Transcript 

Welcome to the Hundredfold Business Podcast, where Christian men learn the principles, strategies, and tactics to grow their businesses, top line, bottom line, and finish line. I want you to discover the secret to applying Biblical truth to business growth for the greatest kingdom impact. So in the end, you hear from your Heavenly Father, well done.

Welcome to the Hundredfold Business Podcast, where Christian men learn how to grow their businesses, top line, bottom line, and finish line. And I'm your host, Josh Fonger, founder of 4th Soil Ventures. And today we have a special guest.

We have Darren Shear. Darren is the host of the Christian Business Leader Podcast, which helps marketplace Christians explore and apply God's will for business. He's authored three books for marketplace Christians.

They are The Christ-Centered Company, 37 Biblical Business Habits to Build a Thriving Company that Honors God and Blesses the World, The Marketplace Christian, A Practical Guide to Using Your Spiritual Gifts in Business, Marketing Like Jesus, 25 Strategies to Change the World. Darren is also the founder and CEO of High Bridge Books and Media, which helps Christ-centered authors and organizations craft, publish, and market messages and stories that glorify God in all spheres of culture. All right.

Welcome to the show, Darren. Excited to have you here. Yeah.

Thanks for having me, Josh. Looking forward to this. Okay.

And Darren and I, we're talking in advance and there's a lot of overlap in what we do in both of our podcasts and writings. And so today I'm really excited to, he's done a lot of research on this is to find out exactly how do you practically integrate your faith into your work and what have been some of the stories that he's been a part of seeing in terms of what are the tangible tactical strategies that companies have put in place. And it'll probably end on some marketing things as well, because I know that he's an expert in marketing as well.

So let's start at Darren. Can you share with the audience how God has directed your path to get where you are right now? Yeah. Well, I was a prodigal son.

I grew up in church. My dad was my pastor growing up and my mom was the church musician and I was a rebellious PK and I really fit that stereotype. And so fast forward, September the 11th, 2001, I'm a sophomore in college.

I am deeply depressed. I have no purpose, no sense of God's calling on my life at that point. But something began to arise up in me that day and it was patriotism, but it was something that God was using to draw me to himself.

And so by lunchtime that day, when I saw what had happened to our country, I went to the ROTC commander's office at my university and said, sir, I'd like to join the Air Force. And, and so I, again, had almost nothing going for me. I actually had some bad things going for me.

And, but we, they needed officers. And so they made a Air Force officer out of me. And that was the, the, the moment where I began to realize what God had been doing all along.

Even when I was rebelling from God, there was a sweet older lady in our church and she would always say, you ready to preach? And I'm thinking, do you know where I was last night? What I was doing? Like, can you just smell the liquor on my breath from the night before? But she would just say, you ready to preach? And, and so here I am, we might even do a little preaching on this podcast, Josh, but, but that was kind of my, my come to Jesus season of my life. And, and, and so I, I wanted to be involved in what, in God's mission and, and redeeming the world. And so for me at that time, I was in the Air Force and, but for me, I still kind of had this mindset that ministry was something that happened somewhere else.

So I'm at work. I can't wait to get off work so I can go do some volunteer work through my local church, you know, through some different outreach ministries I was involved in. And I was leaving the base one day and the Lord spoke to my heart and said, this base is your ministry.

And that was the paradigm shift that I had when I recognized that God wanted to be involved in every aspect of my life, especially the aspects of my life where I spend the most of my waking hours, which happens to be at work. Wow. So that's, that's quite a story and I can kind of relate to the transformation in college.

Though I did not grow up with my dad being a preacher, but I want to kind of go from, from that point to, okay, so you had the revelation that the Air Force base was the place where you should be doing your ministry. How did that take you to where you are right now, where you're actually teaching others how to integrate their faith into their work? What were the steps there? Yeah. And so I also began to realize that it's not just the workplace in general where God wants to be involved in our lives.

For most of us, that's in a for-profit business. And when you impact the economic system, you really get people's attention. And you can see this from the Reformation to the American Revolution and even to the resurrection.

So with the Reformation, Martin Luther put his finger on the economic injustices of the Catholic Church in the way that they were charging people money for the forgiveness of their sins. And so that was really the first thing that he addressed that was the domino that began to uncover the problems with overall theology. And he upended their economic system in the American Revolution.

The colonists are being price gouged with the tea and then famously dumped the tea, the British tea, into the Boston Harbor. And that was one of the main dominoes that triggered the American Revolution. And then even with the resurrection, it says that when Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers, that it was from that day forward, they began plotting a way to kill him.

And so in that sense, even impacting the economic system triggered the resurrection. And so I realized that business, that's where 85% of us spend most of our waking hours. And so if disciples are to be made and the Great Commission is to be carried out, it's got to be in the workplace, and specifically in the business world.

Certainly God is very much involved in the education system, in the classrooms, in the hospitals, and working through stay-at-home moms and dads, but most of us are working in a for-profit business. Oh, that's great. I'm going to have a look at some of those historical references there, which kind of dovetails to my question, which I'm curious about.

So when I had this epiphany about how important it was to integrate your faith into your work, I know I'm not the only one. I know it's been going on for a long time. Can you kind of share with us what has been, maybe just in America, what does that look like over the years and the generations? What's been the thought process of, okay, I'm a Christian, and it's not just Christian values and principles.

What does it look like? Maybe you can share with us the history of that in America. Yeah, well, I guess you could say in the modern faith at work movement began back in the 1930s. Even prior to that, we'll go back to the Fulton Street Revival, where that became the catalytic moment that triggered what was known as the Prayer Revival in America.

But a business guy by the name of Jeremiah Land Fear just began to gather and invite other business people from down in Fulton Street, Manhattan to come at lunchtime and pray. And it was a very structured, you know, you're going to get two or three minutes to pray or share an encouraging word from the Lord that you had. And God really moved through that.

And then there were guys that gathered for the Christian businessmen's committee and the full gospel businessmen that gathered in the 1950s. And it really started as really an evangelistic endeavor to, you know, these guys recognize they're not going to be going to church, a lot of them. And so if they're going to be reached, it's got to be in the workplace.

And so that was the mindset that this is a way to evangelize. But I think what's happening now is we're taking it further and realizing that it's not just sort of an addition to like, if you can't get them to church, you can at least get them at the workplace. I mean, what we're really called to do is not just get people to make decisions for Christ, which can be done in a meeting with people sitting in rows, but we're called to go and make disciples.

And that's something that can really only happen in everyday life. And where does that everyday life happen for most of us? It's in the business world. Well, after we get this one, I want to share with you a podcast I just recorded with someone who's literally doing this.

It's changing the culture and it's discipling and he's doing a great job with that. So disciple-making at the workplace because they're spending 40 hours a week there anyways. And I think that probably relates to the book you recently wrote, which is The Christ-Centered Company, 37 Biblical Business Habits to Build a Thriving Company that Honors God and Blesses the World.

So what are some of those habits that you have found through your research that business owners are putting into practice to be those disciple-makers? Yeah. Well, I'll back up just a little bit and just so you can understand where I'm coming from with these habits. So again, the calling is to go and make disciples.

And so how do we do that in a business setting or in any organization? What I've come to the conclusion of is that companies market culture. Culture makes disciples. Influencers' habits make the culture.

And so what am I saying is culture? Culture is the defining habits of a group of people. And a disciple is one who has adopted the habits of the culture. So companies have many different cultural expressions.

It's their products, services, their hiring preferences, their operations, their policies, the causes that they give to charitably. These are all expressions of the culture. And there's a very worldly way.

There's a very worldly culture. But then there's what I call Christ-centered culture that's in line with the values of the kingdom of God. And to use a biblical term for culture, there's a concept called the way.

And it's not just in Christianity. It's in a lot of different religions. But what's unique about Christianity is that the way is not just a path and a way of doing things, but the way is a person.

In John 14, 6, we know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through him. And but there are the people of the way.

And that's the way that Christians were first referred to not as Christians, but as the people of the way. Because there's a certain, well, there's a person that they're following, but there's a certain way of doing things. And there's certain habits that are characteristic of believers that are consistent with the kingdom.

And so what I wanted to look at with these 37 habits is what are the habits of the kingdom related to human resource practices, related to accounting, related to marketing and risk management, and the way that the company handles its approach to charitable giving. And what I identified were 37 biblical business habits. And that's what I address in the book, The Christ-Centered Company.

So out of those 37 habits, which were ones that maybe were a surprise to you, you didn't realize you'd find? Yeah, I think probably the most significant one was the first habit one. And so when people ask like, what's the most important of the 37 habits, would you say? And I would say it's habit one. And this was kind of a surprising revelation that Jesus is actually not just on the receiving end of what you do with your charitable giving dollars and that you give to your church and that you give to nonprofits and things like that.

But Jesus is actually on the receiving end of everything that you do in business. Everything that the company does, Jesus is on the receiving end of that. And that's why as believers we're called to work as unto the Lord, not for men, because it's the Lord Christ you're serving.

And that's what Colossians 3.23 says. And then put differently in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, if you've done it to the least of these, you've done it to me. If you haven't done it to the least of these, you haven't done it to me.

And so that just opens up a whole new realm of possibility for the way that we can glorify God in business. Because now Christ is not just not only the CEO, Jesus is my CEO, and God is the chairman of the board, but He's also your entry-level employee. He's also on the receiving end of the way you treat your contractors and the way that you treat everyone, all of your stakeholders in the business.

And so how do we treat Christ as our, how do we treat our customer as Christ? How do we treat our team members as Christ? How do we treat our prospective customers as Christ in the way that we do our advertising and the way that we withhold information that we know that if we were in their shoes, we would like to know about this transaction, but we would prefer to have that information asymmetry in the buying process and think we're getting away with it and that God doesn't care about it. And yet the Word of God says in Proverbs that a false weight is an abomination to the Lord. And so it's just withholding information that the other person needs to know to give yourself an advantage in business.

So I would say that was the most surprising one, as well as what I would say is the one on which all of the other habits kind of hang. Wow, that's great. I'm going to meditate on that.

And actually, after I told you after this interview, I'm going to go buy the book because I want to read through the other 36 of them. What would you say is the area where Christian business owners are missing it the most where they you're like, wow, this one, they keep missing it. And I wish they would know about this habit.

Yeah. Well, so there's an assessment that goes along with it that that now hundreds we're approaching almost a thousand businesses that have their representatives, whether it's an executive or mid-level manager, people are taking this Christ-centered company assessment to rate their companies on a scale of one to five to the extent to which they are doing these 37 biblical business habits. And so I do have the data on that to answer your question.

And based on the last time that I kind of did the snapshot of the data, the one is consistently rated the lowest of the 37 is habit 22, which has to do with providing spiritual and emotional care for your team members. And and so I think there's probably a variety of reasons for that. But I think fundamentally it's it's the the leaders in the company are just saying it's just not my job.

You know, your job, we're paying you to make us more money. And in whatever way that you do that, our job is to pay you money. Our job is not to be your pastor or your chaplain or your counselor or to really be concerned with your personal life.

In fact, you need to just kind of check that at the door. And I think there's a lot of mindsets that that go into that that are not biblical, because the biblical mindset is to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, like Galatians 6, 2 tells us. And so that's the one that is consistently rated the lowest.

Wow. And what an opportunity for business owners if they did start to embark on that, the improvement. I've got to imagine you would have a competitive advantage and a financial advantage if you did invest in your employees that way.

They're going to be more loyal. They're going to show up to work happier, more engaged. And if their personal lives are being cared for in some capacity, even listen to them, they're going to be invested that much more in the work you're doing because you're investing in their lives.

Now, very fascinating. Now, the next transition here to one of the other books, which I think is they all are worthy of an hour interview, The Marketplace Christian, A Practical Guide to Using Your Spiritual Gifts. So a lot of people, they go to work, obviously, they work hard.

They don't necessarily think about the giftings that God has given them or using those gifts for God's glory. So what was the reason you wrote the book? And what does this look like to use your spiritual gifts in the marketplace? Yeah, well, it occurred to me that it seems the prevailing theology is that the only way that if you even believe that the gifts are for today, and there are a group of, you know, folks that call themselves cessationists that believe that the gifts kind of cease with the apostles, and then you have continuationists and for on.

Spiritual gifts, he says. The mindset is that this is only for the congregational setting. And so what gifts are in demand on a Sunday morning? Well, probably one guy's teaching gift.

You know, some gift of hospitality when you walk in the door. Hopefully somebody's going to greet you with a smile when you come in. And hopefully somebody's got some gifting for music and worship.

And, you know, there's not a lot else that's really in demand because a lot of people can go to church and not speak to a single person. In fact, that's probably the case with most people when they go to church is they're not going to talk to a single other person that they didn't come with. And it's just such a tragedy.

And I would say even a heresy to think that way, because then the gifts, they're not in use the rest of the week. And they're not even in use on Sunday morning, by and large, because most people are not on the platform. Most people are sitting in the rows.

And so where are the gifts going to be used if they're going to be used at all? Well, certainly in the home, but certainly in the workplace. And for most of us, again, that's in the business world. So I was wrestling with this question of, Paul talks about a spiritual gift of administration.

And I have a gift of administration. I'm like, so at what point does my, you know, we use the phrase gifts and talents to sort of have this sacred-secular divide. At what point does my natural talent of administration stop being just a natural talent and actually be a spiritual gift? And some would say, well, it's maybe if you're counting the offering at church or you're counting attendance, that's a gift of administration.

And yet, as I understand it now, the gift of administration I'm using all throughout the week as I'm running a business. Or think about the gift of service. How sad would it be if the only place you can use a gift of service is at your church during a two-hour, 90-minute service? But the gift of service has to be in use all throughout the week by all of God's people, not just the people that, you know, where they scored highest on their spiritual gifts assessment, but that we are all called to use a spiritual gift of service.

And I really believe that we're either operating by the Spirit, we're walking by the Spirit, or we're walking by the flesh. Like, those are our only two options. There's not the option of you can either kind of operate in just a natural ability as a Christian, or you can operate with a spiritual gift.

I think it's the difference between operating under the anointing and not operating under the anointing. So would you say it's kind of like being separate from the vine or attached to the vine? So basically, you could be generous as a non-believer, or you can be generous out of a heart of love towards your neighbor and be generous in that way? How would you explain the difference there? Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, a gift of... that's a good example.

A gift of giving is one of the spiritual gifts that Paul mentions. And by the way, I don't even think that his list of gifts was an exhaustive list. I think there are other gifts.

I mean, just think about like in church nowadays, especially there's a security detail. Hopefully somebody's got a gift of vigilance and a gift of security to be able to walk in that role, even though it's not specifically addressed in Paul's list of spiritual gifts. But sorry, what was your question? Well, I was just saying, so how does that play out? And we're going to kind of nuance this a little bit.

The gift of giving, the gift of giving, yes. So yeah, I mean, if you're just operating in the flesh, it's like, well, our company's going to give so that we can have a good reputation in the community. So people want to do business with us.

And yet the scripture says, Jesus says, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And yet a lot of the giving is done in that, like corporate giving is done in that way, just sort of to have a better reputation. It's more of a publicity stunt than it is the kind of giving in secret that Jesus had in mind.

And even just knowing the right causes, the right way to handle money, the giving, the anointing would help to direct that and give us wisdom about what to do with the charitable giving dollars of the company. And maybe a much larger chunk of that giving ought to be given to the employees through an employee giving fund to help them pay for things like, you know, funeral expenses or they had their car breakdown, you know, things that maybe their salary or their hourly wage is not sufficient to take care of. Having a fund like that, and there's an organization called His Way at Work, which teaches a great way to do that.

And I talk about that in the book, The Christ Center Company as well. Well, I want to keep going. This is a very fascinating subject for me.

Let's say, similar to what I took your test, a gift of high-level administration. So let's say that you're not a believer and you're running your company, and then you become a believer. You're like, wow, I just learned about who Jesus is, placed my faith in Jesus.

And I want to, you know, run this company different. I'm still running the company. I got a hundred employees.

Is prayer involved? Like, what do they need to do to, you know, really live in a way that glorifies God in their business now that they was like, I want to use these giftings that God has given me for the maximum benefit. What would that, how would they do that? Yeah, I think starting off identifying what are those gifts. I think a lot of people probably know what their gifts are.

If you don't know, we do have that spiritual gifts in the marketplace assessment. You can take it, christianbusinessleader.org to identify, and it'll rank order of the 23 that are surveyed in that assessment. It'll rank order the ones that you're strongest at, and the ones that you're weakest at.

And certainly if you are weak in certain areas, better make sure that you have a team of people because we're called to be a body. We're not called to be Superman maxed out in all of the different categories, all of the different gifts, but to make sure that we are surrounded by other believers that are strong in those gifts and that have the right perspective and that are operating under the anointing and the perspective that these gifts are not just for making money. These are your disciple-making tools.

Going back to this theme of discipleship and following in the way and leading others in the way so that you can conform the entire culture of that organization to the way, to the kingdom way and God's way of doing things. And then to identify how your company is doing on these different habits, you can also take the Christ-centered company assessment. And just a couple of days ago, I saw some of the people, I see as people take the assessment, and I noticed that there was one logistics company where it was just one of their employees after the next that was taking the assessment because evidently, and I hadn't talked to him about it, but evidently whoever is in charge of that company said, I want my whole leadership team, and maybe it's not just the leaders that are taking it, but I want y'all to assess how we're doing in these different habits.

And then I would hope that they would get together and talk about it and how can we grow in these different areas and get more of a biblical framework for approaching each one of them. Well, let's keep moving on as the time is short here. Another great book, and it's one that I've read personally, Marketing Like Jesus.

I think this is a huge opportunity here. And we were talking before we hit record about all the marketing tactics and the way the world does marketing. And they're appealing to the flesh, they're appealing to the lust, they're appealing to greed and all the other things to manipulate people to make a decision, to make a purchase.

And your book takes a very different approach and uses Jesus as the figure to follow. And so what made you want to write this book? And why did you say in the book that Jesus is a great marketer? Yeah, well, the way that I define marketing, and I think we probably have a broader understanding of what marketing is, probably from the first time the term was coined to maybe refer to a specific market like the wheat market or the corn market or the gold market. But marketing, as I see it today, is strategic influence.

So it's not just influencing people unintentionally, but it's deliberate strategic influence. And so Jesus did this. Jesus was very intentional about the way that he showed up in the world, even to the point of branding himself in certain ways.

The Bible says that he made of himself no reputation in Philippians 2. But you see that Jesus uses descriptors like the way, the truth, the life, the door, the good shepherd, the vine. Like all of these are ways that Jesus is defining who he is. And he laid out a very clear mission statement in Luke chapter four.

And so even John the Baptist is sitting there in prison, and he's in despair and wondering like, was he actually the Messiah? And Jesus says to report back to him that everything that he said he was going to do in Luke four, liberty of the captives and the blind sea and the lame walk, like report back to John. That's what is happening. And so he, I think that's a good lesson for anyone who is marketing anything, that it better be the truth that when you say that your product does something or that your nonprofit does something or that what your political campaign is going to deliver on something, like you better do it and it better be based on the results.

So what is your, because you've got, you have a marketing company. So if someone is going to choose to work with your marketing company compared to just a normal off the street marketing company, is there a certain way that you do your work differently or certain questions you ask as you're coming up with your, I guess, client avatar? How do you guys do it differently? Yeah. So most of the, our primary client is an author.

And, and so that, that's most of who we work with. And we do have other organizations that we do SEO and Google ads and website development for, but primarily we're working with authors and just that particular habit as an example of not, not using false weights to make it seem like you are delivering something that you're not delivering or you're not able to deliver or you haven't delivered yet. Sort of aspirational advertising.

I think that's the way that a lot of companies tend to advertise is more aspirationally versus what they've actually done and then featuring and then featuring that and how we can then go and help you do, do the same. Yeah. Jesus, Jesus certainly didn't do that because that would be a false weight.

And so I don't know if I answered your question. Can you just rephrase it a little bit? Sure. Yeah.

I was just wondering, I mean, there's a lot of marketing companies to choose from. And, and so, and you know, in my case, So you're asking about Highbridge books specifically. So for example, there's a lot of this, to say that I'm an Amazon bestseller, for example, would be, as I see it, a violation of that, that principle and that, and that habit.

And we've even had our own authors say, I would like to, this book's been out. It was, let's say it reached number five in Christian professional growth or in some, some niche, some niche category. And so I want to put a badge on the book that says it was a Amazon bestseller, or even if it was number one in a, in one of those categories, what they're, what they're trying to do is to sort of conflate their number one status with being like a New York Times bestseller, assuming that the typical book buyer is going to be none the wiser.

But what we know is that there's at least 16,000 different categories on Amazon, because, you know, it's all broken out into, we were just talking about Appalachian, you know, backpacking on the Appalachian trail. There's literally a category just for that. And so we have had to say, no, we're not going to do that.

And that makes for a very uncomfortable conversation. I mean, like my book, my books have hit number one in some of those subcategories. I'm not going to tell people I'm a number one Amazon bestseller.

And so that's just one of the, but what I can do is talk about the people whose lives have been impacted by these books. And you're sharing with me that your life has been positively impacted by marketing like Jesus, how it kind of reframed some of your approach to marketing. And I mean, that's what we need to focus on, but it would be easier and it feels a little bit more effective to say, oh, I'm a number one Amazon bestseller.

So that's just an example. Yeah, and it sounds like it's taking the long road or the right road or the harder road, it seems like in the short term, to have a more lasting, enduring impact because people can build trust with you and your brand and the way you're marketing because they know that you're not going to add in deception with it, which I think, again, is going to aid in the buying process. Well, Darren, I'd love to wrap up this interview by asking a question.

I asked everybody who comes on the show, and here it is. What would you say to encourage someone who is not yet fully embraced integrating their faith into their work? What would be your encouragement or advice for them? I would say to recognize that if disciples are to be made in your workplace, the only person that is likely going to be the one to do that will be you. I mean, they're either going to be discipled by you or they're going to be discipled by the world.

And that's the dangerous, scary thing about missing our opportunity to help the culture of our organizations become more in line with kingdom culture and the culture of Christ is that the pattern of this world will disciple them. And you can see this, for example, we're not going to have time to do this, but contrast a company like Hobby Lobby with Nike, for example, or there's a lot of other comparisons that could be made. But if you look at that comparison, you will quickly begin to see that companies aren't just marketing products and services.

They're actually marketing culture. They're actually marketing worldview. And God's people are called to disciple nations.

And the primary place where that's going to happen for, I think most of the people listening to this podcast will be in your company. Well, that's a great encouragement. And it's a great, I think, exhortation to push us further into the zone of realizing, hey, we're leaders.

We are making an impact. Whether we're making an effective impact or not, that's our opportunity. And we should take hold of that mantle and actually get engaged in the battle.

Well, again, Darren, thanks for being on the show today, for sharing your wisdom and your message and your books. And where can people go to find out more about you and to find out where those resources are and those assessments? Yeah, you can take those assessments and also subscribe to the Christian Business Leader podcast at christianbusinessleader.org. And if you have a book to publish, then reach out at highbridgebooks.com. You can go there to see what we offer. Feel free to email me at darren at highbridgebooks.com as well.

Very good. I highly recommend the podcast for those of you who like podcasts like this one. Darren has a lot of great guests and resources there.

So everyone who's listening to the show, stay tuned for next week. I'll be sharing another episode about how you can grow a hundredfold business and one that glorifies God as it grows. I'll be equipping you how to grow your top line, bottom line and finish line.

And if you need help with your business, you can always reach out directly to me at 4thsoilventures.com. Again, Darren, thanks for being on the show. And thanks everybody for tuning in. And until next time, grace be with you brothers.