(soft music) (upbeat music) FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR HOW THE GOSPEL SHAPES OUR CALL TO CREATE SESSION 1 OUR CALL TO CREATE Welcome, thanks for joining us for this series. My name is Justin, and I'm the executive director of "Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Investor". Our ministry exists to help Christ following entrepreneurs and investors find their community and fulfill their God given call to create. We envision a day where over a million faith driven entrepreneurs come to fully know God through their work. You might be familiar with one of our podcasts or conferences has included friends like Tim Keller, Lecrae, Donald Miller, Anthony Tan, Ally Davidson, Cathie Wood or Coby Cotton from Dude Perfect. You can learn more about those faithdrivenentrepreneur.org. But we hope this is only the beginning. As powerful as content can be its best experience in the context of community with other entrepreneurs that understand the unique opportunities and challenges we face. If you're watching this alone, we'd encourage you to join a free group either online or in person. There's no cost or catch. Simply go to our website faithdrivenentrepreneur.org to find the group that best fits you. And for those going through this together already as a group. Our prayers perhaps for the first time in your life, you're surrounded by people who understand this unique journey of entrepreneurship that we're on together. Perhaps this is a group that you'll continue on with and journey together through other episodes of content. One thing is certain we hope that whether you experience this in a group or individually, that you would be inspired to invite others into this movement. This is your movement and wherever God calls you to apply what you experience, know that we're here to help. Another great tool from our ministry is that faith driven entrepreneur book and app. These are tools that can help define the movement and introduce it to friends of yours that might not be able to take that first step of being in a duo group just I wanna introduce my friend and co-founder, Henry Kaestner Henry's love of entrepreneurship started with a t-shirt sales business in college, and he went on to co-found Bandwidth, which spun off for public wireless. Since then he's supported the next generation of faith driven entrepreneurs around the world with his co-founding of Sovereign's Capital. What I've appreciated most about Henry, is in those unique seasons, he's not lost sight of his identity as a child of God, husband to Kimberly, and a dad of three boys. His entrepreneurial experience combined with J.D.'s teaching and the powerful video stories from our friends at Faith and Co, RightNow Media is going to make for such a great series. Thanks for joining us and being a part of this experience together. Greetings, welcome to the first ever video series from Faith Driven Entrepreneur. My name is Henry Kaestner and I'm super excited that you all are with us today. This is a video series that is for you, the faith driven entrepreneur and business owner. If you are like me, you've wanted to have a video series that helps you to explore all the different aspects of being an entrepreneur, so this is for you. Just a quick word of background. I'm an entrepreneur like you and have been from a young age. I found my first love when I went to college and learned that I could make a tee shirt for $5 and sell it for 10. And since then, I've been on a path of running a business and creating with partners and never felt more alive. And along the way, I also met Jesus as an adult, which of course changed everything for me. At age 28, I walked into a church and came to understand that there's a God who loves me and sent His Son to die for me. And it changed everything and it absolutely changed my entrepreneurial trajectory. And it's in those lessons since 28, I'm 50 now, those lessons are last 22 years, that we wanted to share with you a bit, and it's an incredible blessing for me to be able to do this video series with a great friend of mine, JD Greear. And JD has been formative in my own spiritual formation and how I think about how I am called to create, how I'm called to be an entrepreneur. And I think that you'll find from his teaching that you'll be furthered along your own path in being a God honoring entrepreneur and business leader. This video series, I wanna tell you a little bit about what I hope you can expect. I hope that you'll come to understand some of the marks that you might feel that you can gravitate to, that can become part of what you look to as you look to honor God in the workplace. We'll look at things from your identity, through to what to think about money. You'll come to understand how God is even using you and your business on a global scale. This movement of God is much broader than what any one of us can do, which is why we created this whole thing. So we hope that you'll interact with us. We hope that you'll go online to Faith Driven Entrepreneur, that you'll see some of the materials that we've developed there. We'll also hope that you'll come back to us with some feedback about how we can do this better. So we're getting started with Series One, Session One, which we're calling Called to Create. Our hope is that through this lesson and the video that you're about to see that you'll come to understand that you're creating in the image of a God who works six days a week and His work continues to this day. So watch with us this great video that we set aside for you and then hear from JD and I'll circle back with you all at the end. (soft music) (honking) (sowing machine buzzing) (indistinct) One centimeter. And then yeah, one centimeter. And then we'll do a, see, I like these right here, but this is too much. It's too deep. It feels like a Lincoln Continental from the seventies. My name is Dave Munson. I am the owner or CEO or president of Saddleback Leather Company. They're gonna lean this up like this, up against the coffin. And right now I'm designing my coffin. Because I think it's cool. (chuckling) Like I don't wanna have like a Dudley coffin. So my feet will be sticking up here. So wherever the feet are, I don't, I can't have the pockets here. When they put these down, I can't have the pockets touching my feet. In fact, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford. They're gonna have one of my coffins 'cause they're so stinking cool. And they don't have long to go. (soft music) I'd gone to this funeral recently, and the guy was a really neat guy. And his funeral was like. When I die, I'm gonna have it on like, whatever it is, whatever the equivalent of Facebook Live is then, so hopefully millions people or probably thousands, hundreds maybe, let's just say hundreds of people are gonna watch the funeral and they're gonna hear the Gospel and there's a lure in because my cool coffin, wouldn't that be super cool. (soft music) When I was 19, I went on a mission trip and I felt like that is what I wanna do the rest of my life. I don't wanna waste my life. I wanna reach people for the kingdom. I just knew I wanted to do ministry the rest of my life. And then someone came up and said, hey, Dave, we really need someone to go down to Mexico to teach English, and I thought, man, that sounds so cool. So, think of all the ministry I could do if I were fluent in Spanish. So I headed down to Mexico and I wanted a bag to carry my books. So I found this bag maker named Lionel. And because I couldn't find a bag, I went to him and I said, Hey, could you make me a bag? I'd sketched it out, and I said, God, would you help this to be the coolest bag ever? (chuckling) you know, I mean ever, I want this to be the greatest coolest bag, and I want you to get more glory from this bag than any other bag that has ever existed on this planet, why not, I mean, it's free, just like ask. So I did that bag, it came back and man, everywhere I went people were going, oh, excuse me, sir, where can I get a bag like that? Where'd you find that bag? How can I get one of these bags? I remember laying on the floor in Juarez. I was like, huh, that'd be cool, if I could make this into a real business, you know? Oh yeah, that'd be cool, but I have to do ministry. So I guess I can't do that. I was kinda stupid. Okay, unless, and we could do a many totes. many duffels I mean, many duffels, What about the medium size? Great idea, yeah. But I don't want any of this on it, none. I think we used it all up guys. I really don't understand why your faith has to be separate. (upbeat music) God cares about beauty. He cares. God makes and creates beautiful things. And so we use really good high quality materials. We spend a lot more on our materials because we want things to last. Everything God does is quality, no exceptions. We are all about quality, we are all about reaching people, loving on people, and the business has allowed us to speak into people's lives that I know we would have never had the opportunity to do that. People see us on social media. People contact me and it opens a door to be able to love on people very easily. I was having a lot of fun on social media. I didn't see it as a ministry, as a way to influence. I was just seeing it as a way to interact with our customers. Since then, we've had a lot of people say, hey, you know, I hate Christians, and I think that you guys are like probably Christians, I think, and I like you guys. (speaking in foreign language) (children mumbling) (indistinct) Samuel, he is two months old. I think he looks like mama. Hello Samuel. Early on, I was like, we've need to do something for the workers here and give them a place to drop their babies, free. We're not, don't ask for anything, but then also for these kids to be educated there and to get great food and to be loved on and to learn about Jesus, learn about God, so we opened a daycare. We put the daycare in place and this guy says, why did you do that? He was like, pleased, I gotta know, he came up to the office, he was crying, he said, you know, it's changed our lives, and why, why did you do that? You really wanna know why I said, well, it's because God loves you so much. And He loves you so much, He wanted your family to be whole, and so He put it inside of us to do that. And so I can't help it, I like, I want to, like, I hope you like it. Success to me is if people are looking towards God, and are drawing closer to Him because of my life, I have had a successful life. Simply that. So, you know, I started off with that one bag. And for me, it ended up being the best bag in the whole world, like the greatest coolest bag in the whole world. But when I started Saddleback Leather, it was to reach people. (upbeat music) because my life is super short here, and I'm not gonna waste my time. Hey, when it comes to thinking about how we can serve God in our work or how entrepreneurs can use their gifts and their passions to serve God, most Christians don't really know what to think. We think of living out Christianity as something that you mostly do inside the church and getting committed to Jesus, more committed to Jesus means volunteering more at the church nursery, attending small group, becoming a (indistinct) or going on a mission trip, serving at the soup kitchen, or giving more money to the church. When we do think about people who try to make their business enterprise Christian, in fact, all kinds of disturbing images come to mind, maybe opening a beauty salon and calling it a cut above, or a coffee shop and naming it Hebrews or defiantly saying Merry Christmas to your customers rather than happy holidays, and when you're in the checkout line, or maybe even sneaking in a have a blessed day into a situation. Forcing awkward moments, maybe into sales calls. You know, you're like, well, now that I sold you life insurance, how about insurance for life after death? Or I've got your name on our mailing list, but the more important question is, is your name on the Lamb's book of life. And maybe you're just like, I just don't think that I can, I can do that. Or perhaps you've heard the disastrous story of the 2004 incident of an American airlines pilot doing his pre-flight announcements, asked all the Christians on board the plane, he's like, hey, why don't you raise your hands? He then suggested over the loudspeaker that during the flight, the other passengers talk to those people about their faith. He also told passengers that he'd be happy to talk to anybody who had questions. And he said, you know, if something happens to this plane and we don't make it, you'll wanna have this conversation before you land. Well, understandably that freaked a lot of people out with your pilot talking to you about, you know, whether or not you're ready to meet Jesus. And a lot of Christians hear that and they think oh I admire that guy zeal, but a lot of Christian entrepreneurs think, I just don't think that I could do that. And I could, I could really pursue a business. Well, good news is that the Bible actually has a lot to say about our calling as entrepreneurs, and it's a lot more than just how to sneak in evangelistic conversations. Consider this, the majority of the parables that Jesus taught revolve around the workplace context. If you go through the book of Acts and you count up the number of miracles, there are a total of 40 of them. 39 of those 40 happened outside the church. It happens in the workplaces and the common areas of the people in the city. So as an entrepreneur, if you feel overlooked or ignored by the church, what I want you to hear me say is what you're doing matters. You're a co-creator with God. You've got a unique call to be a cultural change agent within your community, through the business that God is empowering you to lead. Entrepreneurs are uniquely equipped to positions, to lead into the next generation of meeting physical needs and to engage in discipleship, and we want to empower you and empower you to empower others. You know, understand the importance of entrepreneurship. We need to go back in fact all the way back. We need to go back to God's original design. When God placed Adam in the garden of Eden, He didn't just, you know, tell Adam to stay away from a few bad apples. He told him to be fruitful and multiply. He told him to take dominion over the earth, these are what we call the creation mandates. And then as an application of these, God gave to Adam a job. He put Adam in the garden to work and to keep it, Genesis 2:15 says, now you should note, this was before the curse of sin. So work was not some kinda punishment that God inflicted on Adam because of his sin. It was part of God's original design, productive work. Entrepreneurship was part of paradise. In fact, the Hebrew word (speaks in foreign language) which we translate as work. What it literally means is to prepare, to develop. God put Adam in the garden to be a co-creator. He took, He put them into the garden and to take the raw materials of soil and seed and develop those things for the glory of God, and also for the benefit of other humans that would come along. You see the word that God used for His creation was good. Good is good, but good is not perfect. God didn't say the creation was perfect because perfect means it cannot be improved upon. God created the world you see, raw. In a good state, but He created it imperfect so that we could, His co-creators, we could cultivate it and develop it So, for example, just like Adam, as a gardener, took the raw materials of soil and seed and cultivated a field of crops. So contractors would take the raw materials of sand and cement and use them to create buildings that are useful, that bring glory to God in their beauty, and also useful for fellow human beings. Artists take color or music and arrange them into art lawyers take the principles of justice and codify them into laws that benefit society, investors take wealth and create new and more wealth, entrepreneurs take good ideas and raw materials and use those to create products and services and systems that make life better for everyone and they glorify God. They take the potential of the earth and they develop it. They actualize it actually increasing and multiplying the value of the earth that God gave them stewardship over. This is all part of those creation mandates to be fruitful and multiply and to take dominion over all things. Entrepreneurs literally apply both of these mandates. They take dominion and multiply the good that is available on earth and in so doing, God himself is at work through them because they're fulfilling their role as His co-creators. That's why entrepreneurship and many forms of good business, It can sometimes even feel, It feels divine, even for people who aren't Christians, it's because they're doing something that's so coheres with the image of God in them that it feels divine. The word (speaks in foreign language) in Hebrew, that I told you, we translate as work in Genesis two, that shares the same root word for worship. And that's not a coincidence. In fact, it's really interesting. There are two old Testament figures in Exodus, one named Bezalel and the other Oholiab, who Moses says were filled with the spirit, and they express that fullness of the spirit, not by singing, or writing, or preaching, but by being an expert craftsmen, their expression of being filled with the spirit was doing excellent work. It reminds me of that scene in Chariots of Fire, where the Christian Olympic star, Eric Liddell and in his preparation for the 1924 Olympics is confronted by his sister who thinks that he's supposed to be in missionary to China because when he was a young man, he felt called to take the gospel to china. And so she says, you shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be distracting yourself with running. You need to get on, be a missionary and Liddell responds to her, he said, I do plan to fulfill this calling to be a missionary, but I believe God made me for a purpose, and he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. Many entrepreneurs feel that kind of divine pleasure when they're doing what they feel like God has created them to do, and they feel like this is what I was made for it's I feel God's pleasure. Maybe you didn't even know what to call that, but that's what it is you're made in the image of God. And when you're doing these things as His co-creator, you're feeling His image and His spirit at work in you. So entrepreneurship can, and it should be worshiped. You've been called to create by a God who created you to create. Hear this entrepreneur, we serve an entrepreneurial God. So no more hiding all your gifts under a basket, no more thinking that you're fulfilling your role in the kingdom of God by going to church and put some money in the offering plate. It is time for you to take your business and your idea and steward it for the glory of God who owns it all. And that's what we're gonna talk about next session. What a great lesson from JD in which we come to understand that indeed we were called to create, recreate in the image of a God who works six out of seven days and whose work continues to this day. So our hope is that you can lean into that creating this image of a God, and in fact, we can indeed be part of bringing about His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Our hope is that you'll come back to the website, interact with some more of the content that you'll talk about this with other friends, maybe other entrepreneurs, you know, other business owners, and lean into this concept of being created in the image of the original author and the original entrepreneur. Look forward to joining you next time, thank you.