lost lots of money in a scam.

It sounded good, and all of a sudden it's a Ponzi scheme. So I think you got good people with good information, they can make good decisions. And I think that's where in today's world, as a business leader, you gotta think about, what can I do to live my faith? And maybe a word of encouragement is they can do more than they realize. They have freedom of speech, they have freedom of religion, they have the opportunity. Now, again, back to hug or duck. You become the strong Christian business of any sort, there will be people that don't like you.

I talked to a church in California today. They scheduled a trip to Israel for next year that they were gonna work to put together. This weekend there are people protesting out front of their church over what's going on in Gaza, and they've got bullhorns and they're yelling as people are coming to their cars. Anything you do - scheduling a trip to the Holy Land at a church now opens you up to potential protests and culture.

So you have to decide, am I willing to face the noise? Now, there'll be people that appreciate it and they'll show up. And you may get more business, more customers, more trust, but you're also gonna have some folks that say, I will never deal with you. And I was talking with some lawyers today. The collegiality in the legal world is not what it used to be. Lawyers now, if it's to their competitive advantage, we'll go file a bar complaint against another lawyer just to try to see if it'll help 'em in the litigation. And it's just an acrimonious and intense way of doing things.

And so I encourage the Christian business leaders, make sure you get good information. Make sure you're moving forward, but then be willing to stand up for your faith. Let your position be known. The NCLL, we have a motto, and I like it 'cause it encapsulates a lot, but this would help you in business in other places. If it's wrong, fight it. And there's a lot of wrong in the world. We can all agree. But if it's right, fight for it. So deciding what is your mission? What is it you are fighting for? What problem are you solving? What are you ending? And be willing to stand on that regardless of the consequence, I think is significant.

And then I would probably put one more thing in for the business leaders that I'm a big believer in, which is lead by example. And by the way, this is church leaders. This is ministry leaders, this is educators, this is business. We all wanna lead by decree, right? We wanna say it, do this, do that. And that's fun, right? To be bossy and sit around, watch other people jump. But the reality is that true leadership is where they see a leader that embodies and personifies what the organization's all about. And so if you're gonna preach it, pastors, you need to live it. Teacher, if you're gonna teach it, you need to model it.

Business leader, if you're gonna ask your employees to run day and night, they need to know that you're willing to go 10 minutes longer and 10 miles further. And when they see that and you're doing it together, when you're that model of it, I believe at that point you get real leadership, real buy-in, and people can get excited about what's going on.

Martha: Amen. And I'm gonna make sure I put a link to one of our previous interviews with you, David, in the show notes. And the reason why is if people have not heard you speak before, one of the things I often share is that you always tell us the things we can do. And I think that's so powerful because we are in a world where we hear all the time as a Christian, what we can't do. And I love that you even just now said it again. You said, what can we do and being leaders that are really worth following, right? Standing up for what you believe, but also needing to know what that truth is.

And you you made an excellent point too, that there's a lot of things that we can find out there that are not the truth. They've been curated to try to lead us in a different direction. So make sure we're getting our truth from the right places.

Jim: Even those protests, now that they have professional paid protestors.

David Gibbs: Yeah, you don't know what ever you're dealing with. And let me say this, I'm a lawyer. I don't like most other lawyers because if you start dealing with insurance and risk and adjusters and mitigators and you put a label on it, right? What's the easiest thing? Don't do it. If you send a rocket up into the sky, oh yeah, it might blow up. You might kill people. You could be sued. But we're never gonna explore space.

You load a truck full of stuff and you go down the highway, could you have a wreck? Yeah. Could you have an incident? Yeah. Could your tires blow? A lot of bad things can happen, but we're not gonna get the goods and services we all live and depend on. It's a management of risk. If you're gonna live risk adverse, you don't ever go anywhere. You're stopped, you're parked, the car's in the garage, you're dead. And by the way, there's churches that have died, there's businesses that have died, a lot of organizations, but you've gotta manage your risk and you gotta decide, why am I here? And then you're gotta be willing to take that risk.

And then, Martha, you take biblical concepts, right? Treat people the way you wanna be treated. That seems so basic. But we live in a world where people wanna almost act like the customer's a pain and I'm just here for a paycheck. And we're watching where the US, and that's our country, is not leading like we once did in certain industries and areas. And so I think we always have an opportunity as Christians. We're commanded to be salt and light. That means we have to preserve and protect and shine and be willing to go forward.

And just decide - if it's all about the money, I will tell you the Bible's pretty clear that you can't serve God and money. And when they talk about the root of all evil, they don't say money's evil. Be careful. People misquote that. But if that's your love, it will ultimately be insufficient and it will ultimately lend to your destruction, 'cause the new car does break and you gotta make the payments. The bigger house still needs to be clean. Electric, taxes, everybody sits there and ends up at some level, frustrated with it. And yet that was what they were living for.

But when you find that purpose, and the purpose is in what God's called you to do, made you. That's why we're in his image, right? We have the opportunity to make our life count for something bigger than ourselves. Wow, that's real legacy. Now, you may die with a little smaller bank account than you could have if you'd just gone after money, but think about the impact, that legacy, and then I'm a big believer, you're gonna stand before him and get to hear some really cool words like "well done." And those are the sort of things that get me excited when you start thinking that way.

Martha: Amen. And if you think about the workplace, which is what we talk about on iWork4Him, , if the living and breathing God is living inside of you, then the gospel has to come out in the work that we do. And Satan can't keep that from happening. But we need to stand and be bold. Living out the gospel should be a part of our DNA.

But sometimes when we have computer troubles, it's hard to live out the gospel. So if you want to do what you can to protect yourself, your family, and your company from viruses or hackers, you can trust all of your devices to SaferNet. Their dashboard allows you to seamlessly see activities and to know what the virus protection, the filters, and the other controls that they have are working hard to protect your mission. Go to SaferNet.com and let them know that you listen iWork4Him.

Jim: We use it on every device. It never lets us down. David, what kind of challenges are you fighting in courts right now?

David Gibbs: I'm facing a lot of issues where churches and ministries are wrestling to even just keep what they have. We're in a world right now where denominations are changing, imploding, changing their beliefs, and here's a church that might have been in existence for a hundred, 200 years, and now an out-of-state corporate denomination that's gone woke, says, we're gonna take your property back. We don't want you anymore.

And these people are like, but this is our church. Grandma's buried out back. And so just even making sure that your organization is safe from takeover or from outside influences, and you say, why would an outta state denomination try to stop a church? It's all money. Greed. They want the assets, they wanna liquidate, they wanna put it in their coffers, and they want to advance their agenda.

And then I would also say, the fear factor. I think Martha said it. There's so many Christians that are like, you can talk about everything. You can talk about your gender fluidity or your sexual orientation and all that is out of the closet. We can talk about that because, it's he him or she her or they them, or whatever you wanna be. That's all cool.

But the Christians, in some measure, fearful, like they gotta be in the closet. And so what I challenge is it's time for Christians to be out of the closet. Doesn't mean you're obnoxious or rude, just means be yourself. If you believe in Jesus Christ, talk about it. If you're going to church, tell people about it. Take people with you. There's nothing wrong with being you, and so living your faith is in some measure, being genuine. Just be yourself. Live your faith, whether you're a realtor, whether you're a salesman, whether you're in ministry or you're just, in your mind, in a secular endeavor, be yourself and let Jesus Christ shine through you.

Think about this. Jesus could have shot us all to heaven, right? Could have just said, you know what, David, Jim, Martha, you won't do anything bad if I just once you're saved, i'll just get you outta there. But he didn't do that, right? Why not? You say, iWork4Him, but I'll take your motto and say We all live for him. Some people work for him because they take their life and they actually put it in their workplace. So I love what you guys do, but the reality is we all are here for him, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ.

So thinking about making your life radiate for him is something that is exciting and encouraging, and I'd encourage everybody to think, am I really serving my purpose as to why he left me here?

Jim: So that's another brand option he's offering is Radiate4Him? Hey, that's awesome.

David Gibbs: We're taking iWork4Him every which way. You've already branded that masterfully in a good way for Jesus glory. But let's just take - by the way iParent4Him.

Martha: Yeah.

David Gibbs: I recreate for him. I do whatever. I hang out with friends for him. What is your - everything you do should really be focused around the "For him" part.

Martha: Yep.

Jim: We so agree. As you look at the next decade ahead of you, what do you see? What do you hear God saying, David, lemme just give you a little hint of what's ahead?

David Gibbs: I would say this: every leader, as you start moving along, has to start as, and some don't do this, and I help them too. But you gotta start thinking about, am I bringing along the next generation? Do I have 20 and 30 and 40-year-old attorneys that I'm training, discipling, mentoring, hiring, working into?

So otherwise, an organization as noble as it could be, will either die with you, which is, some narcissist founders want that, right? They, it's all about them, right? But the reality is, if you're really trying to leave something behind, you want it to continue on. But then the other dynamic with all of that is if you don't do that, then you don't have people trained and organizations can take left and right turns. They can be quacky cults or they can be left-leaning liberal. And people say I don't even recognize this anymore.

Harvard university was designed to train Baptist ministers and look where it is today. And so somebody says, how did an organization change like that? There's a natural tendency to move away from core biblical values. And so that's part of our sin nature. So I think as a leader, you have to think about, am I finding my successor? Not that I plan to stop. I'm healthy, young, wanna keep going, but my point is, you gotta start looking at, are there people behind me?

It's the old farm team concept. Am I bringing people behind? And then culturally, I think we have to expect what I will call bounce back. And what I mean by that is we are going to see where the younger generation is watching right now the older generation, a little bit pushing, maybe just a little more conservatism into the culture, and I think you're gonna see a younger generation that's going to continue to ask some hard questions. Is grandma in her eighties worth paying for? People go, whoa, that's a hard question. Or does it the right to die turn into the duty to die?

Or do social security benefits get tied to mandatory death ages? And you say stuff like this and people go, oh, freak out. That would never happen in America. Canada right now is, can't keep up with all the citizens that they gotta kill. And so we're living in a world where life values, religious liberty... i'll just throw out one big one. Will future generations value the church where it doesn't pay taxes? Or will we be in a day where they say, eh, you guys have had a good deal for a long time, but it's time to start kicking in income tax, property tax, sales tax. And all of a sudden a church that was able to function on a hundred thousand dollars a year budget tax free starts looking at 20,000, $30,000 a year in taxes and they gotta shut down.

So I do think we're gonna see some trends and maybe what I talked about earlier, whether it's life, whether it's respect for ministry, education, what is going to occur in the future, but I am passionate to be that salt and light. And as long as God gives me breath, energy, opportunity, I plan to stay marching forward and keep doing what I'm doing and at least show up on iWork4Him every four years. (laughter)

I kept going to my mailbox 'cause I knew you wouldn't send an email 'cause you're like a dinosaur. So I'm gonna go to the mailbox. (laughter)

Jim: I'll text him next time.

David Gibbs: And I kept looking for a letter from Florida, Missouri, or wherever you guys land at any given moment. I know you're jet sitting around the world doing big things in Orlando and Cincinnati and everywhere else. But I kept looking. I was like, no, not today. I was like, I wonder if Jim just forgot me. 'cause I knew Martha wouldn't. (laughter) but then ultimately she emailed. So it was really your lovely wife that saved this phenomenal relationship. And again, I'm teasing. I hold both of you in huge esteem, but I'm always honored to be on your program. So you say the next 10 years, I hope it I get on at least once or twice more.

Martha: There you go. We'll have a date four years from now. (laughing)

David Gibbs: Okay. That's good. Yeah. At least four years. Yeah, that's right. Every four. It's like presidential elections. Just, your audience can take...

Jim: unfortunately we're out of time.

David Gibbs: Oh, are we outta time? When the preaching gets good, the deacons all gotta slip out and count money. You just never know how it's going. (laughing)

Jim: Oh boy.

David Gibbs: Is this the conviction of the holy spirit? And if I started an altar call, you need to come down first. So I'm ready for you, Jim. (chuckling) Alright, it's your program. I'll turn it back to you, sir.

Martha: Oh, you're awesome.

Jim: Check David out online and his whole team at ncll.org .It'll be in our notes for the show. And I recommend, if you need help, NCLL will be the one to help you or they'll send you the direction of where you need to get help. David Gibbs, thanks for being back with us today.

David Gibbs: Honored to be with you.

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

9/24/25 - 2113: The Servant Lawyer's Guide to Faith at Work

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

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

Jim: Over the years we've interviewed hundreds of authors, thousands of everyday workers living out their faith and their work, but never have we interviewed a lawyer who wrote a book that reflects the antithesis of how we all view lawyers. So much that this book caught my attention, it also kept me riveted to the pages all the way to the end. The book is called Servant Lawyer and the author is Attorney and Professor Robert (Bob) F. Cochran Jr.

So incredible is this thinking that he reflects in his book, I had to have Bob on to talk about this revolutionary understanding of the kingdom role of an attorney. Throw out everything about your thinking about what a lawyer does and how they should act and open your mind to the endless possibilities of the kingdom role of lawyers. Bob Cochran, welcome to iWork4Him.

Robert Cochran: Thanks so much, Jim and Martha. It's nice to be with you.

Jim: Bob, tell us about your journey. We wanna hear about your journey in making Jesus your Lord and your Savior.

Robert Cochran: Yeah. I was raised in a Christian home, I think a wonderful Christian home, but like a lot of preacher's kids...

Jim: Oh, you're a PK. Oh boy.

Robert Cochran: I am. I am. I ran away from the faith, wanted to discover the world on my own, so through high school and college, pretty much running away from God. And then I got to law school. I went to law school for not such good reasons - of pursuit of status. I just found that that world and that pursuit to be empty, started reexamining my faith and I guess discovering.

Discovering CS Lewis, him speaking to my mind, I'd had plenty of wonderful lessons for the heart, but Lewis speaking to my mind was a big part of that, and I guess it was a search for meaning and truth. So in the midst of my first year of law school, not really a great time to have a crisis of faith, committed my life to him and been trying to follow him since that time.

Jim: But CS Lewis could frame an argument better than almost anybody who's ever lived. I'm sure maybe Socrates was good at it too, but CS Lewis was so good at it. And he could speak at all levels. He could speak at simple levels that he could speak at exquisite levels, so I could see how he touched your life.

Martha: So I'm curious because you said you wanted to become a lawyer, maybe because of the prestige and the return that might come from that. After you really made a commitment to Christ, obviously you continued on with that education, so you must have then decided to really be committed to becoming a lawyer. Is that correct?

Robert Cochran: I went back and forth with the idea of going to seminary, becoming a minister, or sticking with law. But I had really an ever expanding view of Christ and what Christ is doing in the world and what I might do. And then really also just through I think mystical insights, circumstances, a number of things, kept me in law. And it really wasn't until after a few years of law practice that I looked around and I didn't have this nagging sense that I ought to be a minister anymore. I really came to see law practice as a vocation, as a way of following Christ.

Jim: So talk to us about how that really became, your faith became interwoven in your law practice? What was that journey like? Because you've decided that they should be interwoven. We could talk to a thousand attorneys and they would say, law is law. And Jesus is Jesus, they don't have anything to do with each other. You're saying they should be interwoven.

Robert Cochran: Yeah. I guess I'd point to three influences. One was a group of Christian law students who've remained among my best friends for 50 years. I still meet with several of 'em weekly in a Zoom Bible study. They've encouraged me there, helped me to develop this vision of a servant lawyer, and hopefully I've encouraged them as well.

Secondly, I got involved in a church that introduced me to John Calvin and some of his thinking and writing about law and about the world generally, and even about law practice. You may know that he was a lawyer before he became a Christian author and pastor. And so he had thought a lot about it. And one of his great sayings that had an impact on me is "all the world should be a theater for the glory of God." And so it was that kind of a vision that that had an impact with me. I tended to separate the world around me from my Christian faith, but then envisioning Jesus as being Lord of all of life, Lord of all the World, was a great vision.

And then I had a professor named Tom Schaefer, who had written a book called On Being a Christian and a Lawyer. He had just been the dean at Notre Dame Law School and had come to University of Virginia, where I went to law school, as a professor. And and he was really a mentor to me throughout my law practice and then going into law teaching, strong influence with me. So really, all three of those things.

Jim: But there had to been a lot of pushback because you're in a world. I'm not, I won't go to any of the analogies for attorneys. We'll try to be very nice today to the attorneys, but you're in a world that doesn't really emulate the characteristics of Jesus. So when you decided that you had a different perspective on what it really meant to be an attorney, there had to be attorneys around you who were also Jesus followers, who thought you were crazy.

Robert Cochran: I guess I'll push back a little bit. I think attorneys tend to get the reputation they have because of what I would consider to be a few bad apples. Yes, there are attorneys who are like that and deserve the reputation that they have. I do think most attorneys are trying to abide by professional responsibility, rules. Some of the aggressiveness of attorneys is part of representing their clients. And I don't excuse that as something that's wrong, I see it as part of the system and a system that's developed over the decades and has recognized that it's really in confrontation between ideas that judges and juries can, I think, often get a sense of the truth of things.

So I'll defend my profession generally. There aren't many Christian lawyers that think in terms of Jesus sitting right beside them as they're interviewing clients, Jesus sitting right beside them as they argue before court. I think we should view ourselves more that way. And I didn't find that I got pushback so much as "that's an interesting idea. I need to merge those two aspects of my life, or think more in terms of what it would mean for Jesus to be Lord of all of my life."

Jim: That's a good word. Many people struggle to learn what Bob's talking about, allowing our faith to be interwoven in our work and to help you with that shift in thinking, consider joining the US Christian Chamber of Commerce, uschristianchamber.com, where you could surround yourself with other Christ followers, learning to live like Jesus in the workplace.

The resources and networking opportunities even include an expo in April of 2026 where Martha and I will serve as the MCs. The link to the expo is swc2026.com and the code iWork4Him will get you a discount, and we'll see you there.

Martha: So Bob, I wanna ask you a question that maybe not a lot of people have even wondered about this question, but what do you believe is the kingdom purpose of a lawyer? Because you have some thoughts on this.

Robert Cochran: Yes. Yes. I think all the things that we do, what we do should be a reflection of love of God, our love of God. But more specifically for most of us our focus is on love of neighbor. And I think there's a couple of ways in which being an attorney is a way of showing love to your neighbor. Most specifically, most immediately, is gonna be showing love to your clients.

My mentor and friend I mentioned earlier, Tom Schafer, he taught legal ethics and he would, with a wink in his eye, ask people to define the client, and lawyers have all sorts of technical ways, is there a contract, has money been paid? There's all sorts of things you you might wrestle with, but Tom would say that for the Christian, the definition of a client is this person God has brought into my life.

Jim: It's your neighbor.

Robert Cochran: Yeah. Yeah. And you know when you hear that knock at the door, you get that irritating phone call, to be reminded that this is a person God has brought into my life is an important one. And you're dealing with people typically, or at least quite often, at the most stressful time of their lives. You may be used to the legal system as an attorney, but it's a whole new experience for them, whether it's business related, death of a parent or a child, or they've got criminal cases brought against them or they've been sued, those are times when to have a caring person with them and somebody who will speak for them.

Oftentimes people don't know what to say. They're not very articulate, they don't know the law. And so having someone speak for them is a very important way of loving them. But also being a caring person. So many people envision lawyers in the way you've described them, and it'll be a surprise if you find one who loves and cares for you. And not every Christian and not every attorney is comfortable with this, but I would very often in, in cases when we were faced with high stress, say we've got a challenge in front of us. Can I say a prayer for us?

Martha: Awesome.

Jim: Awesome.

Robert Cochran: And I never had anybody resist or say no, sometimes I gotta look like, man, I don't believe this, but we need every bit of help we can get. (laughing)

Jim: Yeah, that's right.

Robert Cochran: And I would just say a prayer and have the sense that God was right there.

Martha: I love that.

Jim: That's good. We're talking today with Bob Cochrane. He wrote this book, The Servant Lawyer, Facing the Challenges of Christian Faith in Everyday Law Practice. We're showing it here, out here on YouTube. We recommend - we'll have the links in the show notes on the podcast. But if you're an attorney or you've got a friend that's an attorney, or you're using an attorney, give them this book as a gift just from you with our recommendation because in there it gives them a whole paradigm shifting look at the practice of law.

Robert Cochran: Let me just say one other thing in response to the earlier question, which was, how do we serve God in law practice?

I mentioned loving our neighbor and the specific client that we're serving but I also wanna highlight the role that lawyers play within our system as advocates for people. So the advocacy system is designed to, the hope is that justice will merge when lawyers - here lawyers make arguments for each client, and then a judge and a jury may be hears those arguments, but also within our commercial system, oftentimes lawyers are representing clients and you're negotiating deals.

So many of the deals that are done, lawyers involved, lawyers anticipate potential problems. They draft documents in ways they're gonna avoid those, and I think they smooth an economic system that creates jobs, creates products for people, and I think that's an a very important role that lawyers serve that often they lose sight of when they're busy just stuck with documents - the people that benefit on down the way from their work.

Martha: Yeah. And I think in a lot of our occupations, we forget the influence that we have over the people that we are working with. So if you're listening today, you're not necessarily a lawyer, you haven't had to work with lawyers on doing deals and things like that, but wherever you are working, you are a person of influence for the kingdom.

And so to take that responsibility with you. Jim, we just interviewed somebody for another podcast talking about bringing our genuine self. If Christ has truly changed us, then we bring him with us into everything that we do, which is such a huge part of our jobs, no matter what our occupation is. So Bob, I wanna ask you this question.

How do you, I don't even know if balance is the right word, but how do you navigate when the world does have a preconceived expectation of what an attorney does and is, and how they act versus how God expects you to be as his son who is an attorney?

Robert Cochran: Yeah. I would say that it's not a balance at all. I would say you look first and foremost, and really only at what it is that, that God wants you to do in a particular circumstance, and you go that route, even if it might get you in in... might ruffle some feathers or might even get you into trouble. I think standing up for faith, following Christ even if the world around you and under some circumstances, even the law would push you in an un-Christian direction.

That being said, I've got a lot of respect for the law as you can already sense. Particularly in the United States, I've got a lot of respect for our commercial system. I think before you challenge it, you should think long and hard. But Christ should be your guiding light. What is good for people? Now again, I'll highlight that you play a role within a system. You've gotta look to the end result that system is designed to give, and sometimes your role will be to argue for someone something that you don't believe, but you've gotta trust the system.

Martha: It is tough because a lot of us have a lot of plates that we spin in our jobs, much like what you're saying as an attorney, but you don't have to hold onto the plate that protects your devices, like your computers and your cell phones. SaferNet is designed to protect all your devices at home and at work, so we can all focus on the mission that God has given us to do while they keep out the bad guys. Their VPN, virus protection, and internet filters work without slowing you down. Check out safenet.com and let them know that you listen to iWork4Him.

Jim: Bob, I wanna close out the show doing some stories, telling us some stories. There's all different kinds of attorneys with many types of specialties, from defending criminals to negotiating divorces to facilitating business deals and so much more, international law and US law. Give us a story of how you were able to reflect the character of Christ in one of those settings.

Robert Cochran: Thanks, Jim. I remember one time lawyers that do divorce and family law work have to wrestle with when they're gonna handle a divorce what their relationship will be with clients. I've had friends who are Christian attorneys and they say in a setting like that, they have enormous opportunities for witness and ministry when people typically are at the very bottom of their lives. As I wrestled with it, it seemed to me there were some circumstances where I could work to get a divorce for someone, and some where I could not.

I had a lady come in. She was an older lady, and she said that she had decided to divorce her husband. And so I asked her to tell me a little bit about her background, her husband's background. It became obvious that they were probably both Christians. She just, she described themselves as going to a Baptist church, et cetera. The pointers were toward her being a Christian.

And so I said that I could refer her to another attorney who could handle that, but I'd made a commitment to not pursue divorce under some circumstances. And her shoulders dropped. She said, I've been thinking about it, getting a divorce from my husband for 30 years. I finally got the courage to go to an attorney and get my divorce, and I picked you out of the phone book and I probably got the only lawyer in Charlottesville who won't get me my divorce. And she leaned over and she pulled a Bible out of her purse and she said, you tell me Mr. Cochran, where does it say in here that I can't get my divorce?

And I leaned over, pulled the drawer out, pulled the Bible out of my desk, and we walked through the scriptures and by the end you could tell she was, that what I'd said had made an impact. So I asked if I could call her pastor or try and get her and her husband together with them, maybe get a little counseling and she said, sure. An example where I think a lot of attorneys would say, my faith doesn't have anything to do with this. If you're, if you're gonna follow Christ, sometimes you have to resist those inclinations.

Jim: A great example. That's a great story. Perfect story.

Martha: Yeah, it is.

Jim: So speak to the Christ following attorneys and their clients that are out there listening today. Encourage them that being a servant lawyer, helping people at possibly the worst time of their lives is in fact, not only possible, it's expected. Talk to people about the general attitude that you present in your book, because there's a lot of attorneys out there that have never been taught that perspective, and that's why I'm hoping you get a chance to mentor and disciple thousands before the Lord takes you home, but speak encouragement to them today.

Robert Cochran: I will put in a little plug for my book. I developed these themes that we've been talking about a lot in the book both for business lawyers, litigators, the lawyer counselor, the lawyer who's in court lawyers, who serve poor people, and law students.

I talk about the moral challenges of law practice and of law school, but I would say be encouraged. I don't think there's any other profession that gives you more opportunity to serve other people, whether that's the individual client who's across the desk from you or the system generally. People make light of lawyers, but you go to a country where there's not the rule of law or where law's disregarded, where you don't have lawyers who are encouraging people to comply with the law, you're likely to hug the first lawyer in this country.

We tend to take law on lawyers for granted, but if they're not around and we can't rely on people's word and documents and safety - a lot of those things, lawyers are there and help to protect us.

Martha: That's awesome. I just had a thought: if we have lawyers in our lives, they're probably hard to buy gifts for, and so I just think that your book, The Servant Lawyer, Facing the Challenges of Christian Faith in Everyday Law Practice would be a great gift.

All of us probably know somebody who's going to law school or they're going to go there after they get their bachelor's or have a practice or you know, whatever their role might be, that you could get this book for them to encourage them through the chapters of this book regarding the industry that they are in, and give them that opportunity to make some new, maybe reinforce or make some new decisions about how they view their work and being the servant lawyer that they've been created to be. So I just think that would be a great gift idea. And Christmas will be here before you know it.

Jim: Hey, that's right. And Bob, I wanna just thank you for your words about the fact that you do have so many ministry opportunities because you, when a client potential client walks in your door, they're possibly at the lowest point in their life. And that's where most attorneys greet their clients, at a very low point. Not always, 'cause sometimes it's business deals and things like that, but you're often dealing with people that are under an extraordinary amount of stress, and that is the greatest open door for being Jesus to those neighbors.

Bob Cochran, thanks for bringing your book to iWork4Him today. Thanks for the discipleship method, the paradigm shifting information, that you've got in your book for looking at law practice as truly a kingdom function and an incredible ministry opportunity. Bob Cochrane, thanks for being on iWork4Him today.

Robert Cochran: Thank you.

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

9/17/25 - 2112: From Censorship to Calling - The Power of a "Default Yes"

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 inspire every workplace believer to recognize their workplace as their ministry place, where they work with God every day. What can that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: So where do you go to buy a book? A download, an audio book, or find the latest, greatest podcast like iWork4Him? Amazon, right? Does Amazon care about your faith in Jesus? Nope. But if they can make money on it, who cares?

They'll sell your faith driven book right next to the pornography section. It is what it is, but wait, there is now an alternative that's viable, proven, successful, and designed for you as a Jesus follower to find all the resources you need for supporting your walk with Jesus, and today we're gonna tell you all about it.

Claton Butcher is here today to present CrossCurrent Digital. This platform has been around for a while, but only this April did I find out about it. I'm so excited for you to hear about a platform where you can get everything you need from Christian media and have it to be sold from a platform where Jesus is glorified and the owner loves Jesus too. Claton Butcher, welcome to iWork4Him.

Claton Butcher: Thank you. It's good to be here.

Jim: All right, so Claton, before we start talking about CrossCurrent Digital, our listeners wanna know your Jesus story. So how, when, and why did you become a follower of Jesus?

Claton Butcher: That goes way back. So I accepted Christ at a very young age. I don't know exactly, it was probably five or six years old. And it's a boring story. We were in the car and I started asking my dad, who was a pastor, questions about how you became a Christian and accepted Christ in the car, in the backseat of the car as my dad was driving down the road. So in that sense it's boring, but obviously it's the most important thing.

Christ is the most important thing in my life and life of my family. And so thankfully I've been blessed to to have walked with Christ my whole life, essentially, that I can remember.

Jim: That's exciting.

Martha: And I just know that there are listeners listening that may wish that they had the boring story that you had. So do not ever discount that, because I do know that the value of what it may have saved you from by meeting Jesus at such an early age. So Claton, fast forward. I don't know much about your career history. Have you always been in the Christian media space?

Claton Butcher: No, I was a worship leader. I graduated with a music degree from Oklahoma Wesleyan University close to 25 years ago now. And so I did that for about 15 years, most of it, bi-vocational. So I was working in retail supplements as well for about eight years, was senior training manager.

Worked up to that there, and so trained managers and all that and got out of that. And when, interesting story that we don't have time to get into because the more important story, if we have time, is how CrossCurrent started. But started getting to the audio books as an audiobook narrator. And at that point, started doing that. Then God said to start a publishing company. So okay, I don't know how to do that, but you say, so I'm gonna do it, but how?

And I described that as my Moses moment. When God said, what's in your hand? I'm like I have $400. That's not the cheapest part for one book. How can I start a publishing company with that? But I had some connections with a Christian publisher and from other Christian narrators from the networking that I had been doing as a narrator. And out of that Two Words publishing was born. We've published about 150 books through nine years now. I think we're in our ninth. It was 2016.

So whatever that math, however that works. (chuckles) And so that then... I don't know if you want me to go then into the CrossCurrent story...

Jim: So how did you get from publishing books to the idea of the CrossCurrent digital platform that you've developed today?

Claton Butcher: It was not my idea. I never would've done this if it was up to me. So we had Two Words Publishing. I also started Black Hills Audio Books, which is our general market brand because there were some books that were not Christian books that I still wanted to publish and actually a book on China before the alarm bells were ringing elsewhere.

And so I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna do another company with this. So Black Hills audiobooks is our general market brand. I heard about a book through I think it was through Colson Center that was not released yet, a book called When Harry Became Sally by Ryan Anderson. I don't know if you heard about that a number of years ago now, but it was a book that I was like, I never want to have a conversation about this in my life, but I think it's important, and so I think we need to be a part of it.

So we got the audio rights to that book and four and a half years ago almost to the day now, just looking at the date down here, it's this week will be four and a half years exactly when Amazon censored that audiobook. So they pulled it completely from Audible, from Kindle, from every new and used seller and of the print version, as if the book no longer existed from all of their different entities.

And it just happened to be coincidentally, I'm sure, two days before the awfully named Equality Act was going to be argued on the floor of the US House. And so our book, which was the most comprehensive and compassionate critique of the deceptive and damaging trans agenda got swept under the rug so that it could not be used as ammunition against what they were trying to push through.

Jim: Wow. And so how'd that end up? How'd that end up? You're just bringing truth out there. Is it out there now? Can you get it on Amazon today?

Claton Butcher: There's more, there's a whole lot more to that story. Do you want it?

 (chuckles)

Martha: It's interesting. This is the story though, that birthed CrossCurrent, right?

Claton Butcher: It is, yeah. So it is the story behind CrossCurrent. And I'll try to keep it short. Within two weeks of the release of that book, or excuse me, the censorship of that book, we had released other books, Tyranny of Big Tech by Senator Josh Hawley and Dictatorship of Woke Capital by Stephen Soko.

Jim: I was gonna say Josh Hawley, great senator.

Martha: We live in Missouri. Great senator of Missouri. That's right. We're grateful.

Claton Butcher: Yes. I got to meet him by Zoom. He recorded the forward for us. But we had somebody else do the book. Anyway, so we had two books that talked about what they could do if they wanted to, that they just did. And Amazon knows that I also own the other publishing company and we talk about biblical identity there in a number of books. It looked like everything could go at a moment's notice. We were fully self-employed for a few years by that point m had stepped back from the music, worship leading at the church, and to devote the ministry specifically to the two things, to the publishing.

And then also part of this is we were host families for Safe Families for Children, which has been administered in South Dakota through Bethany Christian Services. Within a few days of that book being censored, they both changed their statement of faith in order to not lose federal funding on that same issue, but still calling themselves Christian. So we had to remove ourselves from that ministry as well. So we lost, we'd had a dozen babies over four years with that in our home to keep 'em out of foster care, essentially, including four sets of twins. But so we lost that. It looked like we could lose everything financially.

And then we got a phone call from a narrator that says have you seen what's going on with you and with the book that you did? No, I have no idea what you're talking about. And apparently there is, was, and at least to some extent to this day, is a blacklist campaign against narrators that had worked for us, that had worked with us, against myself as a narrator, and threats against our family from that audiobook community.

And so all of that, within about a week.

Jim: Wow. All in the name of inclusion, as long as you agree with them. Not that we're gonna go political today, but so the Lord just shut doors and he said, now are you gonna listen to me and do what I told you to do? I'm guessing that he'd already prepped you and said, I got a platform idea for you.

No? Tell us. Tell us that story. Where did it come from?

Claton Butcher: Okay, so there's a whole question about God's sovereignty that we don't necessarily need to get into here but I think God allowed it, not that he caused it, but allowed it to start things in motion.

So about a month later, there had been - no, we never, ever would've come up with this idea. And even if I had, I would've been too afraid to do anything about it. It was very clear after, in another conversation with an author that very clearly God said, he said, my book is gonna be censored too, because it's about biblical identity.

And that was the point that God said, okay, now build this and laid it out almost word for word to build a Christian conservative digital book sales platform so that when this happens to other books, whether it's Bibles or anything else that talks about biblical identity that goes against the culture, that this will be still available or already available because I don't know if your listeners know this, but depending on the numbers that I've seen, it's between 63 and 83% of all book sales in the US go through Amazon in one form or another. And that is not different in the Christian and conservative spaces.

So Christian publishers are largely funded in that sense as far as where the sales come from by Amazon. And so that is a huge problem that very few people at the time had recognized. More are recognizing it now, but we still need others to get on board, but that was where the idea came from.

Martha: Huge problem is that you're allowing somebody to distribute your information that may choose to no longer allow it to be distributed. Is that what you're saying is the problem?

Claton Butcher: That's part of it, yes. But there's also the whole funding aspect. The platform takes a large percentage in audio books. It's the vast majority of the percentage of the revenue. And so when that platform funds things that are anti-biblical, then that's an issue.

It's not top of mind for a lot of people, a lot of Christians, but because Amazon is so easy, it's you get everything from Amazon and can get everything except for When Harry Became Sally for four years. And so to finish answering your question, Jim you can get it now on Amazon, on Audible because when Trump came into office again and did the executive orders where companies would need to acknowledge biological reality if they were gonna do business, the author Ryan Anderson tweeted saying, Hey, Amazon, does this mean you're gonna sell my book again? The incoming FTC Chair, Federal Trade Commission Chair quote tweets him and says, Amazon, I'd like to know the answer to this.

And voila within a few days, so that they wouldn't lose billions of dollars in DOD contracts, they put the book back up and so now you can get it. But for four years it was as if the book never existed on Amazon.

Jim: So if you're listening today and you wanna see your business or your ministry protected and be a part of a whole bunch of people that support you- Claton has struggled. He felt like he was on his own, like there was no place to go to have fellowship in this whole area when he was being persecuted. The US Christian Chamber, it can be there for you today.

Check out the US Christian Chamber because they help Christian business owners grow their business and impact through expert resources, powerful collaborations, and a national directory for even greater exposure. Grow your business at uschristianchamber.com. And now you can gather with other members at the US Christian Chamber Expo in April of 2026, that Martha and I will be MCing that event. Visit Swc2026.com to learn more and use code iWork4Him when you register.

Alright. Claton, tell us about the platform. Yes. You should become a member of the US Christian Chamber, of course.

Claton Butcher: I already am.

Jim: That's fantastic. I wonder where that idea came from. That's unbelievable. All right. So tell us about the platform. What kind of media's available. Explain it to us.

Claton Butcher: Sure. Basically coming from the audiobook space, that's where obviously what we have and that's the biggest part of it. But we also have eBooks and podcasts as well, so audiobooks, eBooks, podcasts, and the biggest differentiator, aside from ownership and supporting biblical values is our curation. So we curate everything so that nothing goes against biblical values.

The intent is so that nothing will lead you away from your faith or confuse children because there are four or five, 6,000 books that are targeted for kids as, as low as preschoolers with the woke agendas, which include the trans and all of that, that strangely enough the Audio Publishers Association, the American Library Association, the Public Library Association and all of these different publishers weekly and all the different, everything in publishing outside of our Christian circles are pushing this as much or more than anywhere else in the world, essentially. And so publishing is, in that sense, on the front lines of this battle.

Martha: So tell our listeners how it works. You have a membership basis. Just explain the layout of the platform so they understand why they would want to participate in this as the place for them to get their resources.

Claton Butcher: So we have over 16,000 books and the membership is $15 a month for four books. You get to keep one. That's part of our DNA because of the censorship. We wanna make sure that you will have access to that book later, and then you can borrow three more. And those are 30 day borrows.

So there's again, over 16,000 books total. The borrow catalog is a little bit smaller. It's 6,000. We should be at 20,000 and 10,000 very soon on those. So a really good selection of books. And there's also the family plan, so you double that. So you get eight books, two to keep, six to borrow for $25.

And then we also recently rolled out our group subscriptions. And so if you're part of an organization or a church or your business, as business owners, if you wanna be able to provide a biblical resource to your employees, you as a business or as a church can do the group subscription and it's- you may be familiar with Right Now Media. Think of it as Right Now Media for books at a lot lower price.

We go by family group and not by attendee. I'm not a hundred percent sure exactly how the Right Now at Work does that.

Jim: But let's talk about those titles because I'm interested in the titles because this show is all about the connection of faith and work. So of those 16,000 and 5,000 or 6,000, all those numbers you just threw out at me, how many of those titles have to do with what we talk about? How many of them are helping you connect your faith in your work, realizing the significance of your work? How many of those are workplace titles?

Claton Butcher: Yeah, that is a great question that I should have prepped.

 (laughter)

Martha: That's okay.

Claton Butcher: So I'm on the website right now and I'm typing in business.

Jim: So not just business, I mean 'cause it's not just about business, it's people learning to live out their faith and work. I know you've got a couple of great titles that you're gonna be adding shortly, right?

Martha: You mean like iWork4Him? You're leading to the law, right? Yeah, iRetire4Him.

Jim: sheWorks4Him. That's right. (laughter)

Martha: Yes. So that's right. So we are working with you on those, but go ahead.

Claton Butcher: Sorry. So actually we are bringing in, a publisher contract is done. It is just a matter of actually getting the files. So that's where it's gonna take us to 20,000 and then 10,000 on the borrows 'cause they're gonna have all of that under that and there's going to be a ton of business books in that. So I'm excited to be able to get those as a Christian publisher that mostly focuses on business stuff and general marketplace, but also has a number of Christian titles too.

Jim: So is that a good lead? Is that a good lead for you? There's a lot of Christian publishers out there, some small, some big. Are those good leads for you?

Claton Butcher: They are, yeah, definitely. Now, again there are some, we still curate Christian books.

Martha: So you're reading all these books. You must have quite a team that's curating them.

Jim: We've had people curating for about four years now.

Martha: Wow.

Jim: Knowing that this was coming and that we would need to be able to do it quickly when it came. But it's been a long road to get to where we are. I don't know if you know this, but tech companies take a lot of money for some reason.

And we expected to be able to get investment and that really hasn't happened. So we have had to bootstrap this entire thing for a long time. One of the big pieces we don't have is the digital rights. So basically the anti-piracy stuff. And so that keeps us from getting another 40, 50,000 books like this, because those publishers are like let's wait until you have that. So that is a challenge that we are hoping that we can do soon.

Martha: A lot of people that we've interviewed over the years, what we have seen is people will say, when they learn about you, they're like, wow. It's become an instant success, but it's taken 10 years to become that instant success or however many years it might have been. But we know that on the journey God is writing your story and we are just excited to know about it and that's why we love sharing this with our audience.

And one of the things that we know for sure is that digital products take electronic devices in order to enjoy them, right? And if we don't protect those devices, we can't enjoy what we are listening to. At iWork4Him and in our home, our computers and all of our devices are at risk of being compromised by digital desperados.

So we trust SaferNet to protect all of our devices. Their internet controls, their VPN, their virus protection, their dashboard, are all created to help keep the bad guys out so we can keep everything running smoothly. And I think this is an incredible thing to be aware of at safernet.com because we're talking about digital stuff today, and so it's front of mind. So go to Safernet.com and tell them iWork4Him sent you.

Jim: All right, so this has been a long project where you faced a lot of obstacles, including fighting monsters on earth here. Did you ever wanna give up?

Claton Butcher: Yes and no. God has not released us from this and both my wife and I are firmly having again, theological stuff, but having a sanctifying experience a long time ago, which I describe as basically a default yes to God, whatever he wants me to do, I'm gonna do. And so once we knew that it was what God had clearly called us to, there's no sense of stopping. There may be times where I wish he would say, okay, enough's enough. Now you can do something else. (chuckles)

But no, not really. But in many ways it would be so much easier if God said, okay, you've followed me and done everything I asked of you. Now you can step over here and give it up, but there has been no sense of that. And so until God says that, we continue and if we have to end up selling our house and moving and living in an RV, that is on the table because we will do whatever God wants us to do to follow his leading to do what he wants us to do.

Martha: Yeah. And that's so powerful because I think we have a lot of listeners right now that maybe find themselves in a similar situation. It may look different, but they've been on a journey of being obedient, but it's not easy. The trials, the things that you run up against, the financial requirements, the getting censored, all of the different things that you've endured, but you know that you're doing it because God called you to do it.

And so I just wanna encourage our listeners that if you are in that similar position, I just love what you just said. It's like a default yes. Lord, I'm gonna trust you and I'm gonna say yes because you've asked me to do this. And until God tells you differently, keep walking it out. We are grateful that you're bringing this resource to people and making it available, and I just pray that even today some people will hear about it and want to become subscribers, not only because of the great resources that they know they're gonna find there, but also to help in this project of keeping it moving forward so that you can continue to gain more and more access to more and more resources that can help every one of your members along the way.

So we will make sure all of the links are in the show notes for people so that they can go out, check it out, become a subscriber, get some resources, do all the things because that is what it's all about. But I love the whole conversation around having the default yes for God. And I'm sure that will be an encouragement to many people that are listening today.

Jim: Claton, I would tell you that you're gonna know when you succeed when somebody starts calling and say, Hey, we'd like to buy out your platform. They're not gonna be from that other big platform. They're gonna be from some other small platform, but maybe that big platform will own them, and it's gonna be a side job. Don't become, as Tucker became in the car industry, don't become the tucker of the audio industry, the audio book industry.

Be very careful who buys you up because they bought out Tucker and for 40 years all the cool stuff he did sat on the wayside. They didn't have to use it 'cause they bought him out and silenced all that really cool stuff. That's what they're gonna wanna do to you. So be aware of sheep and wolf's clothing. No. Wolf in sheep's clothing. That's what it's gonna be.

Claton Butcher: Yes, that's something that I think is a huge issue. And so that's, that will never happen. We see no exit plan for this. Unless God specifically changes what he's telling us and says, yes, okay, you may do this. But I think that's part of the reason that we haven't gotten a lot of backing is because we have no exit plan. There's not a 1530 multiple that you're gonna get. And because we're not selling, unless again, God specifically leads that way, but it is a huge issue. I've seen it with streaming services, with other christian publishers that have done that. So many of them now are owned by the Thomas Zondervan or Harper Collins Christian. Even Christian Book is no longer Christian owned.

Jim: I heard that. So let me ask you a couple questions before we go 'cause we gotta wrap up. If somebody's listening today and they've got an audio book that's listed on that other place, and they've got an audio book, or they've got a digital book, or they've got a phenomenal Christ-centered podcast, how do they get ahold of you in order to say, I'd like to move my stuff to your platform, or at least have it in both places at first - how do they do that?

Claton Butcher: So email info@CrossCurrentdigital.com. We also have a form on our website so cross digital com / submissions.

Martha: Got it. And I'll put that in the show notes.

Claton Butcher: And so that that helps us know what your book is about and then know whether it would fall under our guidelines.

Jim: And if it's a publisher, we got Christian publishers that send us leads all the time for interviews. Maybe one of them is listening to the show today and they're like, you mean I can actually make money if I put my audio books on CrossCurrent Digital? And you're saying yes.

Claton Butcher: For audio books, you'll double, most likely double.

Jim: What about for digital? Too much to explain today. The bottom line is there's an opportunity here.

Claton Butcher: And we pay better than anybody else, and so know that.

Jim: There you go. Claton Butcher with CrossCurrent digital.com. Thanks for being on iWork4Him today.

Claton Butcher: Thanks for having me.

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

9/10/25 - 2111: Can Christian Investing Compete?

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 inspire every workplace believer to recognize their workplace as their ministry place, where they work with God every day. What can that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Nine years ago on July 28th, 2016, Martha and I interviewed Cassie Laymon from Virginia. Cassie wrote a book called, I Found Jesus in the Stock Market. I read the book, did the interview, and my life has never been the same. Cassie explained all about Biblically Responsible Investing and how our dollars talk. If we keep investing in companies that invest their dollars in causes and activities that are contrary to biblical principles and standards, then we are officially funding the kingdom of the enemy.

We got motivated. Totally pumped. After that show, I called my buddy and financial advisor Luke Andrews, and asked him to read the book. I told him that I want my portfolio to reflect the principles of Biblically Responsible Investing. I told Luke that if he couldn't do that, I'd have to find another advisor. I didn't want to. Luke read the book and history tells the rest of the story.

Luke eventually left his broker dealer and found one that promoted only Biblically Responsible Investing and shifted all his clients to Biblically Responsible Investing over the next couple of years. And for about five years, Luke appeared on this show promoting Biblically Responsible Investing every month as being a major sponsor of iWork4Him.

Over the last five years, Luke has seen a continued transformation of his life and his way of serving his clients and through his relationship with Biblically Responsible Investing and Inspire Investing, serving as an Inspire advisor. We wanted to follow up on Luke and see how he's doing. So we invited him back to share what God has been doing in his faith while he lives it out at work as an Inspire advisor. Luke Andrews, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Luke Andrews: It's so good to be here. When you had asked me a few weeks ago, let's do it again, I was excited and I've been excited for this time and just can't wait to share all the updates because it's been a little bit. I do miss Dave Cruz, so I'll make sure I share this with Dave and he'll hear our shout out today.

But I had lunch with Dave. For those that are just listening to me for the first time, back in when we first started out, really once a week on a radio show you guys were hosting, we'd come in once a month and it was the Luke and Dave of Bel Air Wealth Management.

Jim: That's right. Luke and Dave from Bel Air Wealth Management online at Bel Air Wealth Management. And Dave would say ".com".

 (laughing)

Luke Andrews: Anyway, I had lunch with Dave last week and he's doing great. His daughter Tammy, Tamara's gotten into the business and they're doing great and he's enjoying life. But anyway, we're here to talk about some updates and some exciting things, but I'm grateful to be here.

Jim: Luke, did you realize it had been nine years since that life-changing conversation?

Luke Andrews: No, I hadn't because I remember, and because it's a story that I tell when I'm sharing this whole biblically responsible journey with prospects or people or whoever wants to listen, is you gave me the book and I'm a skeptic by nature, whether that's good or bad, I think sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. When it's bad, God has to keep bringing other people in their life to to push you along, but having that skeptic nature, I read the book, and then I shared with you, Hey, I read the book. And that's how I left it for a little bit.

And I did leave the book on my desk because whether or not I wanted to believe what was in the book or not, I had been building a business for the past several years on just being a good Christian financial advisor. And there's a lot of good Christian financial advisors out there, not necessarily giving good biblical investment advice, but just good Colossians 3:23 financial advisors: "work hard at whatever you do, as if you working for the Lord and not for man."

So it wasn't an immediate change for me. I read the book, and I put it on the desk. But shortly after that, again God has a way of using other people as well, brought in another person. And he had asked me, Hey, am I invested in whatever it was at the time? I don't recall exactly what he asked me, but it had something to do with biblically aligned or faith-based investing. So this time I went back and read the book again, but I studied the scriptures that were laid out in the book.

I started praying about it and then this is where God started transforming the way I saw investments, 'cause I was probably like many financial advisors or even potential investors today who hear Biblically Responsible Investing, they're not really too sure about it. They're super comfortable where they're at. There might be some misconceptions on, "I'm not necessarily profiting from abortions. I'm not really profiting from the distribution of pornography." So really there, there is this journey that took place the day you gave me the book, but it wasn't like an immediate transformation.

It's taken time and then when you said nine years, I'm like, holy cow. That's, it's been such a fast nine years and so much has happened during those nine years. I can't wait to share more about it.

Martha: And that's the part that I love about this story is how God worked in your heart. Because you, like you said, you were building a practice that was based one way, because that was the way it's always been done traditionally, and then revealed a new way that would've meant a big shift. And I know we're gonna talk about that big shift, but let me ask this question: why don't you think that all Jesus following advisors promote Biblically Responsible Investing? Why do you think there's still a gap?

Luke Andrews: Financial advisors? I got real stories because I've got several friends and other believers that are in the business. Some look at their secular business as a way to minister, which is awesome. Hallelujah. I'm still able to do that, as well as focusing my practice on just Biblically Responsible Investing. I pray with our clients. They send me prayer requests, so these are things that we get to do, leading some to the Lord. We have unbelievers that are partnered with us as well and having that influence in their life.

So mainly, misinformation. This idea that you can't build a biblically aligned portfolio that's gonna keep up with historical returns that they're seeing in their own investment accounts, which is untrue. There's misinformation or maybe they don't see, if you own an ETF or a mutual fund, an exchange traded fund or a mutual fund, you don't actually own the stock per se.

So there's all sorts of ways that, in my opinion, the devil gets in there and just likes to confuse and lie and deceive. So these are actually real conversations that I've had with other advisors who may, who are running their practices how they're doing as a Colossians 3:23 type financial advisor. Yeah, a lot of it just misinformation.

Comfortable is probably another big one. They've had their book of business 10, 15, 20 years to convert a business like that into a BO. Now it's absolutely possible - inspire has several advisors who had huge books, who had been doing what they've been doing for 10, 15 years that have partnered with us. And it is a transformation.

But you mentioned, it has to happen in the heart. God really has to get ahold of you and hopefully the right people in your life to give you that influence and answer those questions about, what does that look like? What's the process look like? I don't want my clients to have a bunch of taxable gains because we're converting it all to Biblically Responsible Investing. Those are legitimate concerns.

But the good news is that there's a process out there, so for any financial advisor who loves the Lord, who is Colossians 3:23, who wants to take this next step and just start praying about and seeking information about BRI, you can contact me directly. I'd be honored to have that conversation or Inspire in general.

Martha: And I'll put your contact information in the show notes, Luke, for people so that they can reach out and have a couple of different options. I think it's important before we get too far into this conversation, to just explain really quickly and we can even put some links to some past shows we've done with you where you've gone into more detail, but why essentially it is so important to understand that if we just own general investments or if we have general investments, that it can actually be supporting things that go against our very biblical principles. 'cause some people may not even have ever heard this concept before and I don't wanna leave them out of the conversation.

Luke Andrews: Yeah, when you own a stock, okay? And if you own an ETF or a mutual fund or the stock outright, you own shares of stock, and shares of stock gives you an ownership interest in the business. And the Bible has a lot to say about ownership, right? Everything belongs to God. We're just managers, right?

And I'm an extension of you, Jim and Martha, as managers of what God has asked you to steward. I'm an extension of that stewardship. So when you look at, just when you start to look at things from a stewardship mentality, I think it changes everything. So when you own a stock, you're going to, your investment in that company is you want a return on the investment.

So you invest in Amazon because you think Amazon's a great online retailer, and they're gonna make a lot of money for you. They're gonna generate a lot of revenues and that revenue, if the stock is doing well, sorry, if the company's doing well, generating high revenues, keeping costs down, nice gross margin, fundamentally they're doing really well. The value of your stock goes up, right? That's that return on investment.

That's the connection when you're looking at Biblically Responsible Investing and just stock ownership. Now, some people might say then why do you shop at Amazon if you don't invest in it? Consumership is different, right? Amazon sells pornography. They sell an abortion drug. I don't use Amazon as a consumer for those things. I got some Muscle Milk the other day. That, that's what I used Amazon for. I don't order pornography and I don't pull from their abortion drugs or anything like that. But when you have ownership, whether it's to a mutual fund, which is weighted with some Amazon stock in it, so Amazon does better, the ETF or the mutual fund value goes up as well, you're profiting from that.

So anything a company does, whether say they sell alcohol, gambling, tobacco, pornography, anti-family values, abortion drugs, supporting abortion, there's a lot of companies that after COVID, you know, and after Roe v. Wade, some of their states banned abortions or brought it way down. There's a lot of companies that said we're gonna pay for abortion travel, and where does that money come from? It doesn't come out of the sky like where the government prints money. They use the money that they're generating from the profits they're selling from selling pornography, from selling abortion drugs. They're using your financial or your investor dollars that you have ownership in to do these things that don't align with biblical value.

So there's your problems, right? When you own a stock, whether it's individually or through a mutual fund and exchange traded fund, when the value of that stock goes up, you get a return on that investment and it's because of what they're selling. So BRI essentially avoids companies that are selling alcohol, gambling, tobacco, abortion, pornography, or even supporting other different philanthropic issues that don't align with biblical values.

And then we also, we don't just wanna screen out companies, we wanna find the best companies, 'cause we've also found when companies are on a mission, and not necessarily Christian companies, we'd love to find those, but companies that are just looking to take care of their employees, they're taking care of their communities, they're taking care of the world, they're making a positive impact, they historically also have a tendency to perform better because people are holding onto those stocks for more than just the returns.

Martha: Yeah. That's so good. Thank you.

Jim: So why do you think - everybody listening today, I'm guessing a large majority of people listening today do not have financial advisors that are investing only by biblical responsible investing standards. So why is it that Jesus followers don't insist on it?

Luke Andrews: Yeah, it's communication, right? It's not something financial advisors are preaching. When I do talk to Christian financial advisors, and I ask 'em have you at least even offered Biblically Responsible Investing to your Christian clients that, if they knew that they were profiting from pornography, they would probably be mortified?

Now, that's just a transformation in the way you think about things though, too. Most people, we've always been taught, we're just investing for our future. We're just investing for retirement. We've never been taught we're investing God's money. And would God be happy with the returns on where those investment dollars are coming from?

And if God says "Thou shall not kill," one of the 10 Commandments, and then we're supporting and we have Amazon - I'm beating up on Amazon today just because Amazon is probably in 90% of our listeners portfolios - whether they own the stock individually, whether it's in a mutual fund, whether it's in an exchange traded fund, they own Amazon stock. Thou shall not kills in the Bible. We know that killing is not good and essentially abortion is murdering and killing of a baby. So if Amazon is selling the abortion drug, that's part of their revenue. Their revenue dictates what their stock price is doing, and that's what dictates your returns.

So it's educational. There's $21 trillion in the households of those who profess to be believers or a Christian, $21 trillion. We could make a huge impact if we had 1% of that, so really it's a messaging thing. It's getting other Christian financial advisors to start having those conversations.

Jim: Yeah. Just an awareness, which is why we're doing the show today. Yeah, it's dangerous when we allow most of our input to come from society at large without putting it through a biblical filter. That's what Biblically Responsible Investing does for your investments, and that's why we love the US Christian Chamber of Commerce.

We surround ourselves with people who love business, the Lord, and the truth. The US Christian Chamber of Commerce has many different opportunities for members from all over the country to connect and learn. And in 2026, you can attend the SWC. What's that? Spiritual World Citizens. SWC2026.com event that Martha and I'll be MCing in Orlando in April of 2026. Use code iWork4Him to save on your registration.

Luke, when you went out there and you said, okay, this is something I wanna do, you found Inspire Investing to move your firm to, to establish where you were gonna grow what you were doing under Luke Andrews. What was it about Inspire that said, that's a company I wanna walk with?

Luke Andrews: From the bottom, not the bottom in hierarchy or anything, just for, I would say, from the person who answers our phones to our CEO Robert Netzly, who you've spoken to, who we've had on the show before, there is a commitment from the bottom to the top, okay, of transforming the way Christians invest God's money. And I didn't have to, I was in a great place with Bel Air Wealth Management. I love those guys. They're doing great things over there. For me it just came down to did I want to create this biblically responsible movement there or do did I wanna join a movement that was set to transform the industry?

And that's really the biggest part for me was I wanted to join something that the vehicle was already moving. I wasn't trying to build the vehicle. But it was already moving, and then every single person was committed to changing and transforming the way Christians invest, plus we give 50% of our corporate net profits to charity. Right now we're doing church plants in Cuba. And when I say "we," it's Jim and Martha's, right? You're partnered with Inspire.

We don't charge you more fees. We just started from the beginning and said, we're giving 50% of net profits away and you're helping build churches in Cuba. We made a big donation to Lifewise Academy recently through this Give 50 initiative. Lifewise Academy, it helps bring biblical education to public schools during school hours? Not after school, not before school, not during lunch, but actually a Bible education class to public schools.

So every single client that partners with Inspire is a part of that. It's an extension of your own household giving without you doing anything further. And then the third thing that why I joined Inspire is the shareholder engagement. We are the world's largest exchange traded fund money manager. We have nine exchange traded funds that we have built and offered the general public. The shareholder engagement is what I'm gonna talk about next and then Give 50.

Shareholder engagement, this is a big deal, whether you know it or not. Planned Parenthood is losing a lot of their funding, but what they're doing is they're starting to use other distributors to distribute the RU-486 drug, the Mifepristone, that you may have heard of. But like Costco, Albertsons, Kroger, Walgreens, they're all being pressured by the FDA and other institutions to start distributing the abortion drug.

We just had a pretty great shareholder engagement strategy for about the last year with Costco. They just withdrew their application with the FDA to distribute the MIfepristone. That's a part, another extension, of what Inspire does. When you talk about why Inspire, why I joined - let me back up. When I joined Inspire, there was a lot of faith. Jim and Martha, you guys were a big part of that decision. Christine Heartland was another big part of Har har you'll help me. And some other people were a big part of that decision because Inspire, when I started, I think we were like under 200 million and there was maybe nine financial advisors. This was way at the beginning when we had a handful of exchange traded funds, but we had a lot of faith. And today we manage over 3 billion.

Martha: That is so great.

Luke Andrews: We're talking six years. We are, USA today listed as just recently in 2025 as the third top registered investment advisory firm in America. USA today.

Martha: Wow.

Luke Andrews: I was just looking before I came on with you guys and on Friday, Inc. 5,000 came out with their fastest growing companies and we're on it for the sixth year in a row.

Martha: Oh, my word.

Luke Andrews: FA Magazine lists us in 2025 as one of the top RIAs in the country. When I say it was, God, you guys know this, right? I took a leap of faith and God has transformed my business from where I at when I started a little over six years ago, actually coming up, yeah, six years ago this month.

Martha: Yep.

Luke Andrews: When I started with Inspire, and my business has grown 500%.

Martha: Okay. So I wanna talk about this right here, Luke, because there are people listening - number one, hopefully you're firing up some people that have investments that have never thought about this before, and you know that we get fired up about talking about it because that this is the conversation we've had for years and it is awareness and it's letting people know, and we feel responsible for letting people know that there is another way to do things that's more biblical.

But let me also encourage our listeners - you may not be in this investment world, but what world are you in where you can make the same difference? Taking that step of faith and saying, God's convicting me about something that isn't right in my industry, and I know there's another way to do it, and I just wanna encourage the listeners to try to take that same lesson into their own work and say, what is it that God's been convicting me about that I have not had enough boldness or enough faith or whatever that might be to take that next step?

And Luke, you are such a great example of, you didn't know that your business would grow 500 times or whatever, you had no idea, but you said I know that I don't have a choice. God has convicted me to this, and I need to take this step of faith, and it makes me emotional just thinking about it because Luke, you were willing to do that no matter what the outcome was. And it has been a very good outcome. And people are catching on, but it's much like when we started iWork4Him.

There were very few people talking about even connecting our faith with our work. Now we're talking about connecting our faith with the financial decisions that we're making that are a result of our work, right? That the income that we get, that we are stewards of, like you said, I know I'm getting very fired up. (laughing)

Jim's just grinning over here, but that's where we're all at. When we work, we make an income. What do we do with that income? How does it honor God in the way we use it, stewards of what he has given us? And so that is why this important, this conversation is so incredibly important. Okay.

Luke Andrews: Yeah. Proverbs 15:22: "plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed." When you're facing these decisions on how you can honor the Lord with whatever it is you're doing in your workplace, it's seeking advice, it's getting information from iWork4Him and other resources.

And then having an attitude of gratitude, right? We're in a place some, I know some people probably don't love what they do. They have a tough boss. They're in a tough industry. But understanding that having this attitude of gratitude and being able to display that because wherever you're at, you're gonna be a light. You're gonna be the light of darkness or gonna be the light of the Lord? And so wherever you find your place, whether you feel like, oh, I can't really make these type of impacts where I'm at. Oh, yes you can. It's having that gratitude, understanding that God had you there for a reason and getting counsel.

Jim: Yeah, Luke mentions light of darkness. Speaking of darkness, it's so important we protect our devices from the enemy. We wanna give a shout out to SaferNet. SaferNet.com is a software package or an app that you can use to download to protect your phones, your PCs, your iPads, your laptops, everything, not only from viruses but it's a VPN that keeps the bad people from even knowing where you're at.

Internet filters so that your whole staff can be safe in your company. Check it out online. It's super powerful. SaferNet.com. We use it for everything we do here at iWork4Him. And if we have one of those links, people will send you on one of those emails you're like, is this real or not? If you click on it, SaferNet will keep you safe. Without it, you may destroy your entire network.

Look, before we go, you have shared so much information and people are gonna want to get in touch with you, which all that information is gonna be in the show notes. But what is it you wanna say to the financial advisors out there who are like, yeah, but the returns, they're just not as good when you do BRI and this is too much work to shift over. Speak to the financial advisors listening to the show.

Luke Andrews: Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Jim, it's so funny.

Jim: I said that! (laughing)

Luke Andrews: You used to love saying that. That was like one of the, we would say something and Jim was like

Jim: "past performance is not guarantee future results." Actually, I'd say past performance is not indicative of future results.

Luke Andrews: Yeah. Here's the deal with that is, when I first started on my journey, I started with my own personal accounts, okay? So this is my advice. Don't jump in with both feet. First off, call me. I'll send you a book, Robert Netzly's book. It was just updated so that biblically responsible - any of your listeners who want that book, Martha will put my information in the comments that you just reach out to me and I'll make sure I send you his book, and you can learn more about Biblically Responsible Investing.

But for those financial advisors who might be interested is, number one, pray about it, right? Seek counsel. " The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice." There's so much biblical wisdom in Proverbs. So you start searching, you start counseling. Then when God has shown you that this is the way, this is a way that I could be honored, is you start with your own personal accounts, okay? And you'd give it a one quarter, two quarter, three to six month timeframe and say, okay, here's the investments that Biblically Responsible Investing offers.

Let me see if I can build a portfolio that I would feel comfortable giving to my clients. So that's what I did. I started with my own account, my kids' accounts, and within a few months, I'm like, all right, I can build a portfolio, whether it's conservative or whether it's to the most aggressive, I can build a biblically aligned portfolio.

That's number one. And the second thing is, what are the returns looking like? And some years the secular benchmark is going to outperform, because they have the magnificent seven. That's Facebook, Amazon. Am Netflix, it's Tesla. It's seven of the biggest companies in the world. That's the magnificent seven. We don't invest in any of that because they all have some issues. That's another conversation for a different day.

But when you start looking at historical performances, some years we're gonna do better. Some years we're gonna do the same. Some years we're going to outperform, okay? I will say that we also have some sector models, and I don't, I'm not gonna give returns of our sector model, but our technology model has been absolutely amazing. And it's way past what the s and p 500 was able to do the last three years, at two and a half years, we'll say, so 23, 24, and halfway through 25.

Our technology sector model has absolutely been on fire and amazing. Again, past performance doesn't guarantee future results, but we have an outstanding portfolio management team at Inspire that does these things for us. So for other advisors, so you're not gonna sacrifice returns. Your clients, matter of fact, are gonna be more excited about what you're doing for them than what you're giving for them. Investment returns are a part of what we do. It needs to be, but when you're doing things that are honoring the Lord... investment returns aren't secondary. They're important, but they're no longer what you're thinking about all day and night. If the market's up or the market's down, you're fine. So that, that's probably the biggest thing.

Martha: Luke, before we go, I just thought of something and I wanna put this in the show notes, but is there still that tool where if people own a stock they can put it in and see how it is rated as far as BRI?

Luke Andrews: Yeah. It's www.inspireinsight.com. And that is a free tool. You can put in the ticker symbol, ETF ticker symbol, a mutual fund ticker symbol, and it'll pull up instantaneously, all the reports, and we actually, we don't just say, Hey, this company has a negative score or a positive score.

If they have a negative score, you can actually drill down and figure out why they have a negative score. And then when you click on it, it'll give you the source. It'll give you the website that you can go verify that Amazon does sell the abortion drug.

Martha: Yeah, so if people have gotten curious and they have their own investments in front of them, I'm gonna put this link in there, you can go check for yourself so that you get a better understanding of what you own and why this conversation really matters. And I love that tool because it's private. You can just see for yourself and do a little bit of your own research.

Jim: That's right. Luke Andrews with Inspire Advisors. Another incredible conversation. I love that you've got just a little passion about this.

 (laughter)

Luke Andrews: Amen. Yeah.

Jim: Thanks, Luke, for being with us today.

Luke Andrews: I appreciate you guys. Thanks again for having me. Been a little too long, but I was super excited to be here. Appreciate it.

Martha: You bet.

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

9/3/25 - 2110: Designing Spaces, Reflecting God

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 inspire every workplace believer to recognize their workplace as their ministry place, where they work with God every day. What can that look like in your world? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Interior design. Is that a kingdom skill? Is there anything about designing the interior of a building that reflects an attribute of our God, the creator?

Everything he designed was outside, right? Until the 1800s. That's what we, everyone thought. And then we discovered the incredible riches just below the soil and just below the skin layer. That was interior design, right? What about the human body? Talk about incredible planning and layout. The human body is the most incredible interior design of all time.

So if there's any doubt at the beginning of the show, there's no doubt now, interior design is a kingdom skill that reflects the creative and planning attributes of God. Emily Miller of Miller Interiors of Columbia, Missouri, is here today to tell us her story of God in her business and of a special Main Street event that she's part of later this fall. Emily Miller, welcome to iWork4Him.

Emily Miller: Thanks, Jim and Martha, I'm happy to be here.

Jim: All right. So before we get to hear your faith and work story, let's talk about when you became a follower of Jesus. What's your story?

Emily Miller: Sure. So I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, so pretty close to Columbia, in a Christian family. So to be honest, I don't quite remember a time when God wasn't part of my story. I guess specifically I think my faith became more real and personal when I was in elementary school. My parents have been strong Christians my entire life, setting a really significant example for me, and I've been really blessed to have close friendships with other godly men and women my entire life. So really my faith has always been a part of who I am and my identity and my story.

Martha: Thank you for sharing that and what a blessing, and then you get to share that with future generations as well. So let's talk then about your career. Why did you pick interior design? Is it something you always knew you wanted to do or how did you get into it?

Emily Miller: Yeah, so I actually, I went to the University of Missouri for college and I started my freshman year as an education major. So growing up I thought, oh I'll be a teacher. That will be the right career path for me. And when I started taking some specific education courses, I honestly kept thinking about what my classroom would look like, and I slowly just began to realize I like kids. I don't know if I wanna spend eight hours a day with kids.

And so from there I looked into what is the architectural studies program at Mizzou and just fell in love. I had always been creative and appreciated beauty and aesthetics but just hadn't really thought maybe that was the career path for me until starting those education courses. Just fell in love with it specifically. The program I was in focused mostly on commercial interior design. And it just, it's such a fun combination of creativity and problem solving. That is just a challenge I still love to this day.

Martha: I love that. So you're saying, like you were more into okay, what's my classroom gonna look like? And then you might have wanted to move on at that point. So that was good that you had that assessment of yourself at that point.

Jim: Did you ever get to implement any of those designs in your friends' classrooms?

Emily Miller: So I worked for Mizzou, actually, for the campus for a number of years. So I, I did higher education design, which was really fun. And I will say, I think the relational aspect of education that was intriguing to me. There's carryover, right? In design. One of my favorite parts of my job is working with clients and identifying their needs and helping meet those needs, and even just getting to know them as people. Yeah, there's definitely carryover from education, but I don't think God had me created for the classroom environment. (chuckling)

Martha: There you go. I know so many friends that are teachers that, boy, the aesthetics of their classroom set the tone for the whole year and teachers do pour a lot into that. So as we're back to school and all the things for the. Fall, thank you, teachers, for all that you do. I'm just gonna throw a shout out there because I believe we have a lot of teachers that listen to the show and are trying to incorporate their faith in their work. So there you go. There's my shout out.

Jim: So having gotten our first jobs in the late eighties, knowing that interior design in the corporate world was non-existent. It was buy a big square building, put walls and walls of cubicles up, and there you go. That was designed, and maybe a creative design was, maybe a color, a two-tone cubicle, not a one-tone cubicle. Is it really possible to make office interiors exciting or enjoyable or even pleasing?

Emily Miller: I've spent a career doing it, so I hope so. I sure think so. I really, I believe that your space and your environment really matters. And a business and or a corporation that prioritizes that and prioritizes the comfort for their staff and ease and flow of a space and just the overall aesthetics, I think it's important, I think where you work matters. You spend a lot of time there. So I've had a lot of fun working on a variety of office projects. Yeah, I think it's important.

Jim: All right. I can't wait to walk into one of those office environments that you've designed and be able to do the "ah."

Martha: Yes. But you know what, Jim? I will say, we are not experts, but we rent offices to small businesses. And one of the gals, she had decided this was too far away from where she lived to stay here, but her biggest struggle with leaving here was she says you've got it decorated so pretty, and I love it here, and I'm gonna have to go figure that out on my own.

And she's a counselor, so she needs an environment that is a certain way. And it did matter for her. And we do feel good in an environment that is to our taste and is comfortable and all the things, you are way better at that than most of us. But when she said that, I was like, oh yeah, I get that.

Jim: We can have you come down to Marionville, Missouri, and do an analysis of our office structure. All right, so you're a mom. You're a wife, you got two kids, six and nine years old, and you run a successful business. How do you manage all that together?

Emily Miller: That's a good question. I think you have to eliminate the desire for balance. I don't think that there's a world where you, every single day feel balanced and everything's under control. I think, personally, I've had to lower some of my expectations on a personal level, a family level, definitely on a career level. And we can get into that a little bit more later, but I also have an incredible husband who is an incredible partner, and it's truly 50 50.

So I've always worked as a mom and really from the early stages of being parents, we sat down and in a very practical way said, okay, what are you managing? What am I managing? And that's how our household runs. Some things are backwards. He actually does most of the laundry. I do most of the finances. Like we've figured out what our strengths are and we're a team. There are some weeks, like this morning I realized we were basically out of lunch food for school.

And there's ebbs and flows and I just, you have to be gracious with yourself. Sometimes your inbox isn't as organized as you want it to be, and your home isn't as organized as you want it to be. But I think you can define what are cultural expectations I'm putting on myself, and then what are godly expectations I should have on myself?

Jim: That's why Oscar Meyer came out with those Lunchables. I can't make a sandwich. Here's a Lunchable. (laughter)

Emily Miller: They would love that. They would love to eat the yellow nacho cheese Lunchables every day. They Love that.

Martha: I'm guessing she's not allowing that to happen. Jim, I love the fact that she's like very specific. It's a different generation. We just look at it this way: our bodies have a lot more preservatives in them, so we're gonna last longer because we're well preserved, right?

When you talk about all the different roles that you do have and that you manage, it can be hard to manage all those different hats that we wear in our day, but to be a good steward of what we do manage, it's often important that we find other people that can come alongside and take care of the things that are within their expertise. So at iWork4Him, we choose to have SaferNet by our side to protect all of our digital devices. Their web filters, VPN, and virus protection keep the bad guys out so that we can focus on the things that we need to manage and let them manage our devices.

Check out SaferNet.com and let them know that iWork4Him sent you. All righty, so what does it look like for you to live out your faith and have your faith reflected in your interior designs?

Emily Miller: Good question. In some ways, I guess I don't really think through in a physical, tangible way how my faith is reflected in my designs. Maybe that's something I should think on a little bit more. But I do think, there's a long detailed, often complicated process from when a client engages us for a project to its completion.

And just thinking of that path, there are so many ways that my faith should be integrated and impact the process. And, I think it's just having integrity. Most of our time is hourly billable and having integrity to be honest in that, I think it's being thoughtful.

Right now I have one employee and looking to grow my team and so I think it's being really thoughtful and how can my leadership give my team a flourishing life? It's not just a paycheck. I want them to feel meaning and purpose behind their work. And how can I pause in the crazy, busyness of our project load and think through what team members specifically need on a personal and a professional level? I think it's really being patient and thoughtful when clients are thinking through their project and defining their needs and not rushing past that and just trying to think through how can my skills, how can my team skills, really bless and honor this business?

Whether it's an office renovation or a clinic or a hospital, how can we really pause and use the gifts that God has given us to honor our clients and then even honor people that are gonna use those spaces that I will never meet? So yeah, I think it's just reflection, it's pausing, it's integrity, just being thoughtful.

Jim: One of the biggest problems, hospitals, there's some beautiful hospitals out there, but you go inside, they all still look the same eventually. And it's the smells.

Emily Miller: I can't help with the smell. (laughing)

Martha: No, you can't control that.

Jim: But are you saying interior design can't impact the olfactory? That's a sense. Interior design's about the sense, impacting the senses. I think you need to work on some way to impact the smells, because if you could make walking into the waiting room a lavender experience, to bring calm, a little lavender when you walk in.

Emily Miller: I think that's the engineers in the HVAC. (chuckling)

Martha: There you go.

Jim: All right. When you're dealing with designs with people, they're sharing their heart. Not only are they sharing their wallet, like this is gonna cost me a lot of money to build this building, 'cause commercial building is so expensive, but they want their heart reflected.

So I imagine often you get involved in conversations with people where they're sharing their heart with you. Do you ever get a chance to pray with people after they've shared their heart with you, or to pray over a design as they're talking with you? Have you ever had that opportunity yet?

Emily Miller: I have not. I think it's a delicate approach. In some instances I want to be respectful of them and there's just a delicate line of being professional and not necessarily bringing your faith into a conversation that is more business related. I do have clients that are very vocal about their faith. I work with a health system that is Catholic and their mission, which is really beautiful and special. So I have had meetings where we've gotten to pray together and just talk through their mission, which is very much so aligned with my faith.

But I would say my approach is not so much let's pray, but I hope that through my work ethic and patience with you and the process and the end result, that they would sense something different about how I do business.

Martha: So good. If the fruit of the spirit is showing through in all that you do, you've said patience several times and I only can imagine in the design world where, oh, maybe I'm not gonna go with purple. I want everything yellow or whatever, it's okay, you have to regroup and and kudos to you for all of that. (laughter)

Jim: Emily, we made our connection because of the Main Street Summit event that's coming up here in November 4-6 in Columbia, Missouri, right where you're living. What's this event all about and why are you involved?

Emily Miller: Yeah, so Main Street is, it's really wonderful. It's about a two day long event focusing on small to medium businesses, business owners, operators, I would say anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit, would enjoy it. It is full of amazing speakers and some larger group sessions and then some smaller, more intimate group settings. A lot of networking, a lot of opportunities for conversations, honestly, just like this. And yeah, so last year I spoke at the event and really enjoyed it, really loved it. And they've asked me to come back. So I'll be speaking this year again.

Jim: And are you gonna give us a little hint of what you're talking about?

Emily Miller: Sure. I am in the faith and work track. So this year is a little bit different. They're defining seven different tracks, and faith and work is one of them. I will certainly be integrating my faith in the message but also want it just to be open to anyone interested in the topic I'm discussing, which is leading with purpose at work and at home, so talking through some practical strategies of managing home and work, which we've talked about this morning, talking through partnership with your spouse, and specifically a spouse that is also driven in their career and how to support one another and cheer each other on.

And then lastly, just talking through some biblical encouragement for working parents, something I have just really wrestled with in my nine and a half years as a mom is God's calling for my life as a working parent. I grew up with a mom who stayed home, which was lovely. My husband is a pastor. And I think this has changed and evolved in the church over, the last decade, but I do think specifically for women, we haven't spoken enough about God's calling to us as workers.

Jim: As marketplace leaders for sure, absolutely. Which is a great reason to plug our sheWorks4Him podcast that we've done all about Christian Working Women at Work. You can find that, access to that on our iWork4Him website. iWork4Him.com. You gave the plug so I did it.

We will include a link to the Main Street Summit in the show notes so you can find out about it. It's November 4-6 in Columbia, Missouri. The Faith and Work track is full of phenomenal speakers you've heard right here on the iWork4Him podcast, especially Emily Miller, who you get to hear today. And speaking of other great events in the faith and work space, there are several events Martha and I will be involved in 2026.

Two big events are the US Christian Chamber Expo in Orlando called Yes& and the National Faith and Work Summit in Cincinnati. The US Christian Chamber Expo is in April in Orlando and the National Faith and Work Summit Cincinnati, in june. Go to iWork4HIm.com/events to learn more about 'em. Choose one or both to attend and we'll get to see you there.

Martha: All right, so you talked a little bit about what you're gonna be talking about at the summit, but being a speaker there, you're likely to meet other speakers who have things that you may want to learn about being a business owner. Since there's seven different tracks and speakers like David Green from Hobby Lobby, we've loved hearing the story of Hobby Lobby over the years.

Jim: What a sweet heart he has. We've gotten to spend some time with him.

Martha: I'm guessing you've looked through who else is gonna be there. Who else are you interested in hearing from?

Emily Miller: I should have a better answer to this question. I have looked through the list and every year , every single speaker I have attended has been phenomenal. It's often, though, been the speakers that I didn't know a lot about, maybe don't have a huge following that i've learned a lot from.

And then I think in addition to that, which I referenced earlier, just those sidebar conversations have been very meaningful. People you maybe sit by at a session and get to know, trade your information, there are still people that I met last year that I keep in touch with and we talk about business things, we talk about life things, and I think it's, I think all of the speakers are phenomenal. You will not choose a speaker you don't like. But I think as important as is just the connections that you can make.

Martha: Yeah. And that's true, Jim was talking about some events that we're gonna be MCing this year and in 2026 and both of them are in person, much like your event, because there's so much value there is in sitting next to each other. Yes, zoom calls are great. Yes, doing virtual things help us to continue to learn, but there is just something about that unscripted time where you're just getting to know people over a lunch or whatever that might be.

And so I wanna encourage our listeners, if you're looking ahead to your calendar, either for this fall or for next year, try to include an in-person event in your agenda. Yes, it takes more time. Yes, it takes more money, but it's just got a different value on it and I encourage that because God created us for community and sometimes that just has to be in the flesh and blood.

Emily Miller: I agree.

Jim: He created us all for community, but he didn't give us all the gift of creativity. But you, Emily Miller, have been given a gift from God, creativity, organization, and the ability to make spaces feel warm, purposeful. Do you see yourself as the hand of God, as you transform buildings and companies because of the spaces you create?

Emily Miller: I hope so. I think that what's really fun about my job is I get to take a client's needs and create a vision to meet those needs that they most likely couldn't create themselves. And I think that's so similar to our walk with God, right? God knows what we need and he has plans for us that we can't even comprehend.

And there are some times in our lives where we're able to pause and reflect and just thank God for what he's done. Just seeing, okay, you had a plan here that I couldn't have comprehended, but it was perfect for my life. And not to say that I am God, but I hope that, there are moments for my clients and like I said earlier, patients in a hospital or at a clinic or employees at a business that can enjoy the aesthetics and the comfort and the safety and the durability of a space that I have helped to create, and can just feel at peace. And so yeah, I hope that I can honor people in that way.

Martha: That's so good and it's good to reflect on that and to see where God has brought you in the journey. So what is one last word of encouragement that you could give our listeners right now about running their own business and their marriage and their family that you've maybe learned that you wanna make sure other people know about?

Emily Miller: Yeah, so I have a two word phrase that I have used a lot over the summer and it is "not now." Whether that is things in my home like a mess in the dining room or a disorganized toy room or it's things in my office that I wish looked different or even clients I really wanna go after, but I don't have the margin, I think just saying "not now" and finding peace in that and just, yeah, setting those realistic expectations is really important.

Martha: Oh. That's so good.

Jim: That was good. Very good. You could write a sermon series. "Not now." There might be a book. There's a book there. Not Now by Emily Miller. That's right. (laughter)

Emily Miller: Not now. It's definitely not a book right now. Nope. (laughing)

Jim: Emily Miller, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for talking, just sharing your heart with us. If you're interested in meeting Emily face to face, check out mainstreetsummit.com and attend the event November 4-6. There's lots of great speakers who are gonna be there and Emily will be one of them. Emily Miller. Thank you.

Emily Miller: Thank you both.

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

8/27/25 - 2109: This Might Be the Most Dangerous Idea You Believe

Jim Brangenberg: Did you know that 65 was a magical number? Yes, this one number, 65, has the power to change everything in your life. It has the power to end your job and send you on a permanent vacation. It has the power to kick in basically free healthcare for life. The number 65 is the magical yet made up number that everyone tracks their life by. When someone starts work at age 20, they only have 45 years to work, and then they'll get a well-deserved lifelong rest.

65 is magical, or is it? Since almost every movie has a villain and a hero, I'm here to introduce the truth about 65. It could be a villain and a hero - terrifying and terrific. It just depends on your perspective. Our guest today has a perspective on this magical 65 number thing, and she's here to debunk the magic all the way til the cows come home out there in Stanley, North Dakota. Danita Bye is from North Dakota. She's 65, and she has a story to tell. And maybe a small sermon to preach. Danita Bye, welcome to the show.

Danita Bye: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Jim Brangenberg: I hope you feel that way when we're done. Danita, this is what you say. You say, traditional retirement is dangerous in this epic moment because it silences our sages, benches our mentors, and vacates the gates of influence just when the world most needs wisdom, courage, and truth. In fact, you summarize this by saying the church's view on retirement is terrifying. That's a strong statement.

Why do you say that?

Danita Bye: It was Elon Musk who used the word terrifying when he introduced Grok 4, and he introduced it last week, and he said that it's smarter than all graduate students in all disciplines performing at a PhD level, across the board. And when he introduced it to the global media, he used the word terrifying and unnerving.

So he used that word, and I wanna say dangerous, but you're right, it could be terrifying that during this time of just incredible shifting and changing, I believe it is that our spiritual sages have been silenced and our mature spiritual mentors have been set on the bench because of this 65 number, and that is dangerous for the world. That's what I think, Jim.

Jim Brangenberg: 10 years ago, maybe even longer, I said that for so long we've been sticking our retirees back in the grandstand, out in the grandstand. And I say, no, let's get 'em back in the field. Maybe they don't need to run the plays anymore, but they need to get on the field as coaches, as mentors, to pour into the next generations.

Maybe they don't have the ability to maneuver like the current generations, young generations, certainly on the internet with AI, which is exploding. Even just this year, in six months, it has exploded. Explains everything John ever said in Revelation. It explains it all. But why do you think... is this something when you, 20 years ago, you were 45, at the peak. You were vaulting into success all over the place.

Minneapolis, I believe you're still back then, working in Minneapolis. Did you imagine that at 65, you'd be sent off to the pastures and people wanna set you off to the side, stick you in a small group with a bunch of other old people and say, Hey, us young people, we got it. Is this current observation this terrifying thing or have you always known 65 was terrifying?

Danita Bye: I don't think I've known that 65 was terrifying, but there are three things that come together to make this season so terrifying. One is the AI revolution. You may have heard last week President Trump had the speech of a lifetime: "winning the race, America's AI action plan."

And he talks about that all this scientific and technology that we're having is going to change the world, the way we live and work. It's couched with breakthrough technologies, but when you have robots like they are in Revelations, when you have some organizations that are trying to create God, that's terrifying. And then you combine with that these 85 million retirees who have so much wisdom and insight and knowledge and discernment that, that they've gathered over the years, especially our biblical followers of Jesus, those are the ones that they cannot be set on the bench.

We have got to activate them. And then the third factor that comes in here is across the nation is this incredible loss of purpose. Statistics are that at least 30% of retirees feel a lack of belonging, a lack of meaning. Over 50% of millennials and Gen Z have a lack of belonging, a lack of meaning. So we have this massive crisis in purpose. So we have this AI, where the world is speeding up at unimaginable paces, and then we bring that together with our wisdom, which is slowing down, sitting on the bench, taking it easy...

Jim Brangenberg: playing pickleball

 (laughter)

Danita Bye: Playing pickleball. (laughing) And then we have, even the young people have this restlessness that they're looking for or that they're feeling, and it sparks me to wonder about what will happen if we as leaders, as spiritual leaders, don't step up to the plate.

Jim Brangenberg: I think I could tell you what happens, and we'll let Martha jump in here anytime she wants.

I think that's where euthanasia fits in, because they've already said, Hey, you chronologically superior folks, you folks 65 and older, stay off to the side. Eventually you say, Hey, you're in the way, so let's just get rid of you. Hey, you can end your purposeless life on your own. They do it in Canada already. They're doing it all over Europe already.

Yeah, they're just gonna say, Hey, if you have a purposeless life, go ahead and end it so you're not in the way and wasting money, 'cause the boomers are almost done retiring. So in another three, four years, the boomers will be done hitting age 65. And I know that because we're not boomers, we're Xers, but we're at the very beginning. We're right at that little tip there. But that's where this heads to " my life is, has no purpose. Therefore, I don't wanna have a pulse."

But we say if you've got a pulse, you do have a purpose! If you are not dead, you're not done! When you retired, your calling didn't retire! Martha?

Martha Brangenberg: Okay, so Danita, I knew that this would be hard for me to get a word in edgewise with the two of you. (laughter) But I love it. And I believe our listeners love it too, if they're really paying attention to where this conversation is gonna go.

Because these are ideas that we're just chipping away at a little bit and saying, what does God really want for us as believers in every stage of our life? You talk about the younger ones that feel purposeless or restless and not sure what the future's gonna hold, and yet we have been told all of our lives that, of course retirement is at the end of our long career.

And we have a different perspective on that and I hope that the listeners will be challenged to do some introspective work and to really pray with the Lord and say, what is that stage of life supposed to look like for me? And really believe in the calling that God has placed on each individual person's life, that does have purpose.

So Danita, unpack this a little bit more. What do you think it is about retirement that you don't agree with as a word or as a concept? Talk about retirement.

Danita Bye: Two things come to mind. The first one is the scripture. Psalms 90:12, I believe, "teach me to number my days that I may be wise." Now it was irritating to the max that the Holy Spirit brought that to my attention when I was like 26 years old. All my friends are out, American Dream, making it happen, and the Holy Spirit is inviting me: "Teach me to number my days." What does that mean, spiritually and relationally and physically and intellectually and financially?

The Holy Spirit has been haunting me with that. Quite irritating. (laughing) People are out like having fun. They're playing pickleball, they're golfing, they're doing, they're, taking the trip of their lifetime.

Jim Brangenberg: Have you ever been golfing? People that are golfing are not having fun. Mark Twain said it 200 years ago almost: "golf is a good walk spoiled." The pickleball, we've done pickleball. Pickleball is actually pretty fun.

Danita Bye: No, I've done pickleball too. It is fun.

Jim Brangenberg: It is fun.

Danita Bye: But I had another one that connects with that.

Martha Brangenberg: Yeah.

Danita Bye: I was hosting a friend of mine from Tanzania. Her name is Chilwah. She had been a governmental official, had been Muslim most of her life, had recently come to the Lord. I was hostsing her in Minneapolis and I was so excited for her to meet one of my spiritual mentors, Priscilla, and Priscilla was in a retirement community in Minneapolis.

It was the nicest retirement community, and as we entered the door to this beautiful plush facility that's filled with spiritual leaders, I notice outta the corner of my eye that Chilwah has tears streaming down her face. And I'm like, my first thought is, did I offend her? Was there a cultural faux pax that I made?

And I leaned over and asked, what's wrong? And she said, I cannot believe what you do to your elderly. And I'm like going, what in the world is she talking about? This is a beautiful place. She said, in our country, it is a deep honor to take care of our elderly and what we get in return is all their wisdom.

Wow. Now that rattled me. And I begin to think about what are the consequences of silencing the very leaders that we should be listening to? And what if the exact wisdom, insight, knowledge, and discernment that we need for these increasingly crazy times, what if it lies with our spiritual elders?

And so those are some of the questions that I raise as the Holy Spirit challenges me to think about how I do my life. Even though, or considering I'm 65, how am I called to continue to live out what God has laid out before me?

Martha Brangenberg: Yeah. Such powerful concepts. Such a different way of looking at life. Specifically here in America, we think they've reached the ultimate if they can be in a place of luxury and have everything taken care of for them. And yet we've disconnected the spiritual leaders with those that need the influence, not even purposefully, thinking that we're maybe doing a good thing, but yet it's made such a separation between where the wisdom can be flowing into the next generations.

Danita Bye: I have to add one other thing. I grew up in North Dakota. This is a homestead territory. People who moved here at all times in life, we have had to accept grit and determination from the moment we wake up until our last breath. So built into the culture, the ranching and farming culture, is this innate DNA to give and to contribute. So that's another gift I bring, which is actually a little irritating to my husband who would prefer that we would play pickleball a little bit more often.

 (laughing)

Jim Brangenberg: And go to Florida probably. If you've ever spent a winter day during a blizzard in North Dakota, you know that when the wind starts in Montana, it doesn't stop till it gets to Duluth. It's just unbelievable.

But what you just said about your friend from Tanzania is so powerful because I have often said that we have convinced all of the elders of our country to move to Florida and Texas, and used to be California, now it's Arizona. But move to the south away from everybody that you know and away from everybody that you care about, including your grandkids, so you can live in 55 plus purgatory. Because that's what it's all about. You live in a homeowner's association, run by formerly militant individuals who are now militant as a homeowner's association.

And you lose your freedom, but you're hanging out with a bunch of people who are in the same spot and you don't get to influence your grandkids. You get to see 'em a week a year maybe, unless you go home, and you're a snowbird.

And it's so true. We, our society has been designed around pushing chronologically superior folks off to the side because it's inconvenient. They're a little bit frustrating, or they move at a different pace than we do. They wanna tell us stories. Oh yeah, I like telling stories. I'm not quite 65 yet, I like telling stories. But it's so dangerous. It's just dangerous what we've done, and she's hit the nail on the head that a lot of other cultures that are honor cultures would never think about doing that.

But we are not in an honor culture here as many Asian and Middle Eastern cultures are. Talk about something else that's dangerous? When we allow most of our input to come from society at large without putting it through a biblical filter. That's why we love the US Christian Chamber of Commerce. We surround ourselves with people who love business, love Jesus, and love the truth. The US Christian Chamber of Commerce has many different opportunities for members to connect and learn. And in 2026, you can attend a huge event in Orlando, swc2026.com. Use code iWork4Him. Get signed up, be there. We'll be there, and you'll be surrounded by people from all over the country who wanna see business impacted by the kingdom.

All right, Danita, let's talk about consequences. Consequences of our actions. We've already talked... your friend's example is fantastic. Why do you do this to your people? Let's talk about the wide ranging consequences on our American economy and on the church in America. Let's talk about that because the church in America should be influencing the American economy. We have $29 trillion of assets in Christian control that are in our 401Ks. And we're spending it on houses on the water in Florida that get blown over by hurricanes. What are the, what do you see as those wide ranging consequences of traditional retirement?

Danita Bye: The area that I think about is AI, and I think of the consequences to our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. Excuse me, if we're even around for our great-grandchildren and how are they going to discern? How are they going to navigate? There's historians say once every 500 years that there's such a revolution in how we live and how we think they call that time "epoch." E-P-O-C-H.

So think of like the industrial revolution, and we are in the middle of that type of change happening. Personally, I think this is more than a once every 500 years change. I think this may be once in a history of the world change and I think of, there was a book I read called The Coming Wave by an AI expert, Sulliman, and listen to this quote, he says, "this coming wave of technology is bringing human history to a turning point. The consequences for our species are dramatic, potentially dire."

Jim Brangenberg: But we know it's not dire. Sorry to interrupt you, but we know it's not dire because the Bible talk doesn't talk about the elimination of the human species until the end. So we know that part. This guy doesn't have a biblical perspective.

Danita Bye: But we have, there are people around the world, so I just think through how in the world does my grandson, Evan, who's currently 10 years old, how is he going to navigate this? How is he going to balance this? How is he gonna discern? And there's a part of me that says, oh, I should be and I am concerned about the economy for the United States. I am concerned about my grandchildren. And how in the world are they gonna navigate this? How are we gonna help them? What kind of tools, what kind of resources?

And so for me that is the biggest consequence is our children. And I guess as I think about it, the people in America have not necessarily made decisions that prioritize children and prioritize the future. I think of abortion. I think of euthanasia. That those are issues that we as a culture have had to wrestle with. My biggest concern is our grandchildren and how are they going to navigate this with a biblical framework.

As an aside, and I'm interested in the the Christian Chamber Organization, a friend of mine, you may know him, Jim Garlow, he has a number of time mentioned to me that with the America 250 celebration that we're doing, that it's so important that the people of God understand the difference between the biblical foundations of our country and the enlightenment foundations of our country.

I thought that was interesting 'cause I didn't know the difference. So I go to my friend chat GPT and ask what are the differences? And I'm like going oh, Danita, there are some things that are clearly biblical, but there's a couple of other things that I've bought into the Enlightenment agenda. So I need to challenge myself. We'll have that one as a next discussion.

Martha Brangenberg: There you go. Okay, but you bring up a great point because without true biblical discernment, it is hard to know what things we've accepted as being biblical or some other agenda. And we often talk about, and we said it earlier in the show, a lot of people believe that the American way of retirement and the American dream is biblical, yet the Bible does not discuss retirement unless you are a Levitical priest. And even then you continue to mentor. So you give up the cutting, but you teach others how to do the trade.

So you know, I was sitting here thinking about what you were saying, and it drew me back to conversations where Jim, you and I would sit with my grandparents and actually sit in the living room and have conversations about things they've learned in life that they wanted to pass on to us. It brings me to tears to even think about it because we don't do that anymore. Yes, there may be families that have pockets of time where they do things like that, but the level of intentionality that my grandparents generation had towards us was so powerful. And yet we took it for granted. Because we just thought that's the way it was.

Jim Brangenberg: We still drove 350 miles to go see 'em.

Martha Brangenberg: We drove a long ways to go see them, and they were very intentional, and grandpa was a very good storyteller. So it was enjoyable to sit and hear about the past and the things that God has taught them. But the lessons that we learned in those conversations are priceless.

And I think what I'm hearing you say is that if we resort to learning everything by AI, that one of the dangers is gonna be the personal touch. The trial and error that came from other generations saying, I did this and it failed and this is what I learned and this is how I changed and God taught me this lesson. You don't get that with a straight line of fact that might be proposed to you. Those are some of the dangers of taking the personal out of relationships as people look at how they retire and what they do with their futures.

Jim Brangenberg: And you can understand why people used to say, let's go get a cave. Let's go buy a cave. We'll go live in a cave and protect our families from all the stupid that's coming, right? 'cause for the last a hundred years, a lot really for the last 150 years, a lot of stupid has come in waves. And people are like, let's get outta here. Let's go wait until Jesus comes back and hide in a cave.

And maybe Jesus is around the corner 'cause this AI thing is cutting edge, but I know that's not what we're called to do. We're called to engage the world, we're called to bring the kingdom to earth. And I wanna finish up a conversation talking about what are you saying to yourself about your next 25 years?

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All right, Danita, this conversation's amazing and I think we could probably go on for three or four hours, but we can't, 'cause people maybe stop listening, but maybe we'll come back. You never know.

I wanna know, based on everything you've talked about, the terrifying things we've talked about, the scary things we've talked about, the frustrating things we've talked about... you are 65. Knowing you, you've got at least 25 years of running outta you. Maybe just 20, but maybe till your mid eighties, maybe till 90. What are you saying to yourself today about how you're gonna handle your retirement years? Because the world is telling you, check out. Sit on your cash, enjoy the good life, go play some pickleball with Gordon, but what are you saying to yourself?

Danita Bye: So there's a couple of things the Holy Spirit's been working with me on during this season that, I call it the "Moses speaking strategy." Moses was effective because he heard what the Lord said and spoke it. So I have to tell you what the Holy Spirit's working with me on.

Jim Brangenberg: Okay, fair enough.

Danita Bye: First is prayer. So my friend Jim Garlow, recommended a book he said changed his life. I'm going wow, changed his life? I better read it. It's a book called Destined for the Throne, how Spiritual Warfare Prepares The Bride of Christ for Her Eternal Destiny.

Jim Brangenberg: Show a picture of it on the screen so people can see. Okay. All right. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see a picture of the book, Destined For the Throne by Paul Billheimer.

Danita Bye: Paul Bilheimer.

Jim Brangenberg: Bilheimer. Okay.

Danita Bye: This is not a normal book on prayer. I've had to stop and I've spent a couple weeks on page 46. John Wesley says, " God does nothing but in answer to prayer." And then E M Bounds says, "prayer should be the main business of our day."

I ask myself, if God does nothing but an answer to prayer, how am I praying for my grandkids? Not just God bless them, but how am I really praying for my grandchildren? How am I praying for my kids as they parent and their marriages, not just bless the marriage? How am I really praying for them? What about my work on the state board of higher ed?

I believe that God has called me as their assignment. Am I really praying about it? And we're starting a classical Christian school. We believe this is a God thing, but if God does nothing but in answer to prayer, do I really believe that? And so that's one of the places where the Holy Spirit is challenging me.

And I think that's a place to challenge all of us that are over 65. Many of us have extra time. We at least have control of our schedule, and I'm sure we all know that prayer is not just sitting down. We can be praying all over the place, but is prayer one of the ways that we stay engaged, that we be intentional, that we be strategic? Is prayer one of the ways that we lead during this time when the world is nuts and becoming increasingly dangerous for all of us?

That's a place. The second place that the Holy Spirit has me working is going back and looking at revisiting vision, mission, and values. And Gordon and I participated in a one day workshop where we worked through this together and Gordon and I had to talk through different, you know, whenever you work with it together as a team that's always a challenging experience, but so valuable.

Because it helps us, it gives us some common language to say are we focused, are we on target? Are we involved in things that God has graced him with? What about me? How are we doing this together? So that's another exercise that we've done recently is to revisit our vision, mission, and values together.

Jim Brangenberg: That's good. Okay. So in the answer to the question then, how do you see God laying out your next 20 years? Has he given you a vision for it? Has he given you a vision for the next five? And I take it none of it involves a lifetime of pickleball, tennis, golf, and the beach.

Martha Brangenberg: No, but knowing Danita, there's probably a little four-wheeling involved or hiking or something.

Danita Bye: Maybe some hiking and some walks and some of those types of things. There's a couple of things, when I look at my own priorities, obviously grandchildren, you can tell grandchildren, whatever we need, I'm going to be there.

Like you, parents. We are called to honor our parents. And so what does honoring look like? And that's gonna be very different for each of us. For me, i'm healthy. Some people aren't, and that's going to shift what they're working with. But I'm healthy and my intent is to be like Moses and Joshua and the people in the Bible to finish strong. And to keep going and to keep challenging myself and to challenge other people.

As I was thinking about our time, I remembered a conversation. I was 14 years old and I was in an adult bible study and I was the only teenager in that adult bible study, and we were looking at Mark 10. And it seemed to me that we skipped over Mark 10:27 completely: "with man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible." So as any 14-year-old would do in an adult Bible setting, I said I think this is really an amazing verse. All things are possible with God. And the pastor not only looked but locked eyes with me and says, Danita, it says that, but it doesn't mean that.

Jim Brangenberg: How sad.

Danita Bye: How sad. And in the world of leadership studies I had what was called a word test. Whose word am I going to believe? And I see that as impacting this next season that I have. There are things that are bubbling up within me. We're starting this Christian school in Stanley, in the Northwestern corner of North Dakota, 80 miles from the Canadian border, 80 miles from the Montana border. And I mentioned to someone we were doing this and he said, that's impossible to do.

Jim Brangenberg: Ah, that's exactly why you should be doing it 'cause it's impossible.

Danita Bye: That's exactly why we should be doing it. So it's almost like the challenge, one of the places where I'm challenging myself is, what are some of those things that God has placed in my heart that look and sound impossible? Let's start praying about them.

Jim Brangenberg: Amen. Danita, what an incredible conversation. I loved it. I'm so grateful that you just poured your heart out, and it's exactly how we feel. That's where iRetire4Him came from, as a side ministry to iWork4Him, is that we cannot afford as a country, as a church, as a body of Christ, to allow the brain drain, the wisdom walk.

I just thought of that, wasn't even written down.

Danita Bye: That was good.

Jim Brangenberg: Can I keep going? That's good. Yeah. Is there a rap there?

 (laughter)

Danita Bye: That was good.

Jim Brangenberg: We can't afford for this to happen. And yet it is "impossible" to change the tide of this in the church in America. It's impossible to change it in the tide of the economy of America. So it's impossible. That's why we should be doing it.

Martha Brangenberg: With God all things are possible.

Jim Brangenberg: Exactly. And it's a Romans 12:2 paradigm shift. We have to change the way we think. Danita, I would love to pick up this conversation again one day in the near future to hear what God has revealed to you even further about retirement.

And for all of you listening, you know, we're releasing this as an iWork4Him and iRetire4Him podcast for one reason only: I want everybody to have this perspective. If you're working, you're not done at 65, and if you're retired, you're not done either. People seriously - get off the pickleball court, get in the word and get out in the community. 'Cause the community that you live in desperately needs you.

Martha Brangenberg: Actually stay on the pickleball court, get in good shape so that you have the energy to do everything that God has called you to do.

Jim Brangenberg: Because motion is lotion, that's what they say. When we get older, motion is lotion. (chuckling) Danita Bye, thank you so much for being with us today.

Danita Bye: Thank you. It's an honor.

8/20/25 - 2108: The Real ROI of Christian Business Networking

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 inspire every workplace believer to recognize their workplace as their ministry place where they work with God every day. What can that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: It's gotten to be an issue. How do you know when a business can be trusted? How can you know who will actually do what they say they will do? For years, we had the Yellow Pages, but that was everybody who was doing a thing.

Then we established all kinds of ways to find Christians in business so we could do business with them. But was that really any better? Then the internet came upon us, and we can find people easier. But who's gonna go do the vetting? Who's gonna tell you, yes, these people are really going to serve you well?

Huh - Darrell Geis, he decided to be part of that solution. Almost 35 years ago he joined the team at Christian Blue Pages. Eventually a website was created and now an app. Think about that. He was in business before there was a website. All along Darrell has been doing the hard part, so you can just keep your life moving forward.

We're here to let Darrell tell the rest of the story. Darrell Geis, welcome to iWork4Him.

Darrel Geis: Thank you, Jim and Martha. Great to be here.

Jim: All right, and you got a friend along. I'll let you introduce Dr. Shantel Thomas, and then we're gonna come back to her in just a little bit.

Darrel Geis: Yeah, Dr. Shantel Thomas with the Sound Mind Counseling Service has been an advertiser with us for over a decade and a half. And she has just been an absolute joy to know. Godly woman. Very talented counselor. And been just a great experience and friendship with Shantel.

Jim: And we're gonna capture Shantel's story a little bit further in the interview. I wanna introduce - for those of you're out there on YouTube watching this, you'll see who's the smiling lady on the video - I'm like, okay, I didn't wanna ignore her.

Alright, Darrell, it's the first time you've been on iWork4Him. I'm sorry, okay? We've known each other for a decade. I'm sorry, Darrel. He sent me an email going, Jim, how come everybody else I know in the whole world has been on iWork4Him but me?? So I'm like, okay, we gotta get this done. (laughter)

Martha: For such a time as this.

Jim: That's right. God's timing is perfect, Darrel, and you need to trust the Lord. (laughter) That's right. All right, Darrel, tell me about this. How'd you come to be a follower of Jesus?

Darrel Geis: I was raised in a church as a young man and all my upbringing that really influenced me. I probably would've considered myself a Christian. Went off to college and got involved in a lot of different things that really led me astray from any foundation of faith that I had. Had a breakup in college of a girlfriend, sent me into a spiral, took me a while to graduate.

Finally did, moved to Cincinnati to start a career in sports broadcasting, 'cause I graduated with a television news degree, and I moved in with two guys who were recommended by my sister who was a born again believer who knew that there was a church being formed in Cincinnati and the campus ministry at UC, and these two young guys were looking for a roommate as well.

The same time I just happened to be moving to Cincinnati and moved in with them, did my own thing for about three months. Through a series of unfortunate personal circumstances, I came to know a person in Christ that led to a very transformational, spiritual relationship, obviously with Him. And I started reading the gospels, encouraged by my roommates, and came to Romans 5:8 and said that "God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we're still sinners, Christ died for us."

So I finally realized that I was a sinner in need of a savior and that savior was Jesus, who I knew about and actually believed in him, but didn't understand that I needed him to save me from my sins. And my good works weren't gonna get me to heaven. So anyway, all that said is that's become a now a 36 year journey of faith that, it has been amazing.

Martha: Wow. Okay. So just shortly then after that, the Christian Blue Pages was founded, 1991. So I'm doing the math 'cause we said 35 and 36 and all of that. You were there to join the team at Christian Blue Pages. Tell us about the vision at that point.

Darrel Geis: Yeah, what happened was a captain in the Air Force at Wright Pat Air Force Base in Dayton, a pastor of a church in Dayton, and a Christian business owner in Cincinnati purchased a franchise of a Christian business directory company out in Arizona. And they were all a part of a association of Churches that had campus ministries as their main outreach of the church.

And these three gentlemen decided to hire the campus ministry leaders at three of their colleges and universities. University of Cincinnati, where I was, university of Dayton, and the Ohio State University in Columbus. And so of those three people, the Columbus person, happened to be my sister, Jolene, we all got hired as the original green behind the ear sales staff for Christian Blue.

We came to find out that not every campus ministry leader's necessarily called to or gifted in advertising sales, so the idea was, is that, sell advertising during the summer months when school's out, and then make relationships with these business owners and maybe even get supported further, be released on campus full-time during the school year, similar to a campus Crusade for Christ type of situation.

But, so that was the original vision. And so I was hired, I was asked to do it and I said yes and left this idea of broadcasting behind and haven't looked back. And God has given me a ministry beyond any thing I could ever imagine in the marketplace.

Jim: You haven't thought about broadcasting all those years?

Darrel Geis: No, I have. And I was working at a TV station in Cincinnati at the time when I got hired at Christian Blue. And so I was able to experience that a little bit. And I had actually interned a couple TV stations in Columbus, Ohio. But I get to do radio and tv. I have for, all these years. And, I get to have sports as my fun thing. I don't have to make it my career. And it's allowed me to stay home and be with my family and raise two boys and homeschool them, and just enjoy a life in that way.

Jim: But if WKRP had offered you a job, would you have taken it?

 (chuckling)

Darrel Geis: No, actually, when I got offered the job as sales manager after two years of working with Christian Blue, in 93, sales manager, and I got offered to radio station sales manager positions as well at the same time, two different stations. Then I just felt, I really believed in what we were doing at Christian Blue and bringing Christians together across denominational and racial lines in the marketplace in our print directory and then eventually the website, and I just said, Hey, I'm good with it and never looked back.

Jim: So you took over the company in 97, so for the last 28 years it's been your baby. How is the vision different today than it was back in 91?

Darrel Geis: I think the initial vision was twofold. It was, Hey, let's get a Christian directory here in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, 'cause it was just one directory back then in 91. Now it's three separate directories. But the vision was twofold. It was that, form this directory where Christians can come together and support one another and obviously as a conduit for funding campus ministry.

So it's grown beyond that obviously. But at its heart is the idea of rallying the body of Christ in support of one another in business and ministry and coming together across those like I said, denominational and racial lines that too often divide us on Sunday morning. And so it's just the way we do it today is different, obviously, much broader than what we did back in 1991. But same mission. We're still on mission pretty much the same way.

Martha: So then you have three locations, right? Am I understanding that correctly? But you have an online presence, right? Tell us about that, because that's come a long way from the beginning.

Darrel Geis: Yeah, we have a print directory that serves Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. We produce 30,000 copies, distribute those to 1100 locations, including churches and businesses and bookstores and YMCAs and banks and all that. We have a directory for Dayton- Springfield, Ohio, which is 28,000 copies, about a thousand locations. And then Columbus and Central Ohio, another 25,000 copies to about 850 locations.

So those are the three major print products. Along with that, pretty much everybody that's in the print directory also goes online. And then once you get online under your categories, whether it's accountants, dentists, plumbers, veterinarians, or zip lines, we have everything A to Z, 336 business categories that are featured on our website, then you can enhance your presence there.

And then in 2011, we launched the Christian Blue Pages mobile app. So it was the first mobile app of any Christian directory in the country. And that's been just a great experience for people to be able to have at their fingertips 24/7, 365, a way of connecting with these Christian businesses. And we do notifications once a week where we send inspiration, we send faith at work features and send contests and just digital deals and all that kinda stuff. So it's expanded beyond obviously the initial days, but print, web and mobile directory opportunity.

Jim: Wow. I love that. And I love the vision. And we're gonna talk more with Darrell Geis and his guest, Dr. Shantel Thomas in a second.

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All right, Dr. Shantel, you have been working with Christian Blue for a long time. Thanks for joining us today to give us a little bit of your story.

Shantel Thomas: Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Jim: So tell us a little about your Jesus story. How did you come to be a follower of Jesus?

Shantel Thomas: So when I was a little girl, my great aunt, she would always come and pick me up and in the summers I would stay for her for about two or three weeks and we would always walk along the railroad track to church. And she had a little tambourine. She would play and we would sing all of the old traditional hymns and songs as we walked.

And I might have been, probably between the ages of five, I remember as early as five, all the way up to maybe 11, going with her for at least two or three weeks in the summer. She didn't have any children, so my mom would let me stay with her. So that was my first introduction. But then after that, I started to have dreams nightly about talking to God and walking with God when I was like a preteen or a teenager. So I told my parents I wanted to find a church home and my parents weren't really going to church on a regular basis but they did find me a church home here in Cincinnati and I went with a friend.

They would come pick me up for church every Sunday and take me home. Then when I got to college, there was a guy that I was dating and his aunt and his mom were the Sunday school teachers. I said, Hey, I need a church home. I know I'm here in college. And so when I got to that church, I really started to develop a strong relationship with Christ.

I was involved in the children's ministry and I just really felt like there was something more. I kept saying, I'm missing something. I dream all the time and I write all these dreams down and sometimes they come true. And so she started to talk to me about the different gifts and she was like, you're a dreamer, so you have visions.

And she was saying, you can write these down and interpret them. And so I thought what else is there? And they were like, have you ever been baptized? I said, no. They was like do you know what the Holy Spirit is? I said, no. And I was 19. And so I went down, I went there and I said I think I'm ready. I want everything that God's has for me. And so in that moment, she said everything? And I said everything.

And it was the Sunday school teacher who was also my boyfriend's mom. And I went down in the water and I came up and I was speaking in tongues and I was like, what is this? I don't know. And I covered my mouth and she hit my hand. Covered my mouth again. And she said, you asked for everything and you received everything in an instant. And she was like, now here's your first Bible. And so she had a Bible there that she had signed and she said, I'm your spiritual mother and I'll walk this out with you.

And she did. She walked with me my whole journey until she passed away from cancer. And so that was my introduction.

Jim: Did you marry the boy in the story?

Shantel Thomas: I did marry the boy in the story.

Jim: Okay. (laughing)

Martha: Jim, you always have to get those details right?

Jim: I wanna know.

Martha: That's awesome. So tell us about your work. What is it that God has you doing?

Shantel Thomas: So A Sound Mind Counseling Service is taken exactly from 2 Timothy 1 & 7. So "for God is not giving us the spirit of fear, but power and love and a sound mind." So I thought I was gonna name it Majestic Metamorphosis. But then again it was gonna be this beautiful butterfly changing, and I was asleep and I heard the Lord talk to me and say, that's not the name. You're going to be A Sound Mind Counseling.

And it was like the words just lifted off of the page. Like I was asleep but there was this bible. And so I went to my, at that time I was in my master's program in college, and I went to my professor and I said, I want to open a Christian counseling service. And she said to me, that's not possible. Christian and counseling don't go together. Psychology doesn't match up with biblical precepts. And she said, it's never been done. It's never been done, and you can't do it. And I said to her, watch me. I said, don't tell me what I can do. I always tell people what I can do, and as long as God is with me, it can be done.

And I graduated with my master's degree and I started my practice and from then on, God has just grown it. I went from just myself in a small one room to now I have two locations. I have four locations before COVID and with COVID, half of the therapist decided to work from home, so now we have two locations. Probably 90% are Christians, and then we have a couple people who are figuring it out and trying to decide. Either they're just like, I don't know. I've never been to church. So we get a chance to witness.

80% are people who are coming from churches that have referred us. And I really believe a lot of that has to do with the Christian Blue Pages, but I'm a Christian counselor. I take biblical precepts, I add them to my training from school, and we just come in, we pray, we talk about God freely, we talk about God's work and we use the Word of God to help us heal and live well. Healing and deliverance is what I'm all about.

Jim: Yeah. I'm glad you went away from the metamorphosis thing because somebody would've, what? What'd you say? Metaphysical Metamorphosis or what was it?

Shantel Thomas: Majestic. (chuckling)

Jim: Yeah. I think it, I think God's a lot easier. A Sound Mind makes it a lot easier for you to do that. (laughter) All right, so what first got you the attention of Christian Blue? What said, I need to do this?

Shantel Thomas: So I remember being at this festival, it was years ago. It was outdoors, and I was walking past one of the booths. And there was Darrell and he was talking to me about this Christian Blue Pages, the magazine and how you can advertise in here. And at that point it was just me and I had never thought about advertising.

And he was saying, we talk to Christians and other Christians in here, you can find other businesses and companies that have the same belief that you do. And that just struck me like, i've never heard of this. This is really different. But I really would like to support other Christian businesses and have them know I'm here so they can support me as well. So it was him. I talked directly to him at this booth, and from there our friendship started. He still comes to me directly and we still talk and pray. And I would, if I don't advertise anywhere else, I will always advertise in the Christian Blue Pages.

Jim: That was like a commercial, Darrell. That's pretty good. (laughter)

Martha: Pretty good endorsement.

Darrel Geis: Hey, Shantel's a very special person. We always pray for our clients at the end of every appointment, and every time I pray with Shantel, I'm ready to have her pray for me. And it's just such an amazing blessing. She and my wife are friends and my wife's a social worker as a LSW, and so anyway, it's just a joy every time I get a chance to meet with Shantel.

Shantel Thomas: Thank you. Thank you.

Martha: You know that's so good to hear because it goes so much more than just a transaction. And that's one of the things that I want our listeners to hear is just to be reminded that it is not just the transaction. It's so much more than that.

So are you able to know how many people you're getting from Christian Blue or what kind of impact it has had - for people like that just really wanna hear those kind of details. What can you say?

Shantel Thomas: So yeah, so how we track is we have an intake form. At the bottom of our intake form we ask, did you hear about us from Christian Blue Pages or did you hear about us from the radio or television or a friend? And people will check those boxes. And one of the reasons that I continue to advertise with the Christian Blue Pages is because we get so many people that check the box and say, yes, I heard about you through the Christian Blue Pages, and this is where we continue to decide who we will advertise with and who we will not. Christian Blue Pages always leads in the numbers, so it works. It really does work.

Jim: Darrell, I've been pounding you for a long time, like, why aren't you doing this in other states? Why? Ohio is your territory, but I'm sure over the last five or six, seven years, I've gone Darrel, when are you gonna expand this? Right now this, Ohio is your territory, right? You are you covering all of Ohio?

Darrel Geis: Yeah, we do a little bit with Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus, and then we do a little bit of digital in northeast Ohio and in Indianapolis and central Indiana. But primarily Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus is, which is the area that we originally started with. And we've, we've discussed that. We've had so many people inquire over the years and we just go with the lead of the Holy Spirit. And I always say, Jesus told his disciples to minister in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, then the other ends of the earth. We're still in Jerusalem. (laughter)

We're still, there's still so many people that we feel like we need to serve better and more business categories to cover in our local areas that it just, that's what has been the direction, at least at this point in the ministry. Now we get inquiries from all over the United States and we also have a caroling ministry. Go caroling.com is the website that serves that and we get caroling group registrations from all over the US and Canada. So we are ministering in that way.

And you can be certified Christian Blue, certified as a Christian business anywhere in the country. If you're a Christian business, you can get certified with us and that includes a lot of connections through newsletters and space, listing on our website and a variety of other things, faith-based resources to help you live out your faith in your work life. So we can serve anybody in the country that's a Christian business owner.

Martha: Let me ask you, so a couple things that makes me realize why you don't have to be transactional, that you can be personal, because you actually know and care for the people not only that you are advertising with you, but that you're serving. I just heard you say, there's more layers of ways we could serve people better, and so I love that you're staying true to that. And in an area where, if you went national, it'd be much more difficult to not be transactional.

But the other side, what you just said about being certified, talk about that for a minute. Because is that part of like how we as individuals... you could do a little bit of vetting for us. Is that essentially what it is?

Darrel Geis: Yeah. So what the Christian Blue Certified is, we have three basic core requirements to be certified as a Christian business: that you profess Christ as Lord and Savior, Romans 10:9, "confess in your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raise him from the dead. You shall be saved." Be actively involved in a local Christian Church. Hebrews 10:25: "do not forsake the gathering together." And then strive to operate your business with excellence for the glory of God. " Work heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men."

So those are the three core requirements. And if the business owner operator commits to those three things, usually we do it on an appointment, in-person appointment the very first time. It's also an interview. So it's not just an advertisement appointment, it's an interview. Take a look around and we obviously do research on the businesses that come in. So anyway if they agree to those three requirements, they could be certified. And that comes with a listing under one category.

Like for example, for Shantel, it would be counseling services on the website. And then from there you get newsletters. We have a consumer newsletter that goes out to consumers and we have deals and features of Christian businesses. We have a member newsletter that goes out to businesses and prospective clients of ours that deliver faith-based resources.

Currently doing a series called The Daily Office, a video series. It'll be a five part series where it's just encouraging Christians to, before you go into your work office, to secure your daily office with the Lord, as your time with the Lord. That works out how you do a time, a place, and a plan.

So anyway, so those are resources. Then we do events like we're partnering with the Global Leadership Summit for the third straight year, fourth straight year and providing opportunities for our clients and prospective clients to come to the GLS simulcast at a discount.

We do At Work on Purpose. You might have mentioned it earlier. We'll be At Work on Purpose, XL Summit, and just a lot of other resources we provide clients. And prayer covering, a prayer ministry, and just a lot of things that brings value to be certified. And then you get our logo either the Christian Blue Pages logo, christian blue.com or christian Blue certified logo that you can put on your website link to your profile on, on our website.

And it's kinda like what people do, they put their Better Business Bureau logo on their website, link it to their profile and that type of thing. So we can certify any business anywhere in the world as Christian owned and operated through our certified process.

Jim: So Darrel, if there's somebody listening today from a different part of the country and they're like I really wanna do this in my state, would you ever consider that conversation?

Darrel Geis: Yeah, we have those conversations pretty regularly. And we have a process of how to, explore the idea. There's so many ways for businesses to advertise. It's a very difficult thing. You think every Christian business would wanna be certified and then wanna take advantage of their certification by advertising further with us, right? But it's just not that way because maybe they have a very limited advertising budget or maybe they advertised heavily in digital and they pigeonhole us in because we're Christian Blue Pages.

They pigeonhole us in it as an old Yellow Pages type of thing. And our format is similar, at least the print directory is similar to the Yellow Pages, but it's always the choice of the consumer to go pick up a directory because it's a faith-based targeted niche product that people have been using for over three decades.

So anyway, all that said, is there's lots of reasons why they don't. But yeah, we would always communicate with people, you know, ways that we could potentially explore expanding in other territories. But it just hasn't happened.

Jim: Sure. Dr. Shantel, what's been the biggest surprise for you? Biggest God surprise, as part of this whole Christian Blue journey?

Shantel Thomas: So I guess when I started out, I wasn't sure. I thought let's try this and see, but just the number of people that continued to tell me that they found me in the Christian Blue Pages, just the way it has helped to grow my business, I have to say that it's the only advertising that I've started with and I've been consistently with because the numbers show that it works.

And I was telling Darrel that when we met, he's like, how do you track it? How do you know? And I'm like, we do the little tally at the end and every month we have calls and some people call and say, they will say, I found you in the Christian Blue Pages. Or they'll say, I'm calling because I need a sound mine. And I really believe that, God just - when my professor said to me this won't work, I had some doubts, some fear, but then it's like God sent the help, right? The Christian Blue Pages, the churches, they make sure that we stay in business. It's all God and it's all Christian based and it's all the supportive christian community.

Jim: So have you ever gone back, sought out that professor to have a conversation with her?

Shantel Thomas: You know what, actually I did not have to. She called me after 10 years in business. She called me and she said, I have to apologize to you. And this was phenomenal for me. It just really was warmed my heart. She said, we have been tracking you here at the university and we use your business to show how counseling and Christianity can partner together and be successful. We actually use it in our master's program when we work with students now.

And I was like, what? And she said, yeah, you're one of our biggest success stories. She said, I'm so sorry that I didn't believe in you, but I'm so happy that you continued on your journey and you went ahead and opened your business as a Christian practice.

Jim: Wow. Now that's the God story. That's the one right there. That's amazing, 'cause partnering with Darrel and partnering with God and getting your degree. Obviously he didn't just stop at your master's degree, went on and got your doctorate. Whew, sure glad it was you and not me. Dr. Shantel Thomas and Darrel Geis , thank you both for being on here today, sharing a little bit of this story, sharing the excitement of what God's doing there all over Ohio. Thank you both for being with us.

Darrel Geis: Thank you so much. God bless you and your ministry as well.

Shantel Thomas: Yes, God bless you. Thank you.

Jim: Before we close today, we really wanna draw attention to the US Christian Chamber of Commerce.

Martha: Yeah. Our work can be very lonely sometimes and we know even when it's directed by God, we need people around us on this journey. And there is a community waiting to embrace you and challenge you to keep your kingdom perspective like we've been talking about.

The US Christian Chamber of Commerce unites Christian business leaders to build with excellence, lead with integrity and advance God's kingdom in the marketplace. And in 2026, we will gather together in Orlando, Florida, to take this even further. Visit swc2026.com and use code iWork4Him to save on your registration. Jim and I will emcee this event and look forward to seeing you there!

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

8/13/25 - 2107: Building a Kingdom Business That Disciples

Jim Brangenberg: Julé Colvin is ready to retire, at least she thinks she is. Last year she tried to work out a business ownership operation transition so she could retire and God said no. Julé stayed in the saddle and could see the hand of God in the delay. And what's next? Why did God say wait? What does God have in mind for what is next for Julé Colvin?

And I think we should all be asking this one question: I spent my entire life learning to iWork4Him? What does it look like when I say iRetire4Him? Julé Colvin is here to share her faith work and maybe soon retirement story. Julé, welcome to the show.

Julé Colvin: Thank you so much. It is just, I'm thrilled to be here. Great to be with you both.

Jim Brangenberg: Alright, before we get started, we always ask this question of every guest on our show. How did you become a Jesus follower?

Julé Colvin: I love starting with that, thank you. While I did not grow up in a Christian home, along the years, of course I could see all the seeds that were planted and then really related to iWork4Him. The actual time that it was harvested was by someone that I worked with. And that was when I was in my early twenties.

And there was a young man by the name of Randy Federers, and I always like to say his name. He was 25 years old. He was full of life, so fun, always joking and loved Jesus. And I knew that, I at that point would go to church occasionally, but I really was not sold out for the Lord. And there was a particular Friday that I had just purchased a Trans Am. It was lovely with the T tops and all of that out. And of course he thought it was awesome, and so I said at lunch, let's go take a ride at lunch and we'll get some burgers or something and I'll take you a ride in it.

And so we did that. And that was on a Friday. And on Sunday evening, I received a phone call that he'd been tragically killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. And of course I was heartbroken, but then I went to his funeral. At his funeral, I learned so many more things about him than I knew, and I started to really question my life. I knew where Randy was going, but I sure didn't know where I was going.

And so I started me on a journey of seeking the Lord and I found him. And so that was 40 years ago in my early twenties, and I've been following him ever since. The working for him in work really touches a deep part of me as that's what led me to the Lord.

Martha Brangenberg: And we never know what that's gonna look like. And your friend, being your friend and being close enough at work that you wanted to go to his funeral, who could have ever imagined that was, would be the open door?

But I think that's so critical for everyone to hear on our show that we are a billboard no matter what we're doing, and doing that for the Lord is so critically important. Okay, so Julé, for the last 20 plus years, you have been running a company that is called Pathways to Growth. Why don't you tell everybody what you guys do?

Julé Colvin: Thank you. Yes, it has been 20 years and in some ways just feels turned around in a circle. So we work with nonprofits, started out just serving nonprofits in the Tampa Bay area, but since we've spread across the country. And we also do international work with some international ministries.

And we have two sides of the company. One is focused on grant research and grant writing, and then the other is on capacity building. And with that we do strategic planning, board development, leadership development, all the nonprofit management training. So that is our focus. We have a team of about 20 to 25, typically all work remotely across the country, grant writers and trainers and consultants.

Jim Brangenberg: You've got a specialty though. You really love working with Christian nonprofits, don't you?

Julé Colvin: Yes. So when I started out, that was my sole focus. I had moved to the Tampa Bay area at that time and was working as a director of development for a ministry and started meeting other ministries. So when I started the Pathways to Growth, it really focused just in that area. Now we have, as I said, clients, faith-based clients across the country, really Judeo Christian because we also have some Jewish organizations that we work with.

But also over the years it has grown to secular organizations, obviously aligned with our principles and beliefs. But that's where focus is still, been on Christian organizations.

Martha Brangenberg: So a lot of people would think that, okay, you're serving Christian organizations, therefore you're a ministry. But take that a little bit deeper because for you, your business is a ministry, not just because you're serving Christian nonprofits.

Julé Colvin: So it takes me back and I know, I remember having conversation with the two of you about this years ago. It's been like five years already, where I was at a point where I started to feel dissatisfied with the work and thinking, because I felt like I was so focused on how am I going to make payroll? All of those things when you're in a for-profit business and we were working, had more secular organizations coming on, and we weren't just Christian focused.

So I started to lose my way and fortunately I had the wisdom years before to hire some great advisors, Christian advisors. And one of them said to me, Julé, why don't you take some time and study the Word about what it means to really own and operate a Christian focused business.? Kingdom focused, not just Christian, but kingdom focused business. And so I took that assignment very seriously and I took about a year to really go through every single part of the business from sales and marketing to quality control, hiring, hr, all of that, and spend time in the Word finding scriptures that align with how do you do that in a way that, that we believe Jesus would do that?

So worked on all of that, ended up developing it into a handbook. So all of that kind of background to say now it's really about how are we with our systems, with our processes, with our relationships, working to be Jesus in our in our business? How are we working to disciple others, to pray for others, and have an impact?

Aside from that, our impact is really awesome in that we're raising millions of dollars for wonderful causes across the country. But it's in that day to day working with our team members and working with our clients that really, we want to be able to reflect the kingdom of God.

Jim Brangenberg: Perhaps the Lord is saying you should publish that handbook thing you put together. Did you ever think about publishing that?

Julé Colvin: It's, Jim, we had talked about this.

Jim Brangenberg: Oh yes, we did.

Julé Colvin: And of course, of course it got in the way. As I was preparing for this time with the two of you, I brought it back out. And it started to relate to one of the other questions I know we're going to talk about today is like, what does God still have for me to do?

I do think that publishing is in that, but I also think that I'm going to need to do a better job. Perhaps part of the waiting part that God has for me is to really delve back into that deeper and make sure that we're really walking out. We're not just have it on paper, but that we're really walking it out.

Jim Brangenberg: I love that. I love it, love it. All right, so if you're listening today and you wanna see your business as a ministry like Julé, then we have a great place for you to be supported and encouraged. The US Christian Chamber helps Christian business owners grow their businesses and impact through expert resources, powerful collaborations, and a national directory for greater exposure.

Grow your busines at uschristianchamber.com. And now you can gather with other members at the US Christian Chamber at an expo in April of 2026, visit SWC2026.com to learn more and use code IWORK4HIM when you register. We'll see you there.

Martha Brangenberg: Okay, so Julé, you are technically able... retirement age, let's just say that, like this is coming. And you have contemplated retirement. Your husband Alan has been retired already. And Jim said in the intro, you tried to retire last year, but God said, wait. So again, why do you think that is?

Julé Colvin: I think... I'm still learning all of the reasons. It's still, that happened at the end of December and I really was reeling for a little while from it, saying, God where are you taking me?

I thought I was heading this direction and now I'm going this other direction. But over these months, these past six months, I've just really gotten a better understanding of where he wants to lead me, and I'm definitely at peace with it. I'm like no longer feeling upset. Why? I'm not asking the questions anymore, but I believe he's just overall, he's not done with me yet in this business. And actually, we talk about kind of key takeaways. All along there have been times where I've just wanted to walk away because it was hard.

Jim Brangenberg: Amen.

Julé Colvin: And God always said, no, here. Going to do this, have this client come in, whatever the issue was. So I really am fully trusting that he has more for me to do at this point.

Jim Brangenberg: We like to say on iRetire4Him, that if you've got a pulse, you've got a purpose. If you're not dead, you're not done. When you retire, your calling doesn't retire. You've gotta keep all those things in perspective. All right, but we've been friends for a long time. Now, when you do actually get to retire, when God says, okay, now's okay. What do you think God has in store for you and Alan?

Julé Colvin: Yeah, so we've spent a lot of time talking about that, writing it down, talking to others. I've spent a lot of time reading. What I see it is still, and I think you in your intro you talked about this, it's really about adventure.

I don't really wanna know all that he has in store for us. I know we have some frameworks of skills and abilities that we have. One of them being, and I know I believe this is the way we connected with you many years ago, is that we are trained as marriage mentors through Dare to Be Different. And so we love that and those, the relationships we've built with young couples over the years have led to long-term relationships and having goddaughters, we now have three goddaughters.

We still want to be very actively doing that. We also love spending time with our adult children and now our grandchildren. We're hoping for more grandchildren to come in the years, so we love to be able to speak into their lives and be able to help support them. And in the new community that we moved to, I think I mentioned to you that we have a Bible fellowship here and we've already become very active in that. And we were privileged a few weeks ago to lead one of the sessions that we do on a Tuesday night, so we see us really being involved in that.

And we live in an active adult over 55 community and there are many people here who don't know Jesus. So for us to be planted here with this other group of Christians and be able to speak into others' lives and be able to serve them is a really exciting part. Also and the last thing is part of the reason we moved here is we really wanna be taking good care of ourselves physically. So that, and exercising regularly and all of that so that we can be used as long as possible by the Lord.

Martha Brangenberg: Wow. There's so many nuggets there that we could unpack, and I love the example that you're setting and being intentional. And I just wanna remind everybody, when we talk about retirement, we're talking about the financial part of it, right? Saying, I'm gonna be done with this. You're not punching a clock, but you have obligations and responsibilities tied to a company where people's livelihoods are at stake. And so sometimes, retirement may just mean I no longer have that responsibility, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna sit on the couch and eat bon bons all day. So that's what I hear you saying, Julé. Although one day, once in a while, that might sound really good.

Jim Brangenberg: But where in Tampa Bay would you go to get a Bon Bon?

Julé Colvin: Carrot cake. Remember for me it's carrot cake.

Jim Brangenberg: Yes. I'm all about carrot cake. That's like eating a vegetable. (laughter)

Martha Brangenberg: Okay, so we're talking so much about the intentionality. You guys are doing a great job of having conversations in your home and saying, what is the future gonna look like for us? But one of the things that, a couple things that you've hit on, God gave you very intentional instructions regarding your company and your employees and how to steward that well.

As you look at how God has helped you to build this Kingdom culture that you've set up at Pathways to Growth, how will that, how do you know that it will be perpetuated? That it will continue long after it's not being led by Julé?

Julé Colvin: Yeah, and therein lies really that wait answer, that I needed to, I believe I needed to slow down and spend more time looking at that and preparing for that.

So part of that is, right now I have some leaders on the team who are very interested in being a part of whatever that exchange looks like, and obviously I'm not going to go into detail about that. So spending more time with them deliberately in this handbook that we've developed, looking at what are the principles.

We've been doing some leadership study. We also even did some leadership study with the two of you virtually, looking at discipling the leadership and putting in place those key components. Also, I do see myself... i've thought about... i've done this with the Lord. I'm not saying here's the date, Lord, that I need to be done. I've got some ideas of how I wanna continue to reduce my schedule but, I wanted to just be able to stay on and the people on the team are open for me staying as long as I would like. And maybe I'm just there as the spiritual advisor to the team through that side and to help them to be keeping track of how are we doing with all the things that we've said are our priorities.

How are we doing in helping others to grow in Christ in our work? So I think those will be the main things, focusing on the things we already have in place, more intentional type of discipling and probably staying on for longer than what I originally thought.

Jim Brangenberg: But not a surprise to God, though.

Martha Brangenberg: Yeah, not a surprise to God. And with a very intentional purpose. I think a lot of business owners stay on too long in their role. And I love your heart that you're like, I'm not necessarily saying I need to lead everything forever but to care about the heart and the intentionality that can go with that in leadership, because you've already been modeling it.

That's not all the sudden you're deciding to be a different person. I know have been an incredible leader to your organization and all of the people that work for you. So I love the willingness and for those that were listening and not watching the video, Julé was holding open her hands when she said, I'm just saying, Lord, this is yours. I'm holding it, my palms up and open for your calling.

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Jim Brangenberg: All right, Julé, as you talk about how you really had to contemplate why did God say wait? And you've talked about the opportunity for you to be able to do ongoing discipleship and mentoring to your leadership team even after you've turned over the reins of leadership to them, what a great opportunity that is. And you've talked about how you intentionally, you and Alan intentionally moved into a neighborhood full of ministry opportunities because as we also have lived in a 55 plus neighborhood in Florida for 20 years, we know that there's so many people that are lost and hopeless because they've moved there thinking, if this is the American dream, I could do anything I wanna do and play tennis and pickleball and get seashells and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're miserable because there's no purpose.

And you and Alan have been brought there to teach them that purpose. As you guys, as you contemplate and look back - how many years have you and Alan been married now?

Julé Colvin: 35.

Jim Brangenberg: 35 years. So 35 years you've been heading towards retirement. Besides preparing financially and moving, so that it's a little bit better place for you guys to be, how else have you prepared mentally for retirement and what that may or may not look like?

Because obviously the first years that you were married, you still thought the American dream of retirement was biblical. But now, after being friends with us all these years, you know that's not true. So how have you guys prepared mentally for what God's got next?

Julé Colvin: Yeah. Yeah, great question. And I wrote this down. There were I key points along the way. One was years ago, I probably, one of the only times in my life I paid full price for a book, I was in a bookstore and I saw this book called Business Secrets of the Bible or from the Bible, and it's by Rabbi Levin. And I picked it up, and I have it sitting here on my desk actually.

I had it marked at all up and dogeared all the pages, but I got into the middle of the book and he started having these chapters on how retirement wasn't biblical. So it was the first time I had heard that and he gave all of these reasons and said all of these different things. I was very challenged by it and I didn't know if I believed that honestly in the beginning.

Then I ended up sometime shortly thereafter meeting the two of you and hearing more about iWork4Him and iRetire4Him, and I read the iRetire4Him book and we, of course, the four of us have had these conversations. Then most recently, about a year ago, I was introduced to this book by Arthur Brooks called From Strength to Strength, and it actually is about the process of going from what your typical intelligence is to what he calls crystallized intelligence, which I think is more like a another way of saying wisdom that we have and about the process of moving into retirement but also knowing that you have other things that God has for you to do in that time.

So it's not as strongly a Christian book as iRetire4Him is, but certainly there's some really great spiritual principles in there also. The other thing was that along the way over the last couple of years, I'd be at different places and out of the blue without me even talking about it, people would say "the first time I retired," oh, and then somebody else said a few days later "the first time I retired" and I thought, this is very interesting. God's wanting me to be open. And I don't know whether it's work that's coming next or not, but I know there's still a lot to be done.

Jim Brangenberg: I think you should go back though and explain what did those people mean by the first time they retired.

Julé Colvin: These weren't necessarily folks that were kingdom driven, let me just say that. But they finished their job that they'd been doing for years and years, and then something else came along that interested them and they decided they wanted to get into something else and start something new.

So that, to me, it was like, also helped me to say Julé, you don't have to think you've gotta hold onto to this business so tightly and that this is the only thing, if financially, let's say I needed to do something else, or if God was calling me to something else, who knows what that could be. Hey, I just had an aunt that I just went to her 100th birthday party.

Martha Brangenberg: Awesome. You might have a lot of the time left, right? That's exactly right. It reminds me, as you talk about our iRetire4Him book, there's a chapter in there where we discuss, it may mean going back to work and it may not. It may or may not be because you need to financially.

My dad, I think that's the story in the book is my dad, my mom said, Hey, Ted, you're getting boring. Maybe you should go get a job. And he had done his hobbies and was doing his things, and he went and got a job at a woodworking store where he could interact with people every day and love on them and love them like Jesus would love them.

And it was more just to fill some time, and then he got money to buy his hobby tools, his woodworking tools, but that's exactly the point is that it, whether or not it's for financial reasons, there is other work that we can be doing to just fill that calling that God has on our lives. So I love that when people said "the first time I retired."

Julé Colvin: Yes. Yes. Oh, one other thing I wanted to bring up in that, in terms of our preparation is I'm just, I'm a big believer in writing down the vision. And when the scripture talks about writing it down so that the runner may run with it, so I have over here in the corner of my office, a very large whiteboard and on it, the visions and the steps of what I need to do to get to whatever that next part of life, what we need to do.

And of course, certainly part of it's like all the things we've been talking about. It's the discipling, it's the financially preparing it, all of it. Part of it was moving to a community like this. So it felt great to have that in writing, and we were able to do that. Now, we know that God's leading us along that path. So for us, we took that part very seriously. It's something that I look at pretty much every day.

Martha Brangenberg: And I just, I feel like it's important to touch on the point that you weren't set up in your twenties with this mindset and this heart. It's a thing that grew over time and you activated on it. You acted on it and allowed God to prompt you, to convict you, to say very intentionally, what does the future look like? I know we have, as friends, have had a lot of those conversations, the four of us. And sometimes that can be very daunting, but it's never too late to learn God's future for you.

And it may not be that it's written out like, this is what you're going to do next, but this is your heart and this is your, this is how I want you to be willing and to realize that God has so much more for us in the frame of life where we may not have to show up at a certain time every day to a certain place to do a certain task. But that there's plenty of kingdom tasks for us to do.

And I just, I wanna encourage people 'cause I think it can often feel like I didn't have this mindset 30 years ago, and so now how could I ever get there now? But God works on us every day, and I just wanna encourage the listeners to take this as an encouragement and not a discouragement for what the future may hold.

Jim Brangenberg: Amen. Any final words of wisdom, Julé, before we say goodbye?

Julé Colvin: Yes. I would say for the listeners, really just, we often quote Romans 8:28, trusting that God works all things together for good for us. It's really - and I know there's remaining part of that, but I'm paraphrasing. It's something different to look at that when you're going into your older years and to really believe that because we watch our parents. There're others in our lives, we see their physical capacities or maybe even their mental capacities start to to go down. We're not holding down a job where we're earning money.

There's volatility in the market, like what's going to happen to the money, right? There's a whole new level of trusting the Lord that comes from that time in your life. So I'm just, I feel like I'm on a journey with that every day of just being free to know that whatever the retirement quote unquote looks like, that he is going to be there and provide for our every need, whether it's financial, physical, whatever it is.

And I have many stories, if we had time, especially a story to tell about my mom and dad and how God has provided for them financially in their eighties, that's just, it inspires me so much to see how much he cares about that. And then also just encouraging people to write down the vision and start really putting it out there. What are the things that you would like to be able to do?

For many people, it's traveling. For us, we've got a couple of places we might like to go, but we're not really big at looking into travel. So for us it really became what does the all of this look like for the relationships in our lives, whether it's with our family or friends or people we haven't met yet. And then I did wanna share from Psalm 92 and, oh, I'm sorry I didn't write down the exact verses these are, but I have this on my phone. And this is our ultimate goal. It says: The righteous will flourish like a palm tree. They will grow like a cedar of Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age. They will stay fresh and green, proclaiming the Lord is upright. He is my rock, and there is no wickedness in him. That encourages me so much. I'm looking forward to those days.

Martha Brangenberg: Amen.

Jim Brangenberg: Julé Colvin, thanks for being on our show today, for just sharing your story, your work, and your retirement story all at the same time. Thank you, Julé.

Julé Colvin: Thank you.

8/6/25 - 2106: This One Truth Could Change Everything

Jim Brangenberg: Hey, welcome to a special edition of iWork4Him. Martha's taken the morning off as I record this, but it's really because I've got something that God laid on my heart that I wanna make sure that you hear today, and this is so significant 'cause I believe that if believers can grasp this concept I'm gonna talk about today, I believe we could change the culture of our workplaces, of our households, and of our country.

But before I start with what God's laid on my heart, I just wanna make sure I draw attention to three very significant sponsors. SaferNet for surfing the web, operating on the web, doing your work on the web. SaferNet.com will keep you safe. We use it every day at iWork4Him. SaferNet.com.

If you're in business, you need to join the US Christian Chamber. It is an incredible opportunity for you to be involved in the marketplace with other believers who want the same thing. They want to know, what does it mean to follow Jesus as I run my business?

And finally, if you're using a cell phone, do you know where your cell phone company's profits go? I do, 'cause we use Patriot Mobile. Go online to patriotmobile.com/iWork4Him and get signed up today. They get all the same towers, all the same service, but their profits go to support faith, family, and freedom.

Okay. The topic for today, just a simple sentence: as a believer, everything about you should be changing and everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's the kingdom. I just need to, let's break that down for just a really quick second.

As a believer, if you have submitted your life, surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, repented of your sins, and asked him to be your Lord and Savior, that makes you a believer, a believer in Jesus that he is who he says he is.

If you haven't done that, gimme a call, would you? Send me an email. All my contact information's on our website, iWork4Him.com. I work the number four him.com, because if you're not a believer, you're missing out on what life is all about. Okay, so the sentence says, as a believer, everything about you should be changing.

What does that mean? Well, when we get filled with the Holy Spirit, after we become a believer, he starts working on things all around and inside of us. Everything about us should be changing 'cause everything we had before was steeped in sin, and now we're filled with the spirit of Almighty God. And everything about us should be changing.

Everything inside of us should be changing - our attitudes, our actions, how we look at things , even how we see things. So as a believer, everything about you should be changing and everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith in Jesus, whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's the kingdom.

You see as a believer, everything inside of you is changing and therefore impacting everything you do and everywhere you go, wherever you go. And the people around you should be benefiting from the Holy Spirit of God vibrating inside of you, changing inside of you, and impacting how you do things. And everybody should be being blessed by the fact that you're walking into the room, whether they believe in Jesus or not.

They don't need to believe in Jesus to be blessed by the spirit of God living inside of you. That's the significance of all of this. As a believer, everything about you should be changing. Everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's the kingdom.

When Jesus said, " thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus wanted the kingdom to come here, and that kingdom lives inside each one of us. And if you look at all the believers around the world, and there's a couple of billion, if every one of those believers understood this one simple truth, that everybody should be benefiting from our faith in Jesus, whether the people around us believe it or not, all of a sudden all we have to do is influence another six people.

All we have to do is live out our faith in front of another six people and be a blessing through everything we do. How we collect our garbage, how we wash our cars, how we do our work, how we drive our cars, how we do our grocery shopping, whatever it may be, how we do our volunteer work, how we cook and clean our dishes, how we clean our house, everything we do should be a blessing to everybody around us. That's the kingdom of God coming to earth.

In James, James is a brother of Jesus, he wrote a book in the Bible, he was also the leader of the church in Jerusalem after Jesus rose from the dead, and he said in James chapter two verses 14 through 20, "what good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith, but you don't show up by your actions?" And he goes on to say a lot of things, but he ends in verse 20, "how foolish! Can't you see that faith without good deeds is useless?"

And that's the point of what God's laid on my heart. As a believer, everything about you should be changing and everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's the kingdom. Let that sink in for just a second. If people around you aren't being blessed by your faith, then something inside you needs to continue to change. Look to see are people benefiting from you being a follower of Jesus?

Wherever you go, whatever you do, and wherever you are, everybody around you be benefiting from your faith in Jesus, whether they believe in him or not. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim Brangenberg. I'm a Christ follower, and my workplace, it's my mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.

7/30/25 - 2105: Abiding, An Unshakeable Lifestyle

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the Voice of Collaboration for the Faith and Work Movement. We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg.

Martha: Our mission is to inspire every workplace believer to recognize their workplace as their ministry place where they work with God every day. What can that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: The epitome of his life experiences is being quiet with the Lord. He teaches believers all over the world to abide with the Lord and demonstrates it every day as you see him work and interact with others. So with all this time with our Heavenly Father, shouldn't Brad Hawkins life be perfect? At peace? Trouble free?

Apparently not. But through all the ups and downs of Brad's life, he's learned to live the unshakeable life. He does it with his family and his businesses, and he has had to demonstrate it in the marketplace and at church for years. What is an unshakeable life and what does that have to do with living out our faith in our work?

Brad Hawkins is here to share his story. Brad, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Brad Hawkins: So good to see you guys. I love hanging out with you guys.

Jim: So just because you follow Jesus and do it pretty consistently doesn't mean your business will automatically be a financial success, does it?

Brad Hawkins: No it doesn't, and I don't think we should ever think that it should because there is an enemy. The enemy would rather me not have a perfect life, and that's in reserve for when there is no more enemy.

Martha: That's a good word, good perspective there. So what about in your marriage and in your family?

I think a lot of people have that same kind of framework of thinking certainly at least they're protected, quote unquote, i'm putting up the air quotes here, when you live a life of abiding.

Brad Hawkins: I love the concept and the thought because it is what we want. In Psalms says that he has a plan for us that is dripping with blessings as we walk that plan. But we have to understand, and we have to realize that, when Adam and Eve made their choice of eating of the fruit, not necessarily the apple. We always talk about as an apple, right?

Eating of the fruit, it says, that when we eat of the fruit, we then chose not to walk God's perfect plan. And so because of that, if you back up just a touch further, when God was walking in the garden with Adam and Eve, he gave them dominion over all the earth. He said, this is yours. This is, I'm giving it to you. You manage it, you take care of it. You name the animals, you do the things that you do for the earth, it's yours. You take care of it.

And when Adam and Eve chose to eat of the fruit, they took that responsibility that they had, they took that dominion that they had over the earth, and handed it to the enemy. So as we understand, the enemy has dominion over the earth. And you look at that and say how does that happen? Isn't God sovereign? Absolutely, he is. He can work in every situation, but we have to ask him. We have to bring him into it, and we have to walk the path that he tells us to walk.

That's why he says, we're to walk through this earth with the armor of God on, and if it was in his world, if it was in his perfect world that he was managing and he kept us safe and everything, we wouldn't need the armor of God. Because it's his dominion, his world. But now that the enemy has the dominion, we have to walk with his armor on to protect us the best that we can.

Jim: But all that is so much, and we're just trying to do business together. We're just trying to do our jobs. We're just trying to work for him. How do you keep that perspective, this unshakeable perspective? Because your latest book - Unshakable Life. Okay. Hold up the book for our YouTube watchers.

Okay, you've had some business ups and downs and we shared that on the last recording that we did with you on the last podcast. How did you learn to live an unshakable life?

Brad Hawkins: What a great question. It is a process and in John, God talks about staying connected to the vine. What does that mean?

We're back to fruit again. I'm not a grape that is connected to the vine. How does that really work? But God's analogy is that we have - Jesus is the vine and God is the vine dresser. He's the one orchestrating the whole thing behind the scenes and doing everything he can.

But Jesus is the vine and I'm the branch. And my job as the branch is to stay connected to the vine, to allow the Holy Spirit to flow through me, to allow the sap to go through me. And if I'm staying connected to that vine and I'm paying attention to the vine, or I'm paying attention to Jesus, fruit's growing on me.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. The fruit that God has, that is growing on me, it's growing behind me, but I'm paying attention to the vine. God's the one picking my fruit and handing them out to whoever he needs to hand it out to. If he needs to show love to someone, he can take my fruit of love and give it to somebody if he needs to.

But my job is not to force myself to grow fruit. My job is to stay connected to the vine. So to live an unshakeable life, you stay connected to the vine. And what does that really practically look like? It's being involved with him on a daily basis. It's talking to him. It's and - I know this sounds a little bit of ridiculous, but it's true. I do this. I leave my neighborhood and I drive outta my neighborhood and I oftentimes will just say normal way, you want me to turn right or left? There's always multiple ways to get there, but it's not that that's overly important, it's just a matter of keeping him involved in my day-to-day activity.

And when I'm keeping him involved, it's kinda like with my wife and I, if we go, we're gonna take a little trip to Europe here in the near future, we're going to go and do some abiding in Europe, but as we travel, with my wife I might say do you wanna go there for lunch? What would you like to do? What sounds fun to you? What is enjoyable for you? And she'll say, oh, I don't want to do that. I don't want, that sounds heavy. Where can I get a salad? Or, whatever it is. But we'll have an ongoing conversation.

Jim: Who goes to Europe to have a salad? Nobody goes to Europe to have a salad. (laughter)

Martha: We don't know yet what she's gonna say.

Brad Hawkins: But as you go, you're carrying on this conversation with the Holy Spirit and just enjoying the relationship of being involved with him.

Martha: Wow. I love your perspective and I love that we are having this conversation and as we continue to talk about it, I hope that the listeners just understand that, like how Jim set it up at the beginning.

This says abiding and being in connection with the Lord does not mean it's an easier life, /but it is a more fruitful life, as you said in and being unshakeable. So I'm excited to continue this conversation.

Having others support us on our journey is so valuable when we are living an unshakeable life. Being a part of the US Christian Chamber of Commerce is a valuable way to get the support and the encouragement you need to keep on the right path on your journey.

If you're feeling isolated in your business, you're not alone. The US Christian Chamber of Commerce connects faith-driven leaders through powerful events, relationships, and resources. So join the US Christian Chamber of Commerce where business and faith thrive together. And in 2026, the SWC 2026 Expo will be happening in Orlando in April. And I'll put all of those details in the show notes and you can have code IWORK4HIM for a discount.

Jim: And I highly encourage that you join Martha and I out there. In fact, Brad, SaferNet should be at this, at Spiritual World Expo in 2026. You should be there, for sure.

Alright, so speaking of SaferNet, Brad, which it's in your background, you've been a supporter of iWork4Him for a long time, but it's so much more. This show is about the fact that you started teaching Martha and I a couple years ago about abiding. Just, are you spending time with the Lord? And are you being quiet? Are you sitting still? Are you learning to just see what pops out on the pages and then research why it's popping on the pages, or to grab this patch and see where it links to this patch and another passage across the scriptures.

That's been so powerful for us and provided really a great life experience. SafeNet has also been providing a great experience for iWork4Him. We feel totally protected. In fact, we were talking before we came on the air about a new scam, that people are sending fake invites to iWork4Him and trying to get on our calendars. And we know that if we accidentally clicked on a link, SafeNet would provide us protection.

So SaferNet's been doing this, serving up safe internet experiences for users across the country and around the world, both commercial, personal. Why do you think you haven't cracked the code of an overnight success?

Brad Hawkins: That's a great question, and to be honest with you, it's a question that I ask the Lord all the time. I think, you know what? Every device in the world needs to have SaferNet on it. Why in the world is not everybody knocking on the door saying, I need to protect all my devices? I'm like, I don't want to go and use the internet without using SaferNet. It just seems like not a good idea. That's fundamental in my world.

But I live in that question where I'm like, Lord, what is it that, that I'm missing? And he is just, keep walking. Just keep going. And it's interesting because the relationship that I have with God is always maturing and growing. When I pray for something, I'm like, okay, you give us the power of prayer and you give us what it is that, that we should pray for.

Why is it that I have to keep praying over and over again? And then he brings me to these scriptures of this widow that goes and, pounds on the door of the judge to get justice. And I'm like, okay. I'll do that because I believe in you. I trust you, and I know that is what you want me to do, so that's what I'll do.

So to me, life is about a continual step-by-step process, trusting him and understanding that he loves me more than I could love myself. He loves me more than my wife could love me or my mom. There's no one that could love me more than Jesus himself. And I can trust that. And what is always reminding me is that God has a plan and that plan is the very best plan for me.

It is the very best. I could not design a plan better for me than what God could create for me. And I'm also reminded of this horrible thing that why did the devil get kicked outta heaven? It's because he thought he had a better plan. He was like hey angels, I got a better plan than what God's got and he got booted.

I don't wanna get booted. No, I'm just kidding you. That's not gonna get you booted. But that's to me the importance of understanding what God's plan is versus my own is I don't wanna live my own plan. So yes, my own plan would be that SaferNet explodes into a worldwide phenomenon that is absolutely unbelievable and I will continue to pray for that.

But I will also continue to ask God for my daily steps to say, what do you want me to do at this point? And I will continue to walk those steps until I do see what I believe will be a worldwide phenomenon about SaferNet.

Jim: I think it's also true, good to remember, that all overnight successes took 10 years, and most overnight successes for many were 10 years in the making. I mean they, yeah. And so SaferNet's not even that old yet.

Brad Hawkins: It is very true. Overnight means it is the night that you turn around, oh, it turned into a great exercise. It's kinda you're saying, I lost my keys, but it's always in the last place I look. You know what? If you keep looking after you find your keys, it's really weird. But the intent is that we trust that we're just gonna step out what God tells us to do, and it will become what God wants it to be.

Martha: Yes. And what it is right now for thousands of customers is amazing. How does SaferNet help people, your customers, to live an unshakeable life?

Brad Hawkins: Oh I love that because if you think about this, the enemy, all he wants to do, like we just said, he's been kicked outta heaven, right? He doesn't get to be there. And so all he wants to do is take as many of us with him as he possibly can. He did that with the angels. He convinced a third of the angels to join him in his rebellion. And so he wants to take as many of us with him, away from the peace and the joy and the love that Jesus provides.

And so what is he gonna do? He's gonna tempt us all the time. He doesn't know our brains. He doesn't know exactly what's going on, but he pays really close attention and he's got millions of little followers that are paying attention and reporting back or however that works. But he knows what annoys us. He knows what will trip us up. He knows how to distract us. He knows how to manipulate us.

And if you think about it, the internet is something more involved every single day. We use the internet all the time. Think about your house. What works with the internet and what doesn't work? When the internet goes down at my house, I go somewhere else to work. I can't work anywhere else. Now I can't even do a lot. It's quite amazing. And so my intent is to say, okay, with this tool, which I talk about as probably one of the greatest inventions of all time, minus the industrial revolution, but this in invention of the internet is something that we're using for everything.

SaferNet allows you to control those things. You've got 84 filters that you can turn on and off, for you or your employees or your family or whatever it is. And for example, one of the big ones is pornography. Nobody wants to get sucked into the traffic and the destructive lifestyle that pornography draws, but once you get addicted to that, it just is so destructive. And you can filter that out where you're not getting, you're not getting tempted by it. You're not even stepping into it.

I had a mom came to me one time just crying, saying, she said me, but she meant SaferNet, she said, you saved my daughter's life. And I'm like, I don't even know who your daughter is, but I thought she was a little talking with some over emotions, but she just started crying. I realized she's serious, she's really involved. But basically it was that her daughter was struggling with bulimia and that she was able to turn on the filters that kept her from seeing things that caused her to do more judgment to her. Now, it didn't solve her problem, but it took away that portion of the temptation to give her enough time or bandwidth in her world to start working on those things that needed to be dealt with.

And so it was quite an honor for me to be able to understand how she used SafeNet to keep her family safe. And that's one of those things that you just keep looking at saying, there's 200 internet controls. People cannot come in and steal your data because we're 256 bit encrypted.

We've got virus protection through the access to the internet so that when you go to a website that's bad, you're not gonna bring a virus in. We've got 24/7, always on VPN that, that you're not having to remember to turn on and nobody's gonna sneak in a Trojan virus into your computer because you stop by Starbucks, or whatever it is. We've got so many different pieces of the puzzle to keep you safe as you use this amazing invention called the internet.

Jim: So you and Leticia, you've lived a lot of life together. You've had some extraordinary business challenges. How many years you been married?

Brad Hawkins: 33.

Jim: Okay, so 33 years of life together. You got kids now. Got grandkids, twin grandkids. How has your marriage remained unshakeable?

Brad Hawkins: I love the question. In my mind and we actually just taught a marriage abiding thing at our church. And we drew up this picture, and I forgot where I was taught this. I cannot take credit for this, but I was taught this, is that, you've got the man and the woman and it's constantly a battle staying connected and you're always battling this battle on a regular basis. And sometimes I'm going this way and she's going this way or vice versa.

But it's wonderful when you can live life this way, but it doesn't happen all the time. It's just this constant battle. Somebody told us early on in our marriage, if we end up in a place where we're focusing on, here's Christ up here. If we're both focused to Christ, you automatically grow closer together. You don't separate. You are honoring God in this growth process and so I'm not trying to please my wife. I'm trying to please the Lord.

And when she's also trying to please the Lord, we grow closer together and we end up pleasing each other in that process. And when you're living in an abiding life, staying connected to the Holy Spirit all the time, which I do not do by the way. I'm constantly reconnecting and asking God to forgive me for my stupid way that I disconnect myself. But as you're living that life and you're living closer and closer to Jesus, you're getting closer and closer to your spouse.

But you're still discussing things. You're still talking about things. One of the things that we use the term a lot is neutral. And we used to argue about just the dumbest things. We never argued about tooth paste, but it's the proverbial toothpaste argument of do you squeeze it in the middle or squeeze it in the end? We didn't argue about that. We argued about a lot of other things that are probably even dumber. But when you get to the place where you're communicating with your spouse about something - for example, there was a trip that we were invited to and she wanted to go, and I did not think we should go.

It wasn't that I didn't wanna go, I just didn't feel like God was saying that's what we should do. And she was like, I think we should. What do you do in that situation? What we do is we use this to call Neutral. Why don't we just both go back to neutral? We're not, she doesn't have her opinion anymore, and I don't have my opinion anymore and say, okay, God, what do you want us to do? And then we just sit there and soak in the word and hear what God has to say, see what circumstances are leading us to do what, and we just start over.

And if we have to go back to neutral three or four times, we end up getting back into that spot and we learned something one time. We lived a life of compromise all the time. If God says you should do this, and I believed that's what God's saying, and she doesn't believe that, we often would come up with a good compromise in between the two. That's one sure way to know we're exactly not on God's plan. The compromise is never right, because it's not even what we feel like God's told us to do.

Jim: Isn't it true though, one of you could be right, but both of you can't be right, but you could both be wrong? I mean, it's not always that one of you is right. It could be that you're both wrong.

Brad Hawkins: Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. And that's the whole idea of going back to neutral is to say, okay, am I legitimately at neutral or am I just trying to figure out a way to convince her that I'm right? That's never gonna work for me. Because if you remember, if you know that all you really want is God's plan for you, not what I think is the best, if God's plan is the very best, I don't want what I think is best. I want what God thinks is best.

And so when there's unity between the two of us, we feel very confident that is the Holy Spirit saying, Hey, that's you. That's what you want, and go for it. And it's so much better to wait and hesitate and pause as we go through the process to get to the place where we're in the perfect will of God, or at least the closest that we've got to, and realizing we're gonna step by step, we're gonna step out, we're gonna step in.

But if we continue that process, looking for unity, not convincing her my plan is best, but looking for unity, we end up in this place of peace and joy that is very surprising. So to answer your question, how do we live an unshakeable life? We live our best to find unity in our relationship.

Jim: I love that. And it wasn't an easy, simple answer because marriage is complicated and I love that Brad just didn't rip off some convenient little sentence. We'd be remiss if we didn't stop to highlight the amazing work of Brad's company, SaferNet.

We've talked about it a little bit, and we talk about them on every show. And for good reason! Join the mission to stay safe and secure online with SaferNet VPN. Perfect for small to medium sized businesses, their cybersecurity app provides, as Brad said, VPN, internet controls, virus protection. Work and life in harmony with 84 website filters, keeping distractions away. Get secured now. Sign up at safernet.com. That's SaferNet.com and tell 'em that iWork4Him sent you.

Brad, you talk about abiding a lot and really you spent a lot of time teaching our online Bible study about just reminding us what does it mean to abide. Give us a short little snippet of what abiding is all about.

Brad Hawkins: Yeah, abiding is simply staying connected to Jesus. That's it. The Bible talks about in John, you abide in the vine, you stay connected to Jesus. And you live life in relationship with Jesus. You don't do a Sunday morning Jesus time. You don't do every morning Jesus time. You do a life of Jesus.

And yes, you go to church, you study your Bible, you do that kind of stuff. Now, one of the things that I enjoy the most is my spending time in the word. I leave this open on my desk all the time, and the reason is it always reminds me where my priorities are.

But one of the things that I love spending time in the word, what I do is I read the word, I read the word in partnership with my relationship with Jesus, so the Holy Spirit's inside of me, when I'm reading something, something's gonna pop out, and when it pops out, I'm like, oh, that's interesting, that's fascinating.

And I write it down on my journal and yes, I have my journal sitting right here. I do that on a regular basis. And by the way, I didn't put it out just for this, it just lives there. But I write it down in my journal and I underline what I thought jumped out at me, and then I look at that and I think, okay, I wonder what that really means.

So in most Bibles, if you don't have a Bible that has this, go get one. Or there's apps that do the same thing. My favorite is Blue Letter App, BLB. But I don't know if you can see, but you've got these little verses there in the middle there. That's your center references. Or you might have right references, but you go to your references. And okay, this is where God's talking about it in other portions of the Bible. So you go read other portions of the Bible, and you read that and you say, okay, does that jump out? Does that align with what I'm looking for?

And maybe it is. You gotta look for the Holy Spirit inside of you and say, gosh, yeah, that jumps out. That's important. And I write that down. Or if not, I'll go to another reference and write that down. But as I go, I keep looking through and underlining what seems to be important and I go through and read all my underlines and I'm like, wow, God's really showing me that, whatever that is.

And then I might write a little summary of what I see that God's showing me. And I'll tell you, it's so much fun. Going back into all of my journals and look and see the messages that God has shown me. And that's really where the Unshakeable Life came from, is it is a accumulation of years of my journals of where God said, here's something really important for you to realize, and here's how I want you to look at this.

There's a portion that God was showing me, I wanna understand how I can live a life connected to you and that I'm not cripping up on all the things that the world seems to be throwing at me all the time, 'cause I just get mad sometimes and I just give up and I am like, how do I stay in this place that I'm not giving up all the time?

And I wrote this down as a, it's actually almost a full journal of me going through all of this in my abiding time in the Bible. And I was sleeping one night and I had this picture that came to me that I was walking around town just talking to God all the time, but I had a picture of myself walking, somebody else was looking at me, walking, and I had my head in the clouds. And I'm like that's very odd. Why is my head in the clouds? I can't see a thing. How am I walking?

And I just started asking, God, what'd that look like? And he took me through several scriptures of, God talking to me and communicating to me on a regular basis. And what I envisioned there was that my head was in the clouds. I was talking to God all the time, and he was like, oh, walk this way. Don't walk that way. Step over that person. Do this, do that. And he was like guiding every single step that I had. But you didn't know that because my head was in the clouds and I was just walking around town.

And I envision that for my life to say, how do I stay connected? It's just this ongoing conversation. It's this relationship that's a real, alive, meaningful relationship that he's, let me show you how I want you to walk so that you can avoid all the pitfalls that the enemy's trying to throw at you on a regular basis.

Martha: So let's wrap up with that, taking it very streamlined into the workplace and saying how, for our listeners today, how can they try to understand how they can abide in their work life and allow God to transform it? What would that look like?

Brad Hawkins: Really good question. Right now for for SaferNet, you'll hopefully see a new website in the next 30 days, 'cause we're building out a new website that talks a lot about our new AI technology that we've put into the website. And I'm leading that project with our marketing people and I'm just trying to coordinate things, and literally on a daily basis, I'm saying, who should we talk to?

What does, is that what makes sense? And I was driving to do this podcast and the ladies that were working on the words, she sent me a message and so I called her from the car as we were driving and she had just this great idea that really delivered the message that I thought needed to be delivered.

But this morning I didn't even have a thought to call her 'cause it was a part of the website that we had decided was gonna be done. So I sent her a message saying, Hey, can you just look at that one more time? Because in the morning I was spending some time with the Lord and I just didn't feel peace around the header of the website.

And I said, can you just look at that again? And the whole thing changed. Because I didn't feel at peace. And she came in and she goes, oh, I see what you're saying. Let's make some changes. And she gave me some good ideas. So, it's just this step by step, I didn't have an answer, but I felt like I knew who I needed to talk to. She didn't have an answer. I know her. She went and prayed about it and came back and said, I got an idea. And then coming here I was like, that is such a great idea. I love it. And so I was very excited about it, and then I felt great peace inside as we realized, okay, we've completed that portion of it. What else do you got for me, God?

Jim: Practical, tactical, factual and biblical, right here on iWork4Him. Really, the practical side of abiding and how it applies to all of life. Brad Hawkins, if somebody wants to get a copy of Unshakable Life, they can get on Amazon, right?

Brad Hawkins: Go on Amazon. Look under Bradley Hawkins. Right under Bradley Hawkins and you can see it there.

Jim: And you've written other books, the God, the Devil and the Internet, right?

Brad Hawkins: God, the Devil, and the Internet. And that's all about SaferNet and how God has created the internet and did some amazing things. And there's a new book hopefully coming out very soon called The Power of Or.

Jim: Yes. Excellent. We'll look forward to that conversation down the road. Brad Hawkins, thanks for being on iWork4Him today.

Brad Hawkins: Thank you for having me. You guys are amazing.

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