Before we get started, I want to thank our sponsor for this episode, Crayo Ventures. Ready to take the next step as a Christian entrepreneur? Not sure how to turn your great idea into a reality or how to scale your existing work? Explore what it looks like to be part of a Crayo accelerator. Crayo Connects trains and resources Christian entrepreneurs to advance the common good. Their nine-week digital accelerator program features cohort webinars, expert coaching, quality content, and assignments to make your idea a reality or move your venture forward. The next cohort will begin September 21st, 2021, and you can apply at crayoventures.co. That's C-R-E-O-Ventures, V-E-N-T-U-R-E-S.co, Crayoventures.co. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Theology of Business podcast. I'm your host, Darren Schear, and this is the show for marketplace Christians seeking to explore and apply God's will for business. If you're subscribed to the Theology of Business email list, you know that I've started to share a lot more about this Christ-centered company assessment we've been developing at the Theology of Business Institute. When I was in seminary about 12 years ago, the CEO of a construction company asked me what I was studying in school. And I told him I was pursuing a degree in practical theology. And he said just as genuinely as he could, I didn't know theology was practical. So this assessment is our attempt to make the theology of business practical. And this assessment, which you can take at theologyofbusiness.com forward slash assessments, you and your team are going to assess the extent to which your company's culture and operations are consistent with 50 different biblical principles categorized in seven different categories. And those categories are corporate purpose leadership and decision management. That's actually one category, marketing, customer care, and quality control, accounting and accountability, human resources management, business law and peacemaking, risk management, and philanthropy. And on this episode in particular, we're going to dig into principle 28, and just to give you a sample of what you're going to experience from this assessment. And principle 28 comes from the human resources management category. And this is what it states. And you're going to rate yourself on a scale of one to five in this area. Our company uses a consistent process to assess a job candidate's integrity and skill, which biblically is defined as discretion and work ethic, which we're going to get into in a little bit, ensuring that people are hired, promoted, or demoted on the basis of his or her ability. So this principle, principle 28, offers a biblical basis for hiring and promoting in your company. Let's get to it. To cultivate and protect a Christ-centered culture in your company, the Bible teaches that we ought to hire people for roles that correspond with their levels of integrity, diligence, and discretion. As Matthew 25, 15 says, each according to his own ability, from the well-known parable of the talents. Those who lack these three qualities should not be entrusted with significant influence and responsibility in our companies, while those possessing them should be promoted to roles of greater influence and responsibility. At the same time, the primary purpose of Christ-centered companies is to disciple individuals, companies, industries, and communities. And this means Christ-centered company leaders are responsible for helping to cultivate these qualities in the lives of those who work within their companies. We are called to, as it says in Colossians 1.28, to present every person complete in Christ. Paul actually says this is his life mission. He says, For this purpose I labor, to present every person complete in Christ, according to the power of God that works mightily within me. So we're supposed to do this within our sphere of influence as Christ-centered company leaders, as our mission is to make disciples, not merely to make profit. So we had a hire for integrity. The Bible says Psalms in Psalms 78-72 that David shepherded with integrity. Integrity is defined as the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished. It is an architectural term regarding the structural integrity of a building. If the structure has cracks in its foundation, it won't stand over time. Nor will your company stand if you hire people who lack integrity. Those who lack integrity may sow division among the team, waste and steal resources. Without a doubt, such a person will present a poor reflection of Jesus to our customers, stakeholders, and all who come in contact with our companies. If a person demonstrates a breach of integrity, does it mean he or she should be banished from the company? Not necessarily. It certainly means that his or her integrity has been broken somehow, and that should be demoted, that person should be demoted to a position of lower influence where his or her integrity can be rebuilt within the disciple-making engine of the company. You can show someone how to perform a particular task when he or she joins your team. That's where training comes into play. In the Bible, the term skill denotes capabilities much deeper and more transferable than the performance of a particular task. The Bible uses at least two different Hebrew words for skill, mahir and taboon. Mahir is the task-oriented aspect of a good team member. It's used in the following Proverb of Solomon. In this passage, the word skilled, mahir, is translated as diligence and readiness in relation to one's work. It says in Proverbs 22, 29, you see a man skilled or mahire in his work, he will stand before kings. He will not stand before obscure men. Have you ever worked with someone who didn't have Mahire, didn't have this kind of skill? I've walked into many offices where the employees were wasting the company's time by surfing the internet and doing other time-wasting activities at their employer's expense. Don't bring someone on your team who is lazy and won't work hard when unsupervised. Demote and do not promote someone whose level of diligence can does not equate to what his or her current level of responsibility requires until he or she can develop the level of diligence required. So that's one aspect of skill, uh diligence. The other one is prudence. We ought to hire for prudence. Diligence isn't enough. The person you're considering hiring or promoting must also possess the kind of skillfulness attributed to David in this verse from Psalm 7872. It says, and David guided them with his skillful hands. Um, or the the word skillful is translated as taboon. In this verse, the word taboon can be translated as understanding, discretion, prudence. We ought to hire and promote people who think wisely before they act. You don't want people carrying weighty responsibilities on your team who are diligently foolish. Hire people who make wise decisions and are thoughtful about how they relate to others and always consider the company's mission and values in their day-to-day decision making concerning the company. So, how do we do this? How do we hire for integrity, diligence, and prudence? Hire slowly and thoroughly. As you read this or listen to this criteria for appointing leaders in the church, you'll notice that integrity, diligence, and prudence are all baked into these job requirements. From Titus chapter 1, verses 5 through 9. For this reason, I left you in Crete that you would set in order that what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. Namely, if any man is beyond reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of indecent behavior or rebellion, for the overseer must be beyond reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not over-indulging in wine, not a bully, not greedy for money, but hospitable, loving what is good, self-controlled, righteous, holy, disciplined, holding firmly to the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it. Again, that's Titus chapter 1, verses 5 through 9. How long would it take you to verify that a person possesses all of those job requirements that I just read? Obviously, this process will take a while, and it should. It's worth the wait. Here are a few ways you can slow down your hiring process and make it more thorough. Seek others' feedback about the candidate before hiring or promoting. Hire from within your company and community. This will help you profile the candidate more quickly and reliably. Implement a 90-day probationary period during which the candidate will be given an opportunity to meet deadlines, quality standards, etc. During this time, you will also be able to interview those who worked with the candidate directly to gain more insight about the person's work ethic and qualities. Ask the candidate the hard, awkward questions to assess whether or not the candidate embraces your mission and core values. So those are criteria for hiring, but we we ought to also keep in mind that we need to hire to make disciples, not merely profit. So there's gonna be um uh different people are gonna have these in different measures, these different qualities. Hire to make disciples, not merely profit. Where do people grow in integrity, diligence, and prudence? This happens primarily within for-profit companies, which is where almost everyone spends 60 to 70 percent of their waking hours. That's because it's far more difficult to disciple someone as a follower of Christ without having some sort of professional and often financial relationship with that person. This doesn't mean we can only disciple people who work for our companies, but it is much harder and less common to disciple people who don't have some level of dependence on us for their livelihood andor career aspirations. A professional working relationship provides the most common context for discipleship the Lord Jesus has provided. In 2012, Cohen Architectural Woodworking was the fastest-growing cabinet manufacturer in the United States. At the same time, 60% of Cohen's employees were ex-convicts andor drug addicts. The company's founder, Phil Cohen, is a former drug addict who understands the need and opportunity to make disciples of Jesus in business. If you visited the Cohen factory in St. James, Missouri, as I have, you'd meet dozens of people whose lives have been restored. The company's founder, Phil Cohen, says, we're not just here to build cabinets, we're here to build lives and build the families of these employees. A child of one of the employees came up to Phil at a company cookout and said, We have a new daddy in our house. Wives report that their husbands have been transformed for good as a result of working at Cohen Woodworking. Journalists, reporters, and TV producers contact Phil and say, We want to do a story about your company. We want to, uh, we want you to tell us about your quote program. They assume the company is some sort of nonprofit, do-gooder organization that isn't interested in making money. Cohen certainly is providing second-chance employment. In some cases, it's third, fourth, and fifth chance employment. Some of their employees' criminal sentences have been lowered simply because the local judge knew the offender was working at the company. The judge told one man, if you don't get a job by Friday, you're going to jail. On Friday, Cohen hired him. They hire people who have committed extreme violence. They only ask that their employees draw a hard line against their dark past and start acting like the people they need to become. Their people are getting their lives restored and they're also learning leadership. Those 60% of their employees who are ex-convicts or former drug addicts are not only the workers on the factory floor, Phil Cohen has discipled them as followers of Jesus and promoted them to positions of leadership within the company. We are called to present every person complete in Christ, as it says in Colossians 1.28, within our sphere of influence as Christ-centered company leaders. This involves hiring people for roles that correspond with their levels of integrity, diligence, and discretion, as it says in Matthew 25, 15, each according to his own ability, and helping them to enhance those abilities as they work within our companies. So here's a discussion. I'd love for you to comment at theologyofbusiness.com. Just look for this particular episode's page. What process do you use to assess a job candidate's integrity and skill? And again, biblically, we're defining that as discretion and work ethic, ensuring that people are hired, promoted, or demoted on the basis of his or her ability. So not only share your best practices, maybe share some of your worst practices. What have you tried that failed? Or what how were things going before you really implemented a meticulous process to be um to be very careful about who you're bringing onto your team? And um and how do you disciple people when they're when they're in your company to help them grow in these different areas. If you and your organization want to go deeper into discovering how your company can grow in all 50 of the areas assessed in the Christ Standard Company assessment, reach out to me at theology of business.com forward slash contact. And also thanks again to our sponsor for this episode, Crayoventures. You can apply to join their upcoming nine-week accelerator for Christian entrepreneurs at Crayoventures.co. That's C-R-E-O-V-E-N-T-U-R-E-S.co. Crayoventures.co. Thanks for listening and keep exploring and applying God's will for your business.
SPEAKER_01We hope you've enjoyed this episode. You can share your feedback and get more information to help you partner with God in business and disciple your company, your industry, and your community at theology of business.com. The Theology of Business Podcast is sponsored by Hybridge Books and Media, a media agency specializing in publishing and promoting the world-changing ideas of inspiring thought leaders through book publishing, website development, publicity, email marketing, social media management, podcast management, and video based course publishing. Take the next step to share your message with the world by contacting us at hybridgemedia.com. Thanks for listening and keep partnering with God in your business.