Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Derek Show, that helps Christian Bushers to Integrate Biblical Values Into Business. On this episode, we're joined by my new friend, Catherine Gates. Catherine is Senior Director of Content Partnerships for Work Matters, which is an organization that's been around for quite a while. I believe I've um I've come across their content quite often, and uh as I've immersed myself into this faith and work movement over the past several years. And they're an organization that equips Christians to close the gap between their faith and work. Catherine has written workplace Bible studies and devotionals, and she's on the board of Ladies of Grace, which is a women's prison ministry, and on the Executive Advisory Council of the Women's Empowerment Center. And she's originally from Long Island, New York. Might hear some of that accent coming through. And she lives currently in Northwest Arkansas with her husband Thomas and has one adult son. Her mission is to equip Christian women to reach more of their God-given potential. And she's the author of the new book, The Confidence Cornerstone, a woman's guide to fearless leadership. Catherine, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me, Darren. It's great to be here.
SPEAKER_00So why'd you write a book about confidence?
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's a great question. It's something that I've personally been working on. And in fact, when the idea came to me, I was working with a coach, and she suggested that I read a book called The Confidence Code. Excellent book, highly recommended. Great research by Katie Kay and Claire Shipman. And as I read the book, it shed so much light on some of the things that I've seen hold women back from positions of leadership. I had worked for an organization where it was really clear we were doing a lot of advocacy for women in leadership for in government and corporations. And there was quite a lot of discussion about why there weren't more women in leadership. Was it that they weren't having enough opportunities, or was it that women just didn't want to step up into those opportunities? And the confidence code helped me see that really a big part of it and one thing that we as women can take some control over and responsibility for is our level of confidence for stepping into those opportunities. The one thing that was missing from that book was faith. I thought to myself, as they round up the their book on what we can do, they said, take more risks, get out of your comfort zone. And I thought, how do you do that without faith? I know people do, but I just know that a lot of women, if they do take those risks, they're going to have times when they just fall flat. Right. And so I could imagine that some women would just say, that was a really bad idea. And that would be the end of it. And so, but if if we're doing it based on our faith, if we're doing it based on what we feel God's calling us to do, then we're more likely to push into being the leaders God created us to be. And um, at the time when I I felt called to write this book, I wasn't thinking about writing a book at all. I did sign up for a writer's retreat, and a book idea was one of the requirements to participate. But I had shared that book, The Confidence Code. I shared with so many people how I felt like there needed to be a faith component that finally, in one conversation I had with my friend Toyen, it finally hit me. Oh, I think God's calling me to write this book. And so I just I said, Lord, I'll do it, but you've got to give me the words.
SPEAKER_00Wow. And was there a point where you were struggling with confidence yourself? What was your personal journey like with this issue?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. You know, to some extent, when I look back, Darren, I can see that I did take some risks early on in my career. I um I pursued a position to start up a whole department at the age of 25. I started a computer consulting business at the age of 28. And yet there were always those times where either I didn't feel like my voice was being heard, and so I wasn't sure that my opinion and perspective and what I had to contribute was of value. And there have been times when I just had to really fight with what to what degree do I have to prove myself? To what degree do I have to show that I am better, that I have value, to what degree do I have to work harder than everybody else to prove that I've got a significant contribution to me? And so I have struggled with that. And that's part of um what I, you know, I I don't say that I've got it all figured out. In fact, if you read the book, you'll see that I interviewed about 20 different women to get their stories and their journey, and just so that it wasn't just about my journey and what I've learned, but that hopefully women who read this book can see themselves not only in my my story, but in these other stories as well.
SPEAKER_00Do you feel like women need to have even more confidence than men in the in the marketplace?
SPEAKER_02We can feel that way sometimes. We it can feel that way. And yet at the same time, I think a lot of women struggle with that because they they sometimes collapse the idea of being confident with arrogance, which is not it at all. The idea is to pursue being confident in who God created us to be, in what God created us, the purposes that God created us for, the gifts that He's given us, but with humility. And so I think that is a struggle. I think personally, what I've discovered is we we do need to be assertive, probably sometimes a little more assertive than we think we need to be, and maintain that same level of humility. And I think that's where that's where faith comes in. Because the more I give glory to God for everything I do, the more I lean on God, the more I'll be pursuing the things that He has created me to do, as opposed to pursuing things because I'm trying to prove myself.
SPEAKER_00So, what is the confidence cornerstone, or should I say, who is the confidence cornerstone?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a great question. You know, when I was thinking about what to title the book, it it came to me pretty quickly. You know, I was just reflecting on the fact that it's Jesus. It's Jesus that I have my confidence in. It's it's the fact that I know he's always there for me, that he is the one who provides me with every gift, every skill, every talent. And he is the one who provides me with favor and success. And so, you know, I went from okay, here's the confidence code, which I will always recommend. But this book is about the confidence cornerstone, which is Jesus. When we when we really put our faith in him and our and in who we are in Christ, that's when we can really shine.
SPEAKER_00So, how would I know if Jesus is truly my confidence cornerstone?
SPEAKER_02I think the best way to distinguish that is to see to what level am I exhausting myself at the end of the day. How exhausted am I because of the work that I'm doing? Because I feel like I'm pushing up against things, as opposed to ending the day feeling joy and peace. And it doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean we don't work hard. But I really feel like when we're truly abiding, you know, Jesus says, abide in me and you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So we're trying to do things without him, we will be depleted. I, you know, you mentioned that I'm on the board of ladies of grace. I that I that is probably one of the best examples I have of really feeling energized after after I poured myself out. I will prepare a teaching for them, go in and pour myself out to these ladies. And I come out after preparing and delivering and being there for them, I come out more energized. And that's, I feel like the Holy Spirit saying, I gotcha.
SPEAKER_00I'm pleased. Yeah. Well, there's some, there's a bit of tension here because, like, for example, let's take public speaking. A lot of people have a fear of public speaking to varying degrees. Um, I mean, I could I could pray all day and you know, rest in Jesus, listen to praise and worship music, uh, and not actually practice public speaking. And then when I go out to do public speaking, I'm uh I'm mortified, right? Because I mean, the maybe I'm I'm not praying the right way or whatever, but uh the prayer combined with the practice of the the actual um whatever it is that your skill set you're trying to acquire, whether it's public speaking or in sports or uh just doing whatever whatever your job is, there's there's something about doing the actual job. So what's the relationship here in in terms of building your confidence? Because I'm not going to be very confident in my public speaking if I'm not practicing the public speaking.
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So there's, I think there's a couple of aspects to that. One is, are you doing the public speaking because you feel like it's what you should be doing, or it's is it what God is truly calling you to do? Um, you know, I I love I a story from Joyce Meyer, which I actually referred to in the book, where she talks about how she was trying to be the perfect wife and homemaker. She saw her neighbor growing tomatoes, so she grew tomatoes. When the day came to pick the tomatoes, Joyce went out to check on them and they had been overwritten by bugs, right? Totally eaten. She called her neighbor and said, You know, my tomatoes are are destroyed. What are you what do yours look like? And the neighbor went out and checked hers, and she came back and said, Mine, my tomatoes are fine. And Joyce was so upset because she said, God, I prayed over my tomatoes. I bet she didn't even pray over her tomatoes. Why didn't you protect them? And God said to her, Joyce, I never told you to grow tomatoes. So I have no obligation to protect them. You know, and and so I think it's the same with our work. You know, are we doing things because it's what God told us to do? We need to really check in with that, right? And if if it if it is, it's again, it doesn't mean that it's not going to have its own challenges or that it's always going to be easy. Um, I it and it does require that we abide. And that doesn't mean just doing devotionals and praying and um being quiet. It means that as we're actively engaged in our work, we pause and check in with God. Lord, what do you want me to do next? Lord, give me strength for this task. Father, I am having trouble figuring out how to get these words on paper or solve this problem. Please give me insight. And he is faithful. It's amazing to see the ideas that I have had come to me when I really had no, no clue what the answer was going to be. And so, you know, that's that's abiding is really knowing it's like he's sitting right there next to me all day. I never say, after my quiet time in the morning, see ya, I'm going to work, Lord, see you when I get home. You know, no, he comes right with me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because it's it's about following him, right? Following him in everyday life. And there's confidence. I mean, when you're when you're alone, you're gonna be less confident than you are when somebody is with you supporting you. And and so like just that in and of itself is so it's not about just uh not doing your your your trade or not cultivating that skill, whether it's public speaking or whatever it is, right? Um, but it's about doing it with him, right?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, absolutely. You know, uh Matthew 633 says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Now, Jesus was talking at the time about, you know, don't worry about what you'll wear or what you'll eat, but it also means, and it certainly means those things, but it also means, you know, all these things will be added to you, your the ideas, the resources for your work. You know, work was given to us, right? I mean, Adam had work as the first assignment. You know, the first assignment was fill and to do the earth, right? And and he gave that to man and women, men and women, to work together. And so work is supposed to be a blessing. Work is a way we partner with God. And so, um, you know, he's going to, if he's prepared us to do it, then he will be faithful to help us open the doors, get the resources that we need to see it through.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. When there are a lot of people in the marketplace and in the media and entertainment that appear to be very confident, right? But they're in most cases not believers. They're so how do you like, are they actually confident? Like what is what is that? Because I mean, I like I think a lot of us would look at that kind of uh poise under pressure and say, I want some of that. So how do you reconcile that?
SPEAKER_02That's a great question, Darren. And I'll tell you what, I I think um one, you might be surprised at how many of those people do have faith and just aren't very vocal about it. And two, we've also seen people who seemed very confident, but that but there was a sinkhole happening. You know, there was a there there was um just some things going on uh behind the scenes that eventually opened up and swallowed their life and and destroyed it, right? And so we have to be very careful about judging people by their cover. You know, we don't know how their faith is, maybe they do have faith. And if they don't, chances are there's some other stuff going on, but it's not for us to judge, right? The the best thing for us to do is to look at our own lives, look at those um people of faith who we admire who are our in leadership, and and learn from them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well said. And I want to hear about work matters, this organization you've been working with, I think for about seven years, seven and a half years, right?
SPEAKER_02It's been a little over seven years, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So what what is work matters and and what kind of distinguishes work matters from because there's a number of other faith and work type organizations out there. What what is really makes work matters special?
SPEAKER_02Work Matters has been around for 17 years. It really got its start out of a um actually a pastor noticed that people in this congregation were struggling with with their work. And he realized, oh, I don't think they're applying what they're hearing on Sunday to Monday through Friday. So he thought it would just be a small church ministry, but it it blew up. So clearly there was a hunger. And so it it um spun off as a its own standalone nonprofit in October of 2003. And as you said, our mission is to close the gap between faith and work, help people close the gap between faith and work and pursue God's purpose for their work. I think what makes work matters unique is that for one thing, we are practitioners serving practitioners. Everyone on the team has come from the marketplace. We've all struggled with our own faith and work journey. We've wrestled with the, you know, to what degree do we bring God into our work and how do we do that? And so we have a passion for helping people see the relevance of scripture to their work and provide them with very practical and actionable steps they can take to integrate their faith into their work.
unknownAll right.
SPEAKER_00So with that, we've got um some construction going on in the background. People can probably hear. Um, I'll mute myself again in just a minute. Um, what is Work Matters working on right now? And or I'll put it another way, what is um what's one of those aha moments that people are getting from tuning in to the content that Work Matters is putting out?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm gonna answer both of those questions actually together. One of the exciting things that Work Matters is working on right now, so there's a few things that we offer. You know, we have um we have a big Work Matters conference that we do. We just had it October 23rd. Um, and then we have Work Matters resources, so workplace Bible studies, video-based studies. We have 14 UVersion devotionals on the UVersion Bible app. And we have something called the Work Matters Institute. The Work Matters Institute is a 12-session study that equips next generation leaders to discover and pursue God's purpose for their work. This program has been around probably about nine or 10 years now. It's um it's been very local uh for the first eight years. And um, so there's been about 250 people who have gone through the program. What's exciting about it is um it's a deep dive into God's design for work and how to pursue and how to live out your faith at work through looking at executive speakers who share their own faith and work journey. Well, we are taking this program and expanding it. We've already started expanding it a little bit. Now we're really going to expand it nationally in the next couple of years, um, really starting in 2021. So we're just gearing up to make that program available in cities across the country. So I'm very excited about that because I think the biggest aha moment that people experience, and especially from that program, is that we don't even realize, like we all know, anybody would say, yeah, there's creation, fall, redemption, and renewal. But a lot of us live as if it's a two-chapter gospel, fall and redemption. We're so focused on that that we kind of collapse our work as part of the course. But when we look back at creation, as I said earlier, work was a blessing that was given to us before the fall. And Jesus invited us into his work of renewal. So we get to participate in the renewal project, and our work is a huge part of that. Not only to point people to Jesus and to a relationship with him, but also in the way we do our work with the excellence and to bring glory to God. I love the way John Tyson put it. He said, you know, we can do sacred things with selfish or unholy intent, and they're not sacred at all. But when we do our work, no matter what kind of work it is, with holy intent to please the Lord, to bring him glory, that is sacred.
SPEAKER_00Well said. And what's the best place for people to go? Workmatters.org. Um is there another page there where people can learn about the program?
SPEAKER_02Workmatters.org to learn about workmatters, to learn about the institute, it's workmatters.org slash institute.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. Catherine, wrapping it up here, what would be a parting piece of advice, maybe a practical tip for our listeners, uh, specifically to boost their confidence and and really make Jesus their confidence cornerstone?
SPEAKER_02I love Ephesians 2.10, which says we are God's masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared ahead of time, that we would walk in them. And and scripture also tells us that he will complete the work that he's done in us, that he is faithful to complete it. And as we seek him, he will provide the ideas, the resources, and the connections that we need. And so I would just encourage you that you are God's masterpiece, no matter what life is thrown at you. And even the events of this year are opportunities for us to draw closer to God. And as we do draw closer to Him, He's going to draw closer to us, He's going to direct us, and He will open doors where you didn't even know there was a door. I've experienced it myself. And so I want to encourage you that God has a purpose for your work, for your life, and He wants to bless you. And I pray that you experience that.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. Catherine, thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom with us and your passion today. Um, The Confidence Cornerstone, a woman's guide to fearless leadership is the book, and workmatters.org is the website. And you can go to workmatters.org forward slash institute to learn about that program, that institute. Uh, we sure appreciate you, Catherine.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much, Darren. This has been great. I really appreciate it.
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