12/10/25 - 2124: A Better Way to Do Christmas 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, 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: Christmas time is almost magical. The general spirit around the office is more genial and everyone is looking forward to time off, the Christmas party, and time away, and time with family. Almost everyone, whether you're a business owner, organizational leader, office manager, or someone moving up the ladder at work, Christmas time is a great time to love on your neighbors at work and to put your faith into action.

Martha and I today are going to talk about some ways you can let Christmas and Jesus invade your workplace. Martha, you love Christmas, don't you?

Martha: Yes, I do. I love all things about Christmas, especially recognizing the real reason for the season.

Jim: And you grew up with your mom and dad owning a business, which was a photography studio. How did they handle Christmas time?

Martha: It was a lot of fun actually, and I think, as I look back on this, I realize that one of the reasons I don't have a problem decorating early for Christmas is that as a photographer, my dad was taking pictures for Christmas long before it was Christmastime, right?

So if you want pictures to give to your family or to send in Christmas cards at Christmas time, you need to get those pictures, the sitting scheduled and done. And that might mean that you're sitting around a Christmas tree in October for a picture that's gonna be given out at Christmas time.

Jim: That's where Christmas in July sales came from, because your dad started working on that early.

Martha: Oh, probably. At least they were designing things that early, but they handled Christmas in several ways with their industry. They had to be thinking about it way before it was actually happening.

But actually handling Christmas, they were all about loving on their employees, spending time with them, planning something special, making them know that it was a very special time of year. There were times where my mom would do Christmas teas where she would invite people to come and have a special tea and read a Christmas story that pointed to Jesus, not to just presents.

And so a lot of intentionality went into Christmas in my home. Home and business, I should say.

Jim: Yeah, which were one and the same when you moved to Minnesota, that's right. Your parents had their photography studio in their home. It was a large home, they had added an edition on that was specifically for the studio and the family, and I got to be a part of these Christmas traditions where they had dinner with their employees and invited them into their home. Talk to us about that.

Martha: It was again, just a very intentional time where my parents made sure that their employees were loved on, that they showed him that they cared for them. It would probably be the only time of the year where they would take, we would all go to dinner somewhere together and reserve a special room where we could all just be in a quiet space and be enjoyable, give a memorable gift.

My parents were always very intentional with things like that to make people feel special. And sometimes that would be dinner in the home and my mom would orchestrate an elaborate meal or have people bring things. It really, it had a lot of different phases over all of my life, but always with that intentionality and with pointing the reason that we were gathering not only to love on all the employees and make them feel special, but then to point to the real reason for Christmas and to talk about Jesus.

Jim: Now Christmas around my household was a little different. My parents didn't own a business, but my dad was a manager of many salespeople, and mom and dad would wrap up Christmas presents and bring 'em to the office and give everybody that worked for my dad a present for Christmas, and they'd have a little party and it stressed my mom out a little bit, but it's what they like to do.

And it is something, after our Christmas tree caught on fire, by the way, we did have one of those Christmas vacation kind of things in our household in Maryland before we moved to Minnesota. I think our cat - again, it was involving a cat, fire on the Christmas tree, A real Christmas tree. That's where Chevy Chase got the idea.

Martha: Maybe, from your family.

Jim: Alright. What about neighbors? As you grew up celebrating Christmas, did you guys do anything in your neighborhood celebrating Christmas?

Martha: Definitely. I would say neighbors and extended behind that would be like people that my mom was in the choir with or we did the Christmas cantata at church, but for the neighbors I can remember cookie exchanges. I can remember big pots of chili, 'cause you don't have to know exactly how many people are coming to make chili, right? You just make a really big pot.

Jim: It sounds good right now.

Martha: Now have cheese and crackers and all the goodies that go with that.

Jim: And sour cream if you really wanna do it right.

Martha: Oh yeah, absolutely. And just, live it up. But have the neighbors over. Have a hot cider, hot chocolate. Mom was really good about making people feel welcome, keeping it casual enough that people didn't feel like they couldn't come or they couldn't have their family there. It was all about being welcome because that is the first step in hospitality, to really get people to open up to you and be real.

And again, that was the bottom line in our home and in all that my mom and dad did. So with the neighbors, definitely gatherings. I can't remember if we would do it every year, but we would always have, as a family, a weekend where we would frost cookies. It was like a big deal to make all the cookies.

And then, we could have a cookie exchange with the neighbors and go from there. And the more parties in a season, the better, in my home.

Jim: Yes, because you need have a bigger variety of cookies. (laughter)

Martha: Oh, there you go.

Jim: Absolutely.

Martha: And getting to really have lots of different people involved in your lives.

Jim: Christmas is something truly that Martha thinks about all year long, but we have to have a rule in order to control the Christmas spirit in our household. But we've unleashed it. But really it was: until the eggnog is on the shelves, there's no Christmas music in the house. I think Martha snuck it earlier this year.

Martha: No, you have eggnog in the fridge.

Jim: All right. That's it. There's no worries. There are many people that we consider neighbors with technology, we get connected to people all over the world and in our neighborhood too. Even through our neighborhood apps. The people we work near are our neighbors too. The people we connect with on Zoom calls, they're our neighbors, and there's so many more.

If you're hoping to build relationships and be more intentional, our book iWork4Him might be helpful for you to connect with and to love on and become a neighbor with those around you, it's not too late to order several iWork4Him Books to get them shipping out to you right away for Christmas. Go to iwork4him.com/bookstore to get a copy.

Are we running a special for this Christmas?

Martha: If you want to get a bulk or anything like that or have several sent to you, just email me, martha@iwork4him.com, I'll put that all in the show notes and we'll figure out what we can do.

Jim: Alright. Deal. iWork4Him the book, it will change how you look at your living out your faith in your work.

Martha: I don't know if you remember Jim, but last year we offered gift wrapping and we did a video of you trying to wrap a book and it was not pretty. So...

Jim: not my gift.

Martha: I'm thinking that's important, we'll figure it out for everybody.

Jim: Oh, I got an idea. I got idea. We're doing this on the fly right now. If you send us a video singing a Christmas Carol and celebrating iWork4Him somewhere in that Christmas carol, we will send you a book for free. You just gotta cover the shipping and handling, not the handling, just the shipping. We'll do the handling for free even. (laughter)

Martha: I think Jim's looking for some entertainment, everybody.

Jim: Absolutely. All right. So Martha, we have found some amazing power in celebrating Christmas with our employees over the years. What are some of the things that we've done?

Martha: I think we've taken a lot of ideas from what we talked about with my parents - having a special meal, spending time with the employees away from work, giving them gifts, being intentional in that way were all things that we've done to really celebrate the season and get people away from the workspace so that they can enjoy the relationships that we've been building over the years.

What else do you think of?

Jim: Yeah, it's a tough - we ran an insurance agency, which you know, between Thanksgiving and New Year's, 50% less business was done during those times of year 'cause people are busy. But we enjoyed celebrating Christmas by getting people into our home, our closest employees into our home.

And that has always been a fun time because when you get people in your home, it totally breaks down barriers. I'm just going right back to the eighties. "Totally. For sure. You betcha." Oh, that was a Minnesota eighties. When you bring people into your home, it breaks down those barriers that allows them to just feel the love that you really have for them without the pressure of phone calls and without the pressure of quotas or whatever.

It's been fun. And because you love to decorate for Christmas, the house always looks so amazing. We've done office parties, we've done home parties. I don't know that we ever figured it out, what was the perfect way to do it, but we love to celebrate christmas. I know on our New Year's show, we're gonna let you guys know what we've done for New Year's. That's been a really powerful thing too.

Martha: Yeah. I think that, now our team is virtual and so we have done even like just Zoom calls and had special time to just be like, Hey, let's enjoy each other. We've done a video for Christmas for all of our listeners. And that's been really fun as a team to put together and just to celebrate. It's really about being creative. It's really about just sharing that we love them and that we see that there's more to this time of year than gift giving and bonuses and things like that.

But Jim, are those things important?

Jim: Yes. Yes. Everybody loves gifts. Okay but again, going back to something we talked about in our Thanksgiving special, you need to know the love languages of your people or according to Dr. Paul White, the five languages of appreciation. Sometimes you can't talk about love at work. I don't know why you can't, but you can talk about appreciation.

Martha: It's not that you can't, you just have to be cautious. That's all.

Jim: Yes. So you have to figure out how do people receive love and whether it's through words of affirmation or whether it's through gifts, or whether it's through quality time, or whether it's through acts of service or whether it's through touch, physical touch, which in an office would be no more appropriate than maybe a Christmas hug maybe, but maybe a pat on the back, a handshake, whatever it might be.

But so when you're giving out gifts, they should be specific to the people that you get. Everybody loves getting bonuses. Now remember though, when you give people a cash bonus. They get taxed on it. So you can give Christmas gifts that don't have additional taxation on them. Be creative.

Martha: It's very easy for something like a gift or a bonus to turn into something negative and so I just caution you...

Jim: like the jelly of the month Club.

Martha: Okay. Going to the Griswolds again, but just the idea that, if you are going to set a standard, make sure you can always reach that standard or change it up so that they're not expecting this and then when they get something else, they're disappointed. Because you're intentionally giving them something out of the generosity of your heart, but the worst thing would be is if they were disappointed because it wasn't better than last year, or it wasn't the same as last year, or it wasn't whatever.

So I just, I caution you to really think about that and think about the future so that when you're making a decision for this year, that you're not setting up something that will just disappoint people in the future. Kinda like what you were saying with the taxes, Jim, people say, oh, I wanna give 'em a hundred dollars. If you take out all the taxes on a gift, it ends up being what? $55 or something that they get.

Jim: And that's what's so important. So if you're gonna have a bonus, it should be based on activity and productivity. A lot of times people set up bonus programs for all year long, right?

So it shouldn't be a Christmas bonus. It should be a Christmas gift. There you go. And it's different. And it shouldn't be contingent on their productivity. It should be contingent on the generosity of your heart.

Martha: Yeah. Truly a gift.

Jim: Right. And so think about it, plan about it, build it into your budget, so when you get to the end of the year, you're not like, wow, we had a tough year. Plan it ahead, set aside money all year long. Now it's too late 'cause you listen to the show, you got just a couple weeks till Christmas. But when you give generously, because we have a generous heavenly father who's given us everything and everything you have came from him, and you got people that work for you.

Hopefully you already pay them a generous wage. You got people that work for you that have had unexpected things happen this year. The economy's not been phenomenal.

Martha: I was just gonna say, this might be the year to give a ham or a turkey or something like that, because it's something tangible that they may need, that they may not splurge on in the way that they could, if you helped them in that way.

Jim: Or a prime rib.

Martha: I was thinking the same thing.

Jim: If you're gonna go all out and spend a hundred bucks, buy 'em Prime rib, because that's really awesome. Are we gonna do prime rib this year at Christmas? Martha started this Christmas tradition when we lived in Fort Myers and I've loved it. She's carried it forward into Missouri.

Alright, but be creative. Involve your spouse in trying to do this - whether you're the woman running the business and get your guy's perspective, you're the guy running the business. Get your wife's perspective, but just be generous. And maybe you're not the boss in your workplace, but you could still make an impact at your workplace. You can still have a party. You can get your boss's permission to have a party. You can have a party for just the people that you work with, but getting people into your home.

A way to welcome them not only into your home, but to introduce them to Jesus who lives in your home and lives in your heart. And it gives a chance for you to be a great example to them by hosting them. We recommend no alcohol. Not because alcohol is evil, obviously too much alcohol can cause all kinds of trouble, but sometimes when you have alcohol, people dunno when to stop. So no alcohol. You could have that bubbly grape juice stuff.

Martha: You don't wanna make a situation where people are later apologizing for how they acted or anything. You wanna make it a safe environment for everybody.

Speaking of planning parties and events, we have several exciting events that we will be participating in in 2026. So I just wanna encourage you to check out our events page, iwork4him.com/events, and you can get all the details and the discount codes for registering. We really do hope to see you face to face in 2026, so let us know that you'll be there so we can plan to connect.

Jim: And when you do show up to these events, please walk up and introduce yourself to us, 'cause we've met thousands and thousands of people over the years. Sometimes we forget names and we would love to be able to remember your name.

But the whole point of today's show - Martha, Christmas time is a joyous time. It is the thing that makes you most happy, really... I hope... just slightly less than me (chuckling) , but Christmas time can also really hard for people. There's a lot of emotions tied to it. Some people didn't have great Christmases growing up, or they were a negative experience growing up. There's some other reasons. What are some of the other reasons why Christmas time might just be hard?

Martha: If people have experienced a loss of a family member this year or in recent past, or there's been a divorce or something else has happened, it can be, like you said, just sad or scary or the unknown because you're gonna miss - you can feel lonely even when you're around a lot of people. So being aware of that, that it may be a really tough time for some people. Also just because of the financial burden that we put on ourselves. Our culture is terrible about that, about pressuring people to spend money that they don't have.

But all of those things can weigh it down on people and be a burden. So I think it's important to pay attention to the people that you work with. Just like we talk about on the iWork4Him Nation Covenant all the time is being aware of how people are and what they're dealing with personally, so that you can meet them where they're at, that you can be sensitive to that and love on them in a way that's gonna minister to them.

Just a couple ways that I think that you can do that is just acknowledging that, pulling them aside and saying, Hey, is there anything this year that you would like to see or not see, or how can I help you? Because if you know what they've experienced during the year, you can directly address that and say, Hey, I know your best friend passed away this year, and I can imagine that this is gonna be a different season for you. Is there anything I can do to help you through that?

Or just being real with people and acknowledging that you pay attention to their life and that you care about those details. I think that is such a huge thing. But especially this time of year as they may feel like they can't bring it up. They don't wanna be a Debbie Downer. They don't wanna dampen everybody else's mood. So those are just some things I can think of. Can you think of anything else, Jim? How we can minister to people?

Jim: David Downer. Not just Debbie Downer. But David.

I think it's also important to be sensitive. There are some people that don't celebrate Christmas. If you've got people that practice the Jewish faith that you work with, they celebrate Hanukkah and it's before Christmas. And so it is a festival of lights. So to be familiar with what they are and just to say, Hey, we're having a Christmas party. Does that offend you or not? Tell us how you feel about it. We'd still love to have you participate.

But just ask questions. And you may have some people of other faiths that you work with. Almost everybody celebrates the spirit of Christmas, 'cause people love getting gifts and people love lights and Christmas trees. It's just a, it's a fun time. We've run into one person in our life who is offended by Christmas lights. That's not most people. Most people love Christmas time because it's encouraging.

But some people don't get to go home for the holidays. And so my encouragement is if you know somebody's gonna be alone because they're not from your area, invite 'em to your family celebration. It's okay. It'll be different, but it'll still be fun. And it'll add some new conversations. You won't have to hear grandpa tell the same story the 77th time. You'll have other stories to tell.

Martha: Grandpa has new audience. (laughing)

Jim: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Sit 'em next to grandpa so they can tell the stories. But minister to people in a healthy way and just ask them.

If you notice people are struggling just say, "Hey, what's going on?" And "thank you for sharing that" and pray with 'em if they're struggling.

Martha: And also to celebrate the positive things too. Somebody might've had a baby this year or might've gotten married and acknowledging that, hey, this is a new time for you, baby's first Christmas. You have new memories to be making, and so we can help with that.

Jim: Our first Christmas together, remember? I remember we had a Christmas tree in our apartment in Mankato, Minnesota, on top of the gold carpet. And we put another rug up. I don't remember much about that. I remember the next year at christmas in our first home, where we went and bought a Christmas tree at a local Christmas tree lot, and we had a little Ford escort wagon, going way back to the mid eighties and we bought this Christmas tree. It was just beautiful. And we had a vaulted ceiling, so we wanted the tall Christmas tree.

What we hadn't paid attention to was the width of the Christmas tree, and we brought this Christmas tree, threw on the top of the roof of the car, and we had a hard time getting up to speed on the way home, and so we didn't know what the real deal was, but we had some trouble.

Martha: Yeah, we did. We knew we got a big tree.

Jim: We got a big tree. We're like, maybe it's bigger than we thought. And then we got home. And we unleashed it in our living room. And it was again, just like Christmas vacation. And it went (makes explosion noise) and the piano had to move and the couch had to move and the chairs had to move and it filled up the whole living room.

Martha: But it made a good memory, didn't it, Jim? (chuckling)

Jim: And when we pulled it out of the house, it left five feet of Christmas tree needles everywhere. A pile high. It was unbelievable.

Martha: You're good at exaggeration. (laughter)

Jim: It was great Christmas. It was a great Christmas. Alright, but for all of you listening, look around to the people around you to minister them. Help them have good memories. Light up your house to encourage other people. Don't have a competition. If other people, if there's an old person in your neighborhood, somebody chronologically superior and they want lights up, then maybe they're not so great on a ladder anymore, offer to help 'em put lights up.

In your neighborhood, in your workplace, there's people around you that need Jesus. Christmas is the introduction of Jesus to the world. You can't make it any more important, so take some time. Be intentional. You got a couple of weeks from when this show releases to be intentional on how you live out your faith at work during Christmas time to encourage people, to love on people.

Martha: Yeah. So if you're looking for a simple way to do those things for others, remember, you can Google, you can get ideas for keeping it simple, but making it really special. And if you're looking for a simple way to support iWork4Him in 2026, you can just round up. We have a program through Project World Impact that allows all your purchases to be rounded up on your credit card and then donated to our ministry. I'm gonna put the link in the show notes for you to find that and you can get signed up and start off for the new year.

Jim: So I work for him.com/donate. 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. Merry Christmas!

12/3/25 - 2123: Why Israel is Thriving (and Why It Matters)

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: On a rare occasion, we get a glimpse into how Jesus followers are making an impact with their faith at work from around the world. Today we have the privilege to venture off to Israel to have a conversation with Evan Lieberman from Wise Money Israel. Evan has been married to Sarah for 28 years and they have three kids. Evan and Sarah are on the ground in Israel and can tell us the truth about the great things happening there and how business leaders and Jesus followers in Israel are impacting the marketplace and how believers in the US can get involved and invested there as well. Evan Lieberman, welcome to iWork4Him.

Evan Liberman: Great to be with you, Jim and Martha.

Jim: Evan, we always start off the show with our new guests is by asking this question, how did you come to be a follower of Jesus?

Evan Liberman: That's a good question. I'm 57 now. Actually, harken back to age four, if you can believe it. I don't have this great conversion story, how I became a believer in the Messiah. Simply my parents, Jewish non-believers in the United States, were confronted. My dad worked for the department of Commerce in the United States, and he'd be on a shuttle every day going into work with all these other professionals in the government. And one would be a Christian reading his Bible, and people would make fun of him even at age 30.

And so my dad, after feeling sorry for him, sits down and says, I'm Jewish. I understand why you're reading that book. And so they developed a friendship. He started telling him after a few weeks, so you're Jewish. What are you doing about the sacrifices about sin? And he's, what are you talking about, sin? Jewish people don't know from sin and sacrifice nowadays.

And so he started explaining to him the gospel and it really freaked my dad out, being Jewish non-believers, it's the farthest thing that you want is to hear about this Jesus, who you don't recognize as the Jewish Messiah or as Jewish at all. And so my dad promptly gets off the shuttle, after a few weeks just said, I don't wanna ever talk to that person again. It's too threatening. But after a while, God worked on his heart and he spent the next year at the Library of Commerce reading about all the religions. He says, if I'm gonna entertain this one, is the farthest that Jewish people ever want to go, let's look at Buddha. Let's look at the Koran.

And he came to conclusion, this is the God of Israel. And if I'm the only Jewish person who believes this back in the seventies, then that's just what's gonna have to be. And my mom, of course, is Jewish nonbeliever freaking out. What's happening here? And where are my kids being taken? We're reading this Illustrated Bible, not only now of the Old Covenant, but the new Covenant. And who's this Yeshua person? We become believers, my brother and I at age four and six. And my mom eventually, after a year, became a believer and the rest is history.

Not a great conversion story for me, for my dad is really exciting. And he was instrumental and still is in the Messianic Jewish movement for the last 50 years in the States. So it was quite a watershed moment for all of us.

Jim: I don't know why you don't think it's not a great conversion story. It's phenomenal. Anytime a Jewish family realizes that Jesus is their savior, the Messiah that they've been waiting for, that's a phenomenal story.

Martha: You just didn't have to struggle with it like your dad because you were raised exactly into that knowing - which is fabulous.

Evan Liberman: There comes a time when you have to own it yourself. And I think that time was when I was 12, 13 and going off to college for sure. You have to know that this is yours and really own it. So that I did.

Jim: Evan, we've been told by others that the Jews have been told that the New Testament is an anti Jew book that, and that they should avoid reading at all costs. Is that something you've heard before?

Evan Liberman: You do hear that from a lot of Jewish people. It's simply 'cause that's what the rabbis tell them. It's not, of course, based in anything historical and all it takes is a few minutes to research and even Israeli Jewish people are coming to the understanding that Yeshua, Jesus, was a very Jewish person.

The writers of the New Covenant, of course, are all Jewish. Potentially one exception, and talks about and is based on old Covenant ideas such as worshiping God, Shabbat, salvation through sacrifice, through blood covenants, all the concepts are all there.

And so the fact that numerically it was taken over the faith in the first few centuries by people that weren't from Jewish background, didn't know and wanna connect it to the Jewish backgrounds, of course, has a 2000 year history of being detached. But that is the point of Messianic Judaism, honestly, is to bring back the understanding that this is one book, not two, it's a continuation of God's story with the Jewish people that's now open to everyone in the world through salvation, through the Jewish Messiah, the Jewish lamb, the Jewish sacrifice.

Martha: My goodness, there's so many things that I wanna comment on. And then one thing, the one thing I'm gonna ask is to clarify. You said that your, that there was a understanding that you, that the Jewish people, don't even believe that Jesus was Jewish?

Evan Liberman: No, they're actually coming to the understanding much more nowadays 'cause they're looking at it historically, especially secular Jews who aren't just gonna go blindly with what the rabbis say, is their understanding historically and archeologically. There's no doubt Jesus was as Jewish and more and his worldview and conception all came from our people's history.

The stories, the parables, these are all very Jewish things of the time back 2000 years ago in Israel. So it's the fact that going from, he was a Jewish person, a great leader, maybe a prophet, jumping into, okay, he's the Messiah, the Son of God himself. That's where most Jewish people get stuck. But knowing that he was Jewish is starting to become more of a reality to the Jewish, non-believing world.

Martha: This is such a relevant conversation and I am guessing that already our listeners are like, I wanna hear more because, we only get bits and pieces of true understanding of the Jewish culture, let alone Jewish Messianic believers. So you alluded to the fact that you didn't grow up in Israel. I think you were here in the States, at least when your dad was on this exploration. How did you end up in Israel? Are you part of the Aliyah of the Jews returning to Israel?

Evan Liberman: I definitely am. I grew up in the United States, went to University of California and started working in San Diego. But at age 25 I realized, okay, I wanna do something with my life in the Messianic world to put my shoulders to the plow. But in a place where I feel like, this is where Messian Judaism is going.

Ultimately, the Jewish people are coming home to live in the land. A Zionism that started a hundred years ago, 150 years ago, is so much what I think God is doing in our generation. And I can be a part of it. So we have people coming back, the rebuilding of the second temple, and they're called out in Ezra and other books.

And I'm like, this is what I can do in my generation. I was bar mitzvahed here actually in Israel on a trip that my dad decided to do my bar mitzvah here at the Western Wall in Israel. And that started a desire in my heart to be part of my people, not just culturally in the United States as a Jewish person but speaking the language, eating the foods, and being part of our people.

Because I think that's what the end times talk about it, that all Jews not only will be saved, that's in the book of Romans, but also Jewish people will be here. If they're Jewish at all, God is regathering our nation, to never scatter us again, and we're just the beginning portions of that.

Jim: Evan, the mainstream media news always makes Israel look like, look bad. It's what they're focused on, and looks like a scene from the moon landing - barren and desolate. They're always focused on the spots of Israel that, it just looks terrible. What's the truth about Israel today?

Evan Liberman: That's a great question. You're right. Mainstream media is not a fan of Israel, especially in the last two years. But Israel actually is so much opposite than the barren desert that you would think. And there's actually a cool website about innovative companies in Israel called nocamels. com, I think it is.

And basically, we've transformed the desert into a blossoming rose as the book of Isaiah talks about in the latter days. Israel today is very much thriving. It's one of the most advanced, innovative countries in the world. Economically, it's got a lot of enviable data. It's the startup nation you've probably heard of.

So there's more startups per capita here than anywhere in the world. In fact, even on an absolute basis, us being the size of New Jersey, population of 10 million, actually have more startups here than most countries in the world. We've got R&D centers from some of the biggest tech companies, from Google to Intel, Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft.

Our GDP is the envy of the world. We're we have gross domestic product twice as high as the other OECD nations like the United States and Japan. Our gDP per capita is $55,000. That's double many nations like the UK and Japan. We've got a thriving ecosystem of capital market and the Tel Aviv stock exchange, which we can talk about if you want.

Our tech sectors driving a lot of innovation and AI and biomed and technologies and military of course that we need, and cybersecurity. There's just a lot of things going on that are really exciting here. We're leading the world in some discoveries - drip irrigation, desalination, the memory sticks that everyone uses today. Voiceover IP that's backing zoom calls that we're doing today come from Israeli innovation. Firewalls. The first firewall invented was in Israel.

And so there's just a lot of thriving going on here. It's a miracle, essentially in the desert, of resilience and innovation, and some people call it a light to the nations already and imagine what that light will be when the Jewish people actually do understand who their Savior is. I can imagine that would be what the Bible says, life from the dead.

Martha: That's so encouraging and I hope people can absorb - and that's high level summary of what going on there. And we're gonna dig in a little deeper into what God has you doing there.

When you talk about innovation, most of us are using mobile devices or computers to not only listen to music and podcasts like this, but to also conduct our business and communicate with other people. Imagine if you get a virus on your device and can't use it for its intended purpose. It will not only set you back in time and energy, but to potentially compromise the very work that you're doing.

SaferNet is a trusted partner of iWork4Him that we have installed on all of our mobile devices and our computers because their virus protection, their VPN, and their 84 web filters keep the bad guys out so that we can keep doing the kingdom work that God has called us to do. Check out safernet.com and let them know that iWork4Him sent you.

Jim: Evan, it's well known that the people of Israel carry a blessing whether they're following Jesus or not. Jewish business people have solved many of the world's problems, the list is super long, and have run many of the world's most powerful organizations, some good and some bad, unfortunately. You are focused on marketplace investments in organizations and businesses that are run by the people of Israel. Why is that?

Evan Liberman: It's coming from a zionistic perspective. It's saying basically God is doing something in our generation, as I talked about before, and our economy is, is one of the better economies, even though we just became a developed nation maybe 15 years ago.

But statistics economically, financially, that are way beyond what we would see in a nation that's under 80 years old. And we see that this is a powerhouse that's just getting better and better. And therefore we want people to participate with us. We feel like the concept of supporting Israel is biblical.

We feel that God's in it. God is blessing people. A lot of our clients are coming to us from a conviction of, this is what God's doing. I wanna partner with Israel. How can I do it? A lot of people, of course, partner through ministry, through contributions, and that's great and we encourage that. But it is one directional. Whereas if you're partnering with someone, you're having a two-way street, essentially. You're able to bless and be blessed in return.

And so that's why we feel like to focus on Israeli companies is really our, while we're licensed both in the Israel and the United States for general investment management, we're actually excited about directing people toward our land, toward building up the state, building up the companies, building up the people, creating and facilitating those innovations that are really changing the world and helping the world. And we've seen somewhat just already, but imagine what it's gonna be, 10 years from now.

Jim: I can't imagine, 10 years from now, the world changes at such a fast, ridiculously fast pace. I just can't even imagine what the world's 10 years from now or whether it still exists. I don't know. AI kinda scares me a little bit.

Alright, so when we first interviewed someone from Israel about eight years ago, they stated that there was about 20,000 Jewish followers of Jesus living in Israel. What's that estimate today?

Evan Liberman: Great question. There are various estimates. There's no real counting going on here. We're not focused as much on growth as the other communities in the world, but most estimates put us around 25, 30,000. It's grown pretty quickly. My wife grew up here. And in her generation, she knew all the believers.

There were 600 Jewish believers here. And now there's about 30,000, so about three times growth in the last 25 years. So it's growing quickly. There's about 180 congregations here, so there's smaller but it's much more a grassroots scenario that's going on here, but it's definitely expanding.

The kingdom of God is expanding. We're only 0.3 numbers guys, so 0.3% of the population are Jewish believers. But that's much more than it used to be. We're still very much of a small minority, but being more and more integrated into society as people venture out into being lawyers, doctors, in our case financial professionals, serving in the army. Most believers send their children, like my own, to the Army.

And so they're integrating well into society now. And so that's helping, I think as yeast in the dough, so to speak, to leaven the, maybe in a good way, the people of Israel so that they know, okay, the Jewish Messiah is in fact someone you already know. You wouldn't consider him the Jewish Messiah. Let me tell you about him. And I'm a normal person, and that's helpful of course, to witness.

Martha: A normal person, and actually from what we've experienced when we've talked to Jesus believing Jewish people, is you actually better understand all of scripture because of the context of your lineage. So you, a little side note, you said your wife was raised in Israel. Did you meet her there?

Evan Liberman: I did. I met her here in Israel. In fact, I was looking for a wife since age 19 and I came to Israel age 25 and within two months I think it was, God had me meet her. Didn't know that was gonna be my future wife. Took five years for that to happen. She's a Messianic Jewish believer as well, but she would never have come to the United States. So God had a plan that was beyond just my zionistic aspirations to serve as kingdom in a different way among my people. But that's the only way I was gonna get married, evidently.

Martha: That's right. That's awesome. That worked out really well. I just, I love that. That's so great. Okay, so God has called you to be a steward and an ambassador of Israeli owned businesses. Tell us about that. And bring the BRII into the conversation because our listeners are gonna love to hear that.

Evan Liberman: Great. So about 15 years ago I recognized that there was a lack of understanding about the Israeli stock and bond market. I was an avid amateur investor at the time, and I realized people don't know. So we started a website to just get people understanding how, in fact, can you invest in Israel. What's the economy looking like? Why is it such a good economy? And no one knows about it. There was not much information in English at the time. It was more built for the local community, the local 10 million Israelis and not for outside investors.

So we basically have developed and pioneered the area of helping people around the world- we have about a quarter of our clients are Israeli clients, but about three quarters are from about 30 different nations around the world. We're helping them invest in Israeli stocks, Israeli bonds. We are Messianic Jewish believers, my staff and myself. And a lot of our clients, not exclusively, are believers of various types - meaning evangelical Christians to messianic Jews to non-affiliated, and they're coming to Israel for many different reasons.

Some are spiritual reasons. They want to connect with the people of Israel on this level. They wanna partner. Some want just a great return, and we've seen tremendous returns even during the last two years of this war. The market has doubled here, if you can believe it, during this time. And so we essentially help people to not only invest funds in fundamentally good Israeli companies from about the 700 different companies that exist here, but we also apply what's called a biblical responsible investing screen.

We call it BRII for Biblically Responsible Investing in Israel. And so not only are we keeping out companies that no matter how fundamentally sound they are, if they're involved in one of the vice that the scriptures would speak against, we don't wanna have our clients investing and taking part in that from an equity share perspective. So we won't invest in those companies. But also biblical responsible investing doesn't say just what we won't invest in. It says what we want to invest in, and I think the scriptures are clear about those that bless Israel will be blessed.

Those that partner with us, those that support us, God is going to work things out for them, whether that works out financially or otherwise. It's just a biblically sound principle to be favorable toward the Jewish people. And Israel, of course, is where most of the Jewish people are today.

Jim: So have you guys created ETFs or mutual funds bringing all these things together? How is it that these funds get accessed by people in 30 countries?

Evan Liberman: That's a great question. We're thinking in the future about an ETF or a mutual fund, but currently we're managing separately managed accounts, SMAs, for whether it be an individual, joint, a company, a nonprofit, an IRA account and we establish them on various brokerage platforms.

We're, as a financial advisor, as a fiduciary of clients in the 30 different nations, there are many brokerages locally and internationally that can access the Tel Aviv stock Exchange. So the reason we're licensed, for example, with the SEC in the United States is to be able to offer American residents a US broker dealer firm but yet invest in Israeli securities, Israeli stocks, Israeli bonds that we can manage for 'em in the shekels.

So there are a lot of clients that come to us. They wanna have a little bit of their funds diversified outside the US dollar. They don't necessarily know if that's gonna be a place to have a hundred percent of their assets. And so they want that diversification. They want that market diversification, currency diversification. They wanna know that they're biblically responsible investing in a land that they believe in.

So there's a lot of resonance with people. Getting the word out is usually our problem because once people hear about the possibility, they're sold already. Now they just have to dot their i's and cross their T's. Opening investment account can be done about 30 minutes online and doesn't require the investor to be accredited at all. And so most clients can start at $50,000 or more.

Jim: That's what I was gonna ask about the accredited investment thing. So it, that's not a case. And for those of you listening, an accredited investor has a million dollars of investible assets and that eliminates a lot of people. So if somebody's listening today, you're saying right now they have to invest in specific stocks within Israel. There's no, there's not a mutual fund, a gathering of these stocks into one place.

Evan Liberman: Correct. So we have about 25, 30 stocks we're tracking to and bonds at all given times. We do fundamental research every week. And so we generally have what would be considered a mutual fund. We just haven't marketed it as a mutual fund. Generally most clients choose from those companies. Some have different opinions on this sector versus that. We've got real estate and energy and banks and finance and technology and some might say, look, I really want to overweight my technology in Israel because that's the innovation hub, or I really like the real estate boom that's going on in Israel.

And you've got a built-in demand coming with another 6 million Jews that need to make Aliyah at some point in the next few decades. And so people have their particular preferences we can tailor to but ultimately most clients come to us and say, you're the expert, you're the Hebrew speaker on the ground. Put me in a diversified portfolio across different sectors in the Israeli market, and I trust you. And that's usually how we end up effectively having very similar investment portfolios for various clients. Some want more bonds, some want more stocks, that sort of thing.

Jim: I don't know if you had a question. I have one more question. I love investments. I've been studying it since I was in high school.

So if somebody wants to get involved with investing in Israel and they've already got a relationship with an RIA or, they've got an advisor here in the United States, or listening, if they may, some may be listening around the world. How do they get access to the Tel Aviv stock market? How do they get their advisor to say... are they gonna get passed? There may be some resistance. How do they get involved?

Evan Liberman: That's a great question. As far as physically, technically, how they get involved, they just go to wisemoneyisrael.com and either do a free consultation with me through Zoom or phone call or click on the open account button and then we will walk them through. It's like I said, an online process, just like you would open an account at Charles Schwab or Fidelity. It's very simple. US broker dealer. Some of our clients, of course, have their own RIA firms like us. Whether they're a believer, RIA firm or not, usually don't have any idea about what's going on in Israel.

It's a small economy, so it's not in the radar of international investing necessarily. Although most RIA Firms understand the need for international diversification, but wouldn't necessarily pick Israel over China or Venezuela. And so to them, that's just another country. Those that are believer RIA firms understand the rationale, the conviction of the client, may want to do it themselves, but most RIAs don't know even how to get involved.

And that's what we perfected essentially over the last 15 years, is making that as smooth as possible, simply opening an investment account with a particular broker dealer. One of the largest by volume in the world that does have access to the foreign markets that we needed here, in this case, Israel.

Jim: So if somebody's listening and they've got an advisor, we just need to get their advisor to talk to your advisory firm to get things worked out.

Evan Liberman: We can definitely do that. We have a number of clients that bring on the first initial Zoom call or the second call their own advisor. And then the advisor, we talk shop, whether it be licensing or diversification or strategies or fundamental analysis or the economy.

And once the advisor understands this is a safe economy, this is one of the better booming economies and the market is very resilient, and we can see that just in our last two year war that the blips that you would think would cause, some major issues on the stock market just don't happen here, there's a lot of forward momentum in a good economy and so it's hard to derail this country.

Martha: And I think for our listeners, they're just going to hear the intentionality in this decision. And that's something that is very consistent in our conversations that we have on iWork4Him with the idea that not only investing in companies that don't go against our biblical principles, but doing it in support of Israel. And so it's just a double intentional decision, and that's why we're bringing it to the table for our listeners. So I just love this conversation, so thank you.

Jim: Yeah. Everybody listening, just remember, if you're a believer, you're gonna live in the new Jerusalem, you might as well support the existing Jerusalem right now. Just the new Jerusalem's gonna be a little larger. In the meantime, get invested today.

All right. Martha and I absolutely believe that we should not only invest our money wisely, but also our time. We're so blessed to invest our time by being involved in the US Christian Chamber of Commerce. As members and on the board of directors, today I feel it's so important to invite everyone listening to invest some other time into the US Christian Chamber of Commerce, and join us in April in Orlando, Florida, April 22nd through 24th.

You can find out all the details at swc2026.com. Register with code iWork4Him for a 10% discount. This is gonna be an immersive three day marketplace experience that will help Christian leaders unite to break barriers, build bold businesses, and advance the kingdom of God. We'll see you in Orlando. swc2026.com.

So what is the hope and the aim, Evan, of Wise Money Israel?

Evan Liberman: The first thing is the wealth of the nations will come back to Israel. It's biblically promised when that will happen. How fast? Will it be in our generation, in our lifetime? We don't know. But we are trying to be a bridge and I think God is using us. And some of the success we've had, I think, is way beyond what we can do as individuals to cause that to happen.

And so I think each individual person is a brick in that wall, so to speak, of creating support for the state of Israel from around the world. So our job is to help people get involved, offer the bridge in which they can biblically, in a biblical responsible way, invest in a country that they love.

I would say another goal that we have, and this is more of a long-term vision is currently the Israeli body has very little amount of financial professionals, those that are investing and interested in investment as a profession. And so we're offering and have individuals that are doing internships and various positions in the firm. And so that's what we're looking to get the next generation of financial professionals working in the field and being able to offer this in much larger scale to the rest of the world.

Jim: Put an office in southwest Missouri. What an incredible thing. In the center of the country. (laughter) Okay. All right. All right. Sorry.

Martha: Okay. Jim's full of ideas. He shared earlier that we did an interview eight years ago with a couple that was on the ground there in Israel, and one of the things that really struck us was their use of the power of Isaiah 53 in reaching the Jews for Jesus. What have you found to be an a good avenue for you that God is using to share the truth about the Messiah Jesus in your work?

Evan Liberman: That's a great question. I would say that Israelis do not warm up too much to the frontal evangelical evangelism approach. Tracts and things like that used to work maybe in the United States are less effective here simply because there's a major barrier, a wall of resistance that's been built up for 2000 years based on the rabbis rejecting Yeshua, rejecting Jesus, and now coming up with reasons why we don't wanna have anything to do with Him.

And it's a them versus us. So Jewish people see anything as someone trying to convert them as taking away from their culture, their heritage, their legacy, and God has built into the DNA of the Jewish person " I will never leave Judaism." I remember my mom said I was born jewish, will be buried Jewish, and that's it.

And so that helps start a Messianic congregation in our area, in Washington DC, simply because while we believe the same as the Gentile church, the cultural context of it doesn't work really well for a Jewish person's DNA. But what does resonate with the Jewish person, Israeli person specifically, is if you are normal and you're not trying to convert me, but you're just showing your life as the fruit, as the witness of who Yeshua is in your life over a long period of time, in relationship, in regular work environments, and showing that light in just the way you work, it's really marketplace ministry in that sense.

If you're not cutting corners, if you're doing the right thing by your clients, if you are being generous to your vendors and your employees, this is sort, these are things that speak to Israelis. Just like I said in the Army, we're beginning to be much more officers in the Army, showing we've got a good work ethic, are showing God's compassion, love, honesty, righteousness, that sort of thing through who we are as people. So relationship evangelism is really what works here.

Isaiah 53, of course, is the classic scripture that talks about the Jewish sacrifice for sin. And it couldn't be anyone else other than Yeshua. And the person you probably talked to has a book about Isaiah 53 and how he shares that effectively on the streets in Israel. I used to go to our congregation as well, and basically most people when they read it find that you just gave me a scripture from the New Testament. That's your book. And then you reveal to them, that's really our book. That's really our prophet from 700 years before Yeshua even lived. This could only be a forward-looking thing about a particular Jewish Messiah.

And so it is very convincing, but of course you need the relationship backdrop and the openness to explore. And that probably won't come from a tract on a one-time basis. It'll come from working with people for months and years. And now they're willing to say, okay you're normal. Maybe this got some legs. Now I hear Isaiah 53. Now I get a Bible in Hebrew and I can, without the rabbis, study it myself and come to my own conclusions. And that usually is effective. And that's how the body's grown for the most part here in Israel.

Martha: You know what? And I would challenge everybody listening. That's really how the body of Christ grows everywhere. Yes, there have been people that have been given a tract and God has opened their eyes in that moment. Therefore, you who had ears let him hear right in that moment. It was their moment of truth. But I would say most of the time it is the relationship showing that you care, showing that you understand the scriptures and how they apply in our daily life, in our work, in our home, in our neighborhood, in all aspects of our life. God is intimately concerned about all of those and gives us guidelines and helps to get us through those.

So I would say for everybody listening anywhere else in the world, we need to take you as an example in the way that we relate to those around us, because that is how the body of Christ is gonna grow. And really that's even like the conversation of business as mission and the many different ways, it's doing good business and intriguing people to say, why are you different? Why do you choose to, it costs a little bit more to do it your way, but you're doing it the right way. You're not cutting that corner, whatever that might be, that intrigues the person to ask the question of what sets you apart?

And we can all take that challenge today with us whether we are in Israel or any other part of the world, but what a great thing that's happening on the grounds there. Do you have any final thoughts, Evan, before we go?

Evan Liberman: I would just say that when people are considering Israel, as you talked about, Jim, before the mainstream media and even some of the online media really has a unfortunate picture of what Israel is, who its people are, what its policies are and how it needs to defend itself from its enemies.

And so I would say whether people want to invest in Israel or people wanna contribute to Israel, or people just wanna know about Israel better is to try to look past what the media says about what's actually going on and think, what does the scripture say about Israel? What does the scripture say about what God is doing in Israel and has God given up on his people?

Romans says that there's no way that God has given up on his people and so God is still involved in what's going on here. And so to live and thrive, we have certain needs that we have to not die. And so we're effectively trying to defend ourselves. So I think it's very important for people, especially in the last two years, around the world there's a rise in antisemitism and people just need to know what the facts are, what's actually happening.

Get involved in just hearing about Israel, whether you get involved financially or not, so that you can be a spokesperson. You can be someone who is positive on what God is doing. 'cause I think as Jim said before, the call, it's the goat and the sheep moment that the nations and the people in the nations that are standing with Israel, those are the people that God is bringing favor on.

And I think those people that stand against Israel, there's a curse on them and they don't even realize it. And especially for the believers that know better, can read their Bible, can understand what God's place is for Israel and the Jewish people, to roll with that and not what the media says.

Jim: Is there a website that people could go to get the good news that's going on? The true news of what's going on in Israel? Is there? I don't know. Is there an ABC? Oh, that wouldn't be right. (chuckling)

Martha: IBC.

Jim: A non-mainstream media that tells the truth about what's going on in Israel.

Evan Liberman: I would say Joel Rosenberg has a good news site called AllIsrael.com. That one, I think, is good. I know TBN Israel has a great program called Boots in the Ground and they're daily putting on YouTube videos. Also the Israel Guys as well. They really talk about Israel from what's actually going on here because they're here and they know not just the internal politics of what's causing things to happen, but they'll put the mirror up to the mainstream media and say, these are lies. We need to confront these. And they'll do that in a daily basis. So those are a few sources that I turn to sometimes to take a look at what's Israel's view on things versus what the world's media view is.

Martha: Yeah, and I hope our listeners will research that a little further because I know that there are people in all of our lives that feel very anti Israel, but they don't really know why. They've heard it. They've been influenced by it. They're being educated by somebody in that direction without really understanding for themselves. But it is really hard to get the truth. And so we're gonna put those links out there for people to research because again, just like you said, they're the boots on the ground. They're there. They see it in real time and we can all learn from that. So thank you for sharing all that with us.

Evan Liberman: Absolutely. Sure. Obviously you can go to our website as well.

Martha: Yes.

Evan Liberman: WiseMoneyIsrael.com to hear about the economic side of Israel.

Martha: Thank you.

Evan Liberman: But those other sites are great for the news of Israel as well.

Jim: And in a lot of ways, Evan, you're like King Solomon who invited dignitaries from all over the globe to come and hear his wisdom and to see what God is doing in the miraculous in Israel. Because at that point in time, there was so much silver, they didn't even count it. And the gold was measured in tons. I know it was in tons, whatever Hebrew word that is for tons and big numbers - talents, wasn't it? It was just lots of money. So really that's what you're doing with Wise Money Israel. You're asking people to make those investments because what God is doing there is truly miraculous.

People, everybody listening, do your history. It was a miracle of God that people of the world came together and said, let's let Israel go back to where Israel is from. And this happened before our lifetime, but it happened within the last 80 years. And that world body would no sooner today do that than anything else. There's no way they would do it today, but God did it. And the desert is coming back to bloom. And the technology and all the stuff going on in Israel is being invested all across the world. The technology innovations are impacting the world.

Martha: Amen.

Jim: If you've got an investment advisor, we recommend that you have them connect up with Wise Money Israel and Evan Liberman. Evan, thanks for sharing a little of the story. I know we're just capturing a little piece of this, but thanks for sharing what God's doing right there.

We're so excited to see the work that he's called you to do. Hopefully the next time we talk, there'll be five of you and you'll have that ETF and the mutual fund all put together and make it even easier for us to say to our investor advisors, that's the one we want.

Evan Liberman: Sounds good.

Jim: Evan Liberman, thank you very much for being on iWork4Him today.

Evan Liberman: Thank you .

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

11/26/25 - 2122: 3 Ways to Practice Thankfulness This Thanksgiving - and All Year Long

Jim: Welcome to a special Thanksgiving edition of iWork4Him. Thanksgiving is a great time to make sure that everyone around you knows so much you appreciate them and are thankful for them. This includes people at work, at home, and of course, the Lord of Heaven and earth, who created all of us. So let's be thankful people this time of year and learn to be thankful all year long.

Martha, I thought today we could talk about just three things: being thankful at work, being thankful at home, and being thankful to the Lord.

Martha: Okay. So let's talk about, you said it in your intro, you said, let's be thankful people. What if we could be known for that? I wish I'd have worn my sweater today that says "thankful" on it because it is a good reminder when I wear that to be thankful. I know that to be thankful people, it takes a mind shift, 'cause sometimes that's not our go-to attitude or our go-to posture maybe is a better way to say that.

So you wanna talk about some ways to do that?

Jim: I think saying the words "thank you" is a good way. A lot of us treat work like a drudgery. Like it's just something we gotta get done. And I'm not sure we always appreciate the fact that we have a job, that it pays the bills, that it gives us purpose, that a lot of us have jobs where we are causing the flourishing of other people- whether it's through things we create or things that we do, or projects we complete, but being thankful to the people that write the checks. That's a great start. Being thankful to the people that work for us is another great place to start. Being thankful to the boss that sometimes is great to work for is a great thing.

Martha: But we take that for granted. And we don't say thank you until there's something you know that maybe either causes you to stop and pause about it or something that you're not thankful for makes you realize, man, there's a lot here I really should be thankful for. As we think about that, Jim, I guess we could just list off some things, some practical ways to incorporate that into our daily posture, not just this time of year, but we can use this time of year as a good starting point.

When you think about the places that you go and you hear people say, thank you for visiting, thank you for coming. Thank you for choosing our place over another place, whether it was to rent a hotel, or whatever it might be, we can use that same attitude in, you know what? I am thankful that you got this report to me on time or maybe even ahead of time. Thank you for doing that. That kind of conversation can go a long ways in just making people feel seen and heard and appreciated for what they do, what they're called to do.

A lot of times people say why should I thank 'em? That's their job. That's what they're getting paid for. Yes, but we're all humans, right? And we all still want to be affirmed.

Jim: "They're just doing their job. I don't have to be thankful for it."

Martha: You and I both - words of affirmation. If somebody says something affirming to us , it makes you wanna go the extra mile.

Jim: So I'm glad you brought that up because I was thinking that really, if we recognize people's love languages or language of appreciation, as Dr. Paul White would say, yes, the five languages of appreciation in the workplace, or just regular love languages by Gary Chapman, right?

Martha: Yes. And Paul White.

Jim: And Paul White. All right. If we recognize what somebody's love language is, that's a great way to express thanks. So if words of affirmation are one of those things, speak it. If quality time is one of those things, spend it. If gifts are one of those things, buy it. Get it. If a hug is what they need- be careful, but give a hug. In the workplace, a pat on the back might be more appropriate.

Martha: We just recently watched a TV show, Jim, where they were talking about the open-handed pat on the shoulder is very affirming in the workplace. Now they were going ridiculously like robotic. It was funny in the show, but the point was that, that's noticed and it's appreciated and it can go a long way.

So you're exactly right, knowing the people we work for and knowing what their love language is so that you actually feed into that appreciation in the right way.

Jim: The fifth one is if their language love language is acts of service, do something for them.

Martha: Exactly.

Jim: Wash their car. How random would it be? Now, I like to wash cars. If you went out and washed the cars of your people in the parking lot.

Martha: If they did it today, you would think they were crazy, 'cause it's freezing.

Jim: Might be a little chilly out there today, it's november. What do you expect?

Martha: But you're right, not just doing the things you're expected to do, but going above and beyond, whether that's bringing in pumpkin bread that you've made or saying, Hey, let's have a lunch together to just really enjoy each other's company and set work aside and just tell each other how much you appreciate 'em and being intentional about it.

Jim: And a hint, hint. These things work all year long.

Martha: They do, but it's a good launching point, if you've never done it before. It's nice when you have an excuse to say I'm doing this because of Thanksgiving, but now I have an opportunity now in the future you can, it can be more natural because you've done it. Sometimes we need that good excuse.

Jim: It's sets a standard. Yep. And speaking of being really thankful, we're thankful for Krystal Parker and the US Christian Chamber of Commerce as they're making an influence across the country for Christ followers who are active in business, active in the marketplace.

And we invite all of you to join Martha and I next April in Orlando, the 22nd through the 24th at SWC2026.com, which is Spiritual World Citizens 2026.com. It's the expo for the - annual expo or the biannual expo - for the US Christian Chamber, and we'll be MCing the event. It'll be incredible. But we're thankful for what Krystal Parker and all of her team does every day, making it easier for us to live out our faith while doing business with other believers across the country.

Martha: And I would just say, you don't have to wait until April to get engaged with the US Christian Chamber of Commerce. You can join today, become a member, and start participating in some of the virtual events that happen on a weekly basis. There's something for everyone.

Jim: Absolutely. So let's talk about being thankful at home. I think all of us, yep, all of us - and me I think, yep. Everyone doesn't really appreciate the people at home. So often we just take people for granted. Now, I'm really good about thanking the Lord every morning for my wife, but I don't always thank her for doing the dishes or when she does the laundry and when she makes the pumpkin spice cake, which we have one right now on the kitchen counter, which I had delightfully for breakfast today.

Being thankful for how much Martha takes care, in taking care of herself and in decorating our house and in making it a great place. And she's also a phenomenal cook. But to be thankful and we don't have kids at home anymore, but to be thankful for - we're in the caregiving stage with my parents. To be thankful for my parents, who for 91 and 92 years have given of themselves to us. And so to be able to give back to them and express thanks to them.

Martha: And I think even just being thankful that we have a home and not taking for granted, like you said, the things that we're surrounded by and the people that we're surrounded by. And the same goes for you, Jim.

Every time you mow the lawn and every time you blow the leaves, which I know you love to do because you have this new powerful leaf blower.

Jim: My brother-in-law gave me a Husqvarna. Super powerful. 400 mile per hour. It's okay to have fun. Just so you know the background, this is literally across the street from where we, if you're watching the YouTube video, if you're watching the YouTube video. This is literally the leaves in Marionville where we live today. But by the end of the day, most of those will be gone, and then I'll be using that Husqvarna power blower to move those leaves into a pile.

Martha: And munch 'em up with your lawnmower. That's the thing. Just being grateful for each other, being grateful for the things around us, being grateful for what we do have, not necessarily focusing all the time - it's really easy for people to get in that pit where they focus on what we don't have and what we wish we had, or how we wish things were different.

But in this season right now, what can you be thankful for? There is a practice that people do where every day they write down three things that they're thankful for and they can't repeat them in the future days. But I have heard that the longer that you do this, the more you actually find to appreciate.

You think you're gonna run out of things. You don't, because, my goodness, you can appreciate and be like, wow. I am thankful that God created leaves to change colors in the fall because it makes it so beautiful on our eyes and something that we can just, I actually, with this background, will refer to it again. I stopped my car and took this picture because it just was, the tree was just perfect. And it just made me my heart so happy. I'm like, I need to take a picture of this and record it.

And little did I know we would use it for today, but things like that. Being thankful that God gave me eyes to see the colors of what he has done in our creation, 'cause he does it all for a purpose and with a purpose and we get to enjoy it. So what else can we do to be thankful at home?

Jim: Again, in context of love languages, express your thanks to those people that you hang out with, your friends, your family, your neighbors, in a way that they can receive it, in a way that they recognize that's love. Because Thanksgiving is an expression of love. So find out what your love languages are, the people that you'd live with, the people that - and if you don't know, go to five love languages.com. Take the test. Or you get your neighbors to take the test too.

Martha: It's actually something you could do after your Thanksgiving dinner. Ooh, sit around the table. Everybody could get their phones, their tablets, whatever. It doesn't take very long and it could actually spark a huge conversation and maybe some goal setting that you could have for 2026 as a family or as a group of friends to say, I really wanna, I wanna be more intentional about how I show my love and appreciation to you. So there you go. Special extra little tip and plug right there.

Jim: That's right. So not only being thankful at home, we're thankful for the ministries and the businesses that support iWork4Him on an annual basis. Our biggest supporter is SaferNet online at SaferNet.com. They provide a phenomenal service for businesses and organizations and families across the globe.

A VPN based, internet filter, website filter, antivirus, everything you need to protect yourself while operating online, including programmable controls, things to block, things to unblock. It's a phenomenal service and we're thankful to Brad Hawkins and his entire team at SaferNet as we head into this year. They are a phenomenal ministry partner of iWork4Him, and we're very grateful for them.

And just a little free plug right here. Brad and I just launched a brand new podcast, the Power of Or on Apple Podcasts and all your podcast platforms and on YouTube as well, the Power of Or Podcast with Brad Hawkins and Jim Brangenberg. Thankful for you, Brad.

Martha: All right. So being thankful for the Lord and to the Lord is a huge thing. We talk a lot about Thanksgiving being in the physical. We're thinking about the people around us what we have and all that we're thankful for, but who are we thankful to? And it's really, all things belong to the Lord and he's given us all things. So it's him that we should be focusing on.

Jim: You know what I think is amazing, Martha, as I thank the Lord for you every morning, as I sit and watch you sleep while I'm waiting for you to wake up, is I'm just amazed at and thankful to the Lord that he started weaving our lives together as 13 year olds.

And then when we met at 16 and started weaving our lives together as friends and then as 17 as more than friends, dating, and at 19 getting married and now almost 40 years later, 40 years of incredible marriage, I am thankful to the Lord that he orchestrated all of that. He paired us together as an incredible ministry team, and that never could happen without our faith in Jesus made possible because of our Heavenly Father' s sacrifice to let his son die for us so that we could have life.

Martha: Yeah. And I think that's so critical to actually articulate and to find time to make sure that we're expressing that to our heavenly father because he has done so much, and to the people. You just said a whole lot of very affirming things to me that you're thankful for, but it's really, God orchestrated it and we recognize that, and we acknowledge that without him, each day would be purposeless.

Jim: Every day we thank the Lord for our kids and our grandkids and we thank the Lord for the challenges that come. And we're just so thankful to be able to talk with you today as we share some of the things we're thankful for. But the Lord is at the center of all that. We wouldn't do any of what we did or what we do, or what we're gonna do, without our heavenly Father being over all of that.

Martha: So as we think about these three things, being thankful at work and for our work, at home and for our home, to the Lord and for the Lord, those are powerful things for us to be focusing on, especially this week as we really focus on Thanksgiving as a whole and our country, which we didn't even, really talk about. But that's really what this comes down to is the freedoms that we have and our ability to be able to worship our heavenly Father. Boy, we need to be thankful for that.

Jim: Absolutely. We will say goodbye for today's show. We wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. Don't spend it alone. Make sure you find somebody you can share a piece of turkey with or ham, as our daughter and her husband have with his family on Thanksgiving. Traditions are traditions. It's what you do.

But whatever you do, make sure you take some time to be thankful. Let everybody know that's around you, how much, how thankful you are for them, even if sometimes they drive you crazy.

 (to Martha)

Jim: That's when you're supposed to say, I'm thankful for you, Jim, even when you drive me crazy.

Martha: Oh, okay. (laughing)

Jim: So from Martha and I to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving from iWork4Him and us.

11/19/25 - 2121: Cincinnati 2026 - Three (or More) Reasons You'll Want to Be There

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

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

Jim: For about 10 years now, we've known that Cincinnati, Ohio, is one of the most collaborative cities in the United States portion of the Kingdom on Earth. For over two decades, hundreds of churches and ministries have partnered to reach the vast Cincinnati area for Christ on Sunday at church and Monday through Friday in the marketplace.

I dunno what happens on Saturday. We'll talk about that with our guest. (chuckling)

Back in 2015, we first interviewed Chuck Proudfit. Then in 2017 we finally met Chuck face to face. Our friendship has grown ever since. We thought it was time to get an update from Chuck on his leading the At Work on Purpose Movement in Cincinnati, as well as its leadership on the upcoming National Faith and Work Summit in June of 2026. Chuck Profit, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Chuck Proudfit: It's a pleasure to be back. Thank you for having me.

Jim: Chuck, let's start off with talking about Jesus. What kind of miracles have you seen in the marketplace movement in Cincinnati recently?

Chuck Proudfit: We've spent a good deal of time just training people to see God's supernatural movement in everyday work. And I could tell you all kinds of stories, but the biggest story that's coming to mind as you ask that question was actually a large city scale miracle. You'd mentioned collaboration in Cincinnati, and we've come a long way with that. And having said that, as you guys know, the Big C Church really struggles to collaborate with itself.

And in Cincinnati, even though we had local churches learning to work better with each other and para churches to do the same, we discovered that there were breaches between local church and parachurch, between Parachurch and local church and the workplace at large. And all of this led to a couple decades where there were a series of city reaching or city transformation initiatives, all of which were operating simultaneously in our city, all of which were preaching unity to work together, and none of which were working with each other.

And the huge miracle that has happened this year is that for the first time in over 20 years, we finally got the leaders of all of those initiatives together around one table and have launched something that together we are calling For Cincinnati. This is a breakthrough for our city.

Martha: That's so powerful and I hope that people really sit on that for a minute because you said a lot and this doesn't come without sweat and tears and turmoil and probably some trials, and victories all along the way.

But the end, where you're seeing yourself now is such a thing to celebrate and that truly is a miracle of God. A lot of people might say, yeah, our hard work, God is there. No, you're giving the right credit to where credit is due.

Jim: And when you say it's a miracle, it's because Jesus said this almost 2000 years ago. They'll know you're my followers when you walk in Unity. That's a Jim paraphrase.

Chuck Proudfit: That's a great paraphrase.

Jim: John 17:20.

Chuck Proudfit: That's exactly what we're talking about, Jim.

Martha: That's so good. So tell us how Cincinnati is being impacted by the believers that are actually living out their faith at work.

Chuck Proudfit: What we're finding in Cincinnati is that there are several levels of development that are taking place, and we're getting better and better at understanding each one of them and how they connect with each other. The first part of that answer, Martha, would be that we are seeing more and more working Christians connecting the dots between their everyday work and their ongoing faith. Most Christians don't.

They go to church on Sunday, work on Monday, but when you start to understand that your work is a form of worship, that your job is actually a platform for ministry, and that the workplace at large is one of the most amazing arenas for spiritual formation and contribution, it changes everything.

So we are seeing more and more of what we call the purposefully employed. And I would even suggest to you deployed instead of employed. Deployed for the Kingdom using the platform of our work to advance God's kingdom. So that's the first part of the answer. The second part is that we're getting better and better at what we like to call contextualized discipleship.

What I mean by that is understanding that the best way to learn about our faith at work and live out our faith at work is to contextualize it to the place where we work. If we're working in a public school system that looks a lot different than if I'm the owner of a privately held business.

Faith expression has to be learned and lived in a contextual way, in a very pluralistic workplace. We're getting much better at that. The third thing I would say, just to finish answering your question, is that when we get really good in relationship with each other, we start sharing our ideas, our best practices, our encouragement, and we start creating what we like to call replicable ministry. People learn what works and they do more of it, and they share it with others.

Jim: Replicable ministry. Yeah. That's why we do what we do on iWork4Him for the last 12 and a half years. We cover the stories of people living out their faith at work so that we can all be inspired. Somebody's been inspired by every one of the stories that we've covered.

We've had people from around the world make comments and has nothing to do with us. It has to do with replicable - people's, " if that works for Chuck and Cincinnati, it took them 20 years. But that means it'll work in iowa City, that means it'll work in Atlanta. That means it could work in springfield, Missouri."

Martha: Or even asking yourself the question, if God can do that, what can he do where I am? Just taking that and seeing, being inspired by the miracles that God is doing, the way he's working in people's lives and truly living that out, which I think is such a, such an inspiration to hear that you're seeing that goal, moving closer to that goal.

And we can never reach that goal 'cause there's still gonna be people that need to know about Jesus. I just am curious, I love that you are such a visionary. Chuck, one of the things that I love the most about you is the way that you can see what God might be doing and head that way and formulate and ask the Lord for that direction.

So what is your vision for the next 10 years for Greater Cincinnati, as the Lord moves in that super great area that you live in?

Chuck Proudfit: I'm encouraged by the progress that we're making, but I'm more inspired by the big, holy, audacious goal that we set a long time ago, which was that a day would come when every working Christian in Greater Cincinnati would be faith active at work because we knew when that day comes, we won't just transform the work lives of those individuals. We will transform the entire city where those people are working and living.

Now, for context here, greater Cincinnati is a metropolitan area with about 2 million people, so think of it as a midsize Midwestern city. And of those, about 350,000 are self-identified as working Christians. Here we are as a citywide model for workplace ministry after 22 years, and we have reached about 15,000 of those 350,000 in our connected network.

So one way to look at it is to say 15,000 people is a lot. Another way to look at it. Over the next 10 years, we would like to go from 15,000 to 350,000.

Jim: Amen. And Chuck, I'm gonna quote you, I heard you say these words in July, I think it was July the ninth or 10th. It was the 10th. It was July 10th. You said that the purpose of the faith and work movement, which we're a part of, which this podcast is part of, getting people to live out their faith at work - the purpose is to unleash the complete vocational and cultural contribution of working Christians for the flourishing of the world. And when you said that from the stage that day, I couldn't get my mouth to shut. I'm like, (mimicks open mouth, others chuckling) it was stuck open hanging my jaw.

I'm like, yep, that summarizes everything that I have studied for the last 20 years. Because when you can do that for every working believer to unleash their complete vocational and cultural contribution as a working believer for the flourishing of the world so that everybody around them is benefiting from their faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not, that's the kingdom. I just, I love that. That was so powerful. I wanna make sure I got that on recording with you today. Do you want to comment?

Chuck Proudfit: You did awesome. Yeah, you gave me goosebumps. It's so wonderful to hear that restated by somebody else. Those words were all selected so intentionally, Jim, that first word, unleash. The reality is that only one out of every 20 working Christians consistently brings a Sunday faith to Monday work.

The rest of us feel leashed, constrained, inhibited from faith expression, and the complete contribution. Imagine if we looked in the 21st century, like the first century church, where they were all in. They integrated faith with all of their lives, including their work, and as they were going along, they were making disciples and adding every day to their numbers. I get so inspired by rediscovering the fruits and the roots of our own faith.

Martha: There's so much good, and we'll make sure we put that statement in the show notes for everybody because it's really something to ponder on because you're exactly right. Every word is profound and can give each of us the courage for each day as we work and as we go about.

Chuck, as I said a little bit ago, you are such a great visionary, but even the best of dreams and ideas can become compromised if we get a virus or an intruder on our computers or our phones. So being proactive to protect our data and our work is really critical to staying on mission. So at home and for all of our businesses. We rely on SaferNet to protect us. You can go to safenet.com and learn more about their antivirus protection, their VPN and the 84 filters that help keep the bad guys out and keep us on mission. Let them know that iWork4Him sent you.

Jim: Chuck, At Work on Purpose was founded in Cincinnati over 20 years ago, but people from all over the country can benefit from what you're doing. What are some of the things everyone listening in the United States can benefit from AWOP, as you call it, but At Work on Purpose?

Chuck Proudfit: Few things that I would describe, Jim, as low hanging fruit. The first one is for people in other cities to imagine the idea of a citywide community of working Christians. It doesn't have to be called At Work on Purpose. It doesn't need to look like the model we have. But when we look at the first century church, this is how the church understood itself.

It was the church organized across cities. We see that in the names of the books in the New Testament - Corinthians for Corinth, Ephesians for Ephesus, and so forth. And I just encourage working Christians to think about community in their cities across working Christian constituencies. The hard truth is most of the people that are faith active at work are organized either individually or they're in small communities of a few, or they're operating in silos as workplace ministries in a city, but disconnected from each other across the city. We need to change that. So that's the first thing that I would share.

The second thing is that over the years, one of our most significant initiatives has been what we've come to call collaboratories, Collaborative laboratories for Christian workplace leaders. What we have learned is when we bring together Christian leaders that God has deployed across the private, public, and social sectors, where we gather together and we go through a discipleship experience together, God moves powerfully in that, and these leaders don't just build relationships in a relational network. They start dreaming and scheming - I call it holy mischief - about what we could do together for the city.

And here we are coming up on the holidays. For those who are listening, if you go to gocaroling.com, you'll see just one small example of what I'm talking about, where these leaders came together and they built a citywide initiative and then designed it to scale across cities because they were in an environment that is akin to a collaborative laboratory where we're envisioning new ideas. So that would be the second thing.

The third thing is to encourage people to understand the basic idea that your work really does matter for God no matter where you're working. And in the spirit of Jeremiah 29, to seek the peace and prosperity of the city. Many times, I think just the everyday working Christian can feel like their work isn't substantial enough to make a difference, but God doesn't operate on that kind of a scale, the way the workplace usually thinks about it. You're important if you're a CEO or you're a judge or something like that.

I am staggered over and over again by what I like to call everyday working Christians who take their faith seriously at work, and they make a huge difference in the work environment. So for those listening who may feel like that's you, let me just encourage you that God can work through you in a powerful way if you have the faith of a mustard seed.

Jim: That's right. Wow. Love it. Chuck, usually you have an annual conference called the XL Summit in July of every year where you gather together marketplace believers and ministries together to celebrate Cincinnati, all that God's doing in Cincinnati. The next year's gonna be different. What's gonna take place in Cincinnati in 2026?

Chuck Proudfit: We were blessed with the opportunity in 2026 to host the Faith at Work Summit. This is a summit originally launched in 2014, and every couple years has been held in a different city to bring together all kinds of people from the Faith at Work space, so that together we could imagine what better could look like with faith expression in the workplace.

 In very simple terms, I would almost describe it like a trade show for the faith at work industry. Everybody who cares about Faith at Work has an opportunity to convene and to rub shoulders with so many other people that are passionate and fruitful in this space. In 2026, that community will gather in Cincinnati and we're privileged to host it.

Martha: That's awesome. So talk right now to the listeners and telling them who this is for, because I think it's really critical because a lot of times we get into a niche, but we have some dreams regarding that. Who is this summit for?

Chuck Proudfit: This is such an important question because we all, without realizing and often get tribal, and we tend to self-identify with the people that are the closest fit to who we are or how we work. What we've found though with the Faith at Work Summit is that there are four separate constituencies that all matter, and we're designing the summit to speak to all four of them.

The first is the practitioner. This would be the everyday working Christian who is simply passionate to bring faith to work and wants to learn about how others are doing the same and to grow from other people. The second is Workplace Ministries - At Work on Purpose here in Cincinnati is just one example. There are many of them, but these are initiatives that are collectively organized to serve and support faith at work.

The third constituency is local churches that care about faith at work and recognize it as an area of ministry programming in and through the local church. The fourth constituency is the academy. That would be seminaries, Christian universities, all of the entities that are charged with educating, equipping, raising up a next generation of leaders who recognize the spiritual significance of the workplace.

Jim: And boy can the academy use some help today. Think about your alma mater and how it's slid a little sideways. And just everywhere you go, the colleges and universities, even the Christian ones, are really struggling with, they're just struggling with the reality of faith period. And so many compromises. I'm not sure that 90% of the universities in this country are even safe to send your kids to anymore.

Martha: But one of the encouraging things about this conversation is the fact that those that will be there see the light, they see the need, or they are encouraged by "ah, that college, that university, that institution sees the value of teaching our students and our faculty about our faith being an integral part of everyday life."

Jim: Well said. I'm sorry.

 (laughter)

Martha: So the purpose of the summit, part of that is to really help each other go forward and see what more can be done for the kingdom, because we are in a dark world and God has given us the ability to be that light. And sometimes we just need a cheerleader. And it may be one story, one person that you meet. I can tell you somebody I met at a round table at the Faith and Work Summit in 20 18 when we were in Dallas, that he probably doesn't remember meeting me, but I was impacted by the conversation of meeting a pastor who brought a bunch of his congregation and leaders with him for this very purpose. And that was profound for me.

And so I, I get a little excited and we're gonna keep talking about the summit, that's just a little bit about the, who it's for. What should we talk quick about what the listeners could expect if they were to come?

Chuck Proudfit: Sure. In my way of thinking, there are three really important aspects of the experience for somebody who chooses to come. The first one is inspiration. It's the path of more resistance to bring faith to work. The world at large and to be honest, through its absent voice, the church at large, often communicates that work is secular and off limits to faith. And so for most of us when we go to work, our work environments are at best indifferent to faith expression, but often they're hostile.

This is an environment to inspire and encourage each other. That this is not just a responsibility but this is an opportunity to build a better world and to do it together as the big C Church. The second thing from my vantage point is connection. There are gonna be so many people here that are fantastic connections for those who care about the Faith at Work space, and there are across all four of those constituencies I just mentioned.

The third thing is about multiplication. If we can multiply the impact of those connections so that we start sharing ideas and best practices, instead of just having a summit every two years, if we get better organized to share with each other on an ongoing basis and take the good ideas that are already out there and multiply them.

Jim: Because when we hear other people share what God has been doing through them on a day-to-day basis, it is so inspiring. And again, like I said, if God can use Chuck to do that in Cincinnati, he can use Jim to do that and Martha to do that in Marionville, Missouri. Martha and I are super excited to work with you, Chuck, on the Faith and Work Summit for 2026.

And to everybody listening, this is your personal invitation to join us all in Cincinnati next June. I believe today show's gonna pique the interest of a lot of people about what is this summit all about. All the details can be found at the website faithatworksummit2026.com.

Yes, Martha will have that link in the notes, but we'd love to have you join us in Cincinnati in June of next year, the 17th through the 19th of June. It's gonna be gorgeous. What a great time to be in Ohio. It's all always beautiful, right? It'll be 80, 75 and 80 in June, right, Chuck?

Chuck Proudfit: That's right. And as we say in the Buckeye state, it's the heart of it all.

Martha: It's the heart of it all. That's awesome.

Jim: I don't get it.

Martha: That's all right. Chuck will explain it to you later.

So this gathering, we're hoping there's gonna be people from all across the country and all the different spheres of influence like you talked about, and that's really significant. How is this gathering gonna be different than maybe other more churchy summits that some of our listeners have attended in the past?

Chuck Proudfit: There's gonna be a strong emphasis on practicality. Although it's important to understand the theology behind Faith at Work, what's most important for those of us who are out in the workaday world is how do we actually do something? And this summit is going to be very geared for practical application.

The people from whom we'll hear are doing things that have great merit and are ripe for multiplication, like I mentioned a minute ago, and they're all expressing that heart from God in, in the Book of John. For God so loved the world. So to take that heart, that passion, and then latch it onto the practicality of initiatives that can be shared and distributed broadly.

Jim: I don't know what your comment about the theology is difficult to grasp because in simplest terms, the simplest Jim Brangenberg terms, when Jesus saved you, he saved you for all of life. When the Holy Spirit invaded your life at your invitation, he invaded it for all of everything you do, especially your work, where you interact with people who need to meet him. There's the theology for the day, without a single five syllable word.

Martha: It just goes back to full circle where we talked about earlier being unleashed. For some reason, we have felt very constricted in who we are as believers, and that's why I think a lot of people have compartmentalized it. So imagine going to a place, being challenged and encouraged to be then unleashed to do what it is that God has called you to do.

That is why we want y'all to be there. That's why we're having this conversation today. That's why Chuck is sharing from his heart, all of these great perspectives, so that you can join us next June and get more of that opportunity face to face, which is so valuable. And we encourage everybody to do it.

Jim: Chuck, do you expect there to be something practical that people can learn, for everyone in attendance?

Chuck Proudfit: Yes, absolutely I do. I think for several reasons, Jim. The first one is that we've identified people bringing great insights and initiatives across all four of those constituencies. Which means that whether you're a practitioner or a workplace ministry or a local church or part of the academy, you're going to hear voices from your area of specialization that you could understand and apply where you work.

That's the first reason. The second one is we're intentional in this summit, not just about sharing content, but building connections. There's going to be a great deal of effort to make sure that when you leave, there's a pile of people that you will have met for the first time that hopefully will become fast friends for the kingdom in years to come.

I think that's going to be huge in terms of practical application. And the third thing is that we're in the midst of developing some additional programming so that it won't anymore just be a summit every two years, but there will be activity happening in between those two years so that people are better connected and contributing to each other and to the world through their work.

Jim: Yeah. A lot of times people go to summits and they're like I'm gonna listen to speaker after speaker. This is not gonna be like that. You're gonna open up with some short ted talk style kind of speeches on Wednesday night after a gathering of just of community.

But during the day on Thursday, we're gonna have lots of people sharing their stories. It's not gonna be a droning on. It is gonna be a celebration of everything that God's been doing and then breakouts, breakout workshops where people can go even deeper. And all of the conversations, it's gonna be exciting.

And the location in Mason, Ohio, which is just outside of Cincinnati, on a big, great big church campus will be phenomenal. Chuck, we're so excited. Is there anything else we need to know?

Chuck Proudfit: Last thing I would share, Jim, is that the theme of the Summit, Frontiers, is very strategically designed to speak to best practices now for a better future tomorrow. It's going to be organized around what I think of as a trinity of opportunity. So you think about creativity. What does it look like for us to be much more creative in the future about the way that we express faith at work? And you can think of that as God the father, right? In Genesis, creating the world, and how do we take on that spirit of co-creation for the kingdom?

Second is the idea of collaboration. There are gonna be some really practical examples of what that looks like in a workplace that often doesn't model collaboration among Christians in the workplace. And you know that echoes, like you said earlier, Jim, the spirit of John 17 and Jesus trying to build a church community, a bride that really reflects one body united in common cause.

The third thing is going to be continuity. What does it look like for us, through the Holy Spirit, through discipleship from one generation to the next, to get much better at avoiding what a friend of mine likes to call sizzle the fizzle. How do we go from one milestone to the next and building momentum, not losing it?

Martha: As you can tell, we are super excited about this opportunity to let our listeners know about the summit to get it on your calendars. We'll put the link in the show notes and hopefully this has intrigued a lot of people.

I think the final thing that I would say is that, because we are, like you said, the four different types of constituents that we're gonna have. We get an opportunity to hear from people that are outside of where we work every day. And so the opportunity there is to see that vantage point and to also be inspired that, there's a lot going on in the universities maybe that we don't know about or in the church. I'm just excited about that and the intentionality behind that.

Jim: It'll be an action packed, three days, June of 2026. Faith at Work Summit 2020 six.com. Chuck Profit, you get the last word.

Chuck Proudfit: Last word is just a word of encouragement to everyone who's listening to this. I have found that when we come together in community, the things that can sometimes seem so difficult become more possible.

Jim and Martha, I think about the work that the two of you have done together where you live, some of it inspired by some projects that you saw here in Cincinnati, but the two of you have been encouraging an entire community first because you were able to hear from the Lord about a vision and build into it, and then you attracted others.

And I, I think at the end of the day when we recognize the power of two or three gathered together, it's that echo of Matthew where the Jesus basically says, where two or three are gathered, there I am in their midst, and that spirit of community is going to be so present in this summit, and I see it so present in your lives with iWork4Him.

Jim: Chuck Profit, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for sharing all about the Faith at Work Summit in 2026. We were excited to be a part of it. And everybody listening, please check out the website, get signed up. Come be a part of something amazing. Your life will be transformed by the conversations you have at the Faith at Work Summit in 2026 in Cincinnati. Thank you, Chuck.

Chuck Proudfit: My pleasure.

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.

11/12/25 - 2120: Why 2026 Could Be the Biggest Year Yet for Kingdom Collaboration

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

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

Jim: 2026 will be a momentous year for many reasons. One of the biggest for us will be our participation in the US Christian Chambers Biannual Expo in Orlando, Florida, in April of 2026.

700 to a thousand business people from Christian Chambers all over the country will gather to worship, learn, network, pray and develop deep and strategic relationships with other marketplace believers. Krystal Parker, the founder and CEO of the US Christian Chamber, is here today to talk all things Chamber and to roll out the Black Friday registration deal for swc2026.com. Krystal Parker, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Krystal Parker: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Jim: All right, Krystal, you have a storied role in the marketplace side of the kingdom here in the US. What is one thing you've seen God do in the last few months here in the US?

Krystal Parker: Let's just reflect on what we've actually seen happened. We've seen the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and we've seen a whole generation rising up in a new way, under new light. So we're seeing new leaders emerge in the marketplace. We're seeing an awareness of some of this maltreatment towards believers and freedom of speech for Christ. And so I think what we've seen in the past, which was really in part why I believe US Christian Chamber of Commerce accelerated our growth, was because we were seeing Christians be debanked, defunded.

They were being fired for praying, they were being thrown in jail, and we hadn't seen the level of anti-Christian discrimination or even, this situation, assassination. So we're seeing a world that is evolving significantly. The voices of the believers, I believe, are louder. People are seeking that light, and we're seeing God strategically position organizations to lead in a time of crisis.

And so I'm feeling - while we're seeing the world spinning in ways that's different - I feel encouraged because I know God is on the throne. I see so much light that is taking place, and I'm very excited about this movement that we get to be a part of through the US Christian Chamber, the growth of the local Christian Chambers and our conference SWC 2026.

Jim: Wait a minute, just one thing. The world is still spinning in its normal direction, in case everybody's worrying, because that's gonna happen. Gravity is still working. (laughter)

A little concerned because when the world starts to spin differently... that's right.

Krystal Parker: Yeah. I'm so glad for Gravity because there was a time, several years ago, the gravity pulled me down on my knees and on my face, and I'm so grateful for that because that was a real time, a real change in my life for me was because of gravity. And God has a way of getting us on her knees so that we can put him on the throne.

Martha: He sure does. So Krystal, let's talk about that growth for a minute that you just alluded to. Let's talk about what is happening as far as the expansion of the US Christian Chamber and things that are happening regionally and locally regarding Christian Chambers all across our country.

Krystal Parker: We just actually brought in a new Christian chamber in the Arizona community, the greater Tucson area Christian Chamber of Commerce. We're seeing a north and south California working together in that region. We also have a incredible business leader team, husband and wife team, that's launching in Pennsylvania as well. And so we're just seeing God move all over the US very strategically in some of these places. Our strategy for this has never been outbound.

We've never went to seek people to do this work. We have only grown from an inbound growth, and I wouldn't even call it a strategy. I would just call that a growth alignment with the Lord. God is sending people, the right leaders, in to say, Hey, I want to see it change. I wanna see a difference in my community and my state, and I believe that I can use my gifts, talents, and abilities to do my part to advance the kingdom through this model.

People understand that seven of 10 people are not in church. People understand that our greatest opportunity to advance and accelerate kingdom of God is through the marketplace. People also understand that there is a fight for business owners around money and around power and true surrender and using their business as a force for good. And when we do that, we see cities transformed.

And so I do believe that this model, the Christian Chamber model, is a powerful vehicle for kingdom advancement. People are seeing that they want it in their communities, they want it in their states, and we're seeing the fruit of that to now. At this point, we're reaching nearly, if not over 1500 Christian business leaders that are members either with US Christian Chamber or one of the Christian Chambers in our coalition.

Jim: When you launched this officially in 2022 and it rolled out in 2023, what has surprised you most about how the US Christian Chamber has - really it's gone California to Maryland , you're from sea to shining sea. What has surprised you most?

Krystal Parker: Actually the biggest surprise came when I started Central Florida Christian Chamber, started as the president. I didn't start Central Florida. I started as the president there. And when I came in, of course I was a bit Pollyanna because I hadn't really spent a lot of time in this faith and work world. I was still so excited. I was just like just thrilled that there was such a thing, like you didn't have to be one or the other. And so that was just a real thrill to my heart, my spirit.

And so I started in central Florida and I remember doing a study to find out how many churches are in central Florida because- I can't believe it. Like at the time we had maybe one church that was a member. " Every church is gonna wanna be a part of this. Every church has business leaders and people in their pews that are going to want to know about this. And we're all one family and we're all working together." And so I thought for sure that we were going to grow by over 1200 members very quickly, just by serving churches so that we could reach and help their staff and help their business leaders.

And what surprised me was that wasn't the design that God had planned for the work that we're doing. We love our churches. And actually what happens when people come into a Christian chamber meeting, maybe they haven't been to church in some time. They come in, the spirit wakes up and they realize, oh, I'm missing community, I'm missing something. And oftentimes we see people get plugged back into their local church.

And we never want to take the place of a church. That's not our mission. That's not what we do. We wanna work hand in hand, body of Christ, every joint supplies. It's biblical. That's what is written. But what I learned and what surprised me was that we're all gonna do different parts to reach the kingdom.

And so God tells us in his word, some plant, some water, and he's the God of the harvest. And so I had to realize, what is our lane? How do we serve in that lane? And how can we partner and work with others and not necessarily have to become a member so that we can work with them?

Martha: Such a good word. So you talk about membership though, and of course people are listening to this podcast or watching the YouTube and they are maybe even hearing for the first time that there is such a thing as a Christian Chamber. Maybe they all belong to Chambers wherever they live, but they did not know that there could be a Christian Chamber. Talk to our listeners about why they should become a member. Of the US Christian Chamber.

Jim: People may also be watching on Rumble.

Martha: Yes. I realize there's lot of formats.

Jim: I just wanna make sure people know.

Krystal Parker: Yes, I like it.

Martha: We're out there.

Krystal Parker: Hey, we're gonna reach, we're gonna reach people wherever they are. I like that.

Martha: That's right.

Krystal Parker: That's right. Okay, so here's the deal. Chamber of Commerce - is it anything new? It's been around for four plus hundred years, and so the concept of a chamber works. It really does. However, what happened? Chambers begin to look more like the world, and unfortunately, in the world that we're in, we're a post-Christian society. So what used to be founded on biblical principles, with a heart for Christ, which was our nation, all of this was all founded on biblical principles became more worldly in nature, and therefore Christians got pushed out into the shadows.

And I'll give you a perfect example of this. The very first Christian chamber we helped to launch was Pastor Russ in West Ohio, in Lima, Ohio. And he found us, he was a very successful thrift store business owner. He had a great philanthropic arm. He drove around with a mobile baptism, but his store was very successful and he had been a member of his chamber of commerce for more years than he could count, and he was a very big part of that community.

He noticed and he started to feel more alienated from his chamber because his chamber, which began to look like the world, started to do more and more activities that had evening alcohol, things of that nature, that weren't in alignment with his values. He didn't feel comfortable going to those events, and so there was less and less for him to be involved in. His annual meeting for that chamber was a casino night. He didn't feel comfortable with that. He didn't believe in that.

And one day when he went to his business listing to update his listing, next to his business was a brand new business in town and the business was Adam and Eve's Porn Shop. So Pastor Russ was troubled by seeing that, but then he became even more troubled when he looked to see what did his chamber, who he had paid membership dues and even sponsored a number of things, they did ribbon cutting, they advertised for this business. They really rolled out the red carpet to bring awareness for this new business in town.

So Pastor Russ took a biblical approach and called his chamber leadership and said, is this the kind of business that we want to bring into our city and really promote and bring awareness to? And they said, they paid the dues we're just doing our job. He was bothered by that in a deep way. He knew at that point that this was no longer a place that he could call his tribe. This was no longer a place that he would feel comfortable doing business. And so the Lord led him to the central Florida Christian Chamber and he launched the Christian Chamber.

We have over 22 stories of people that have launched Christian Chambers around the US. Or that are a part of that leadership because they're bothered by what's offered in this world. And we wanna give Christian business owners a place to do business together. People do business with people they know and trust.

The chamber model is social capital, relational marketing. And what it helps you do is think about the funnel, the marketing funnel. You get right to, I know you, I like you, I trust you, I wanna do business, because you're in the same sphere of influence. And that's what's happened to our Christian business owners is they've been pushed out of these models.

They're in the silos, they're in this broken infrastructure, and what we're doing is we're shifting the world's economy for kingdom commerce. We're rebuilding an infrastructure for Christians to come together, to do business together, and to really iron sharpening iron for business excellence and integrity for Christian business.

Martha: Okay. So everybody listening has now been intrigued to know that there is a reason for them to be involved with a US Christian Chamber and then possibly, what is God stirring locally or regionally or statewide for each and everyone listening ?

Jim and I are really blessed to be involved in the US Christian Chamber and to talk about it with our audience today. That's our biggest thrill. This episode will just barely touch the surface of some of the things that are being offered through the U-S-C-C-C, but today I feel it's really important to invite everyone listening to join us in April, the 22nd through the 24th, in Orlando, florida.

You can find all the details at the link i'll put in the show notes, but it's swc2026.com and register with code iWork4Him to get 10% discount. This immersive three day experience will help Christian leaders unite in order to break barriers to build bold businesses and advance the kingdom. So we hope to see each and every one of you listening in Orlando this spring, in 2026.

Jim: Krystal, we're gonna gather at the Sea World doubleTree in Orlando. What's our theme?

Krystal Parker: Oh gosh. Our theme is called Yes&. that's the theme.

Jim: I see that recently Sam's Club adopted your theme.

 (laughter)

Krystal Parker: I saw that.

Jim: Very exciting. You are making a worldwide influence now. I love that. What does that mean? "Yes&"

Krystal Parker: It's interesting that you would ask that because when people hear Yes& and they don't have a spiritual or biblical lens, they might not fully understand it. For followers of Christ, we know that it's not either or, it's yes and. When I first, the Lord showed this to me, and when I first saw it, I thought instantly, oh, okay, God, he's talking about faith and work. Not either or, it's yes and. I don't have to leave my faith at home. I can show up in my business with my faith.

And as I've prayed into this and leaned into this, I realize that is true. That's the milk. And that's fine. There's gonna be some people that have never experienced what it means to operate their business from a faith perspective. Those individuals that show up for the conference, they will grow and they will walk out of there emboldened and empowered to do the work that God's called them to do without living separate lives or leaving it on Sunday in the church.

The meat side of this is totally different. What I believe is that many people have been called beyond the work that they're doing today. Many times people are called and they say yes to God, but then there's this very scary place. It's the "and." It's the step in faith. It's stepping out so that you can see God's hand move. And oftentimes people are in fear. They say yes, and they don't do it. And think about Peter stepping out of the boat.

A perfect example. "Is that you, Lord?" "Yes, come to me." He steps out. That took great faith. And there's so many businesses I believe that are gonna be birthed and movements that are going to come out of this because now we're gonna catalyze 750 to a thousand Christian business owners that are no longer going to allow fear to hold them back from the life and purpose that God's called them to.

And we want to inspire, equip, and prepare people to step out of that boat, step out into the "and" because it says, "in him is the amen." If we all go out of that conference and realize that we're not called to know the outcome, but we are called to step out in faith and trust our Lord and be obedient in that and candidly, that was what this launching of the US Christian Chamber was for me. God shared with me, showed me, that this launching US Christian Chamber in leaving central Florida Christian Chamber, that was a very scary place. And I could have stayed in central Florida and just brushed off what God was calling me to do and so many of us do it.

But what we're believing through this conference is that Yes& is gonna take on a whole new life and a whole new meaning and a whole new purpose. Because what I've also learned in the kingdom of God and working in this world is it's not profit or purpose, it's profit and purpose. It's not strategy or surrender. It's surrender and strategy.

And there's so many Yes&s in this framework that we're gonna unpack, deliver for people that they're gonna walk into a kingdom foundation for doing business, which in some cases may seem upside down without gravity for the rest of the world, but we will walk out boldly as followers of Jesus and see amazing things happen as a result of people attending this conference.

Martha: I love that, and you have cast this idea and this vision and this topic so well, but I know you're not gonna be the only one on the stage. So can you share with us any of the names or speakers yet, or do we have to wait a little longer?

Krystal Parker: I have held this like tight bark on a tree, and I am busting at the seams to share about our incredible speakers. But I will tell you this - coming very soon after this is released, I can't wait, because you won't have to wait long, just a few more days and you'll get the speakers and we want to shine a light on all of the speakers.

We do have some incredible MCs that I feel are the glue of this conference, and provide levity and provide information and keep it all together. And these two amazing leaders and board members and champions for this movement are part of this conference. And I'm so excited about that. So we'll share.

Martha: Okay. And we are excited about that too because really Krystal, you give us a front row seat to see what God does and is doing in people's lives in real time when we are there. So yes, we will be there and we're looking forward to it. And the release of the speakers is gonna be is wonderful.

Jim: But if there was ever an example of Christian word salad, that's what that was.

Martha: Word salad. (laughter)

Jim: I wanna know!

Martha: It's be a big release.

Jim: What date are you going to release the names of the speakers?

Krystal Parker: What, when, what date?

We will release these on November the 20th.

Martha: Okay.

Jim: Okay. Okay.

Martha: So everybody needs to get subscribed to, to really following US Christian Chamber on LinkedIn, reaching out and getting on the email list so that they can get notifications.

Krystal, those are all the things people need to do?

Krystal Parker: Absolutely. Yes. Get involved. There's a place you can subscribe. Be first to know, but here's what I would say.

Jim: This is just, I thought, wait, I just, I,

 (laughter)

Martha: She's really smart.

Jim: I can, I just cannot believe... I thought we had the scoop on iWork4Him. Apparently some other podcasts across the nations, can we get those names?

Krystal Parker: Nobody's getting those names. Tight as bark on this thing.

Jim: Okay. Who's leading worship? Can you tell us who's singing?

Krystal Parker: Nope. Oh, I can't. And here's what's really cool about this, is that the Lord has so much favor over what we're doing. We have been so blessed, our ticket sales- people believe in this so much. They don't even care who. They wanna know, of course. It's exciting.

Martha: Yeah.

Krystal Parker: But they don't care who's gonna speak because they know God's gonna move. If you attended last year's conference, and I know you guys got that front row seat and many people that listened did as well, there was one comment in the survey and I read every survey comment, and we will ask for that again, but one comment someone said, when I step out of my hotel into the courtyard, I feel met with the presence of God before I even walk into the conference. And that right there was everything to me.

And so we know that if we have the covering of the Lord for this conference, it doesn't matter who's anointed or who will be speaking on that stage, we know that the Lord, his will be done. And it will be an incredible experience.

Jim: Amen. It was like a three day marketplace worship event in 2024. So 2026 will be even better 'cause there's gonna be hundreds of more people there.

Most of us use our mobile devices or our computers to listen to music and podcasts as well as conduct business and communicate with other people. Imagine if you get a virus on your device and you can't use it for what you need to be using it for, like making phone calls or texting or saving your data or send an email, whatever.

It can not only set you back time and energy, but potentially compromise the work you're doing, like leaking the list for the speakers. (laughter) What if somebody breaks into Krystal Parker's computer? SaferNet is a trusted partner of iWork4Him. And we're gonna make sure they're not a trusted partner of the US Christian Chambers so we can hack their computers and get the names of these people, (laughter)and then we'll sell 'em on SaferNet right after we get them. All right? I don't think so. We've got it on all of our mobile devices, all of our computers. We totally recommend you check out SaferNet.com. Let him know that iWork4Him sent you.

Alright, here's one thing I think you could tell me - and off the air we're gonna have another conversation (laughter) - but registration's already underway, as you've said, hundreds of people have already signed up. But you mentioned to me off the air that there's a Black Friday deal, which means that people will know who the speakers are before they get the Black Friday deal. What's the Black Friday deal? What is it?

Krystal Parker: I can't tell you that either. And the only reason I can't tell you that one -

Jim: People! I gotta tell you, we've never scheduled a show like this. We've never scheduled a show like this where somebody totally stonewalls us on information.

Martha: But Jim, the whole idea behind a Black Friday deal is that they find out - if they knew now that the TV, the biggest TV that they could buy was only gonna be $200, they wouldn't buy it now.

Jim: Nobody needs a big TV anymore. Nobody needs a bigger TV.

Martha: You anticipate. It's anticipation.

Krystal Parker: Maybe when we roll out the speakers, we'll give a hint or two what that Black Friday deal is, but it will be Black Friday, cyber Monday. You'll have the weekend to participate with us in that , unless whatever that Black Friday sells out, and so be ready.

Martha: It's like lining up around the store, those first people to get a hold of it.

Krystal Parker: Martha, can I ask you a question about Jim?

Martha: Yes.

Krystal Parker: Was he one of the, is he one of those people that likes to open the present and peek in there or acts like he has to know every one of his gifts under the tree?

 (laughter)

Martha: Yeah.

Jim: No, he is not.

Martha: I don't even, I was gonna say, I don't even know how to explain him, but he does like to be the one to share the news. He's a newscaster through and through in that way. But it's okay because this is all about anticipation, looking forward.

Jim: So this is a Heinz ketchup commercial right here.

Martha: It is.

Jim: It's making me wait. All right. So who should be coming to the US Christian Chamber event in April 22 to 24 of 2026 at the DoubleTree SeaWorld Orlando? Who should be coming, Krystal?

Krystal Parker: Yep. Every single person that runs a business, is in business leadership, entrepreneurs, anyone that needs encouragement in their spirit, people that are global are coming. We've been sending and working with some people to help them get their visas. We did just hear one person got denied on their visa and he's crushed. And that really spoke to my heart because we have this right in our backyard here in the United States. We have the freedom to go and openly express and worship Christ through our businesses, our lives, and don't take that freedom for granted.

Come on. Be present. If you're not even running a business but you want to be in the company of business owners, leaders, people following Christ that are at this conference, join us. There's no one that cannot come to this conference. We even accept Sunday Christians. We love those. So if you're just operating separate, and you're going to church but you don't incorporate Christ in the rest of your life, we'd love to have you come and see what it looks like to be around other people.

Those are gonna be such a mix. There's preachers that'll be in that room as well, and yeah, it's a little bit of everyone. You'll see and experience. That's who should come - everyone.

Jim: You won't be disappointed, guaranteed.

Martha: That's awesome. So Krystal, I know you well enough to know that you really are, you want God to control the outcomes of whatever everyone experiences while they're there. But in your heart, what does it look like? What do you hope for the outcomes for this event?

Krystal Parker: Yeah, I truly hope that we're able to catalyze people in a way they've never stepped out in faith before. My hope is that the stories that come in, the new businesses, the new movements, are birthed as a result of that. I always pray for divine connections to come out of these conferences. Afterwards I'll hear about business deals that are going on still as a result of people meeting in these conferences. So even though we talk about "we serve, we don't sell," that's the sort of our motto, how we walk into relationship. It's not transactional. And as we build those relationships and serve one another in an environment like this, there will be millions of dollars of business conducted as a result of people showing up and being in the room.

We do a lot of virtual events throughout the year. Micro learnings and networking. This is the one time a year that we do in person, and there's just something about being in the room that you cannot get from a screen. And so if somebody's looking to be a part of something bigger, then you've got to get in the room. And that takes courage to be able to do that. And so I designed this conference, this immersive experience, this one is designed for the introvert to be able to help them step out in networking situations and grow.

And I am an introvert. I will go into a conference like this and stay in one place if you've ever noticed for me, and I'll just stay in one place. Because I just feel comfortable right there. So we designed this so that people would be able to naturally flow through the networking experiences and grow in that aspect as well.

Martha: Awesome.

Jim: We encourage all of you to check out the US Christian Chamber online, US christian chamber.com, and also the event that we will be part of next year, the swc2026.com. SWC - Spiritual World Citizens - 2026.com.

Krystal Parker, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for disappointing me. I'll cry myself to sleep.

 (laughter)

Krystal Parker: Thanks for the laughs.

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.

11/3/25 - 2119: The Global Kingdom Impact of Business

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: So is God pro business? Did God create business? Is running a business a kingdom idea? Can business be used to be a blessing to others all over the world? Yes. Yes. And yes. Business is a vehicle for flourishing around the world and fulfills the cultural mandate from Genesis 3.

Being in business is being on a mission from God. A mission for being a blessing to yourself, your family, your employees, your vendors, your customers, and your community. Being in business is being on mission. Speaking of being on mission, Steve Adams joins us today to talk about his organization, International Business as Mission, and about a summit that starts this Wednesday with over 37 incredible speakers and contributors. Steve Adams, welcome to iWork4Him.

Steve Adams: Thank you Jim and Martha. It's an honor to be here.

Jim: Hey, before we start talking about the IBAM Conference and IBAM, your organization, how did you come to be a follower of Jesus?

Steve Adams: We lived in Lansing, Michigan. My dad was an auto worker at General Motors, and no one in our family was a believer. I was at a big high school. I was like the top athlete in this big high school - basketball and football. I'll never forget it. My dad said we're moving to this small town and it's at end of eighth grade. I have to leave all my friends from kindergarten. We gotta move to this small farm town called Dansville, Michigan.

And we moved there. And that summer - our next door neighbor was a bivocational pastor. He was a master plumber and a pastor, and his kids, three boys, and we had three boys, and our ages lined up perfectly - and they invited me to vacation Bible school that summer in 1978. I was 14 years old. And at the end of the week, Dennis Quarters, his name, he just, he laid out the gospel and I was convicted that I was a sinner and needed to repent and follow Christ.

And I did. And that was on a friday and on Sunday, me and three of my friends all got baptized in church there that weekend, and I was the first Christian in my family. So I'm G1 as we say in our family. And then my mom and dad a few years later, who, my uncle died prematurely at a very young age, they became believers as well, and then one of my brothers did as well.

Martha: Wow. That's awesome. That is such a great legacy that God started writing in your family. So I'm sure there's a lot that can be filled in between to go from a young athlete getting to know Jesus and then becoming very passionate about business. How did business become your passion?

Steve Adams: That's a great question. I went on and played football in college on a scholarship and really wasn't discipled in high school, so I floundered. First couple years of college, same way. And then I met my wife, and my girlfriend then, and she was a cheerleader - the football player cheerleader thing. And she just had a godly, no compromise faith in the midst of all of this secularism around her. And I was drawn to that. And so the last two years of my undergrad degree I got a 4.0, got serious about what I was doing, cleaned up my life and then when I got outta school, we got married and I got in a really great church where I was discipled finally.

And I chose business as an undergrad degree. And when I was ready to graduate, I had four job offers in various fields, and I went into corporate banking because I had an inkling then I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I thought that I could learn the most about it, as a corporate banker. So I did that, got my MBA in finance at night while I was being a credit analyst, which is brutal, yeah, the late eighties were brutal for me. And and that's how it happened.

And then - I'm gonna try to shorten the story - over that, over the 14 years I was a corporate lender and loan manager. I was a regional bank president in my thirties. I just saw how many entrepreneurs were destroying their families. Like you, you talked about it, Jim, when we had you on the summit, about your business destroying your marriage. And I saw that, and God just put a burden on my heart for that and more and more thinking that.

And then I remember I had a big closing, the biggest deal I'd ever done in my life. On the way home, it was like - and I'm pretty conservative, orthodox theology kind of guy - it was like God reached through the windshield and said, I want you to quit and leave this. And over time I just sensed him calling me out of banking to be an entrepreneur, for ministry to entrepreneurs.

I didn't know what it looked like. So that's how that happened. And we left our, I left the bank. We moved two little kids to another state. We got into a franchise pet business. Eight years into that, I'm on a mission trip to Thailand and God just breaks me, and my pastor said, I think God's calling you to missions. And that's where it all started.

Jim: So you now run an organization called IBAM.org. What does IBAM stand for?

Steve Adams: International Business as Mission and the fundamental core concept is we believe that business is ministry and that God can work through a Christ follower, apprentice, Jesus follower, in a business setting and have a gospel impact in their community.

And how it originally started was I would interact with missionaries. I won't say how and why and all that, but saying here, we have such a need. We have these believers. We start these house churches and they have no economic sustainability at all. And so they said, could you help us? And so I went to Southern Russia. And before I went, I met a guy named Michael Bayer, his organization in Atlanta. They did business as mission, learned their process. I went, and I went, God, I know this is what you called me to do as I left Krasnodar, Russia, by Sochi, in 2007.

And that organization ended up giving me their curriculum 'cause they were gonna do other things. And it was out of that first trip where I realized what IBAM could become. And so basically what we are today is an accelerator ministry to church planning movements. So we help accelerate these church planning movements.

Jim: So why do you think business is a mission from God?

Steve Adams: Wow. Really pointed question. I love it. Business puts you in a position to impact a lot of people. You have people who supply you. You have people who work for you, and you have people who buy from you. And that's what we see in like the developing nation context that we've worked.

We've worked in Western China. We've worked in Indonesia, we've worked in Southeast Asia, we've worked in Latin America, we've worked all over the world. Those are three common things that you see everywhere. You get in the US. It's a little more developed. You might have investors and banks and things like that, but one of my mentors from Australia in ministry said, really, who is your neighbor?

When you're in business. You have a lot of neighbors. A lot of people. And it's an opportunity for you to show up and be Jesus in multiple settings. And I, we've talked before about business discipling you, you have an opportunity every day to not represent Jesus well with all the pressures of business. So I believe being in a business gives you a massive opportunity to influence people into the kingdom.

Martha: Such a good word. When we talk about mission, it is really a critical word and one that each of us really needs to better understand in our own lives. Jim and I serve on the board of directors for the US Christian Chamber of Commerce because they help its members see how their work is their mission, and how to best live that out every day.

The US Christian Chamber has ongoing virtual events to help reinforce our mission and in 2026 is hosting an in-person event in Orlando. For details, go to swc2026.com, code iWork4Him to save 10% and we will see you there. Jim and I are gonna be the MCs.

Jim: Yeah. Steve, you gotta get registered. There's gonna be a Black Friday deal coming up. All right, so this week you launch your first summit, your first IBAM summit, with all the details online at ibam.org/summit. Whatcha trying to accomplish?

Steve Adams: Great question. There's two things.

One, clearly we're trying to expand our influence among believers globally to consider business as mission as a viable mission strategy. And part of that, one of the big challenges we have is we raise money for helping launch new businesses in places like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and Indonesia and China and wherever, Zambia, Africa, wherever we are.

So it's a way to engage people at a very small commitment level and build a broader donor base. So that's one reason we do that. But the second reason, and equally and maybe even more important, is we wanna be a blessing to others to help them understand that there is no false dichotomy between what you do on Sunday in church and what you do on Monday at work.

I've heard you say it should be TGIM. Thank God it's Monday because that's where we spend the vast majority of our time and it's something like over 40 years, 88,000 hours. There's no way God made a mistake and that's just in the trash dumpster in terms of time investment.

Jim: And that's only if you believe that retirement is biblical, Steve. We have that conversation

Martha: (laughing) .I

Jim: That 88,000 hours is only until you're 65 and that's when the world is just opened up in front of you to do so many incredible things.

Steve Adams: Oh, no. I agree. I got four more years and then I got a whole more...

Martha: that's right. Another chapter. Okay, so as we talk about the summit, you have over 37 speakers that are going to be a part of that from all over the world. What are some of the high level things that they're gonna be speaking about?

Steve Adams: It's different people talking about similar things but their ages and their cultures are different. I had a lady named Buki from London, who's Nigerian, talk about the business she started in London and just the challenges of overcoming all the difficulties in establishing a business and walking her faith out in the midst of that.

I had a guy named Kerry Summers who started the Museum of the Bible, raised the money, worked with the Greens, talk about the wisdom of the book of Nehemiah in business. But a lot of people, I'm asking 'em a core question is, how does business disciple them? Why do they believe that business is mission? And how do they integrate their faith? The older folks, looking back, how did they manage their family and their children and how are they becoming legacy building grandparents?

And then for the young folks, they're looking for encouragement and models from others, like how did they do it? That's really the goal. We want people to come away and say, wow, I wanna watch all 37 of these and I wanna have the time to do it. And that's where the fundraising comes in, 'cause you buy it for $27 and you get all this wisdom.

Jim: And we're talking with Steve Adams today about a summit that starts this week. It launches at ibam.org/summit. I believe you're releasing stuff on the fourth, fifth, and sixth, right?

Martha: Yep. And we have a special link, Jim, that we'll put in the show notes that will help people get there.

Jim: Yes. And we're releasing the show early this week 'cause we wanted everybody that listens to our podcast to get onto the summit, some of the speakers, 37 speakers, are phenomenal. A lot of people we've interviewed right here, but it's been years since we've heard from 'em. I can't wait to hear from 'em again. You're talking, this is an international summit. How many countries do you think will get to be involved?

Steve Adams: I don't know. I don't have the statistics on yet.

Jim: What are you hoping for? What are you hoping for?

Steve Adams: I'm hoping at least a couple dozen because our partners around the world have been interviewed. I'm actually, after we do this, I'm interviewing our partner in Indonesia, tomorrow, half around the world. And these guys are sharing these with their networks. So maybe I'm not thinking big enough, maybe it's 60, 70 countries.

Jim: Now you're talking. That's right. Yeah.

Steve Adams: Yeah. Yeah. And we hope, in one week we went from 400 to like 2,800 registered for it. We're hoping for at least 10,000 registration.

Jim: That's fantastic. ibam.org/summit.

Speaking of international, no matter where Martha and I travel, we bring SaferNet with us to protect all of our computers, all of our devices, like our phones. SaferNet's Cybersecurity app provides a VPN so that people can't see you on their actual internet, on their networks.

They got internet controls, virus protection, work and family life all in harmony with 84 web filters to keep distractions away. We recommend SaferNet for every business and every family because it will protect you. SaferNet.com. That's SaferNet.com.

Martha: All righty. So Steve, when you get up in the morning and you start working on teaching business owners and leaders about the business being a mission assignment from God, what is your inspiration? Do you have some stories that you can share with us?

Steve Adams: Yeah. You mean, some of the people we've worked with over the years or? Yeah. Yeah. One of them is Aziza. And that's all I'm gonna say. I can't say what country she's in, because she's in a part of the world where the old version of KGB is pursuing her and everybody in their network. Pretty difficult. So our partner in that part of the world is planting churches all across this region and major capitals and sending college graduates out into the mission field.

And they're starting businesses with IBAM to do that. And this young lady has gone from one city in one country to five countries, six cities, with an online business that helps professionals who forget to get gifts for their wives. That's what she provides. And so it's chocolates and flowers and things like that, and it's been so exciting to watch her over the last three years just blossom from a young, not confident woman, not sure how business works in ministry, to, she has people in five or six countries now and she has so many God stories where she was able to share her faith, lead people to Christ.

So Aziza is one, and I got one other one. His name is Soiron. He lives in Indonesia and he started a helmet and shoe cleaning business across the street from a university. And in Indonesia, they have a lot of these scooters and he said his big focus is, I'm gonna do excellent work. I'm gonna treat people well. I'm gonna build relationships with them. And when he said his whole strategy is, they get to know him, they trust him, and they start to tell him their problems.

And all he does is he, it's a very subtle thing, he turns the phrase and says, would you like me to tell you how God's helped me solve my problems? And he's got an incredibly productive ministry through that business. And I remember going and having him share that story, and me and two other guys who were in our sixties just sat back and said, we flew halfway around the world to have a 25-year-old teach us more about evangelism than we've learned our whole life. So every day I wake up, that stuff motivates me. Those stories.

Jim: What's cool about that, not only are they getting to share the gospel, but they're providing quality service. They're blessing their employees that they've got, they're blessing their families, they're blessing their community. They're blessing the vendors that they buy stuff from, their customers that they do stuff for, and they're making money that they spend in their community. So that's the kingdom. Absolutely. That's the kingdom in action.

And that's really what the IBAM summit is all about. IBAM.org/summit. That's what it's all about. For those listening, Steve, and they may be listening after the summit is over, will there be access to those incredible speaking sessions after the summit's over?

Steve Adams: Yes. Yes. So there's gonna be a period of time where it's open and I think it's it's only $27, which is the cost of a good quality book. You're basically going to get 37 books. That's how I would argue, because you're gonna get 37, 20 to 40 minute interviews, people giving you their best wisdom.

Jim: Wow. Anything else that anybody needs to know about the upcoming summit this week?

Steve Adams: No, I would say it's free. Register. And if you listen to one video, it might change your life.

Martha: And we'll put that special link in the show notes for everybody to help you to find this summit. We're really excited to be able to participate in it and again, just a another way that God is showing us to lift up what he's doing and to hear the messages that have been prepared for each and every one of us, and we will never be the same. Thank you Steve.

Jim: Steve Adams with IBAM.org. Thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for sharing the summit. Thanks for letting us be a part of the summit. We encourage all of you to check out the summit online ibam.org/summit. You got a couple of days to get registered if you're listening to this when we release it the week of November the fourth.

Thank you, Steve. 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.

10/29/25 - 2118: The ESOP Solution for Christian Business Owners

Jim: You've tuned into a special edition of iWork4Him. I'm Jim Brangenberg. It's every business owner's dream to grow their company from a startup to a successful, thriving business that's worth millions and millions of dollars, and then to sell and retire and buy a sailboat and sail off into the future.

The problem with that dream is for a Jesus following business owner, it's actually a nightmare, because if you do grow your business into a multimillion dollar venture and have shaped your culture to reflect the God you serve, there are very few companies that wanna buy you out and preserve your culture.

We have witnessed over the years dozens of Christian run companies destroyed by selling out to private equity groups. Can we stop this madness? Is there a solution to this problem? What do you do if you're ready to sell your business and you have no good plan to fund your retirement without selling your business?

How do you take care of yourself, provide for your employees, and protect the culture of your business you've so painstakingly grown over the years? Today we hear the story of successful entrepreneur, Steve Bock, and his company Subsentio. Steve got his wish and grew a company to a large success, but that isn't the rest of the story. That's only the beginning of some punishing years and the ultimate God resolution to the story.

Today on iWork4Him we cover Steve's story and how God provided the solution to perpetuate the kingdom culture at Subsentio. Steve Bock, welcome to iWork4Him.

Steve Bock: Thank you. Good to be here.

Jim: Steve, we usually start the show with your story of becoming a Jesus follower, but since that's part of today's show, let's start with why did you start Subsentio?

Steve Bock: The genesis of the company goes back to 9/11. I was actually working at a firm that had me run all the major account teams so Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint and so on. I took that job on September 1st, 2001. And I had flown into LaGuardia on the 9th of September to go up to the Shelton, Connecticut office.

And I was planning to spend the day on that Monday at the office, which I did. And then on Tuesday I was driving, planning to drive down into the city to be with my team, which, it was in the Rockefeller Center and so when the planes hit the towers, which I watched on tv, I went back to my hotel room and paced and decided to go ahead and go to the city the following day on the 12th, and I spent the week there.

And it was really impactful for me. I saw people pouring out of buildings. I seemed like every block there were bomb scares. The fear in people's eyes was just amazing to witness. I spent time at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church to be there for the National Day of Prayer. And I sat next to people that had lost loved ones in those buildings, in those towers.

That night I went out to dinner and there were some army guys at dinner and they were gung-ho, let's go get 'em. In other words, let's go get Bin Laden. All that led up to leaving on that Saturday, if you remember, there was nobody flying that week.

Jim: Yeah.

Steve Bock: And literally the first flight outta LaGuardia was a United Airlines flight back to Denver, and there was nobody on the plane. It was just me and two United Airlines stewardesses that couldn't stop crying. I figured I was too old to join the army. The FBI probably wouldn't take me, but I wanted to do something to prevent that from happening again. So I formed Subsentio, which is a Latin word, it means to notice secretly, to make sure that we kept watch on our networks, for crime and terrorism.

Jim: So was Subsentio an instant success?

Steve Bock: Oh no. When I started the company, I immediately drove it into the ground, and after a couple years, I was a million dollars in debt and the prospects weren't very good.

Jim: So that makes you wonder, was I supposed to go into business or not? That makes it kinda scary. So what broke the ice dam that was holding you back and holding your company back?

Steve Bock: This is where God comes in because the reason that I drove it into the ground was I was trying to control everything myself. My stubborn pride resulted in really poor business decisions and ignoring the hard truths. And I decided to read my great-grandfather's Bible. I come from a line of ministers, and my grandpa Jordan had given me his King James Bible, and I figured there's gotta be an answer here. And so I read the Bible from beginning to end and did not find an answer.

Things got progressively worse, so I decided to start over again and began reading this from the beginning, until I got to John and the story of Lazarus. So that second time through I knew that story very well. But I read something I never realized, and that is that Jesus waited. He was told that Lazarus was dying. He could have gone and saved Lazarus' life. He'd done that in his ministry with other people, but he decided to wait, wait for Lazarus to die and then perform his greatest miracle.

And that's when it hit me. It was like literally the Holy Spirit just came into my body and I realized I had to die. I had to die to my old self and stop trying to be in control and turn my life over to Christ. I laid down on the floor, I wept, and when I got up, I was new man. I was born again.

Jim: What year was that?

Steve Bock: That was in 2006. So we started the company in 2004. So it was a two year process to get to that point.

Jim: But what's amazing about that, often we have to get to the end of our story, the end of our rope, before we realize that God's been holding out his rope all along. And that's really what happened in your life. And for the disciples, that's what happened to their lives when Lazarus died. They just didn't understand who Jesus really is until that day, and that was pretty impressive. The bad part was Lazarus, supposedly one of Jesus' best friends, had to die.

But imagine that conversation after he raised him from the dead and they're having dinner afterwards. And I always wondered about that, like what did they talk about? I thought that would be interesting. So after that point happened, God brought you somebody to partner with you in your business, and Subsentio started to grow.

Talk to me about that.

Steve Bock: Yeah, there was a couple events, but once I turned everything over to the Lord, then suddenly he opened up his kingdom to me, and it started with a former FBI agent who's a believer. And his name is Ward Jackson. His moniker in the bureau was Action Jackson. So you get an idea of this guy's personality.

He was the kind of guy that if you went and talked to cops, which happened to me once, there was a bunch of cops at a trade show talking and I asked, what are you guys talking about? And he said we were trying to decide who we wanted to be our partner in a firefight. And we all chose Ward. So that's the kind of guy he is.

And I told him everything that had happened. I was completely transparent with him and he said, I wanna walk with you. And once he came into the company, now we had credibility that we had a former FBI guy that was very well respected in the industry and that it was like the good housekeeping seal of approval.

Jim: So Subsentio starts to grow. But you decided that you wanted it to grow even faster, and you had an opportunity to buy out another company or do an acquisition. In order to grow the notoriety, all that, how did that acquisition set Subsentio up for success?

Steve Bock: My strategy was to go and sell into the rural telephone spaces because they couldn't afford the cost of being compliant with the wiretap laws. But then I had this crazy idea and it came about, I was talking to a friend of mine, Scott Chandler, at church one day. We had known each other for a couple years, but we didn't know what we did. And so we got to talking about, so what is it you do? And we both realized we're both in telecommunications and we joked that's why we go to church, 'cause you need a lot of forgiveness to be in that industry.

And so over time I said, Scott, I got a crazy idea. I think we could buy our largest competitor. And he helped me put together debt and equity to do that, and it transformed the company because up until then, most of my, as I said, most of my customers were small, rural telephone companies. Now, by purchasing the news to our legal compliance division, we were into tier one, tier two accounts, and it transformed the company.

Jim: So the company grew, but with that acquisition also came investors and a board of directors. Was that a blessing or was that not a blessing?

Steve Bock: Initially it was, it was great to have investors, have a board, the discipline around all that. And we continued to grow the company. So initially it was a good thing. And then after about three or four years - by the way, I'd given up my senior position in the stock. So I didn't have control of the company anymore. The board did, and the board decided that they wanted to sell. And so this was around 2019, and we went out to the marketplace and it didn't sell. The reasons for that, no one really knows.

Jim: Oh, yes, we do. For the rest of the story. We know that. We know why, but yes.

Steve Bock: Yeah I think they were asking too much and a lot of the companies that were looking at us didn't want the liability. We will process 20,000 subpoenas and emergency calls this year. So they didn't, these companies that were looking at us didn't want to handle the two o'clock in the morning call when there's been a kidnapping or a murder for hire or something like that, terrorist with a bomb.

Jim: The private equity guys, which when private equity guys come in, their goal is to grow up a company and then sell it. But often when private equity guys come into a business, they want majority ownership, which forced you to have a minority position, which means you didn't really have control. Maybe you were running the company, but you didn't have total control. And then when they couldn't sell it, what happened to you?

Steve Bock: After they threw in the towel on selling the company, one of the board members came to me and over dinner told me that the board had made a decision to have me step down as CEO and he was gonna take over 'cause he said he knew how to grow the business and he asked me to stay on in the position of sales and to run sales.

Jim: So they wanted you to quit running your own company that you've been running for almost 20 years at that point in time? Yeah, that must've been really hard.

Steve Bock: Yeah, it was a punch to the solar plexus, for sure. The timing of that was we were on a retreat with the executive staff and they were pretty upset as well. And we all decided to give it a try. But it only took about 30 days for me to realize that the whole thing was just a train wreck. For example, one of the benefits that we have at the company is we give everybody a $100 gift card on their birthday, and the new CEO decided to cut that expense.

Now, a company of 30 people, that's $3,000 on a company that's doing six or 7 million. I had one employee call me in tears saying, that's the only gift I ever get on my birthday. You know, that's when, after being on my knees one day in prayer, I realized that if we didn't try to get control of the company back from these investors - and by the way, they're not all bad. They were good people on the board. They weren't all bad, but on my knees, I decided to try to get the company back.

Jim: So let's talk about that, because you'd been forced out, they've already started dismantling the company, but let's go back to you had created. You had created a culture where employees were valued, where people were like family, because you guys dealt with a lot of trauma. You were in the trenches all the time. There was a culture there worth saving, employees worth honoring.

Talk to us about how you developed that culture, because that's really the, there wouldn't be a story here if that hadn't happened over the years from '04 when you started and '19, when they forced you out. There was 15 plus years of investing in people and creating a culture that made people wanna stay. Talk to us about what had you done? A hundred dollars gift cards, that's not what this is all about. It's way deeper than that.

Steve Bock: No it's not. I had always first of all, everybody that works here, back then and now, are here for the mission. Our tagline is "together, we're saving lives." So it's all about helping law enforcement keep people safe. But beyond that, there's a culture that the priorities are God first, then family, then work.

It doesn't always work that way because we work really hard and some people probably work too long or too many hours. But that was the culture that, that we had, was trying to make sure we had our priorities in place to put God first and then family before work. We developed that with a variety of different things.

We give special holidays. I think we have more holidays than anybody else, not only all the federal ones, but a special day just to be with family. I love Italy. And so we have a day called La Dolce Vita Day, which means a sweet life. And the idea is just to be like the Italians. They know how to live well, and that means spending time with family, spending time with your friends, and not working so hard.

Jim: So that culture that you'd invested your life in, his blood, sweat and tears at this point in time in, in 2019, you get moved out. They bring in a guy who doesn't really know anything about your mission to run it, or he thinks he knows what you know, but he doesn't clearly know it.

What did you see happen? You said in the first 30 days you knew that this was a disaster. What did you see start happening? Did you start losing employees or what? What was going on under this new person's leadership?

Steve Bock: The employees, nearly every one of them wanted to quit. The way we treated our clients changed and they were getting upset. Most disturbing was the way we were cheating law enforcement. They were getting upset and it was all about how to enrich the pockets of the investors over the mission of the company. So things like going on a business trip and the whole reason for that was really to spend time with family so that they could write that business trip off. Just those little things that just... we trust each other as a group, and if you don't have that trust with your leader, then the mission's gonna fail.

Jim: So God orchestrated a miracle in that your private equity guys weren't able to sell the business on the open market. And so it's sitting out there. They've demoted you. They're saying, we could do this better than you can, and God, in your prayer time said, Steve, I got an idea. What was that idea?

Steve Bock: The idea was to first call a good friend of mine from about 20 years ago. His name is Tom and I called him up and I told him what was going on. And I said, Tom, would you like to buy my company? And he said, no, but I'll help you get it back. Tom's an attorney. And so we came up with the idea of doing a leverage buyout and loading up the debt to buy out the investors. We called it Project Narnia because we wanted to put Christ back on the throne. So that was our internal code name for the project.

And with Tom's help, we were able to present to the investors a proposal that I thought was fair. Everybody wants to hit a home run in their investments. I gave 'em a solid double. I basically doubled their investment, and they accepted that offer. And so we were able to get an SBA loan to take out the investors.

Jim: That's huge. So you get it back and everybody collectively at Subsentio takes a collective sigh. You regain control. Then you had to keep growing the company, 'cause now you have leverage, now you've got debt that you didn't have before, 'cause you had to pay out those other guys. How did you keep the company growing and move into a forward path when you knew you had promised your wife that you'd retire in 2026? That's a pretty quick deadline in, 2019 to 2026, 7 years. So what did God do then?

Steve Bock: By then I was involved with C12 and I'm sure we'll talk about that a little more later.

Jim: Let's just stop right now and talk. You brought it up, C12. Talk about C12. What's C12 all about?

Steve Bock: C12 is a a Christian organization for CEOs and key players, which really gave me purpose for the company in ways that I had never envisioned before. I'm a preacher's kid and preachers are always looking at how many people can I witness for and for the Lord, and they may have a congregation of 500 people, and that's the limit of who they're witnessing to.

C12 taught me that Billy Graham was right. The next great way to evangelize is through a business. In my business, even though we only have 30 employees, 36 now, we have 300 customers and we deal with thousands of law enforcement agencies. The impact that we can have on the kingdom through the business is far beyond what a congregation of 2000 people would have, and so that's what gave me the inspiration to join C12, was the idea that I could use Subsentio as a platform for the Lord.

It's also a refuge for me. No one really understands the pressures of sitting in the corner office, like the people around that table and the friendships that I developed that will be lifelong. Friendships are just incredible. The curriculum is fantastic, but ultimately it's the relationships and the people that I can call at any time to ask for prayer, or them calling me for support, that really is the value of C12.

Jim: So is it fair to say that C12 group online at c12group.com, that's a free commercial for C12, by the way, taught you how to be a kingdom business owner?

Steve Bock: Yes, absolutely.

Jim: And that comradery around that group, 12 people in the room, that comradery to be able to learn from each other. But that was something else that you learned as well, wasn't it? You watched some other Christian business owners from your C12 group sell out to private equity guys. What'd you learn from them?

Steve Bock: I learned what I didn't wanna do. At least in most cases, what I observed was that despite all the good intentions when you're at the negotiating table, that every CEO I know of asks for the same thing. I wanna make sure the mission and vision of the company continue and I want to get a fair value for the sale of the company, and I want to take care of my employees.

And so all these promises were made to people that I saw selling their companies. But then once the sale took place, even though they did profit from that sale, one guy in particular was just came to me in tears and said, they've destroyed my company. The company that I steward, that the Lord allowed me to build, doesn't exist anymore. The culture is trashed. The executive staff that I personally trained and they promised they would keep all got fired.

And I'm like, the Lord has more plans for Subsentio and it's not about making money. That's not the reason I started the company in the first place. I really wanted to learn from that and realize that I didn't have a lot of good options. I did look at selling to my family. I have a couple boys that could have probably taken the company, but after talking to them we realized that it would've been difficult for them as well. They would've had the issue of you only got the job because of dad. And there was always that uncertainty about whether or not they could be good leaders or if they just got that because of the relationship with me.

Jim: So what I love about that story is that you learned something. Unfortunately, it's something that, and iWork4Him, we've covered a thousand times maybe, but for sure well over 500, christian guys who the only way they can get any retirement recurring income is to sell their business because all of everything they've got is in their business.

So they need to sell, they need to liquidate in some way, and private equity is an easy route. So they think. But in doing so, the private equity groups that - we've heard this story over and over again - they promised the world, they give you your cash, but after you've turned over the keys, they get to rebuild the engine, however they wanna do it. They could change the paint color. They can do whatever they want because it's theirs.

And so that changed your perspective, but because of C12, you were then introduced to Perpetuate Capital. What did Perpetuate Capital bring to the table for helping you to sell your business but retain the kingdom culture?

Steve Bock: I was fortunate to be introduced to Brandt Brereton at Perpetuate through John Price. And I love Brandt from the very opening line. He said, I made a ton of money in the Silicon Valley as an investment banker, and then the Lord told me to get my hat out of my butt. (chuckling) And so once he said that, I thought I'm gonna get along with this guy really well.

And he walked me through, and he recorded all this on a Zoom video. He walked me through how an ESOP works, an employee stock ownership plan, and it was like manna from heaven for me because not only would I get a good valuation out of that and get the financial rewards, but I would be able to retain the culture. And most importantly, I would be able to turn the company over to the employees so they can continue the mission and the vision of the company.

Jim: I read Brandt's book in order to understand, a lot of people have a bad idea be behind ESOPs. They think that it's too complicated, it's too hard to do. But describe it. How does that ESOP work? Because the employees that are working for you probably didn't have the money to buy out the company. How did they buy? How did you create that? What does it look like? How does it work?

Steve Bock: Yeah, for us it was a complicated transaction because I had given all of my employees options in the company. So in order for the transaction to take place, all the stock needed to be purchased. Not just my stock, but the options holders' as well. But with Brandt's help, and by the way, he has a great team of folks, really solid people, we were able to put together a deal where all the stock was purchased and put in a trust.

So I'm no longer the owner of the company. The employees are, and then over time, the employees are able to, as they retire, cash out and get the benefits of being owners of the company. We were also able to take a portion of my stock and gift it to the National Christian Foundation. So we created a charitable contribution through NCF out of the sale of the stock as well.

Jim: So was it a difficult conversation to explain to your employees how they're gonna become owners as opposed to just being employees? Was that a big shift for them? They had stock options in Subsentio before you created this, but was that a mindset shift for them? Or were they ready for it?

Steve Bock: I think overall it was a pretty easy sale, if I can put it that way. There were folks in the executive staff that had been with me for years that had a pretty large stake in the company. And once they understood what I was trying to do, they were completely behind it. The board that I had at the time, of course, was behind it as well. And then there's my wife, Sonny.

I ended up taking that video that Brandt had made of that first meeting and I said, I really want you to see what this opportunity is. And she stopped me after about 10 minutes, and this is where I get choked up, because I love her so much. Without her, I could not have pulled this off. It was really a godsend for Sonny to come into my life. But she stopped me after about 10 minutes of watching this video and she said, does this mean that I can gift money to Maria?

Now Maria is a missionary that we know in our church. She was raised a Muslim. She converted in India to Christianity and began opening up orphanages and still to this day, goes to India and walks into leper colonies. She's just an amazing woman. Sonny was like, Hey, if we can take the benefits of what the Lord has provided us and gift money to different charities, I'm all in.

Jim: I love that. And I bet your employees were loving that too because they're having an opportunity to say, Hey, we get to perpetuate. We don't have to go find new jobs. We can just make the company that we already love, make it even better and know that it can be there for us and maybe even our kids. Because you had young people on staff as well as people that have been with you for a lot of years, right? You had a whole range of ages.

Steve Bock: I did. Yeah. We have I call 'em kids at my age. (chuckling) But they weren't, when I tell them my 9/11 story there, there's this blank look on their face 'cause they weren't even born yet. So we have everybody from that age group up to people in their sixties. I challenged them and I said, by doing this, in an all hands meeting, I was explaining the benefits of this, one of them is we don't have to pay federal taxes. And so I challenged them and said, what I'd like to do is have set a goal of $10 million in charitable giving in 10 years.

And I don't want that to be just Steve deciding who these charities are. I would love for you guys to set up a committee and decide where we're gonna contribute to. So as I'm talking, I said, just put in the chat. We're on a teams call, put in the chat if you'd like to volunteer. And all of a sudden like everybody's trying to volunteer and get on the committee. And that just thrilled me because we had our first meeting a month ago and I went around the room and told them again, this is your, decision to figure out who to help out.

The chair of the committee said, I would like to contribute to prison ministries. And I'm like, now you're getting the whole story. Because the tagline of "together we're saving lives" is not just saving physical lives. For me and for others that are believers, it also means redemption. For those people that we put away, there's more to their story. And so we're not only saving the physical lives of folks, but we're saving lives for the kingdom.

Jim: There's so much of the story is hardly ever known. So because it was an employee trust and because it's owned by an employee trust, that trust is a nonprofit organization and doesn't have to pay federal taxes. Is that what you mean by that?

Steve Bock: We're still a for-profit company, but because of the laws around ESOPs we don't have to pay federal income taxes. The tax savings that was projected is pretty substantial. It's in the millions of dollars and I'd much rather use that money for Kingdom building rather than giving it to the federal government to kill babies.

Jim: It sounds like Perpetuate Capital did such a great job for you. And I remember reading Brandt's book, wasn't there also a tax advantage to you by selling to a trust or an ESOP as opposed to selling to private equity? 'Cause if you sell to private equity, you get a big check, tons of that percentages are gonna go immediately to taxes. When you putting it into an ESOP, was there a tax advantage to you as well?

Steve Bock: There was. There was something called a 1042 election. Because of how everything shook out, I was on the hook for paying $1.8 million in taxes. But with 1042 election, you're able to reinvest a portion of the proceeds. I did get some cash at close, not 1.8 million, but some cash at close, and I was able to, or I'm in the process, I should say, of reinvesting some of that cash in order to avoid paying any federal income tax on the proceeds.

Jim: Again, things that Perpetuate Capital put in front of you and it orchestrated for you, but it just sounds like... do you feel like it compromised by putting in an ESOP as opposed to selling to private equity? Did you compromise your future and Sonny's future to do it this way?

Steve Bock: No, not at all. I keep playing the song Gratitude over and over, from Brandon Lake, because I don't have the words to express my gratitude to the Lord for what he's done. In the debt stack, it seems like I'm always loading up the truck with debt. We have senior debt. There was a bank that took out the SBA loans. There's junior debt, which is Perpetuate stepped in with some partners. And then i'm carrying a seller note for 12 years, interest bearing note, along with some of the other executives that had a substantial stake in the company. I am so blessed, Jim. I can't - words fail me.

Jim: Wow. I love that. So there's business owners listening today. They're listening to your story and they're fascinated by some of the similarities, some of the things they've heard, some of the things they're experiencing. What's your advice to them as they contemplate their exit strategy. They know they need cash in order to be able to live without running a day-to-day operation, but they also wanna perpetuate their kingdom culture. What's your advice to them today?

Steve Bock: For those of you that are listening that are part of C12, ask yourself this question: if I sell, will the company retain their C12 membership? In most cases, the companies that sell to private equity firms don't. The companies that sell to ESOPs do. And so if you want that culture to continue, which is Kingdom building, using your business as a ministry and all the things that you've done in your company to, honor the Lord, the ESOP is, in my opinion, one of the best ways, if not the best way, to protect that for the kingdom.

It's not about me, it's not about the employees. It's about what God wants to do with Subsentio moving forward. And I don't think he's done with the story yet, because I gave up control. He's calling the shots and he put all the pieces in place for this to happen.

Jim: And there's a lot of Christian business owners out there that haven't had the privilege of being part of a C12 group. We encourage you to go out to C12 group.com, find a group near you. There's hundreds and hundreds of groups and thousands of members across the country. But that comradery really changed your life.

Steve, when you look back at where you were in late 2019 versus where you're today in late 2025, could you ever have imagined the miracle that God did by protecting your culture, your employees, your family, and your mission?

Steve Bock: No, the vision was pretty limited. And someday I'll tell the rest of the story because it's so remarkable. I am the most unlikely person to be running this company. There is just no way. It's a story that only God could come up with. And by the way, he has a pretty good sense of humor. So someday I'll write a book and you'll hear the rest of the story. But when we started, like I said, it was just trying to help cops do their job. And we've done that over and over again.

I think, I was talking to an FBI guy the other day because I'm retiring now that we've got this ESOP done, and I just wanted to thank him and he said that some of the best things I could have ever heard. He said, Steve, Subsentio is a godsend to the FBI, what you guys do.

Jim: That's gotta be cool. So you said you're retiring, but we've had previous conversations, and we both know retirement's not biblical. It just means you're headed into a next phase of life. What's next? Let's give a peek into the future for you and Sonny.

Steve Bock: First of all, I've turned over the company to another guy that I met at C12 Jonathan Litwither. And he's in our prayers as he takes the company moving forward. And then for Sonny and I we are looking forward to whatever's next. I think, being a missionary kid, that's where my heart is, to support missions both locally and overseas. We have a home in Italy and so that can be a base camp to expand to other missions in Europe and in Africa and so on. Much easier to fly out from there.

I kept telling everybody I wanted to, when I retired, to go sit on a rock. And so I did the other day. I walked up, I'm in Colorado, so I walked up to a new trail I hadn't been on, and I found this great rock and I sat on there and what should I read out of this Bible? And I was led to read of all things Ecclesiastes. And chapter three really struck home with me because Solomon talks about the seasons in life. And it was just so appropriate to read that. But then later on in that chapter, he talks about it's okay to eat and drink and be merry and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

This is God's gift to my wife and me to be able to enjoy what we've been provided and then to in turn, give back. We're looking forward to more missions work, more charitable work, and continuing to grow the kingdom in whatever God has in store.

Jim: And my personal hope for you is that you get a chance to share this story personally in front of thousands of Christian business owners to help them make the right decision. How cool would it be before you go to meet the Lord face to face one day that you've helped launch 2000 ESOPs because of your story? How cool would that be? Let's just set that as a goal. 2000 - i'm writing it down right now - ESOPs. I think that would be fantastic. Steve Bock, thanks for sharing your story today.

Steve Bock: Thanks so much, Jim. It's been a pleasure.

Jim: As I close out today's show, I wanna make sure you know how to get ahold of Perpetuate Capital, Perpetuate Capital.com. Pay attention. Your life's work is reflected in the spiritual legacy you leave behind when you sell your business. Why would you let that spiritual legacy get destroyed in weeks or months? Perpetuate Capital can help. Perpetuate Capital.com.

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

10/22/25 - 2117: An Opportunity to Align Strategy and Faith

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

How powerful is it to be surrounded by people who want more? They want more Jesus, they want more power, they want more kingdom strategy, and they want all that for their businesses and organizations they run. Where do you go to find that room?

The room full of people who want the same thing for the same reasons, with the same humble heart for bringing the kingdom of God to earth through business. I don't know all the places because I know that if there's one in Tampa Bay, Florida, there are likely thousands around the globe. This one room is a room hosted by Todd Hopkins of the Strategic Thinking Network.

Now, Todd's name may sound familiar because he's appeared on this show a few dozen times, including hosting several of our live radio shows while we were on the air in Tampa Bay. Todd is the founder, now retired, CEO of Office Pride Commercial Cleaning Services. Todd loved investing in the hearts and minds of each of his franchisees and has taken that passion for mentoring and sharing wisdom, and has put it all together into what is now known as the Strategic Thinking Network.

Todd is joining us today to tell us about how God has been moving in their meetings and how you can get involved in 2026. Todd Hopkins, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Todd Hopkins: Thank you, Jim. It's always good to be here. Good to see you.

Jim: Todd, last year we did a show leading up to the launch of the Strategic Thinking Network. All the ideas you were thinking about doing, the way you thought it would pan out - I wanna know is what's the most remarkable spiritual thing or event that happened in your life this past year related to, or not related to, the Strategic Thinking Network?

Todd Hopkins: You're right. Last year when we talked, this was an idea. It was something that God, I felt, had put on my heart and I was taking a step of faith to pursue that. And really, I would say the biggest thing that happened to me is - 'cause I've always been one, like I want to experience immeasurably more and whether it was Office Pride or the next thing. And I remember just in the transition telling God, I said, God I still want to experience the immeasurably more. I think that's still ahead of me.

And I was asking him, how do I tap into it? And it was during my quiet time one morning that God just started like showing me things that I had seen before but hadn't related to that. And for example, like when David talked about we were knitted together in our mother's womb, and God had a plan for us even when he was creating us in our mother's womb, and Paul writes about it, that we're his handy work, his craftsmanship. And so I would say the biggest lesson I learned was, and it's like God was telling me, Hey Todd, if you want me to do a measurably more in your life, you need to quit asking me to do more with your plans and get yourself back in alignment with the ideas I had for you, the plans I had for you when I knitted you together in your mother's womb.

And so my prayer life changed. I've been a believer for a long time, but my prayer life changed to asking God, what were you thinking? What was your original intent for me? And that ended up being one of the lessons I shared early on actually with the class, but that was something that God really shared with me just this past year.

Jim: So stop asking me to bless your plans. Would you just get on board with the plans that I have for you, the plans for you to prosper?

Alright, so last year when we talked about the launch of the Strategic Thinking Network, it was an idea. Now we're finishing up the end of the first year in your Tampa Bay group. What did you see God do in that group?

Todd Hopkins: It was amazing. And it's really is kinda like this more than you can think or imagine, right? That's what the idea of Ephesians 3:20 is, and I remember just the first day with those 24 and then just how transparent they are. Everybody in the room were high achievers, so I would say the biggest thing for me was seeing this multiplication effect of impact, of kingdom impact and business impact on humble high achievers.

That's the way I describe 'em. It's like it's a room full of high achievers, but they're humble learners, and I just loved every minute of it, because I'm a learner myself. And you know how it is, Jim, when you teach something, a lot of times you're the one that learns the most.

Jim: Absolutely. Unequivocally.

Todd Hopkins: That was my experience.

Jim: Yeah. And people don't know, that's kinda like the secret, when you're teaching a small group at church or whatever it may be, or your small group at home, you're gonna get the most. The person who teaches always gets the most outta it. Hands down. Just incredible.

Todd Hopkins: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: So how many people did you have in your Strategic Thinking Network in 2025?

Todd Hopkins: 24.

Jim: Okay. So you had 24 people. Were they all just from Tampa Bay?

Todd Hopkins: No, there were a lot from Tampa Bay area, but there was at least a third of them flew in from out of town from different parts of the country. So we have it located at a hotel next to the Tampa Airport, makes it real easy. The goal is to attract the national audience for the class.

Jim: All right, so you had 24 people. Here's what I know - is you're in a room with 24 people. They all have been created in God's image. They've all been running businesses or own their own businesses. What was the biggest thing that you learned from them this year?

Todd Hopkins: Biggest thing I learned from them, I would say that the eagerness - I love the engagement. So you know, what I learned is the more transparent we can be and the more vulnerable we can be in trying to understand what God has for us, then the greater the chance we're gonna get the answer.

And as I would see these guys sharing, 'cause they'll break into groups of three and what was so valuable to them, they'll tell you sometimes even more valuable than the teaching, would be the sharing and the information that came out of their own heads because we have tools to help 'em do that. And then as they shared with each other, so I learned, shut up, quit talking. Let the Holy Spirit do his thing while they're in their huddles. And that's where a lot of amazing things are happening.

Jim: Wow. Lesson learned by Todd Hopkins. Shut up and let the Holy Spirit do stuff. That's incredible. How often, I need to learn that lesson too 'cause I often talk way too much. I love that.

So year one was focused on learning to be a strategic thinker with God at the center of your strategy. That's what you told me it was gonna be. Did you end up going there?

Todd Hopkins: We actually went beyond strategic thinking. So the whole goal was strategic thinking and how do you apply strategic thinking to grow your business or scale your business and your kingdom impact? Then as this was unfolding, and this was in my quiet time - listen, the great thing about this, Jim, is I feel like God provided the content, he brought the people and ultimately taught the class. I was just trying to get outta the way.

But as the strategic thinking was there, and then critical thinking, can't ignore that, the importance of that, but as all this was coming together, as I may have even shared with you before, the layer, God said, wait, I'm not ready for you to get up yet. There's a third type of thinking, and that's eternal thinking. So all of a sudden, as business owners, if we will allow ourself to go beyond just strategic, we need to do that well and critical, but then tap into the eternal and start asking questions like, what's God's will in this matter? What did he have in mind when he knitted me together in my mother's womb? All these things.

Then all of a sudden we begin to expose ourself to supernatural results both in business and ministry. And that's what happened, Jim. It was amazing and I got to see it.

Jim: I was having a thought like that this morning thinking all the experiences I've gotten in my years on this planet, how does that apply to what God's gonna have me doing in the new Heaven and the new Earth? Like how does that apply? What's my job gonna be? What is my work gonna look like in the new Heaven and new Earth? And how does that tie into what he's put me through or what he's had me experience here on earth?

Okay, so year one was strategic thinking, critical thinking and learning, eternal thinking. But there's a year 2, 2026, could be year two. What are you, what's year two all about?

Todd Hopkins: So the group, wanted to keep going. So we've now made it a two year program, and year two, we're gonna get into more practicing the things that we've learned in year one, creating good habits and more on execution. We'll get into casting vision and achieving vision. So we're gonna take it all to a more practicing type of a level because it's easy to learn things and then all of a sudden business and life starts happening. And then, I think one of the CEO's greatest flaws is forgetting what they've learned.

And to execute what they already know is the right thing to do. So we're gonna get into that, but also if time allows, we'll get into branding and all kinds of good stuff. I'm pretty excited. I think year two's gonna be better than year one.

Jim: I bet it builds on each other. But you just said that one of the biggest things that CEOs struggle with is forgetting what they learned. It's also what the Israelites struggled with, forgetting what God's already done and needing to be reminded. Remember, God did this. Don't forget that because so often we get so comfortable with what's been happening and we forget, like Joshua did with the battle at Ai.

Wow, this went really good at Jericho. Let's just go, we'll go attack. And he never asked God, yeah, what's the strategy? What's the strategy? What's the eternal thinking here? And and that doesn't work good. We need to remember what God has done and constantly be remembering that.

Let's talk about how this is set up. So a lot of people that are listening today, so is this like a monthly meeting in Tampa Bay? I can't do a monthly meeting in Tampa Bay. This is different though, Todd, isn't it?

Todd Hopkins: Yeah, it's once a quarter and it's in person at airport hotel meeting room. So it's real easy for people out of town just to fly in the day before they do the meeting. It ends at four. Typically, they can fly out that evening or take their time and go out the next day, but it's in person once a quarter. The dates are scheduled out a year in advance. And they invest an annual fee to be a part of that. And it's a two year program. I'm not sure what'll happen after the end of the second year, but I have some ideas, but we've got a really solid two year plan. So basically folks would be committing to eight quarterly sessions.

Jim: Now, is there a chance you're gonna take the Strategic Thinking Network to another city outside of Tampa Bay in 2026?

Todd Hopkins: I think that could be possible. I feel God's leading me to do that. So we'll have a new class starting in Tampa. They'll be in year one in January, and then the current class will be in year two in Tampa. And then I do believe we will open up in another city. We'll see what God has for us just to make it geographically spread out a little bit.

Jim: All right, so speaking of 2026, I'm really excited about the events that are booking up for 2026. The US Christian Chamber of Commerce Spiritual World Citizens Expo in April is one of those events, online at swc2026.com. If you wanna get a discount to attend, I totally recommend you get involved in the US Christian Chamber of Commerce. That code for discount to the event in April is IWORK4HIM.

And of course the National Faith and Work Summit, which is coming up in June. Faith of Work, faithatworksummit2026.com. It's critical that we spend time together worshiping, encouraging, and challenging each other and seeing what God's doing on a national basis. If you want more on the events that we'll be attending, Martha and I'll be attending in 2026, go to iwork4him.com/events.

Todd, it's always great hearing from the founder, Hey, this is what happened. This is what God did, but you know me well enough to know: that's great, Todd, I believe you, but I wanna hear from some people that have experienced this Strategic Thinking Network. So I've asked you to invite a couple people in today to share their stories of the impact that God has had on their lives through the Strategic Thinking Network. Who do you have for us today?

Todd Hopkins: I have two really great guys joining us today. John Bergida from St. Louis. He's the president and founder of Hector Group there in St. Louis. They're like technology innovation type of company, really they do a lot of things, so, amazing young man. And then Ladell Graham from the Houston area is managing partner for Ambassador Development Group, which also just an amazing group. It's kinda like a Christian private equity. But he's involved in lots of different things. So both of those guys are gonna be joining us today.

Jim: Ladell and John, go ahead and turn on your video and join our conversation. And John, I didn't realize you were in St. Louis. Good grief. We're only three and a half hours away. We should somehow find a way to get together. We're in the same state, even though the opposite ends. But Ladell and John, welcome to iWork4Him.

Ladell Graham: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Jim: Ladell, I'm gonna start with you. Why did you choose to invest your time by attending four quarterly Strategic Thinking Network days? Why did you do it?

Ladell Graham: One of the things that I certainly know is that strategy leaks and vision fades unless you revisit it. And so it was an opportunity for me to revisit both my strategy and and my vision and particularly the framework of doing it God's way, from a kingdom perspective. And so that's why I made the decision to be a part of a Strategic Thinking Network.

Jim: When you decided to join, what did you expect to walk away with when you got to the end of the year? What did you expect to walk away with?

Ladell Graham: The amazing thing is that leadership is really draining and many times in leadership, what you're doing is solving problems. And if you don't step back to think strategically, then what happens is that you become an expert at problems rather than solutions. And so I really came expecting clarity of where I was headed and to align my daily actions with really God's purpose for our business.

Jim: So what did you actually walk away with?

Ladell Graham: The amazing thing about that is that what I saw was when faith-driven thinkers come together, something powerful happens, and that is that strategy becomes revelation. And so I walked away with a deeper sense of alignment between my faith, between my leadership, and my assignment. And so I didn't really just leave with ideas. Really, I left with the revelation and it was amazing what happened to me. And I've seen that in every facet of my life, not just in business, but every facet of my life, including family.

Jim: Ladell, one of your network mates was John Bergida out St. Louis, Missouri. Love that. All right. So, John, why did you choose to invest your time by attending four sessions in Tampa Bay? I understand the Tampa Bay draw - the food, the weather. But why did you, it's a big deal to get on a plane and fly. Why did you choose to invest your time by attending those four quarterly Strategic Thinking Network days?

John Bergida: It was really an answer to prayer. I had been praying for finding a group where I could learn how to expand my business as well as faith. And that even ties back to Hecto's name. It ties back to science and a multiplier of a hundred, like hectoliters, but also to scripture in Mark 4:8 and the parable of sowing seeds, and put on good soil yielded 30, 60, and a hundred fold.

So I had been trying to align the business between business and faith and not having those be two separate things and God really opened the door at the Christian Businessman's Connection, CBMC, their annual men's conference, or was the first time they had in a long time was in St. Louis. And that's where I met Todd and heard about the Strategic Thinking Network and I was like, oh my goodness, this is exactly what I've been praying for. And I was very excited to be in the inaugural class.

Jim: So what did you expect to walk away with, an investment of a year of time or a year in relationships. What did you expect to walk away with?

John Bergida: I don't think I had any concrete expectations of what I would come away with. It was more of this is awesome content and these are awesome people and these are the people I wanna be aligned with. And I had the chance to read Todd's book about, "stop using the B word," and I read that and did that, and that was impactful. I'm saying, okay, if we're able to get even just that level of things outta the class, it's gonna be very worthwhile.

Jim: Have you read all the rest of Todd's books? 'cause Todd's got a lot of great books out there. The B word one, it was hilarious. One day was in the headquarters at Office Pride and one of the people we were interviewing said "busy" while we were - oh my word, you thought that they were gonna die. They were just like, please don't let Todd hear me say that. (laughter)

Alright. That's what you expected, but what did you walk away with? At the end of the year, what did you walk away with?

John Bergida: I would say implementing tools. So one of the things we learned is the tool Hoshin, and now actually myself and our entire team do that every Monday when we kick off our team meetings. And Todd was talking about some of the other tools that we've learned in the class, that we have quarterly team summits and we actually use the tools at our last team summit. And the entire team was like, this is the best one we've ever done. So it's been awesome.

Jim: John, everybody listening today's going, did he just say Ocean? No, he said Hoshin. Okay, everybody listening is going, I don't know what that means.

John Bergida: Yeah, it's a way to really sift through complicated things and really make it simple to get to priorities. So on a really simple version, you have three circles and you write three different tasks in those. You compare one circle to just one other circle, you say, if I could complete one of these two things in a given timeframe - so we, for example, use it for this week, if I can complete one of these two things this week, what's the most important to advancing myself and the business toward our goal? And just draw an arrow towards the one that's most important.

And they do that one at a time for each of the different circles. And then in the end, you just count the arrows and the ones with the highest number of arrows, that's your most important thing for the week, and then your second most important. And so it's given the clarity to say no to things that are lower on that list.

And also to know once I accomplish those top things on that list, even if the rest of the week is crazy, it's been a productive and fruitful week. H-O-S-H-I-N. And Yes, I thought he said ocean too, the first time I heard it, not spelled out. (chuckling)

Jim: All right, so Ladell, you said strategy gives way to revelation, or actually what breeds revelation? What did you say? I can't read my own writing as I was writing while you're saying that, but basically that God reveals things through strategy. What did God reveal to you? What was the biggest surprise of the year coming out of your time that you invested? 'cause you invested literally a week's worth of time this year to be part of the Strategic Thinking Network. What was the biggest surprise God did in your life?

Ladell Graham: I think that the biggest surprise for me was there were some things that I'd been working on and I vested time for years and it produced almost immediately what I had been working on and spent time years working on, focusing on rather. What was interesting to me is I thought I needed more strategies, but really God showed me that I really needed was spiritual alignment.

And so Todd talks about strategic thinking. There are three types of thinking - strategic thinking, critical thinking, and eternal thinking. And I was pretty good. My background -investments, my accounting - I was really good at strategic and critical, but not as strong in eternal thinking. And so what happened is that it moved everything to a another level.

And one of the things that really stood out to me, I mean everything in every class is amazing. We walk away just a amazed. One of the things that stood out was a resource allocation maximizer. And so we've got all of these in every business, have resources, and you don't want non-performing resources. And so we all put on the whiteboard various resources. And the amazing thing I was looking, I go, wow there are some things that I have not been using and we all thought we had it figured out. We had identified everything.

And then Todd comes behind and he says that you guys didn't include my greatest resource, which is energy. And he talks about how energy is a maximizer of other resources. And so I taught that with our, we get our ADG leaders together annually, and so elements of this class, I taught that and we're actually practicing that in our ADG advances on a monthly basis. That was one of the things that really I took away that really, it says that he go beyond what you can dream. And he blew my mind.

Jim: I love that, and I love how it applied to ambassador development, but I wanna know for you personally, what was the biggest surprise in your heart? What did you see the biggest impact on your soul after attending these? Because that's what this is about. It's great to run great businesses and organizations. It's great to make money. It's great to bless our employees and their families, and our customers and our vendors, but you're making this investment to be a transformed man. What was the biggest surprise of transformation in your life, Ladell?

Ladell Graham: Yeah, I think what personally was the biggest transformation was when I talked about alignment and I began to see how things were connected that I didn't realize were connected, like dreams, relationships, opportunities that had been sitting on the table all along.

So we have a weekly family meeting and all of our children are adults. And we, in our meeting this past Sunday, one of our children said to me, dad, I've recognized that this year that there's been a significant change in how you approach life, how you approach relationships. And he talked about how effective I am and how compassionate I was and how even more God centered I was.

And you know what? To have that come from your adult children really blesses me, simply because what we want to do is we want to teach them how to get along without us. And if they can walk away with that, God centered in the decisions, the dreams, the relationships that I have, I think that this has been a really great one walk away.

Jim: That was powerful. Glad I re-asked that question. Are you gonna do year two?

Ladell Graham: Oh, absolutely. How can I not? Year one changed how I think and honestly it changed how I hear God. And so it really reminded me that strategy isn't just about planning the future, but it's about partnering with God for it. And absolutely, I'm excited about it. And the words that I say so often, I'm ready to go bear hunting with a switch.

 (laughter)

Jim: I'm not, but, okay.

Ladell Graham: Yeah. David went with his bare hands, and so that's the kinda faith I have in what God's gonna do in year two.

Jim: I think he had a sling. (laughing) David had a sling. Not a switch. A sling. All right. Thank, but Ladell, thank you for being transparent, Ladell. Because that was, that's what I was looking for because I know that a year invested, Lord, here you go. Here's four days. I'm a busy business guy. Here's four days. I don't wanna be the same guy at the end of this period of time. And that's what God did for you.

John, what was the biggest God surprise for you coming out of the year that you invested at Strategic Thinking Network?

John Bergida: I think one of the biggest surprises was one of the tools we learned was the inverted pyramid. So instead of starting from today and looking forward to the future, really centering yourself in who you are as a son or daughter of God, and then working down through that. And it was fascinating for me 'cause I had done three year planning, 10 year planning, big hairy, audacious goals. We had the vision, mission, and core values of the business, but I didn't stack them all like that.

And so actually when I came out from the second meeting, the first one I missed 'cause the birth of my now nine month old son who's a just wonderful little boy, so I attended the first one, which was the second session, and it was just so powerful coming away with that, I actually stopped at a Bread Co. for those in St. Louis, or Panera for everyone else around the country, and just cleared out a whole table and just sat down and wrote out that inverted pyramid. And it was really powerful just to see kind of things I already knew and known in prayer, but I never written them down to line them like that.

So I've since turned it into kind of a visual i'm eventually gonna get on my wall to look at when I'm doing planning or just remind myself that keep looking through this funnel and I'll be able to work productively versus getting too stuck in minutiae here and not going where God wants me to be going.

Jim: Yeah, John, Ladell shared how his son noticed a difference in him. Talk to me about what comment your wife has made for you after being involved in Strategic Thinking Network, because obviously she had a baby on the first day. And so it you didn't get to experience first day. Talk to me about what - has your wife made any comments?

John Bergida: Yeah, it's been beautiful to come back and share with her the things I've learned and we've even used some of the improvements that for how we run our family meetings. So that's really inspiring to hear you talk about, Ladell, with your adult children.

My oldest is eight, so we've got some ways to go with that. But yeah, just even some of the ways we've used it to improve how we plan and communicate as a family has been really beautiful. So she's super supportive of it. And yeah, one of these trips, I'll have to have her join me and we'll get some time in the water or sun while we're down there.

Jim: Yeah, it'd be nice. Are you doing year two then? So that makes it sound like you're gonna do year two.

John Bergida: Yes, absolutely. I was very hopeful there would be year two. So when Todd said yes, I was one of the first people to shoot my hand up and say, I'm in.

Jim: You didn't even have to ask why should I? You're like, I already know the answer why.

John Bergida: Because I already know the answer to why? I was like, there's no way I'm gonna be able to take all this in a year, absorb it, and then put it into practice. And it's like drinking from a firehose. It's like, I wanna start improving it and implement it immediately, but also like just as Todd was talking about, being able to then implement it and keep refining it, but then also to then have it so ingrained, bringing it to my coworkers and my business and family. I'm really excited for that continued growth next year.

Jim: I ask the question why are you gonna do year two? We should always ask our ourselves questions more often. Why do we need to protect our computers? Why do we need to protect ourselves from evil? Why do bad people do bad things?

I don't always know the why, but I do know the what we can do to protect ourselves. SaferNet is a software we use at iWork4Him and personally to protect all of our devices at home and at the office. Their VPN coupled with Virus protection, website protection, internet filters, website filters, antivirus, all of it designed to keep the bad guys out and keep your devices up and running as fast as they can run. Check 'em out at safernet.com. They're a kingdom company. Just let 'em know that iWork4Him sent you.

As we close out I want, Todd, I'll pull you back into the conversation. You said there's 24 people in your in year one. If we were to poll everybody, and we're gonna poll these two guys here in a second, if we were to poll everybody and say, I wish your group would be smaller, I wish the group would be bigger, how would you feel?

But Todd, how powerful - it wasn't just your teaching that God had given you. How powerful was that interaction of men and women in that room to the success of the Strategic Thinking Network in year one?

Todd Hopkins: It was extremely powerful. I was advised early on by a friend that who we have in that class is going to matter and so I feel like there's a huge responsibility to try to even bet in some way, who are people who are high achievers, who are already successful, who are learners and they're humble and can contribute to each other? And these guys are already strategic actually. They're already, they rank very high strategically on their strength finders profile, majority of them.

It's very important who's in the room, and that's a responsibility that I have, to try to do a good job and I just pray God sends me the right one. God sent the people, and I think everyone sensed that, but I heard that often, man, the people you have in this room are amazing and they say that about each other.

Jim: Ladell, talk to me about that impact, being in a room with 23 others plus Todd. How powerful was that interaction to the success of the learning, the success of the experience?

Ladell Graham: You know what I like about the class is that immediately when you get the revelation, you put it into practice. So there were groups, we'd break out into groups of three, four people, and then you would share what you've worked through relative to that particular session. It was powerful, because when, again, when I say that you have faith-driven thinkers, it turns strategy into revelation, and that's what kept coming to me. I started getting revelation after revelation, and then I could go back and refine my practical approach to what Todd had shared in the class.

Jim: What about for you, John? How powerful was that? You're not the only one in the room. But just, it wasn't you and Todd - you, Todd and 23 other people, how powerful was that interaction, those relationships that you're developing over the year?

John Bergida: It's incredible because you get different perspectives and things that you aren't seeing. And even when Todd was putting up like, what are your different strengths and assets you already have, just seeing like everyone compiling it, the list was incredible. And I think if any of us had tried to sit down, just write all those out ourselves, we wouldn't have come anywhere close to that.

And so yeah, it's beautiful to see like-minded individuals who are striving for excellence in their work, excellence in their personal life, and aligning that with their faith versus saying, Hey, it's a separate from that. It's also been really encouraging to see the use of AI and how we've had AI talks over lunch and kind of dessert during the lunch period and seeing where like we can use some of these tools like AI to not only just improve our businesses, but to free up more time for us to have in prayer or to have with family.

So it's, we're aligning all these kind of, again, with the whole person in mind versus saying, Hey, go and be excellent at business. And then, go donate after that. It's nope, align all these things together. So yeah, seeing similar individuals that say walk is very powerful.

Jim: And AI can be a help, but it can't do the kinda stuff that the Holy Spirit does.

So all of you - Todd Hopkins, Ladell Graham, John Bergida, thank you guys for sharing the story. Todd, thanks for bringing the strategic network to the iWork4Him listening audience. If people are listening to you, they're thinking, I wanna get involved in next year, whether it's in Tampa Bay or whether you end up starting a group in another city across the country, Todd, how do people get involved? How do they start that application process?

Todd Hopkins: Thank you. The best way is just to go to Strategic Thinking Network.com, and it's all there. There's an application, a short application, there's a way to contact me but that would be the place to start, Strategic Thinking Network.com.

Jim: And of course, you've heard the stories here, so if you are a business owner, leader, male or female, this is not just a men's group. We need to emphasize this. Today, we only had men, but there are men and women involved, so check it out. If God is asking you to go deeper, then go ahead and go deeper and check out the Strategic Thinking Network.com.

Gentlemen, thank you for being here today.

Todd Hopkins: Thank you.

Ladell Graham: Good to be here.

John Bergida: Absolutely.

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

10/15/25 - 2116: The Holy Spirit at Work - Literally

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

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

Jim: Some songs say that love makes the world go round. I think that's definitely true because God keeps our world spinning, but I digress. What really makes our world function and improve is business. Everything revolves around business. Even governments depend on business for funding. They may never want to admit it, but the world is driven by business.

That's why it's so important for Jesus following business people around the world to know how to let their faith impact all of their lives and all the lives that they influence through their business. Marketplace leaders around the globe need to know how much God wants them to be aware of their mission at work for his kingdom. What are all the pieces of that mission and how do we make sure those business owners know about it?

Katherine Burnett of Global Marketplace Leaders is with us today to tell us about the opportunities around the globe and how God is moving in the hearts of Jesus following business leaders everywhere. Katherine Burnett, welcome to iWork4Him.

Katherine Burnett: Aw, thank you. It's such a privilege to be here today and I just commend what you're doing to get the word out about the Holy Spirit and what Jesus does in marketplace. So thanks so much for having me on today.

Jim: It's been a monumental undertaking, but to get face to face with you - we're super glad to have you today, Katherine. We always do, for our first time guests on the show, we always ask this question: tell us your Jesus story.

Katherine Burnett: Oh, I absolutely love my Jesus story 'cause all our stories are so personal to the encounter of the Lord in our life. And I encountered the Lord in kindergarten at a Christian school. And a lot of people would say, that's pretty mundane. The Lord was drawing me even then. So I walked with the Lord throughout a lot of my early years. But growing up in a very tumultuous home, you decide that you can do it better than what you've seen. And so that took on a life of rebellion, and it was just the goodness of God that drew me back to that place. But it was actually through business.

So I got married, we moved to an entirely different part of the country. And I realized that I could no longer lean and rely on the Jesus I knew in my childhood. Oh, a nightly prayer. Just a, oh, hope you help me out. I actually had to encounter the living God for myself every single day, if I was going to walk in business with wisdom, with discernment, to know that he was leading me and guiding me. Proverbs 3:6 says, "in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path."

So I came to this place in business where I was like, Lord, I need to know you. I need to acknowledge you in everything I do, 'cause I'm trusting you to direct my path. And God was so faithful. That's really when I think my Jesus story just took off. Like I knew him - as my husband and I say, we'd shaken hands with him, but to actually encounter him, to know him, to walk with him every day, did not start till I was in my twenties starting a business.

And so God was so faithful. It became less about me succeeding and more about me building something of significance in partnership with the Holy Spirit, to bring his kingdom into every area that he had placed me. And in a nutshell, that is my Jesus story of how the Lord just encountered me because of a desperation to know his direction, his plans, and to know his goodness for me personally outside of my parents' faith or outside of what I had seen growing up in a Christian school.

Martha: Such a great example and other people probably can relate to some portion of that, and that's why it's so important for us to be able to share that with each other. So obviously, you've made the connection of the Lord in your business. How did he give you a passion for global business?

Katherine Burnett: Oh, that's a great question. So I had built several companies. I was in real estate, land development, and in construction. And so fast forward, the church had always told my husband and myself as we had helped serve in some ministries that the highest call in our life was to someday be in full-time ministry. So we laid down very successful careers. We came to Global Awakening and went through the ministry school. We learned a lot, got theology set. It was such a good time for our family, but I still had this just passion to do business, but yet I was called to ministry and I couldn't reconcile the two together.

And I was sitting with a well-known minister and they told me, they said, Katherine, you're not called to separate the two. You're called to do both business and ministry. And it was in that moment that inside of me, it went off that like my identity has been placed so much in the higher call of Ministry, but my identity in Jesus should allow me to work both in business and in ministry.

And so to bring the two, the sacred and secular, together just became a burning passion for me and it has fueled everything with Global Marketplace Leaders. Global Awakening has come behind us and said, yes, we want you to minister to people in the marketplace. Psalms 24:1 tells us, "the Earth is the Lord's and everything in it." So if that's the case, it doesn't matter if it's ministry or marketplace, we are supposed to be serving him in every sphere he places us in. And I think that realization for me really just brought a new sense of purpose in my life. It also has caused me to want to perpetuate that to other people that I meet as well.

Jim: And I think it's really important that everybody understands that there's this misnomer that there's this highest calling of full-time ministry, when really there's no tiers in the kingdom of God. That the call is where God has you and you're to do ministry in that call. And because so many people go to churches where they're told you should quit your jobs and go into full-time ministry, and that's a disaster.

That's why the world looks the way it looks, like they way too many neat believers in the marketplace have quit their jobs to go into full-time ministry instead of taking that mindset shift and going to full-time ministry in their job, in their business, in their organization, whatever that organization may be.

Katherine Burnett: And one of the things too is, in business, that is 97% of the general population gets their full-time living from the marketplace. So that's our biggest mission field that we can possibly go into is the marketplace. And for a long time, the church hasn't realized that. And so it is a privilege to be able to equip people to send out into the mission field of the marketplace.

Martha: And just a little side note. If you have a job that you get paid for, you are technically a fully funded missionary in that work. So no fundraising efforts necessary. Now, some people may say I'm not funded enough, in whatever their job might be. But the truth of the matter is, you get paid to be who God has called you to be in every aspect, every minute, every second of your day at your work. We're very passionate about this very story. So Katherine, I'm just so glad that God has allowed you to live it out as a part of your life and getting to share that with our listeners.

Jim: So when you travel the world, when you deal world with business leaders around the globe, what is your main observation about Jesus following marketplace leaders around the world? Is there a commonality in how they think and how they act?

Katherine Burnett: The amount of times that we travel, we were just somewhere in the States last week. Two weeks ago we were overseas in South Africa. We were in Brazil right before that. And so we travel and get to see people in the marketplace and it really, it boils down to the fact that marketplace people do not realize that they have a call, just like you said, Martha, a paid missionary. And so we see them trying to honor God by maybe praying before they go to work or trying to honor God by being a person of integrity, which is awesome, but they haven't fully realized that they are sent, that they're commissioned, and that they're equipped to bring transformation of kingdom where God placed them.

It's not an afterthought, where they are working. It's actually a divine appointment. And so when they realize, Hey, this is a divine appointment. This is a set up from heaven where I am. It's not just a place for me to make money or for me to hire people that are good people. It's actually a place for me to bring influence from the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a totally different paradigm shift, and we see all the time that people just don't realize they're actually on kingdom assignment because they have believed the lie that it is just a job. It is just a way to pay their bills. It's just a way to get by until they retire or until they can do a more holy work.

The biggest thing as we travel that we see is they just haven't realized really that they're on assignment now.

Martha: Jim and I often talk about like we had the American perspective, because that has been our world. But what you're saying is there's even like globally this disconnect that is needing to be refined, or restored maybe is a better word. Because if Jesus changes our life, he changes all 24/7. That's one of the things that's, okay, we don't leave him at the door when we go into work. If the Holy Spirit indwells in us, he's walking with us everywhere we go. So do you see any difference between men and women as far as understanding that, or is it universally a struggle?

Katherine Burnett: I think it's universally a struggle. Men and women both were called to transform culture because the Bible says in the last days, I'll pour out my spirit on all people, and we need the Holy Spirit wherever we go. We need that discernment. We need the voice and the leading of the Holy Spirit to make strategic business deals. We need the leading of the Holy Spirit to know who to hire, to know when to change protocols or whatever for protection of company or employees. We need him. And it doesn't matter if it's male or female.

And generally I think the disconnect from their assignment, from what people view as their assignment versus the truth of what God sent them to do, is the same across all genders.

Jim: I love that. Speaking of men and women leaders, we're excited at iWork4Him to join forces with the US Christian Chamber of Commerce to invite each one of you to attend the April, 2026 Expo in Orlando, Florida called "Yes&." Visit the website swc2026.com and use the code iWork4Him for 10% off your tickets. Martha and I'll see you there as we get to emcee that event. That's swc2026.com. The 10% off code is IWORK4HIM.

So what is Global Marketplace Leaders doing about this problem, this disconnect, this consistent issue that believers think they should quit their jobs and go into a full-time "sacred" ministry instead of recognizing the marketplace as a sacred place? And instead of recognizing that they really have, they have an entrepreneurial call. They have a business call on their lives.

Katherine Burnett: That's a great question. So Global Awakening does a lot with pastors and leaders, and so our heart is to actually, we're creating curriculum right now to be able to be launched into churches, because we've had so many pastors that are high level pastors that said, can you create something? We just don't know how to disciple business leaders.

It's like foreign territory for them. 'Cause they've always been in ministry and they don't know how to connect with marketplace. So we actually have a team, there's seven of us right now, that are creating a curriculum that will be launched in partnership with churches where some of their strong business leaders can do small groups to train other leaders on how to hear the voice of God, on how to lead on integrity, on generosity, just the nature of God that they can display in their workplace.

We have coaching programs that we do. We take people on international trips. We have mastermind groups, and Jim and Martha, this is one of my favorite things that we do. We actually have groups that meet on a regular basis and we'll put seven or eight leaders in a room and they'll just throw out their problems. They'll be like, Hey, I'm having a problem with this employee. How would I handle this?

And through the power of the Holy Spirit, through wisdom and experience, we get some of the most phenomenal answers that help unlock things for business leaders. And it is just really neat to see the Lord move. And so that is one of my favorite things that we do with Global Marketplace Leaders is our monthly mastermind groups.

We do a lot of book studies. We're getting ready to launch one on catalytic leadership, but we just, it's really neat for us to be able to come alongside the body of Christ and be like, Hey, what do you need to train and equip your marketplace people? And so we're actually creating a curriculum a training program, one for business leaders and one for marketplace influencers. There is just so many things that is needed that we see not just in the US but across the globe. And so our team is super excited about what God is doing.

Martha: Okay, so I wanna take a minute here. I am imagining, our listeners are saying, okay, I want to be able to maybe bring a Bible study into my area of influence that can help people in a way that they're not reinventing the wheel. God told us a decade, more than a decade ago, don't reinvent the wheel. If people like you, Katherine, are already creating the curriculum. How do people engage with that? What does that look like?

Katherine Burnett: Yeah, so we are actually launching right now a pilot program for churches that wanna host it. And so Global Marketplace Leaders, you can go to Global Awakening.com to find out more about the programs and the things that we are launching. We are just doing final edits on it, eight week curriculum that we train 'em as well. So we're really excited about the things that are coming, but they can go to Global Awakening.com and find out a whole lot more.

Jim: So as part of your curriculum, is there mentorship involved? So in other words, there's some business people out there that get this and there's some business people out there that don't get this. And there's a lot of pastors that don't get it at all 'cause they don't understand business. It's one thing to educate and to really open their eyes in eight weeks, but it's a 80 year process. I mean, it's a lifetime process. How are you partnering up business leaders that actually understand the call of God in their lives with business leaders who are understanding this for the very first time, how? How do you make sure you perpetuate this so it doesn't just die off in week nine?

Katherine Burnett: No, absolutely. It's a great question. So we piloted a program with Global two and a half years ago that has now gone and around the world and is in underground church and other nations as well. And so we've learned a lot about how do you do discipleship?

And so my husband and I pilot a program for them. And so now we are doing the same thing in the business aspect. How do we raise up disciples long after the eight week curriculum is done? And so a lot of those curriculum basis will be done around small groups. Now, you guys both know there's a lot of type A business people that do things on their own time and don't want the connection, they want the information.

We have the ability to release curriculum for them, and that's great, but in an entire other program will actually have the discipleship model built into it. So we'll have strong leaders that walk them through it, but they'll also continue to facilitate discipleship even after that time is done. And so we're excited about that, and we're really excited to see what God is gonna do and how he's going to continue to train and equip long after the curriculum is done.

Jim: Do you guys ever get to interact with college students?

Katherine Burnett: Great question. My husband is a college professor of 25 years and we actually did a lot of college ministry prior to coming to Global Awakening. We saw thousands of college kids saved and we just have a heart for it. And so one of the things that actually the Lord has really been on our heart is how to engage the 18 to 25 year olds. Because as you probably know, a lot of people are in their thirties and forties and they're like, "there has to be more to life than just getting up and going to work." And so for so long everybody's been going after them to say, you're called with a kingdom purpose. Your job is something.

We are actually wanting to target the 18 to 25-year-old and really just dive into how to influence them before they ever graduate college to realize they're on a mission. They are sent, the sent ones into the marketplace. And so we're currently working on a program for them as well to engage them and to really hear their needs, but as well as cooperate with FCA and different programs at different universities, CRU, things like that, across the US that have already reached out and asked for information.

Martha: That's awesome. And I hear just hints of collaboration in there and I love that. Again, not reinvent the wheel, the people that already have the ins, let's get them the resources so that they can disciple this next generation. For iWork4Him, excellence is a core value, and we have several supporters of our ministry that are affiliate partners that really do represent excellence. SaferNet is a cybersecurity software created to protect your data and all your devices, computers, and cell phones.

And Patriot Mobile is a cellular company built on pillars of faith, family, and freedom while providing excellent US-based service. To see all of our affiliate partners go to iWork4Him.com/sponsors.

So what training do you give business leaders to use the supernatural as they serve at the pleasure of the king?

Katherine Burnett: This is probably one of my favorite aspects of Global Marketplace Leaders, is this supernatural. You know, how to hear the voice of God because the Lord knows everything and he has access to everything. And so as we're in partnership with him, he reveals things to us that help us. And so one of the things that we do is teach people how to hear the voice of God.

Another one is how to get a word of knowledge in a business setting. And just an example of that is I would do contracts in my construction business. And I would hear the voice of the Lord give me a number for what the contract amount should be. And at first I dismissed it and then I started realizing, oh Lord, you're trying to partner me with me in the supernatural for the benefit of the client and also for the benefit of my business.

So when I started listening to the Lord, it was always, generally the number was always higher than what I thought. But the client would always say, oh, that's less than what I thought the contract would be. And so I started partnering with a word of knowledge in business. And the scripture talks about it, but how you partner with the word of knowledge is just listening to the voice of the Lord. And then even small things, like I was sitting on a plane one day and I felt like the Lord said, Hey, you need to get work comp insurance for this new employee. And it was something that had slipped through the cracks.

And I was like, oh Lord, that's you giving me a heads up before an attack of the enemy would come. You're trying to protect. And so God is so gracious, if we'll just partner with the things that he's made available to us through his scripture, through his son, and I absolutely love teaching people how to do that.

Martha: I love that example, 'cause how many times have people, listeners might be listening right now and say, oh yeah, there was a time where I had this thought, that I should have gotten work comp and I forgot to do it, or maybe it was fixing a threshold in their entryway or whatever that might be, and they dismissed it rather than taking action.

I know that, Jim, over the years we have become way more aware of that still small voice because it's a warning from our Heavenly father, or like you said, partnering with us and saying, Hey, I have something that you need to know and I'm sharing it with you. And I think that's so valuable because so many, if we don't learn to listen, we end up with a lot of hitting ourself in the head saying, Jim uses the example all the time of, I knew I needed to move that ladder.

I felt this nudging that it was, I was a few inches off on something and then it was unstable or whatever that example might be in our lives is, it's the Holy Spirit partnering with us. And so I think that's such a great reminder and seeing it as a partnership rather than an anything else is a really valuable way to see it.

Katherine Burnett: And if we've separated at our job from Holy Spirit, meaning it's just somewhere we go and it's not a call, it's not an assignment, it's not a mission field, then we all, by default, separate out partnering with the Holy Spirit because it never crosses our mind. This is something we do. This is a task we do. And then we go back to serving the Lord at church and in our quiet time. But when we marry those two back together, it is that partnership that you talked about, Martha. I'm partnering with him every day, so he has keys, he has insights, he has wisdom in my everyday life for the advancement of the kingdom.

And we talked about excellence, but Daniel was excellent in Babylon and the king took notice. It brought advancement because of the excellence he carried. And when we hear the voice of the Lord in small things, that saves the company money or saves loss of life or injury, it brings notice to the king. And so it's one of those things that we cannot separate out, the call in our placement as a mission field in the marketplace.

Martha: And I feel for some reason it's really important to bring this up right now for our listeners and for each of us to be reminded. When God created me, he gave me certain passions and certain gifts and abilities. And that is why I've been driven by the work that I've done over the years.

And for Jim and I, when we were 40, we finally understood. Okay, God created us to be really good business people. He didn't expect us to put that aside in order to do something different, but to use it for him. And so even though we were doing it with excellence, we were doing it with integrity, we didn't really embrace that. You know what? God didn't make a mistake. He made me really good at these things for a purpose. And I think that there's a lot of us that need to be reminded of that on a daily basis.

Katherine Burnett: Absolutely. And my husband and I always joke and say that your pastoring gift doesn't stop when you leave the parking lot of the church. Maybe you're pastoring a small group at church or you pastor in the kids' ministry. That doesn't stop when you leave the parking lot, your gifts that God's given you go with you wherever you are. So we need to utilize those in pastoring the people that we work with, or being an evangelist and sharing the gospel or whatever it looks like, using hospitality as an inroad to people's heart that does not stop outside of the church walls. And we just encourage people in the marketplace to use their God-given gifts wherever he's placed them.

Jim: Katherine Burnett, great conversation. We've covered so much, but I wanna make sure people really plug in with you after today's show, Global Awakening dot Com's a website, but I believe you could do gml.Global Awakening.com in order to be able to get to the Global Marketplace Leaders section of that website, gml.Global Awakening.com.

Katherine Burnett, thanks for being with us today. Appreciate it.

Katherine Burnett: Thanks so much.

Jim: And make sure you guys check out SaferNet on our way out of the show today. Check out check out SafeNet, just for all the protection on all your computers, safenet.com.

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.

10/8/25 - 2115: Ownership is a Trap

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

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

Jim: Are you a pastor? Do you work in a church? Do you have to work in a church to be a pastor, or to be in ministry? Why is it so many Jesus followers today are feeling disenfranchised by their local church because their faith on Sunday seems irrelevant to work on Monday. Where did the disconnect happen between the early church and the church of today? And a disconnect it is for sure. Today, we have tears of importance and work that's not worship and so much frustration and stagnation of believers in their workplace. Where did this come from?

I know the frustration, but where are the solutions? In the 12 and a half years of this podcast slash radio show, we've only interviewed two pastors who have understood the reason the faith and work movement was necessary. Martha and I have only located a dozen or so churches that truly focused on Sunday on equipping the ministry workers for Monday, and the interviews of those churches haven't happened yet. In July in Cincinnati, we saw the most amazing thing: four church pastors on the stage, all speaking the language of iWork4Him.

 One of those pastors is James Lenhoff. James is a leadership development pastor and author, a speaker, hosts his own podcast, runs two businesses, Wealthquest and Charis Coffee and Creamery. That's a resume we need to talk through and understand. James Lenhoff, welcome to iWork4Him.

James Lenhoff: Wow. Thanks for having me. What a great intro. I hope to be the person you think I am.

 (laughing)

Martha: And we know just by chatting with you a little bit before is there's actually more that we could even talk about as well. Everybody, I just wanna encourage our listeners, hang on tight because this is a conversation - I have no idea where God is gonna take it, but I know that he has teed it up for a lot of areas that are really relevant to our listeners and so we're excited for it.

Jim: That's right. James, we got a ton of things to talk about and we gotta talk to 'em really quick today, but do it at a pace that people can understand, because they always like to listen at one and a half times and it's impossible for this podcast.

Martha: Not today.

James Lenhoff: You already speak at one and a half times.

Jim: That's exactly right. I do speak at one and half. I do. All right. And that's without caffeine. You should try listening with mountain Dew in me. Alright, let's start off with your Jesus story. How did you come to walk in the dust of your savior and Lord?

James Lenhoff: So I grew up Catholic and had this really beautiful experience with the tradition of the Catholic Church and the honor that was present in those rooms, but also there was a lot of monotony, a lot of an experience of just, we say the same things, we stand up, we sit down. And when I was in high school, there was a man named Matt Massey who led me to Christ, this personal experience of a relational Jesus.

And he then went into ministry and started a church, North Star Community Church, which I then jumped in and was part of after Amy and I got married. We jumped right in and been part of it since then. So I have walked with Jesus now for 35 years or so, and it has been a a lot of beauty and a whole lot of learning. It's been a fun experience.

Martha: Awesome. And I know that there's a lot of that ebbs and flows in a story like that, but the bottom line is God's using you every day and growing you. And I can tell that just from our conversation. So like we said, it is not very often - in fact, it's very few, where we find a local church pastor who understands about business, much less one that is running multiple businesses.

So you launched, you have a company called Wealthquest Business. Let's start there. When it was formed, was it patterned after the world or did it have a kingdom pattern?

James Lenhoff: Yeah, so I had the joy of starting that business with a fellow believer, Wade Daniel. He and I solved the problem of the industry so wealth management, financial planning firm.

And what we realized is, we're solving the wrong problem, as an industry. We keep holding out this idea that the problem that we're solving is investment management. It's a rate of return point. At the end of the day, the real problem is people are lost and they're scared, and they don't understand who to talk to.

They got an accountant over here, they got an attorney over there. They got several different places where money's invested and none of those people talk to each other. And so the model was, we're gonna bring all these things in house. We do our clients' tax returns, we do their estate designs, we do everything in one place. And it created so much more clarity and confidence because what we set out to do, we founded the company with this mission statement of we empower families to live meaningful lives.

And so it is intentional to give people the confidence to say yes to the things that they feel called to. And so it was always this mix, quite frankly, of we have to operate in the world structure of how wealth management companies work. We're regulated by the SEC, we have all these same rules that we have to follow. And we also didn't want it to be something where, by saying to the world, we are a Christian company, that means that people who aren't following Jesus feel like they can't use us, they can't engage with us.

And so we just wanted to make sure everybody knew we're gonna, we're gonna lead people with a biblical worldview, but we're not gonna market ourselves as an exclusive Christian company so that we can have families that we impact in a deeper way. And so it's been a beautiful expression of giving people the ability to say yes to things they would naturally say no to, because they have the confidence to actually press into those things and follow.

Jim: It's so true. And as part of that, that conversation where so many financial advisors get people financially prepared for retirement as best to their ability, 'cause obviously it's up to the people to do the saving. But the church has done an absolutely rip roaring terrible job of preparing people for retirement because they promoted that the American dream of retirement is actually biblical or it's not, and retirement's just another phase of life and very few financial advisors prepare people for what they're going to do in retirement. They all know what they're retiring from, but very few help them to know what they're retiring to. Did you guys help people to know what they're retiring to?

James Lenhoff: We use that exact phrase - we told everybody's got something they're retiring from but if you have nothing to retire to, you are losing the script. You're left listless. And I would have people retire and they would say for the first couple of years, this is great. Every day is a Saturday. Then eventually they would say, this is terrible. Every day's a Saturday. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know how to actually invest myself in anything.

And so one of our most important aspects of planning is finding meaning. What are you gonna put your hand to? This idea of just retiring into a life of leisure sounds great. It's actually deeply unfulfilling. And so we would always be aiming people at, invest your life into something. We'll do the rest. In fact, that was our marketing tagline: "invest in your life, we'll do the rest."

Martha: Wow.

James Lenhoff: And the idea was, we'll take care of all these goofy moving parts. You go do the stuff that matters.

Jim: So we did a 20 year onsite experiment for misery in retirement by living in Florida for 20 years in two different retirement neighborhoods. One of them, both of them, were homeowners associations, which is literally living in purgatory on earth because those people who have no purpose become the presidents and board members of homeowners associations, and because they're so miserable, they want everybody else to be miserable too.

But they control the money so they can actually make you miserable financially and physically. But we saw the dissatisfaction with living in pleasure. They had the ideal life. They got to live in Florida right off the beach. They got to look at seashells every day, play tennis and golf, and they were miserable people. And it was sad. It was just sad.

James Lenhoff: It's, to me, the parable of bigger barns. Jesus tells this parable, and the farmer that builds these bigger barns, 'cause he has so much abundance, he doesn't know what to do with it. The issue that I see Jesus pointing us to is that the farmer says, he says to his soul, you have ample goods, for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry, effectively, check out and indulge in complete selfishness. That's what Jesus is challenging us with. That is not what I'm calling you to. Endless selfishness is not a biblical model.

Martha: No.

James Lenhoff: That's for sure. And so we need to step into selflessness.

Jim: Say that. Say that again.

Endless selfishness

Martha: is not a biblical model.

Jim: And somehow that comes across

Martha: as the American dream.

James Lenhoff: And that's right. That's the whole point. We do all these things so that I can be endlessly selfish in the end.

Jim: I'm just thinking that would make a great sermon.

Martha: I think we're gonna, we're gonna have to have this conversation with our iRetire4Him.

I love just how God is aligning our hearts in so many things because there is nothing new under the sun. God has given us all of the truths that we can have at our disposal to live by, but we don't often put them through the lens of our daily work.

And that's where I know we fell short in a lot of ways and our eyes have been open. So how did you transition from being a business owner to being a "biznistry" steward? Actually seeing it as stewardship.

James Lenhoff: I had a moment - I did mission work in Haiti for many years and my first trip to Haiti was right after the earthquake. And we're driving, we land in the airport. There was a bunch of rain that came through right before we landed, and so we're driving around all these giant potholes that are full of water. So this was 2011, something in that range. And, as we're driving around this pothole, I look down and there is a little boy in the middle of the pothole that's filled with water and he is naked.

He's probably seven years old and he is bathing himself. And in that moment God just broke through in this deeply profound way. I don't hear an audible voice. This is probably as close as I've ever come to that, but I just felt very confident he said, Hey, James. That little boy did nothing to deserve to be sitting in that pothole. You did nothing to deserve to be a wealthy white man in the wealthiest country on the planet. This story is not about you and none of this is yours. And I was like, oh, I get it now. I get it. This is all for your glory. It's all your resources. The breath in my lungs is yours. The interactions I have with clients, the interactions I have with employees, my job is not to hoard and own anything.

My job is to join hands, link arms with the king of the universe in the work he is doing in the people in front of my face. That's all I have to offer, and that's all that I have to experience. And so I just, it was like this light switch. And from then on Wade and I, my business partner, we were constantly challenging each other: what feels good to us in the Holy Spirit? What are the decisions that the world would say are really terrible business decisions, but we know are the right decisions? We know God is wanting us to move in different directions.

So one example was we developed a mental health benefit for our employees where we pay for all of our employees to get counseling, marriage counseling, individual counseling, get their kids into counseling, whatever. Because we're facing nowadays situations we don't have tools for. We recognized that, as part of our jobs, as the patriarchs, so to speak, of this family of families, we need to invest in their health. Not just their physical health, but their mental health. And so just those are moments where there were just these lightning rod kind of kairos moments where time stands still and God's like "this." And we go, okay.

Martha: Wow.

James Lenhoff: And we would just take those actions and move things forward. And what a joy to see the impact that has made just because we're willing to say yes to things that all of our competitors would say, that's dumb. Make 'em pay for it themselves.

Jim: Yeah, we did, in fact, we just hostsed a conference that was entrepreneurship and mental health as a, from a Christian perspective. So I wanna know, who or what was the biggest obstacle that you faced in that transition from business owner to business steward?

James Lenhoff: Yeah, the biggest obstacle is me. (laughter) I have found that the biggest - I wrote a book called Living a Rich Life, and in that book I talk about this, these generosity circuit breakers, that there's these moments, these stories that we tell ourselves that cut off this hard wiring, that we're supposed to be generous, and I think that's God's image in us. He's a generous God. And one of the things that cuts that signal is this story about being self-made, where we say, I did it, I created it, I put in the effort. I built it, so it's mine. And if it's mine, I get to have authority over it. I get to do whatever I want with it. I get to enjoy it.

And this was Ebenezer Scrooge's problem, right, in the Christmas Carol. He's " I did it. Nobody helped me. Why should I help you?" And then the ghosts of Christmas past shows him the truth. You were never alone. All these people impacted you in deep, profound ways. They're the reason you're here. You're not self-made. You're incredibly fortunate. And I started to realize, like I could have been born as that kid in Haiti. I could have been born during the plague. As I looked back and told myself a different story, I realized a hundred percent of the things that mattered the most, I had no control over. So to claim anything as mine is not just naive, it's insulting to the owner, right?

Martha: Oh..

James Lenhoff: And so I needed to get my mind right on this idea of ownership as a trap. If it's mine, I will make really selfish decisions with it. But if it's his, he gets to do whatever he wants with it, and I just say yes.

Jim: Ownership is a trap. I love that. Speaking of being a steward, every aspect of our work needs to be well managed. We talk on the show often about being a person of excellence to reflect Christ. Well, it's hard to be excellent when your computer's getting attacked by viruses or other nefarious people, or you get exposed to terrible things online.

SaferNet.com is who we use to help us steward all of our electronic devices at home and at work. Their internet controls, filters, virus protection, help us steward our time and our resources to accomplish the calling God has given us. We encourage each one of you to go to safernet.com, sign up, get it on all your devices, and let 'em know that you heard about it right here on iWork4Him.

So with all that perspective, James, and you look 19 years back and 19 years forward, that decision, a recognition that you're really just a steward. You're not just a steward, you have the privilege of being a steward. What's the long-term result 19 years later?

James Lenhoff: I think I would say the biggest result is the trajectory of growth of our business went parabolic.

Jim: Okay. You used one of those words not everybody's familiar with, especially if they didn't like geometry, okay? (laughter) And if they're watching on YouTube, it means up, it went up, it went like almost straight up.

James Lenhoff: Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yes. That's great. I call this math in the air.

Yeah, so straight up. And part of that was we recognized if we're not owners, one of the things that we want to do is get ownership, the experience of ownership, to all of our employees. And so we became a hundred percent employee owned. We got all the employees involved in it. They started getting profit distributions from the company, started to realize that this thing is really meaningful and valuable to their family. And it started to change their lives.

And one of the things that I think we tend to do when we have an ownership mindset is we say, I had to pay my dues. I had to, struggle and fight and overcome, and you should have to do the same thing too, and I'm not sure that's healthy. I think if we have an opportunity to open doors for families, that give them access to more freedom, more beauty, more health earlier, why would we prevent them from experiencing that?

And so we started to just be way more open-handed and generous with getting owners on on the team that used to just be employees. The other thing is we got super engaged in generosity as an organization. So finding opportunities to invest our team in service projects and different ways to express this, not just monetarily, but also with our physical bodies. How do we actually honor him? By going and serving. And that led to a lot of really meaningful connections for our employees. They found things that they were passionate about and they became connected to those organizations and started to really run with them. And so it just getting them access to some of this stuff was life changing and it was a beautiful experience to watch.

Jim: It's quite a shift. Quite a shift.

Martha: Wow. Listeners, I know that you might be longing for this same kind of paradigm shift in your own business and just can't imagine how to get it done. We are getting some examples today.

A great resource to help you gain confidence in running a Kingdom company is the US Christian Chamber of Commerce and you can attend the Chamber Expo next April 2026 in person, get encouragement and challenged while you're there, Jim and I have the pleasure of being your guide as MCs for this event. Go to swc2026.com. Use code iWork4Him to get registered and we'll see you there.

Jim: All right, James, I know because you're a glutton for punishment, not only have you had this extensive experience at Wealthquest, you're a pastor, a leadership development pastor at your church, you also started a coffee shop. Tell us this story.

James Lenhoff: Glutton for punishment, for sure. I would've lost every bet on the planet that opening a coffee shop would be harder than running a wealth management firm with 2000 clients. It's so hard. (chuckling) But the idea, it's used to be an Italian restaurant that's attached to the church building that we rent our church space. And when I went out of business, I said, I'm gonna put a coffee shop in there. I never had a dream for this. I never had any intentionality for it. And I had no idea how to do it or what I was doing. All I cared about was community space.

I have recognized that people are not coming to church, particularly people that don't know Jesus. There's nowhere for them to gather. And so the coffee shop attached to the church, it's called Charis Coffee and Creamery. Charis is the Greek word for grace and kindness. And we are just this open space, we donate all of our profits to local charities, but it's this idea of creating community. I actually am not a coffee snob. I don't care that much about coffee. The coffee's really good, but it's not because I have anything to do with it.

The bigger goal is just holding space for diversity and connection, and we have tons of Muslim families that hang out there all the time, and they feel safe there, which is beautiful. I had a wonderful connection with a individual that said, Hey, I know you're a pastor. You talk about being, working next door. And I was like, yeah. And she said, I think I'm a Muslim. And I said, yeah, of course. And she said, I don't understand it. I've never felt this safe and warmly welcomed anywhere in the city. And it doesn't make sense to me that would come from you. And I said, oh, that's easy. You are safe and you are warmly welcomed and I'm delighted to have you here.

And it now, in her context, she's experiencing what it feels like to have this unconditional love. She's never gonna walk in the church next door, but she's at least started to taste and see that the Lord is good, right? And so just holding space for people to just be human with each other is my vision.

And then the biggest thing that I've been surprised by is the ministry opportunities for staff members. We're hiring people that have medical issues or backgrounds or all kinds of things. We're bringing them in and giving them opportunities to grow. And it has been a joy and also has nearly destroyed me. (laughing) So both of those things are true at the same time.

Martha: And there, I'm just sitting here laughing because he doesn't even know. I know you don't even know, but this is just that, the journey that you have been on so parallels a lot of the things that Jim and I's journey looks like. In fact, to the point...

Jim: 4 days before this podcast launches,

Martha: we opened a coffee shop. So

James Lenhoff: No way. You should have talked to me beforehand. I'd have talked you out of it. (laughter)

Martha: Yeah, but you know what? It's actually called The Gathering very much for the same reason, a place to have community where people can sit and gather, put their feet under the table, and feel like they can linger and allow whatever needs to happen in that space.

Jim: And we didn't just open the coffee shop. We took a 150 year old building with a hole in the roof the size of a car and rehabbed and re brought back to life this building. And then we're putting a coffee shop in it.

Martha: Yeah.

Jim: And we did all the work ourselves.

Martha: It's been quite a journey for us. But one of the things I wanna hear from you, James, is in the midst of it all, like what kind of conversations did God allow you to have with people, I imagine, that sounded pretty much, what are you doing? Are you crazy? Why would you do this?

From a business standpoint, a lot of things that we step out in faith to, don't look like they make sense. So talk about that for a minute and why you know that it was the right thing for you to do, even though it's probably the hardest thing you've ever done. (chuckling)

James Lenhoff: Yeah, I have, I think, just recently crossed over from a sense of deep regret of having done it because it's been so hard to seeing the beauty of it. And God has really been kind in the, Hey, I know it's been hard, but look at this. Look at this. Look at this. He's been just pointing to things and it's really made my heart come alive. But we're talking the last few months. This is, we opened in May of 24.. So it's been a little over a year. And it is, I think the biggest thing for me is recognizing the deep felt need that the community has had for this place to just be allowed, to just be near each other, be with each other.

When I'm in the barista mode and I'm making a latte, I'm literally pouring the milk and praying over it, and I say, I bless the conversation that will happen over this beverage. I bless the community and the relationship that's gonna connect over this drink. We have gelato as well, so as I'm digging out gelato, I bless this child to joy as they engage in this. It's just an opportunity to take what would be a monotonous thing, because work is worship, turn it into a way to glorify the owner of all of this.

Yeah I don't know for sure if he was like, Hey, do this, or if I just did it. And he's like, I'll use it. I haven't teased that out yet. I tend to jump off cliffs and then he's okay, I'll catch ya.

Jim: But that's not what we're encouraging our listeners to do.

James Lenhoff: Yeah. (laughter)

Jim: We encourage you only to jump off the cliffs your Heavenly Father's asked you to jump off.

Martha: No, but I will say that a lot of people feel like their work is maybe meaningless or that they're not fulfilled in it. And yet in everything that God calls us to, as you've said several times, work is worship, and right now God may have someone in a job that they don't particularly like. They don't see why they're there. It's giving them a paycheck. Maybe that's the only reason they took the job, but God can use every single day, every hour of every work that we do, if we come into it with that approach that it is worship unto him.

And yet we're doing it for whatever that purpose is, as long as it's legal, that it's a position where you can bless other people by being that cup of cold water that they may need in that moment no matter what you're doing. I do believe that even if it's people don't feel like they're in their calling, they are in their calling because God has you there for purpose and on purpose.

James Lenhoff: And if you open your eyes to it,

Martha: yeah

James Lenhoff: you get to join the king of the universe and the work he has. It's a delight. We tend to get stuck in the monotony, but when we just lift our eyes up and say, all right, this is your day, these are this, the breath in my lungs is your breath. What do you want me to do with your life?

The way I read Galatians 2:20, I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. The idea of me is dead. It no longer exists. The only thing that's happening now is Jesus living through me. So how do I show up in my day-to-day monotony as Jesus? That's what we need to be called to, and that's what I am teaching at the church.

Like guys, people that don't know Jesus are not coming to church, but they're going to work. Ministry to the non-believer, the unchurched, is not gonna happen here. You need to be activated and prepared to do what God is asking you to do every moment of the day when you go to your place of work. We need to see it differently than just a paycheck. I totally agree.

Jim: We need to have you back to have a couple more conversations. One about church, how do we get our church to be like your church that actually looks at business not as a necessary evil, but as an opportunity for community ministry? But also talk about this retirement, go deeper into that.

But I wanna just close out with this question: many of our listeners today are struggling with the staleness of their faith in their work. Whether they're running a business or whether they're operating a piece of heavy equipment or digging a ditch or selling cars, whatever it may be, they're worn out and they've got very little support or understanding from their local church body. How can you encourage them today?

James Lenhoff: I think the biggest mistake that the Big C Church continues to make is this separation of "this is where holy things happen, and this is where worldly things happen." I think we have done a huge disservice and what I encourage people who are finding their jobs monotonous, who are burned out, who are weary, if you just recognize every moment as holy. Jesus is in every one of these moments, every breath that you take, you are breathing him in. And every exertion, everything you lift, every piece of paperwork that you file, everything you are doing with your physical body has an opportunity to bring glory to his kingdom.

If you bring your everything to it, as monotonous as it is, you're glorifying him. And the most beautiful thing that has happened so many times for me is when someone notices that. When they say, why do you care so much about this? Why are you putting this much effort into it? Because their tendency is to just check out, do it in a half effort way, and call it good enough.

But when you show up with excellence, it is deeply attractive and really uncommon, and they want to know why. And you get so many opportunities to tell them because you're doing it for the king. And he deserves it. He deserves your best.

Martha: James, there are so many things that you have said or brought up or touched on lightly or that we just didn't have enough time to cover that our listeners have been digging into for a long time, and I just want them to know that one of the things that we're gonna do is put a resource in the show notes of a sermon you just preached that we have said for years on the iWork4Him, show that people have never heard the sermon, that their work matters.

They've never heard the sermon about so many things that the scriptures actually have to say about our work. So listeners, I'm giving you this little bonus, you're gonna have a sermon that you can listen to that James presented to a church, just to take that next step and say, here's somebody who gets it, that is teaching others, and that it can happen around the globe because I believe that the scriptures, a lot of us have just had our eyes covered and our ears plugged to the truth of what God really has in store for us on a day-to-day basis.

And I love just what you just said about every moment is holy. And that's really what it comes down to, is that perspective, that paradigm shift that we've been talking about.

Jim: James Lenhoff, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for sharing some of your story. I hope you'll agree to come back and we can have some more of these conversations.

James Lenhoff: You betcha. Yeah, you just tell me when, I'll be here.

Martha: Awesome.

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.