Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW Denham College of Business at Houston Christian University. I'm your host, Darren Scheer, and this is a show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Wes Hone. Wes is a dedicated dad, husband, and leading faith and business thinker. Following a vision he and his wife Kimberly shared, Wes founded Kingdom Business Global to train Kingdom entrepreneurs to apply biblical principles in the marketplace and build profitable businesses that influence the world around them. And since the age of 18, he has built and sold nine companies and has generated over $1 billion in additional revenue for his clients. He's located on the Gold Coast of Australia. And fun fact, he went to the same acting school as Kate Winslett from the movie Titanic and many others. And they had uh quite a few roles together over the course of four years. Uh so really fascinating, fascinating guy. You're gonna enjoy listening to him share what he's got to share today. Wes, welcome to the Christianity and business podcast.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. It's so good to be with you, Darren.
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir. At 5:30 in the morning there in uh the Gold Coast in summertime, and it's about uh almost three o'clock here in western North Carolina, where I just looked out the window and it looked like a snow globe from all the snow following. So um so pretty, so awesome that we get to have this conversation over so many miles. Wes, when did you first realize God wanted to be involved in your work and business?
SPEAKER_00Well, I was a businessman before I was a Christian, right? So so that'll really mess with you because if I can be honest, like prior to coming to Christ, I thought the role that business played in my life was to give me everything I wanted. If I wanted a bigger house, I built a bigger business. If I wanted a bigger boat, I built a bigger business. It was all about me. And um literally three weeks after coming to Christ, I was pouring through my scriptures. You know, I got to Deuteronomy, I got to Leviticus, and it was really confronting. I saw God's way of trading being the exact opposite of mine. And I was forced with a decision, right? Like, do I do I just go back to what I know, or do I completely rewire how I think about this and adopt the way scripture says? You know, a couple of examples would be the gleaning principle, right? Do not go over the corners of your fields twice, leave that for the poor and the needy. It's like there was no care, there was no thought for the poor and the needy prior to becoming a Christian. You know, when I read about the Jubilee cycle of of trading and borrowing in seven-year cycles, not that seven is the number, but but having seasons where there's got to be zero debt cancellation, you know, understanding that had we done the Jubilee cycle, I mean, it lasted about three generations, but had we had we done it, we wouldn't have inflation today that causes this massive wealth distribution. So God's ways are better. And I had to go and figure out what are they and how am I going to run my business that way. So I was, it was literally, I came to Christ on the 23rd of September 2004, and it would have been three weeks later that I had a big decision to make. And from that day forward, I still read the scriptures today through the lenses of, you know, I guess, you know, God's way of trading and leadership and how to handle finance and how to lead, you know, lead people well and things like that. And, you know, that's basically been the mission from that day forward, figure out what the scripture says and and then live it and then test it and teach it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Wow. So well, most people would meet Christ reading, you know, one of the four gospels is typically where people start. But for you, you started in the Pentateuch and and and the books of the law, and that's and and that's really where you met God in that because he met you where you were, which was as a finance uh businessman, and God spoke to you and showed you that his ways are higher than your ways.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I basically started reading the Bible. I I just so happened to I got saved in a uniting church. Well, actually, I didn't, I got saved at home. I think they have given up on doing altar calls, but I'd been to uniting church that night. I went home, and it just so happened the next week they started like a year-long Bible reading plan. And and their model was uh like one verse of the Old Testament, one verse of I think Proverbs, and then they were just gonna read like through forward. And uh yeah, I and I still remember, I still remember getting to Leviticus and reading about qubits. And I was still reading about qubits like 13 days later, and I was wildly confused. But um, but but the but the leadership lessons and and and the way that we're meant to trade, those things jumped out at me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you worked with a lot of businesses, you've sold uh quite a few businesses as well. Uh, what's the story of a time when you saw God's hand at work in business?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, hundreds because I've lived a life that's needed it. Um, I'll give you a fun one. Just literally, I remember when I was first a Christian, like really early, and I had to, I was trying to get this business off the ground, and I had I hadn't got a customer yet. Like it was kind of like a brand new innovative kind of service that we were offering, and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna make it work. Hadn't got a customer. Anyway, I get a phone call from this potential customer. If you can bring me a contract today, uh, we'll sign it. And so I went to my printer, one of those old laser jet cheapy things, and I hit print on my computer, and there was no ink. And I'm thinking, oh man, I'm in trouble. It's my first customer. I can't even print out the contract to take it to them. And so as a naive, young, simple Christian, I was like, well, I know what to do. I'm just gonna lay hands on my printer and print. And so I literally just laid hands on the printer. I was like, okay, I've got nothing else. Print, the document comes out perfectly. I race off, get the contract signed, come back, I pick up my first customer. I forget all about it. A couple of days later, I go to print again, completely blank. So, like those things, they'll they'll put a little pep in your step, right? When you when you experience those things, you know. Um and then and then if I come forward to like really recently, we run uh we run a big conference every year, the Kingdom Business Summit uh in Australia, and and we're rolling it out in the US. And um like we've sold 65% of the tickets in three weeks. Like that, it just blows like we could not have pulled that off ourselves. I I know what we've done in the past, I know I know what we've been able to do, and I mean it that's just an incredible outcome. Is I think once you choose to live totally committed to the kingdom, uh, it becomes quite easy to see the fact that it's God's hands at work and not our own that does the vast majority of the heavy lifting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it's amazing how God can just materialize resources out of out of nowhere. Uh, I was just reading last night actually the story of Jesus telling his disciples to go get their tax money out of the fish's mouth, you know, get one for you, get one for me. Um, and and and after having just multiplied bread and fish from just a couple of uh couple of resources to feed thousands and thousands of people, it's just amazing uh to say the least, what God is capable of. Uh so Wes, um you've you've got a lot of experience leading managing businesses. What's one of the business practices that helps you and the companies you've worked with reflect the character and ways of God? Uh, not so much a guiding principle, generally speaking, but a specific, actionable, habitual practice.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think it's gotta be around people at the center. There would be lot, there should be lots of things about the way that we trade that that reflects God. But I think at the very core, um, you know, God's currency is not money. God's currency is always gonna be people. Um, you know, and you've heard the phrase, you can't take anything with you when you go, but that's not true. You can take people with you when you can when you go. Um, and so how we treat people whilst they come and work with us is gonna be a hallmark. And in and also incredibly commercial, if you get it right, because you people work harder and stay for longer. So it's it's it's not like some, you know, like like you know, horrible way to live is to treat people well. It actually ends up being way more in your favor. But but I think, you know, there's got to be people that work for us have to know that there's something different about us if we're not Christians. You know, if that if we employ Christians, then of course they're looking up to us expecting a higher standard as well. Um, I sold a business in February this year. We had about 20 staff. Um, and one of those staff actually ended up buying the business, and they took three of the staff with them. Um, and so I sat down uh on on January the 9th this year, and I said to that team, I pulled them all in the boardroom, and I said, I'm selling the business and uh and I'm gonna give you double redundancy. Whatever your redundancy is, I'm gonna double it. Why? Because it's January 9, and I and I I want I don't want you to feel the pressure of that. And you worked for a Christian, so I want you to always know that I honored you on the way out, you know, and obviously I don't have to. It would be easy to just, you know, go to the letter of the law, but God hasn't done that in my life. It's gonna bow uh over and above time and time and time again. I mean, you know, I've got one wife and three beautiful daughters, like I like like God's lavished on me, right? So, so from that point of view, I you know, I think there has to be a hallmark that you know in our business practices, and they're gonna come at a cost.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. Wow, what a blessing for your for your team members, and they will never forget that. And just uh to clarify, for our listeners who might not be familiar with the term redundancy in that context, um, I think we would refer to that as severance. And um, and so just reflecting the generous heart of God is exactly what you did. I love that. And you mentioned the the Jubilee cycle, and uh some of us might not be familiar with that and certainly not how it applies in modern day. Can you explain that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, obviously it was it was part of the old covenant, right? And we live in a better covenant with better promises, according to scripture. So we don't, we're not trying to stick to this to the letter of the law, but we are done, we're trying to dig out what's God, what was God's intention with it, and and how how was it a good idea? And so, you know, essentially the the concept of the Jubilee was trade in seven-year cycles. Uh, and at the end of the seven years, you know, you you kind of gave back your hired hands and your land, and then you did that seven times, so 49 years. And then on the 50th year, you took the whole year off. Um, you know, you rested your land on year seven, you did a whole year party in year 50. Um, and then it starts again. And essentially, if you look at what that is, that cycle, it allowed us to borrow and trade, right? So basically the the pricing mechanism for land, um, like if you owned land and I wanted to farm it, I would pay a price depending on how many years of the seven cycle left. So if there was only one year left, I would pay a lower price because I could only farm it for one year than if there were six years left of the cycle where I'd farm it for six. And then the land would go back to you, and then we would renegotiate and start again. Well, um you have to rest the land, which means you can't farm it. So you basically start eating the provision that God's given you, which means you need to have faith again in year eight or the first year of the next cycle that God's going to come through and bring you a crop. So you you don't you the debt clock, if you like in modern terms, the debt clock goes to zero. Um, you know, the land goes back to its right, you never get massive disparity of wealth and and and wealth equality. Um, you know, and everybody gets looked after, and the you know, you kind of need the Lord to come through. So you're gonna want to kind of live in a way that's gonna, you know, hopefully the Lord comes through. So so if you take that to 2024, to me, all it is is there if if you're going to trade and if you're gonna use debt as an example, then there's got to be seasons where there's no debt. Right. So the world that we live in, um, and if you're around in the GFC, then then you would know like that was a that was a terrible time for our market because our economy is built on debt, on debt, on debt, on debt, on debt, and it's never paid off, right? Maybe Elon can do a bit of work there in the US and kind of get some of that debt paid down. We'll see. But like, but that's never happened before, right? So um, you know, that's why it's such a fragile economy. So, so from my point of view, like it's okay to trade and it's okay to borrow. I think there is an agreement, a grace and an anointing on entrepreneurs in the kingdom to be able to have an appetite for risk and to be able to analyze risk in that way. So, but it's a real problem if it's just borrowing for the sake of borrowing, to build assets. It's a it's a house of cards. Borrow for a plan and get that thing back to zero and go again. And that's a manageable way to be able to, you know, and then you can sleep at night and life's better if you if you do it that way. So so I think the only principle for now is you have to keep short accounts of of those trading mechanisms so they don't get carried away on you and bring you undone.
SPEAKER_01And it and this might be a bit of a a curveball question here. It's interesting that the Jubilee didn't apply to houses in wild cities. What do you think that was?
SPEAKER_00Um, well, I think it was protecting a certain people group. Um that's probably my only researched answer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um I think they had different rules inside the walls and inside the cities than they did out in the agricultural land.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, the Jubilee is certainly a a a countercultural way of approaching business. Um I mean, where do you see that showing up today? Do you see anyone really demonstrating this principle at work?
SPEAKER_00I think it's an individual choice. Like I don't think a country's gonna adopt it or anything like that. I think we can just decide at almost a household level that we are gonna operate in this way. You know, where should it show up? I mean, I mean, to be honest, I don't go around calling it the Jubilee cycle in my own life. It's just just like a lot of the, you know, it like I don't go around saying I'm not gonna murder anybody today either. It's just a good idea, right? To to not do that. So, so like for me, it's just okay, that was a real good principle that I'm gonna take in my life because it's actually gonna serve me to be better. And a lot of a lot of the individual nuances of stuff in the old testament has been done away with. But the core tenant and the principle and the way that it looks after us, that's the bit that we should be holding on to. It's good for us. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so through through Kingdom Business, um, what did what are the services and and what specific ways are you guiding these companies?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, so at the moment, we would be working with a business owner that's just started out. Um, we we don't really have anything for those people that are wanting to get into business or jumping from a you know from a paid role to a business. Like it's like once you're in business, that that that's our people, right? And so, you know, right through to, you know, I think our largest business that we're helping at the moment is about 70 million or whatever. So everything in the middle. And so what I think what I was able to bring to the market, which is a little bit different, is like the most practical business training. So how to run Google Ads, Facebook ads, read a financial statement, right? How to do leadership, how hiring and firing, how to like like the real stuff that matters, that jammed in with, right? Never separate, jammed in with a deep understanding of the scriptures and the way the Lord wants to trade. Like, like, like not even like do that and then do this, like jam together because one without the other is gonna trip over, like a kingdom entrepreneur. So we do that via you know the annual conference that we run, which in Australia is March and in the US is October, Nashville. And then, you know, we've got the we've got the YouTube channel, Kingdom Business. We've got some books and and and things like that. And then outside of there, we do have a provision for mentoring where we actually take a group of people through a one-year, two-year-old I mean summer nine-year journey with us, where we actually roll up our sleeves. And I basically put a team around them to be able to help them with those elements with HR, with systemization, with sales, marketing, the scriptural help to help them build that business and be practical. And the whole thing is like, it's we only really attract those people who are like sold out for the kingdom of God. They're not trying, we they might come to us thinking, I love this kingdom thing, but I still want houses, watches, and cars. I just just as an example, but that doesn't last long. Because once you've had a taste for how good it is to serve the king, what the world can give you becomes super secondary. Like, you know, like it says, seek first the kingdom. Um, you can seek other things, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, according to that scripture. You just can't seek them first. So we find that, um, and once they catch that, once they go on that path and go all in for building a business for the kingdom, being a minister in the marketplace, I love it on people all day. Once they catch that, very few people will go back to what the world can give them.
SPEAKER_01Well said, what are what's one of the most game-changing biblical business principles you have found to uh that your your clients have really latched onto and seen great results from?
SPEAKER_00Probably spiritual warfare as a concept. Um not something that's hugely taught um you know in in the modern day faith, which I think is a bit of a shame. Sorry. Um you know, like if you don't if we don't engage in that spiritual battle, the enemy has a job description and it tells us what it is in the scriptures. It's the steal, kill, and destroy. So the enemy will take out, he'll do everything he can to take out, you know, the prosperity of an a kingdom entrepreneur. Right? And and it's obvious why there is more willing people in the kingdom to do good work than there is entrepreneurs to fund it. So when an entrepreneur catches it and they decide to fund whatever the Lord's put on their heart to advance the kingdom of God, that's that that's that becomes the enemy's like target because that's the thing that really moves the needle. So, from a business owner's point of view, we have an obligation to engage the spiritual battle that we can't see all the time, which is why most people don't engage it. Um, but the downside is the enemy will pick your patch clean, right? The opportunities will be bare minimum, the staff will be divided, right? Your own headspace will be full of fear and doubt, right? And that's just a Tuesday morning, right? Like that's literally how life is if you do not engage the spiritual battle. And the largest mistake that business owners make, faith-based business owners, is they fight in the flesh. They spend all their time and energy dealing with the gossiping team member, the cut, the complaining customer, the product that's wrong. And they forget that our wrestle is not against flesh, it's against principalities, powers, and rulers. And if we engage there first, yeah, then we come and fix things in the flesh. Life will be a lot better. That's right. And if we and if we fight and engage in that way and we make it a lifestyle, this is not like this. Is not like a little bit every now and then, it's got to be a lifestyle for the Kingdom Entrepreneur because the scripture tells us the enemy will never stop. So if we don't engage and the enemy will always engage, we're going to lose. So our obligation in amongst this is to always be active. And just to clear it up, because I see a lot of people that say, Yeah, I do warfare, I pray to God. I'm like, that's not warfare. If you pray to God to do warfare on your behalf, you've created a Mexican standoff. Because he's waiting for us to do it. It's exactly why he gave us the power to do it. And the instruction, push back, occupy until I come, push back the enemy's plans until I return. Yeah. And to be fair, like if we talk about, I think it's Matthew 5, salt and light, it says that if we're not salty, and this is a harsh uppercut from Jesus, we're good for nothing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If we're not pushing back the plans of the enemy and preserving, which is what salt does, our life is good for nothing. And so, so yeah, I think out of all the things, if you ask me for one, I think people need to start using the authority that they were given. Jesus said, All authority has been heaven to me, given to me, and I and I give it to who I please. And so he made the guys wait 50 days so they could get like an indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That is where the authority comes from. It's not whether you know enough Greek or enough Hebrew, right? It's the fact that Jesus won on the cross. But you need to be able to, just like you're never saved, right? The word saved is saved and continually saved, right? That's because that's how you work out your. It's the same with the victory. The victory was won, but it has to be continually won by us. Yeah. Right. And so, in amongst that, you know, we need to be standing down the enemy when we go into a sales meeting or if we're going to speak to a team member about some behavior, or if there's an opportunity on the table to quote for a big project. We actually make sure that we stand the enemy down and we we we stop the assignments to try and frustrate our businesses. And if we can't do that, then we're going to get to the end of our life and we've never ever hit anything like our potential.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It seems to me that where the the spiritual world and the spiritual warfare meets the physical world in business and and and the actual transactions, the actual uh policies and and goings on and on a daily basis in business is in in a word, you could you could define it as the culture. Would you would you agree with that to some extent? That um this is where so there's the pattern of this world that's at war with with God and God's God's ways. So don't be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, because there's a there's a better way. Um there's a there's a a better reality that's available and it and it manifests through the culture. So it's it's not just the things that are going on in the heavenlies, but it's what's actually happening in your boardroom. It's what's happening in your your interactions with your customers and with your team members, and and the culture, whatever it is, is going to prevail. Uh that's that's what I've observed. Is that what you're observing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, culture will prevail. You either you either intentionally build a Christ-like one or the culture of the world will take over.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? Look at, I mean, look at Jesus. They literally, yell, give us Barabbas. Like, like talk about a class a classing of of culture, give us Baravas. Like that was the culture of the day, right? You know, we would rather have him, right, than a savior, right?
SPEAKER_01And this is a common language that we have, whether you are uh you're you're coming from a Christian perspective or you're an atheist and or and you're trying to advance a liberal agenda in your workplace, uh, all of these different ideologies that are advancing throughout the workplace. And and and and this is the common language that we have because everybody's talking about culture. But when we talk about culture, we're talking about something that is very spiritual in nature, because whatever the culture is, that's going to dictate the the the habits of the people and their conduct and the their values and all of those things.
SPEAKER_00Totally. And and you can like we should be carriers of it everywhere we go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, like in the room next door to here is my boardroom. I'm not letting stuff go on in there. Like, you know, like if things get in a hand or they get heated, it's like, hey, we're not like cool, like we we need a different forum to be able to mash this out. Like we're not we're not doing that in here. Or if somebody's running somebody down, we're not doing that in here, yeah. You know, and why? Because the next meeting, we we might be laying hands on somebody that's a you know, the a a vendor that's coming in to sell us something who's just told us they're crooked, you know, like it's it we've got to have those lives that are set apart, and we've got to have a culture that's set apart. And but that's gonna take intentionality. That's to to be you have to be considerate of your culture with every word, every every attitude, right? Every every action, because that's what sets the tone of the culture.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, I mean your culture is the religion of your company. Um, and it's not just a religion that that espouses you know high and lofty ideas, but it's it's right down there in the trenches of your default approach to things and the way that you operate and the quality that you're satisfied with, and the the the quality of relationships and the way that you're gonna talk to your team members, all of those things are expressions of the culture. So when when I hear anyone talking about corporate culture, they're basically talking about religion. They're basically talking about um how they bring about the spiritual reality that they that idealize into their company that they're responsible for.
SPEAKER_00Yes, totally. I don't think you can sustain it though if it isn't coming out of here. So if somebody would if somebody's looking at the culture in their business now and they're going, it's not that great, it it's not a tactic, right? This is because then you can't sustain it. You basically need to get the culture of heaven, like consume so much of that from the scriptures that it fills your heart so much that it flows out of your heart and you set that tone in your business. And if if it's not done that way, it'll be another great exercise or it'll be another great thought, but it will never be sustainable. Like it's gotta come from within. The law's written on our heart, then it's got to come out. And and that's that's why we are ambassadors for Christ in the marketplace, right? You know, the word minister, um, if you if you look at the word, uh, you know, you would if you looked at the word minister, you would find the word diaconos. The word diaconos is where we would get deacon from. All it really means is a servant. So when I chose to go into the marketplace, I'm a servant of the people that I meet in the marketplace, my customers, my suppliers, my team, my vendor, like like I'm a servant to those people. And and and and what is leadership? Leadership is probably you have to go down to go up. Like, you know, like it's my job to lay a foundation rather than stand at the top and say, I've I'm the leader. Just it's it's about building those foundations inside the culture. That's what sets it up to be leadership, to an environment of leadership. And um, but it's got to come from in here. Like if I think if we try and take a textbook and implement it into our team culture, it won't last.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's why a lot of companies are doing the the culture book approach where they sort of take an inventory of their team members and say, you know, what is our culture? Like you tell you tell us what the culture is, as opposed to more of a top-down approach. Um, but certainly the leader is gonna have the most influence over what that culture actually is, but but certainly everybody is going to be dictating that as well on some level, uh, because they're the ones that are actually talking to the customers, they're the ones that are actually uh talking to the the team members on a daily basis. Um, so wow. Well, this is a fascinating conversation, Wes. Um, thank you for what you're doing. Kingdombusiness.global is the website, and then you have the Kingdom Business YouTube channel people can check out. Um what else do you want to say about how people can connect with you as we sign off here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's I appreciate that. Thank you. I mean, I'm a little bit crazy. I actually want people to email me directly, not to a team member, not to the staff. I just love to hear from people. So, you know, literally my direct email is Wes W E Z at W Ez H O N E.com. Wes at WesHome.com. Just my name. Um, and literally you can send me an email. You can write me an email saying with with a question about today or comment about today, argue with me about today. I don't, I don't mind, but I'd love an opportunity to engage with people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I'm going to interpret again for our uh folks here in the United States what that Z is, is a Z, which I know our listeners are very, very smart, very, very informed about uh what's going on in the world. Um, but W E Z, uh, if you if you like. So Wes, thank you so much uh for oh, I gotta say H. It's uh that that's a H in case anyone's in case anyone's wondering. Uh Wes, thank you so much for spending your time with us today and uh for the wisdom that you shared with us.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I appreciate it, Darren. You're doing some great work there.
SPEAKER_01We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you'd leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business Podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HCU's Center for Christianity and Business and sign up to receive free access to all issues of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.