Anna English
Hello, I’m Anna English, and I want to welcome you to another episode of Profiles and Stewardship, a podcast where my dad, Bill English, has conversations with business owners about how they integrate their role as a business owner and leader with their faith in Jesus Christ. Today Bill is talking with Darren Scheer, the founder of High Bridge Media and the director of the Theology of Business Institute. If you’re a Christian who leads in business, I think you’ll find these topics that Darren and Bill discussed to be interesting. So I invite you to grab a Coke, sit back and listen as Bill and Darren talk about what it really means to be a Christian who leads in business. Now here’s my dad, Bill English.
Bill English
I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business, and I just want to welcome you tonight. With me is Darren Shearer. Am I saying your last name right, Darren?
Darren Shearer
Yes, that’s right. Evidently my ancestors sheared some sheep. At some point.
Bill English
They sheared sheep. So Darren joins us. He’s the founder and the director of a ministry titled Theology of Business Institute. Darren holds a Master of Arts in Practical Theology from Regent University and also an advanced Graduate Certificate in Management from Pace University and also has a BA in English, of all things, from Charleston Southern University. How does a guy who has a BA in English end up in Practical Theology at region? I’m curious about that transition.
Darren Shearer
Yeah, what’s funny, anyone who has ever been in their undergrad program, they’re always getting asked, what are you going to do with that degree? And so I started to realize, okay, I live in an English speaking country predominantly, what am I not going to do with an English degree? And so I didn’t realize how directly God would end up using it. But around the time that I really started to dig in and figure out, okay, God, what kind of business do you want me to start? I really heard the Lord say, what have I put in your hand? Kind of like you said to Moses, just probably on a smaller scale. But for me it was an English degree. And I had taught academic writing, actually at Regent, which is what kind of got me that opportunity while I was in seminary there and started teaching academic writing to these undergrad and graduate students and editing doctoral dissertations. And before I knew it, I was starting a book publishing company and so kind of parlayed those editing gigs into a full on book publishing company, which is kind of that’s my main kind of means of making an income for my family.
Darren Shearer
And we’ve got a couple of employees. And so that has afforded me the time and opportunity to dig into this concept of the theology of business and really start to see more of an intersection between my theological studies and business studies.
Bill English
So you have out at your website, which is Theologyofbusiness.com that’s the URL, if you want to take a look at his website. It’s theologyofbusiness.com out there. It looks like you’ve got twelve books under your imprint, hybrid Books and Media. Is that correct? You got twelve, maybe even more. Maybe you got some more in the pipeline that are coming.
Darren Shearer
Yeah, most of those are the books that I’ve written personally. We actually have through hybrid books. We have 142 books under contract. Most of those are not for the Christian business owner, although a few of them like the ones that are listed, there are four Christian business professionals, Christian business owners, and more and more we tend to attract Christian business professionals that really have a mind for ministry, which is actually how you and I got connected. A lot of times we end up publishing books for guys like you, which is really fun for me because this is the conversation that I really feel called to dive into.
Bill English
Yeah, it’s been fun to get to know you because I think you and I have a similar heartbeat. We both view ourselves as serving really those who are in business, whether they are business owners or maybe just business leaders. And I shouldn’t say just business leaders. There’s a lot of Christians who lead in business who aren’t business owners. And I’ve so appreciated looking through your website and getting to know you and listening to some of your podcasts. I know you have a podcast, so I just want to encourage everyone who’s watching here at the Bible and Business Channel to head over and check out Darren’s work in his ministry at Theology ofbusiness.com. And near the end of this broadcast tonight, darren will also ask you how people can get a hold of you. But I want to comment real quick. You must be musically inclined. You have an acoustic and an electric guitar hanging on the wall behind you.
Darren Shearer
Yeah, so I could take some breaks throughout the day and strum a little bit. But yeah, I started playing guitar when I was about 19 and really was just kind of making my way back to the Lord and to the church after having run away as a prodigal son for a lot of years, even though my dad was my pastor growing up. And so the guitar was a way for me to really get plugged into my church and start playing the music team. I use the term music team, not because it’s not a worship team, but because I don’t like to distinguish between, okay, this is worship, this is what we do on Sunday morning, we sing songs, this is worship. And then the rest of the week we’re just sort of doing necessary evils, like making money or something like that. But I really see, I refer to it as okay. When I play at church on Sunday, I’m on the music team. I’m worshiping on the music team when I go and work in hybrid books or do any other kind of work. I’m worshiping through book publishing. I’m worshipping through writing this article, whatever it is I’m doing.
Bill English
Yeah, worship on Sunday morning. I was preaching at my church a few weeks ago and one of the elements I was asked to preach on was worship. And I just made the comment that, look, what we do on Sunday mornings really should be an overflow of what we do during the week. Our worship of God during the week, our personal worship, Sunday should be an overflow of that.
Darren Shearer
Yes, 100% at least in the United States. Probably 85% of the Christian workforce works in a for profit business and that’s where we spend 60% to 70% of our waking hours. So worship is a lifestyle. Well, where is so much of your lifestyle? It’s in business. It’s in that workplace. So yeah, certainly I thank God for the corporate congregational worship that we have on Sunday mornings and I go to a great church but hopefully we’re carrying that out into the workplace and in our homes, in our neighborhoods and everywhere else we go.
Bill English
So let’s shift gears for a moment. You work with a lot of Christian business owners, at least. My impression is that you have been in touch with many over the years and I’d like to just kind of pick your brain for a moment. What are one to three things that you see as difficulties for Christians who own business? And it can be from the vantage point of how they live out their faith as an owner all the way to maybe some of the laws and regulations that they’re facing that may ask them to violate their faith. But I’m just curious what you’re kind of hearing in the marketplace from Christian business owners. What are the difficulties they’re facing?
Darren Shearer
Yeah, well, of course, we’re facing the same difficulties that most business owners face, which is employee retention and increasing our profits and just kind of having a sustainable business. But from a Christian faith standpoint and some of the business owners that I really kind of do life with and we meet on a regular basis and we have some groups through the Theology of Business Institute, I’m finding that there is a lot of interest and passion for making disciples through that company and really figuring out what does that mean? Because for these guys, they really get it that the great commission isn’t just to go into all the world and make a profit. It’s not even necessarily to go into all the world and plant churches and have stadium meetings and get people to pray a prayer salvation. But the great commission is to go and make disciples. The folks that I’ve really kind of come in relationship with, they want to know what does that look like in a in a for profit business setting. And and so it’s got to be more than just, okay, we’re going to sit down once a week over coffee and go through the Book of Romans.
Darren Shearer
That’s not always appropriate if you’re the CEO. That might not be appropriate to do with somebody else that’s working in your maybe it is. I don’t know. I’ve seen I know of some CEOs that meet with groups of leaders in their company and they do Bible studies which is awesome. But that’s been the big question aside from what do I do about.
Bill English
This.
Darren Shearer
Issue with this employee or how do I deal with some of the challenges facing with supply chain breakdowns and so forth. But how does my company make disciples? That’s really been the question and just.
Bill English
One comment and then a follow up question. As a CEO in my company, of course it isn’t really my company though I’m a very small minority owner in it. Not always. But more recently I have shied away from talking a lot about my Christianity or wearing it on my sleeve or encouraging Bible study simply because of the power imbalance that exists between me and the other employees. No matter how much I might say it’s okay that you don’t come, it’s okay if you don’t believe the way I do, there’s going to be this unwritten thing that if they want to make the CEO happy they better be in the Bible study. So maybe two questions. How have other Christian business owners dealt with that power imbalance and what are they doing to use their businesses to help make disciples?
Darren Shearer
Yeah, well, I’ll back up a little bit. When I was in the Air Force and I was deployed to Kuwait on the first Sunday that I was there I went to the chapel, connected with the base commander. So this man is over about 3000 troops and he was really wanting to start he was just kind of starting his tour there as the base commander and wanted to start a Bible study. And he said, he just came to me and basically said, you know, I’m the wing commander and it just isn’t going to be all that appropriate for me to be leading this Bible study considering how many people report to me and just don’t want things to get awkward. How about you lead it and I’ll be there to support. And so that’s what we ended up doing and it worked really well. So I think again, it goes back to discipleship and finding that person that we didn’t really have a long standing relationship because we were both brand new, but he could sense that my heart was for the Lord and to really see God move on the base and through the chapel, ministries and everything, and that was his heart.
Darren Shearer
And so if you don’t have that person, got to raise them up, got to pray that God is going to send them in if you don’t feel at peace about being the one to lead that Bible study. So I guess that’s how I would.
Bill English
Address that first question and that’s an excellent answer. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yeah. What are other business owners doing to use their business to help make disciples of Jesus Christ?
Darren Shearer
Yeah, I interviewed another CEO from a company called Never Settle last week and I actually still have some of the notes right here on my desk. But their mission statement is to cultivate cultures of discipleship through innovation. I asked him that same question in a very diverse work setting where you have people maybe from different backgrounds, different cultures, and they’re real big on sending out surveys, employee satisfaction surveys and things of that nature. And so I just basically asked what would be one question on that survey that would really indicate the extent to which you feel like you’re on target with that mission, which is to create a culture of discipleship where people are being discipled, maybe where you’re not necessarily telling them when they come on board. Hey, we really believe strongly in the great commission of Jesus to go into all the world and make disciples. And so we’re going to be discipling you as a follower of Christ probably not really all that appropriate.
Bill English
That’s not going to work.
Darren Shearer
As we kind of talk through it, what really kind of surfaced was that your people have to know that you really care about them. It sounds very simple and almost kind of cliche, but it’s so easy. And I can tend to be a very transactional type of person. And so I just have to be really careful to not fall into that rut of just being transactional with the people, with our team members that help out with various things in our company, but to always make sure that they know that I care about them as a person. Regardless of how you want to disciple them, you want to make them a Muslim, you want to make them a Mormon, you want to make them just sort of this liberal left leaning person, then you can disciple them whatever way you want. But it has to start with them knowing that you really care about them. That really kind of softens. Jesus talked about the different soils just as we were during that interview. I was just thinking about that parable and in terms of helping to disciple employees and the people that your vendors as well.
Darren Shearer
Everything is an opportunity for discipleship, but that ground has to be soft and fertile. Who has more of a role in that in a person’s life than the owner of that company? Especially in a small company?
Bill English
Yeah. When I owned and I was the majority owner of a national training company at its zenith we had 65 people and it was 9 million a year in sales and we would hire new people. I would just say, look, I’m a Christian. I believe in God. There’s going to be times when I might pray before a meeting starts. And some of the employees here believe the way I do, and so they hold weekly Bible studies. You are not required to go to any of it and I promise you it will not affect your ability to get job promotions or bonuses or how you’re treated here in the office. But if you’d like to participate, you’re welcome to. If you don’t want to participate, you don’t have to. And looking back on that, I think I pretty much kept my word with everybody. And I would say that of the 60 or so people, there was only about eight or ten that actually went to pray in a Bible study once a week. The rest of them didn’t. I sometimes didn’t go. Sometimes my calendar just didn’t allow me to go. So I really think that if you’re going to kind of be that open, then you as the owner, you’ve really got to kind of walk the talk there and make sure that you’re holding to what you say because it would actually be against a law to say, I’m only going to promote you if you’re a Christian.
Bill English
I think you would end up in court and I think rightfully so, yeah.
Darren Shearer
And regardless of what kind of methods you want to use, I think the starting point is if you just think about that parable like some fell on rocky soil, it’s got to fall on fertile soil. So what can you do as a business owner not to force something down their throat, because then they’re just going to turn in. They’re just going to be rocky, right, to really soften their heart and just by communicating to them. That’s really the question is, how do you communicate to your employees that you really care about them? Because anything that follows that your actions, the way you speak, you relate back to them, all of that is now, like Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. And they’re going to start to see somebody doing something that they on some level, kind of want to be like, there’s something about I want something that that person has. I might not want to be the owner of this company, I might not want to be a business owner, but there’s some joy, there’s some confidence, there’s just some qualities about that person that I want. And that’s kind of where discipleship begins.
Darren Shearer
And I think that’s really, I don’t know of a really greater definition of what discipleship is than when Paul says, in one corinthians eleven one imitate me as I imitate Christ.
Bill English
I wonder how many of us and I’ll put myself in this camp, would feel really comfortable looking at some other people and say, hey, imitate my life. That’s a tall order. And you have to have some, I think, righteous confidence in your walk with God to be able to look at others and say, you know what? You imitate me because I’m imitating christ. That’s what Paul did. And I know we’re all a little off topic here, but I just think the church needs a lot more men and women who can legitimately say that.
Darren Shearer
Yeah, I 100% agree.
Bill English
Yeah. So I’m going to ask the same question two different ways. Okay. And it’s the next one here in our list. Do Christian business owners sometimes feel misunderstood at church? And another way to ask that is what do they wish that their pastors and friends at church understood about them?
Darren Shearer
Yeah, I think at least for the ones that are not content to just kind of sit on the sidelines of Christian mission and the mission of Jesus through the Holy Spirit working through the church in the world primarily. In the marketplace, in the workplace, at least for the ones who really care. I think they feel really disappointed in feeling like they’re an ATM for the church. Yeah, they’re just kind of there to make money to give to real ministry. Because I don’t know what your experience has been at offering times, but typically what’s talked about at offering times is usually it’s not even about like this is kind of what you’re supporting when you’re giving here, is that you’re helping to make sure that we have that the word is preached on Sundays. That we have the lights on on Sunday. Usually they’re talking about the mission trip that the church just had some young folks on. And so the implication is that when you’re giving, this is you’re giving to the real ministry. Well, that’s ministry that I’m not doing because unless I’m going on a mission trip, we actually have a book that we’re working on right now.
Darren Shearer
I’ll just go ahead and plug this. It’s called Marketplace mission Trip by Mike Henry. It’s just the idea that really kind of taking a similar kind of experience that you would have if you were going on a mission trip to like a third world country or someplace like that, and doing it with a cohort over zoom and a workbook, but going to your workplace as though you were on a mission trip. Because I don’t know, Bill, you’ve probably been on some mission trips. People get super spiritual on mission trips. It’s like, who are you? I didn’t even know you talk like that. You’re like, so on fire for God right now. Well, let’s be on fire for God when we go into our marketplace, into our workplace. So I think that’s probably something that a lot of business people want their pastors to really call out of them. I think in a lot of ways, I don’t know, it’s kind of convenient to just feel like I’m on the sidelines because that way I don’t have to get out of my comfort zone and start to do anything crazy for God in the workplace. I can just go make money, have a nice, comfortable life, and still know that when my pastor needs me, he’ll come tell me because there’s probably a building to build or something like that.
Bill English
Yeah. I had a business owner say to me once, I feel like I’m in that lost middle. And what he meant by that was there’s the starting and running of ministries on one side and there’s kind of the ministry output, what the ministry does on the other side. And he felt like he was only looked to for writing the big check. He was in that lost middle is how he put it. They need funding, they come to me, I write a check, and I’m happy to do it. It was his attitude, I’m happy to do it. But I remember sitting in a Sunday school class one time, and this is maybe ten years ago at my church, and the conversation, you know, how conversations in Sunday school classes can sometimes meander, and this one meandered into business for about 30 seconds, and then it meandered out to something else. And I remember the guy sitting two chairs away from me. He just muttered under his breath when they got on the subject of business. He literally said, well, you got to be greedy if you’re going to own a business. And I just oh, my heart just kind of sank because this guy’s a good guy, right?
Bill English
I like him. He’s my friend. And I don’t think he knew that I heard him and I thought, no, do you really have to be no, you don’t have to be greedy to own a business because God calls a lot of people to generate wealth for his kingdom and his purposes. And they’re called business owners. And I think where the greed gets lost in the shuffle is when we business owners think it’s our money. And that, boy, I just closed this deal, and I’m going to make a half a million a year for the next three years on this contract and time to buy a larger house on a lake or something like that. I think that’s where we give ourselves a bad name.
Darren Shearer
Yeah. And I think a lot of what has been done has been to try to elevate business sort of to the level of what a pastor does in running an institutional church and on the sort of spiritual hierarchy. It’s like missionaries over in durable countries are up here, and then you got pastors maybe a little down a little bit underneath that and school teachers, and then the business people are kind of way down at the bottom. But I don’t really see a need to try to elevate the spiritual importance of business. I mean, the way I look at it, the way I see our churches operating, and I’m referring to Church Incorporated, like whoever got together established some bylaws got, you know, 501 C three status, or you’re talking about the local church. Yeah, an institution. Like as soon as you legalize, you know, got legal founding documents. You got a you got a bank account, you got a payroll. What does this church down the street have to do that I’m not doing as a business owner? So I see that as an opportunity to not make and I’m not even saying that’s a good or a bad thing that our churches are operating almost entirely, almost exactly like I’m operating, rating as a business.
Darren Shearer
There still has to be a value proposition. People are not going to give to that church if they’re not getting something out of it, no matter how much especially nowadays, no matter how much pastors want to kind of parlay Old Testament teachings about the temple and the giving system and all of that into this New Testament context. You’re still going to have to operate like a business if you’re going to have an economic model based on donations. You might have a different tax status than I do as a for profit company. But hey, we’re doing ministry. We’re publishing Christian books. So it might feel a little more convenient for me to say that because, hey, we’re making Christian T shirts and Christian we run a Christian bookstore, we publish Christian books. So that’s how we know we put a Christian fish on our logo. None of that makes us and we’re not doing all of that. I’m just saying none of that makes the company more spiritual or less spiritual because they’re not doing that because they’re making widgets or something. It all goes back to and I took a church planning class in seminary, and I’ll never forget this guy came in one of the guest speakers, and the first thing he said was, where in the Bible is the commandment to go plant churches?
Darren Shearer
And all these seminary students are like, racking their brain and they’re like, throwing out answers. And there really is not a commandment to go and plant churches. The commandment is what going back to what we were talking about earlier, make disciples, right? And so whether you’re doing that in a business or you’re doing that on Sunday morning, that’s the mission that’s the Great Commission.
Bill English
Agree 100% agree. One of the folks who’s watching has commented in and he says, he says, tithing is something that my fiance and I started doing. And the phrase I heard is that God can do much, much more with 90% of you than you can do with 100% of you. And I think there’s some truth to that. Was it Bill Gothard? I’m going back away here now, probably before you were born or when you’re at least a little guy, but he said the world has yet to see somebody who has completely sold out to Jesus Christ. That’s a Bill English paraphrase to plug my book for just a moment. This is where our conversation darren, where we’re going right now is, I think, fulfilling God’s four purposes for business products, people, profits, and philanthropy is both worshipping god and helping to move the kingdom forward. If you’re fulfilling those purposes in your for profit business, even in nonprofit businesses, whether it’s a church or a parachurch organization or community group or something like that, god’s purposes still apply. And I didn’t pull that out necessarily in my book, but I thought about that, and I’m kind of more down that path than I used to be on that point.
Bill English
So let’s kind of turn the table for just a moment. How should non business owners at church view their Christian brothers and sisters who do own businesses? How should we look at them? Well.
Darren Shearer
I think we should.
Bill English
Spend time.
Darren Shearer
With our I was attending a church back in Houston before we moved out here. It was a much larger city than we’re in now, a very small town that we’re in now. But at that church, we started an entrepreneurs group. And what I found is that whether you’re running a business or not, nine times out of ten, somebody has some kind of entrepreneurial desire in them, especially younger, younger people, younger generations. I mean, you ask a high school student today said you want to be your own boss, all of them say yes, almost without exception, right?
Bill English
Do you want to have the possibility of losing money? And then they’ll all say no.
Darren Shearer
Yeah, right. So they may have different levels of risk aversion and so forth, but everybody wants to start something, whether it’s a nonprofit or writing a book or a podcast or social media channel. They want to be social media influencer. I think there’s a lot of so much opportunity for discipleship when not necessarily even older, but just more seasoned Christians who are business owners can then turn around and say, let’s meet. Let’s come have lunch. There’s a gear manufacturing company up in Wisconsin, and they actually have a direct line into the public schools in order to teach. I’m trying to craftsman with character. That’s the name of the program. But they actually come to work at the edgerton. Gear is the name of the company and they come, they do job shadowing within the actual factory, and they get that mentorship from the leaders of this company who are strong Christian people. There’s just so many opportunities for discipleship in business. I think discipleship really needs a context. I’m sure that and a lot of this doesn’t get recorded in the scriptures, but just the goings on of the fishing operation with the disciples. And you see some of this kind of teased out a little bit in the series The Chosen, where Jesus is making there’s a really great episode where Jesus is actually making a gear or a lock that has, like I guess there’s a bunch of gears in it, but like, a really complex wooden lock.
Darren Shearer
Jesus is making as a carpenter. But I think if you’re serious about discipleship and you’re serious about whatever that entrepreneurial calling is on your. Life, then go and start spending some time and finding a way to add value to those other Christian business owners around you.
Bill English
Yeah, when you start to give to other Christian if you’re a Christian business owner and you know of others that are around you and you start to connect with them and just kind of speak into their lives, that is a form of discipleship. I have found that most people think of discipleship as help me not to lie, cheat, steal, pray better, maybe love my wife or my husband better, and help me to kind of be kind of a better person mainly as a self improvement program. Right. I find there’s very few Christians in business who think theologically. Here’s an example. I had a lunch today with a really good guy. He’s in sales, that’s all I’ll say. And he’s very successful at it, strong Christian. And I said, I’ll call him Joe. I said, Joe, I’d like for you to consider coming on my Bible and Business broadcast and being one of the profiles in stewardship here. Just like what you’re doing tonight there. I’d like for you to consider coming on and being with me. And he just looked down and he said, boy, I’m going to have to up my game. And I thought, now I didn’t pursue that with him.
Bill English
I will at a later date. But I thought either he doesn’t really think about how he integrates his faith as a business owner or there’s something there that he doesn’t want to talk about. But either way, he’s not thinking theologically. He’s not thinking about this, for example. He’s not thinking about the spiritual realm and the spiritual battles that his business might be encountering because he’s trying to move out for the Lord, something like that. So I’m kind of being long winded here and I apologize for that because you’re the focus here tonight, not me. But I just think discipleship is so much more than just a self improvement program.
Darren Shearer
Yeah, well, that’s a very poignant example. And I think a lot of Christian business owners and these are the same men and women that are going to Christian business networking type events, maybe even want to just sell a ship with other Christians that are in business. Maybe a lot of times there’s different motives for that. But when it comes right down to it, the question is not just are you making Disciples, but are you a disciple? Are you truly following? And I think when he says I need to up my game, I don’t think I’m reading too much into it to assume that maybe what he’s actually saying is I need to start following a little more closely to whatever God might be wanting me to do in business. Because maybe there really is more to it than just kind of adapting whatever the world’s best practice is and following all the same. Like Larry Burkett said, in business, by the book. It’s not the advice they give. It makes sense to pay your people well. It makes good, logical, worldly sense to do some of these things. But he says that the problem is the advice they don’t give, specifically the lack of spiritual insight and really making the connection and really kind of taking a step or going deeper into what is my, why?
Darren Shearer
What am I doing here? What is the purpose of this business fundamentally? Well, to make money. Okay, well, make money. There’s other ways that I could be making money. Why am I doing it this way? Well, because I want to make a lot of money. Why do you want to make a lot of money? It really always has to go back to Discipleship. Whether you as a business owner have that stated in your mission statement, I don’t think that’s necessarily necessary to put that out on your website for every company. But in your heart of hearts, as that founder, you’ve really got to know that what we’re doing here is fulfilling the great commission we are making Disciples, which again is too far to it. Paul says Imitate me, so you need to invite people to imitate you as I imitate Christ. So to what extent? Jesus says when a student is fully trained, he will become like his master. So you’re not going to be able to disciple people into a place that you’ve never been or into character that you’ve never fully put on. It’s setting the example, it’s setting the standard that kind of goes even broader.
Darren Shearer
Just that idea of setting the standard. Discipleship is about setting the standard. I think we do that individually and we do it corporately as a company to set the standards for our industry. Like what are the problems in your industry? You should be setting the standard. Your competition is not the competition. Your competition is yourself. And the way you were yesterday and whatever standard God is calling you to live up to as a company and your HR practices and your accounting practices and your marketing, the excellence of your operations management, all of those different aspects of the company were really called to be setting the standard. And the standard is Jesus.
Bill English
As you were saying that, the Lord was kind of tapping me on the shoulder and he was saying, we learn I’m going to paraphrase here as Christians now, just generally, not just Christian business owners or just Christians in business we learn more through suffering than we do through success. Although I think managing financial success in business is much more difficult than managing failure or just kind of an average amount of success in business. Suffering is. James one says, what is suffering producing us? Well, you face trials of mankind and I just put the word suffering over that. When you face trials of many kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith, right? So God’s trying to ferret out the quality of your faith, and it produces what? It produces perseverance. But I can tell you that perseverance isn’t produced in five minutes. I remember in high school I played basketball in Indiana. Growing up in Indiana. What else do you play? And boy, conditioning was the first part of every practice, and that conditioning is perseverance. Can you win in the fourth quarter? Yeah, but you have to be conditioned on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday so that you can win on Friday.
Bill English
And the testing of our faith produces perseverance, and it has to complete its work so that we can be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. Maybe we can wrap up with a conversation on this here. Darren, one of the things that most business owners don’t know how to do well is that testing of their faith. And I think for a lot of business owners, it’s really about god says, okay, you think you’re going to make a lot of money, you think you got the world by the tail, you think you got the right marketing and strategy plan here? You know what? I’m going to take away enough customers, you have to downsize by 30%. And let’s see how this goes. Not that God’s vindictive, but it just seems to me that when Christian business owners suffer, they do it quietly. They oftentimes don’t tell anybody, and they don’t have much support. And it’s often about their business and having to downsize it or to retool it in a way that was unanticipated and they really can go through a lot of hell. And to me, that’s God coming in and saying, business owner, I’m cleaning you out and I’m building you up because I want you to walk by faith, not by your strategy plans.
Bill English
And I want you to have faith in me, and I want you to first have faith in me and then in yourself and in your plans. So I’ve kind of rambled there, but you’ve probably got several strings you can pull on there, and I’m just curious what your thoughts are.
Darren Shearer
Yeah, I think if the business is suffering, as business owners, we get so much of our identity wrapped up in the success or the apparent failure of the business or any aspect of the business, which is why there’s just so many emotional ups and downs as an entrepreneur. And the results of that is shame. And like you said, you don’t want to go tell other people about that. And then as a business owner, who are you going to tell? The people that are hoping. They’re not just hoping for it. They’re expecting their paycheck on time, and they’re not going to accept anything, anything less than that. So what is the antidote to that, to that problem, that shame problem? I think a big part of it is bringing it to the Lord. Well, how do you bring it to the Lord? You bring it to your brothers and sisters in Christ. I can’t say enough about the power of Christian mastermind groups, groups of peer advisory boards, whatever you want to call them. These are, Solomon says, their safety in a multitude of counselors. And this is repeated several times. Songs are proverbs, but for one reason.
Darren Shearer
We don’t have to deal with that shame. Like, you know, that because you probably heard somebody else in the group share a problem that they’re going through because that’s such a big draw and reason for why you’re at the group. You’re not here to brag about how great things are going. You’re here so that you can tell the group what you’re struggling with. And that’s what we do in our groups is we put somebody in a hot seat each time and so they’re supposed to tell us what’s the top one or two problems you’re really facing right now in your business and to get counsel from the group. And it could be related to something going on with the IRS. It could be something related to where the business is really just kind of plummeted from COVID It could be HR issue. But just having that sounding board because discipleship, it’s not even just like Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. But I think he’s really inviting them into the life of the church as well. And I’m not talking about you got to go to your pastor about these issues because yeah, I mean, your pastor is running a business.
Darren Shearer
Your pastor is dealing with probably a lot of the same issues you’re dealing with payroll, revenues, all of those kinds of things, just kind of in a roundabout way. But I think there’s the shame problem that a lot of us business owners are dealing with because we get so much of our identity wrapped up in the business, which maybe that has to be dealt with as well. But deal with it in the context of a group of believers that care about you, that are kind of in the same kind of context as a business owner that you’re in my prayer.
Bill English
Times, I sometimes just remind myself out loud that I am a servant of Jesus Christ. And that I am his disciple. And I am a servant first, a steward first and a business owner second. I’m only an owner in the American legal sense. Really, everything we have is owned by God and and we should remember that our identity should be just like Israel. We have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. God rescued me and he rescued you, Darren. And that’s our identity. Our identity is wrapped up in what Jesus Christ did for us. So let me ask you, I’ve been for those who have joined us later, I’ve been darren talking with Darren Shearer. He’s the founder of the Theology of Business Institute. Theology ofbusiness.com darren, you mentioned groups. Do you do your groups for business leaders and owners online, or are they only in the I think you’re in Charlotte.
Darren Shearer
If I remember right, I’m actually in Waynesville, North Carolina. So we’re about 35 minutes west of Asheville in the Smoke.
Bill English
Okay. All right, so do you do your groups online then?
Darren Shearer
They’re all online, yes.
Bill English
Okay, so you may want to check out one of Darren’s groups and see if that can be helpful to you. And Darren, how can people get a hold of you?
Darren Shearer
Yeah, you can email me at darren@hybridgemedia.com or you can go to Theology of Business and just submit a message through the contact form on the contact page, and that’ll come straight to me. And if you’re interested in publishing a book, we’re working with Christ Center thought leaders that have a message or a story to share with the world, and so you can go to Hybridbooks.com to learn more about that.
Bill English
Good. Well, there’s a lot of people out there that want to publish Christian materials, so I would encourage you guys to get a hold of Darren if you’re interested in writing and publishing. And Darren, any last words before we sign off today?
Darren Shearer
Well, thanks for having me, Bill. You really encourage that whenever I connect with somebody like yourself, that is thinking deeply about and really helping to give the language of the Bible to business professionals, business owners, to think about what they’re doing in the context of the mission of the church, which is to make disciples, not just to go make a profit so you can give money to real ministry, but that you’re actually doing the ministry. So thank you for the work you’re doing.
Bill English
Well, thank you very much, Darren. It’s good to see you, and I hope we can do this again sometime soon. So for this broadcast, I want to thank you all for watching. You’re welcome to get a hold of me, my email is Bill at Bible and Business. That’s a and Bill@bibleandbusiness.com, you can also visit my website at bible and business.com and leave me comments out there as well. You can also find me on Twitter at bible business. You can also find me on LinkedIn and Facebook. So I appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you, Darren, for being with us. And thank you all for joining us. I hope you guys got to make it a great day tomorrow. Take care.
Anna English
Thank you for joining Bill and Darren today. I hope you found their conversation to be helpful to you as you grow in your faith in Jesus Christ. If you’d like to talk with Bill, just email him at bill@bibleandbusiness.com. I think you’ll find my dad will be helpful to you in your situation, and I hope you’ll join my dad again for another Bible and Business Profiles and Stewardship podcast. So until then, please go out and make it a great day. God bless.