Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the R.W. Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Shear, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by my friend Mike Sherrow. Mike is the president and CEO of C12 Group, the nation's largest network of Christian CEOs, business owners, and executives. And uh I don't know if he likes this or not, but I call him Bishop Mike because this uh this network of Christian leaders he and his team are discipling are the employers of literally millions, they're impacting millions of people who are coming in contact with this ministry. And and not just for an hour or two on a Sunday morning, but these these CEOs and and managers, business owners are impacting them for the majority of their waking hours. And and we see this uh responsibility and calling is even more evident now in the middle of this coronavirus pandemic that we're in, where employers are trying to take care of their employees and their families while trying to stay in business at the same time. Mike, thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_02Aaron, it's always fun to be with you, even if you do call me funny titles.
SPEAKER_00So, so we have listeners from all over the world, as you know. And I, as I was thinking about it, I can't think of any point in my lifetime like this when the entire world was going through the same crisis and actively fighting the same enemy at the same time. I mean, we've we've been through natural disasters and even wars, but they tend to, you know, concentrate on specific local areas. But this is something that I think is really in a redemptive way bringing us together. Um, everyone doing whatever it takes, you know, the social distancing and everything to just rid the world of this virus as as fast as we can. So, as Christians and Christian business professionals and and managers, we're trying to pierce through all the panic and pandemonium to understand what are our redemptive roles in the middle of this crisis? And I know you're in uh you're hearing a lot of the stories, and you're you're in the middle, you're a business owner or business uh CEO yourself. Um, how first of all, how are you and your team doing?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good question. And and on your comment there, I was talking to a uh CEO of a bank in Texas recently who said, you know, we're used to hurricanes. You live in near Houston, you've had some hurricanes. Usually in hurricanes, there's dry lands that can help the wetlands, right? So the people who did not get struck rally, go, let's go help the people hit by the hurricane. And even in tsunamis, right? It's okay, let's go help Sri Lanka and Indonesia. You don't usually have a spot where we all get hit with a tsunami at the same time.
SPEAKER_00At the same time.
SPEAKER_02And I was we've got groups in Brazil and Singapore, Malaysia. I've been what's happening, and it's the same.
SPEAKER_00Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So uh yeah, so I I'm I am uh small business owner, small business CEO. I've got 18 employees here in San Antonio. We've got 110 people in the field we support who then could do our greater work. Um I'm grateful that our team so far, we've got she got a first employee who may have coronavirus, so she's in the hospital right now, waiting for test results. Um but up until then, the team's been healthy. Um it's just been intense. I mean, this you know, when this slapped us in the face, we have had to do massive pivots just like everyone else in the industry, where uh our business model is on getting groups of more than 10 together, right? And so the president just said, no groups over 10. That was like saying no more of our business. Um, and so we literally in a week began to deploy innovations that were on our wish list for one, two, three years from now. We said, How about one, two, three days from now? And so we have been pivoting and working with all of our suppliers. So it's been it's been a whirlwind. As my wife sent me a meme last week. She said, Man, what a year this week has been.
SPEAKER_00So I'm serious. That's so great way to say it. And but you're you're considered an essential business right now. And and help our our listeners understand who may not be familiar with C12, why is C-12 so essential right now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so graciously, so our city, like many, is going through shelter in place and lockdowns and quarantines and an increasingly constricted definition of who gets to stay in business. I did find it interesting that Starbucks and liquor stores are always essential. That's a little interesting to me. Um, but I we got notified by the city and I wrote a gracious appeal and said, Hey, I appreciate you guys are making crazy hard decisions, and I can only imagine the data and moves you're having to make. So this is not a critique, but our business here in San Antonio literally creates the tools, processes, and resources to help over 1,600 American businesses. And right now we're doing all sorts of risk mitigation and disaster planning and pivoting. And how do you how do you play a redemptive role in your community? And if we shut down here, it's like we can work virtual. I'm I'm fine. It's it's the effect it has on all those member companies we support around the country. And so went to bed, wrote the memo, tried to be as gracious and respectful of authority as possible. And the next morning got a memo from the health department saying, upon review of what you guys do and the critical nature of keeping American businesses alive in this time, you've been deemed an essential business. So, you know, we're still doing social distancing, we're doing everything we can to minimize uh risk, but the greatest risk would be collapse of society, collapse of businesses, and um the businesses we work with employ over 600,000 Americans and then support about 8 million Americans through their as uh vendors and suppliers. And so that's just a big, it's a big downline to want to see supercharged, plugged in and helped right now.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yes. It's it's such a weighty responsibility you guys carry as always. So, how are your member companies doing overall?
SPEAKER_02Uh it's you know, it's like the uh what is the famous story? It's the best of times, the worst of times, right? So it's the full spectrum. We've been really leaning in with our groups and members. So groups are meeting more often now. So our our business is around running once a month seal round table groups in cities. And we have a few hundred of those in like 38 states, but that once a month meeting is is now too infrequent. So as it used to be, business owners saying, I just can't imagine meeting once a month. Yeah. Now they're like, I can't wait a month. The world is changing every three days. And so we're doing, you know, weekly Zoom meetings and we're doing uh daily prayer huddles, and we're doing we're we're just super leaned into what's going on, how do we read and react and cycle through this and pivot from shock to strategy? Um, the current assessment is that about 25% of our member companies are critically adversely affected right now and are at the risk of survival, particularly if you're in uh travel, tourism, restaurants, hotels, jet fuel transport companies. I mean, there's a whole bunch of interesting downstream impacts where um even some automotive part suppliers are it's about if you've got critical volumes of custom parts made that are not being bought in the float of that. So about 25% are in the ICU, about 50% are just having a bad day. Like this is gonna mean sales are gonna be down, or it's gonna be a rough year, it's gonna be choppy waters, and about 25% are killing it, are having the best day sales, week sales of their history. Um we have a uh telemedicine company, as you can imagine. Yes, their their growth rate right now is 300% a day. Um we got medical suppliers and um and then a bunch of neat companies pivoting. Like I'm talking to a company in Austin this afternoon in C12 that um they're a furniture company, and they found out that um the fabric they use to make their high-end pillowcases is the same fabric used to make masks. And so they in two days pivoted their furniture company and they're now making the masks for local community hospitals and became like an essential healthcare supplier overnight. Um and so yeah, so about 2550-25 is the current lay of the land to use real non-scientific math, and that's what we believe it'll be through April. The real question will be when does when do we crest this and begin to pivot towards you know, national rebuilding?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and so there's a possibility that maybe one of your employees has gotten the coronavirus. How about some of the member companies? Have any of them had any of these um outbreaks so far that you know of?
SPEAKER_02We've not had any reported outbreaks within companies. We have quite a few who have family members. Um even in Texas, uh big cybersecurity company here where the CEO's cousin is in ICU for coronavirus right now. Um plenty who were um plenty who were involved. So as far as I know, at least the ownership teams, um, again, 600,000 employees. I'm sure statistically we've got a bunch. We've got a lot of companies in the greater New York City area, which um, and again, with testing being constrained, we won't fully know the impact of everything for weeks or months from now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So especially for these owners and CEOs whose companies are just, I mean, they're in the ICU, as you said. Uh how how are they doing on a on a personal level? And how are you seeing faith make a difference in their life right now?
SPEAKER_02So this is a uh our founder, we found 30 years ago by guy named Buck Jacobs, and he wrote a little blog we shared with everybody in light of all this that there's a whole lot of shaking going on. And just thinking about in Hebrews, where we talk about an un unshakable kingdom versus an earth that is shakable. Certainly, this past month has been a bit of a wake-up call on everyone of presumed security, whether you have security in institutions or wealth or portfolios or even just your ability to figure things out. Like we've never had a spot where the government would literally say you can't do sales. Um, and so that has shaken people's uh faith, their security, their identity. Um, it makes things that you would have claimed before around God and his goodness. Now you have to go, do you really believe that? You know, and Job said, Blessed be the name of the Lord, he gives and takes away. Um so the responses are all over the map. There's the good the Romans 8.28 moments in this are folks seeing um a God show up in in in really unexpected ways on a daily basis, seeing faith conversations opened up. I was talking to a technology company in Austin yesterday, and the this executive tech guy who's not a Christian was actually commenting, I wish our CEO would talk about his faith more now. I know he's always been a little hesitant because we're a tech company in Austin and we're not we don't want religion pushed down our throats. But when the world's falling apart, you kind of want to know, like, where do you find hope? And and so there's some conversations opening up like that. There's um there's ministry moments within companies and communities, and it's a chance for us all to go, what what do we believe? Why are we here? Um, do we believe this is our you know, I think back to um my first days being involved in a C12 group, talking to a construction company about joining a group with me, and he's like, I'm just not ready to give my business to God. And I said, Well, you don't have to. He's like, What? Isn't that your guys' a scheme? Have people give their business to God? I'm like, no, no, we actually believe God already owns all businesses. The only question is whether or not you're a good manager, and so you don't get to decide if you do it, you just get to decide if you're rebellious or obedient, faithful and fruitful or frustrated. And and he was like, I own my business. I was like, Oh, well, let's talk about that. So you really think you do? So this is testing things, realize if God owns everything, it's only like he ultimately will decide whether or not we have any of this. And so our question is how to be incredibly zealously faithful in the moment. And um, so we're doing a lot of work to try to pivot people out of the fear, shock, and when will this go away? And I'm realizing, hey, it's probably not going back. You're not gonna wake up from this bad dream. Um, just like you guys lived through Hurricane Harvey, but different when a hurricane recedes, you do cleanup and you restore drywall and you patch up the levees and you go back to the back.
SPEAKER_00You get and you get sympathy from the rest of the country, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, this is not like that. When the waters of chaos recede, there will be all the damage, but there will be permanently altered landscape. Like business is forever changed, cities are forever changed, our government is forever changed by this. And just like 9-11 gave us the wonderful TSA, and our travel is forever changed, uh, coronavirus is going to change our world. And so we have to begin playing offense and asking God, God, what are you doing in this? What would you have me do in this? After a forest fire, beautiful things grow. What are what new growth are you wanting to do in the wake of this disaster? And the sooner people are leaning into that, they begin realizing that God does do work all things for good, even if the things were bad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. You know, and and as we do as Christians, a lot of times we look to the Bible for was there a time when people went through something kind of like this? And that's a really hard thing to do theologically, but the the one that I was just have been meditating on is is the experience of the the Tower of Babel. And and and I'm not saying that God like brings this stuff on us. I mean, he's the enemy is the one who comes to rob, to kill, and to destroy. And Jesus comes to give life and give it to the full. And coronavirus certainly doesn't uh fit with that, um, with with that objective. Uh, but uh but you know what was happening there was they were so focused on building their own thing, and they were they were so unified and everything. And then God brought some God actually brought some confusion. And and it seems like we're in a similar time uh where where there is so much confusion about what what really is is most important and how are we gonna bounce back from this. But I think through that we have an opportunity to experience a lot of clarity. And I think these, I think there are probably these babble moments all along, um, but it's it's not so often. This is one of those once in a lifetime, hopefully, um, you know, babble moments where where there's confusion, but the purpose is so that we will stop just building our own kingdoms and and focus on him. What are you what are your how what are some of the biblical parallels that you've been able to identify in the middle of all this?
SPEAKER_02A couple different ones I'd point to. One that has been striking me, particularly because of the global nature of this. Uh, my wife and I've been reading through the Bible chronologically together last year, and we got to the Ezekiel Jeremiah section, which is you know not a fun section to read at times. But there's a point where Jeremiah is being the task to give this, you know, pretty bad news that, hey, God's gonna shake up systems, governments can be torn down, economies can be wrecked, and everything, all the security of wealth and houses and cities that Israel had is gonna be wiped away. There's gonna be a bit of a reset. But part of that critique, he says, hey, you guys have been you're rebellious, you've been um, you know, idolatrous. And then he also criticized that they've not they've not given the land Sabbath rest. There's not been any appreciation for the rhythms and cadence of God's order. And he said, I'm gonna give my land rest. I'm gonna I'm gonna force it to rest. I'm gonna force the resets. You guys have you stopped doing feasts and festivals and Sabbaths. Well, I'll help you catch up. And essentially that happened. And I and I'm not saying, again, I'm just going to look at the world and go, when else in the last since the Industrial Revolution has there been a global ecological Sabbath? A we're gonna shut factories down for weeks, we're gonna have pollution fall down, we're gonna pull all the planes out of the sky, we're gonna tell people to go home and be together like that. We could not have politically ever brokered an elective agreement to do what just happened. And it's expensive, but you also go, that's interesting, God. You just forced a Sabbath on the whole planet. You just broke systems, you shook up empires, and you shook, you shook up trade alliances, and trade will be forever rerouted. Businesses are diversifying their supply chains to Central America and not being dependent on Asia. And um this is just a massive shift. So I look at that. I also look at in terms of Christians and what's our role in the marketplace. And I was talking to my team this week about the Hebrews coming into the promised land and the spies being sent in. And all the spies saw the same thing. This is a land with fortified cities and walls and giants, and we are outnumbered. We're like grasshoppers. But two came back and said, Yeah, and there's these giant grapes, and it's like, it's beautiful. Like, I think if God's called us, he's gonna show us how and let's go do it. And so two out of twelve looked at the same bleak outlook and said, if God called us to this, he'll make a way, let's go get him. 10 out of 12 said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, we got a bunker down. And I'm seeing the same ratios oftentimes in Christians and businesses. Do you look at this and go end of the world? And to quote uh Ed Stetzer, he'd say, Hey, the sky's not falling, the earth is shifting, and the world will look different. Um, it's not the end of the world, it's the end of the world the way the world was. So if you can't pivot, see what God is doing, find your part in it, and find uh rest in the clarity of calling and vision, even if you've got uncertainty of circumstance, which I think is the real tricky thing for us as leaders, can you be resolved to have clarity, even if you're totally uncertain about when the government's gonna do the next program and when the bill's gonna lift and when the quarantines will shift? Like you can't know those things. So man, take the loaves and fishes you've got and split, see what God does with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So the message that you're giving, I mean, how do you begin to even speak to a a business owner, CEO who's uh as you said, in ICU? I mean, what is what is the message that you and the C12 chairs are are bringing to the people in uh in times like this?
SPEAKER_02So with the diversity of of com so first of all, there's no cookie cutter prescription. You know, anybody who's saying I've got the secret bullet to solve everyone's problems, like run. Um so what this test is you gotta have real deeply anchoring in what does the Bible say, what is truth, how do you discern what God's best for you is? So we're trying to bring forward the frameworks for that. You've got to have tools that bring clarity that pull people out to go, let's look at your risk points, let's look at your opportunity points. So the first one of the first things we rolled out that began being used by thousands of companies outside of C12, actually, was um uh a simple worksheet every week to say, what are your risks and these are of your business? How do you block those? And what are the opportunities and how do you seize those? And let's keep iterating with a lot of agility. Um, how do you confront the brutal facts? So it's just as dangerous to be polyannish and be like, it's all fine. God, you know, I'm blessed, hashtag blessed, and it's gonna work out. God doesn't promise exemption, um, immunity from crisis, right? But it's also not panic and oh my gosh, I'm I'm losing everything. Like, how do you think about it?
SPEAKER_00That's what Joe's talking about, right? And good to great.
SPEAKER_02Yep, the stockdale paradox.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, stockdale paradox. I mean, if we're we would like to be able to say, hey, this is all gonna be over by Easter. Um, maybe not. What happens when Easter comes? Like, what do you what's gonna happen to your faith then?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But continue.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, so it's it's creating uh instead of there being the expectation of do this secret thing and you are now set free, it's these are questions and processes we need to be cycling through. You need to be less isolated now more than ever. You need to be making the difficult calls and realizing if your business was um had poor operational fitness before, if you were hyper-leveraged, undercapitalized, banked on the future, and had failed to practice good wisdom, or if you're in a sector that has just been crushed by the legislative maneuvers our country has done to defend itself, um, it is what it is. So stop wallowing in wulda, coulda, shoulda and start pivoting to what do we what do we bring from this? How do we bring beauty from ashes? God, what would you have me do? And so if they're in the ICU mode, it's helping discern which is it. Is this a Touch and go, bounce off the bottom, recoverable, or is this that is not that business is not going to work anymore? And we've got to pivot and go, and that's what's so painful. So if our our best members view themselves as stewards and as shepherds over incredible workforces, and the biggest tears have been when you're letting go of people and dreams who you love, who and you have to realize like God is their provider. Um I better be asking if I've been as diligent as I can, as sacrificial as I can, um to to be a good means of God's provision for them. But I'm not ultimately their provider, God is. And so that's still it's it's just painful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. What are some of the opportunities that you see are going to likely emerge from this? You know, obviously there's there's gonna be uh aftermath from this and and and just putting the pieces back together for a long time, but at the same time, there are gonna be some some pretty incredible opportunities for innovation. And and which by the way, I was thinking about this. Um I I hear the term disruptive innovation a lot, and frankly, kind of sick of it. I mean, there's enough there's enough disruption that happens in our lives without us having to be the disruptors. Um, I think what we need is restorative innovation. Uh to like as you said, there are you have um business owners who are taking their their clothing companies and now they're making uh face masks for for hospital workers and and so on. I mean, that's that's restorative innovation, meeting those human needs. Uh, what are some of the other opportunities you think are gonna emerge from this?
SPEAKER_02There's there's some tremendous uh I mean, sector by sector shifts, but so you got situational adaptations. So some people are just pivoting and adapting existing supply chain or capacity towards a new audience. I'm gonna take the fabric I already have and make masks instead of pillow cushions. We got manufacturers pivoting from being auto part makers to ventilator part makers and all that kind of stuff. So that's that's kind of a situational pivot. We don't project that two years from now we're gonna be still need to make millions of more ventilators. That's a situational, a seasonal adaptation. The move towards virtual will probably have a more lasting effect. So um digital marketing, uh video tools, content tools, that's gonna be continue to be a massive demand shift. Uh the way we relate to and connect is gonna be different. The um we're seeing uh a lot more joint business partnerships in cities around how to address social agency issues. And there's gonna be uh a major shift in how we do travel, right? So there the travel will not rebound the same way. The supply chain process, talking to bank uh economic development consortium of bank CEOs, discussing how their their way they're gonna measure risk on future business loans, particularly if you're in a healthcare space, is are you dependent on all your core products coming from Asia, or are you gonna have continental diversification of your supply chain? And if you don't, you're gonna pay higher rates for money. And so those are gonna be some permanent shifts that's gonna create opportunities for both domestic and um Western hemisphere manufacturing and suppliers. Um there's gonna continue to be uh uh a pivoting towards so think about what'll happen with telemedicine that is being ramped up. It's been a latent capacity in America, and now we got forced shifts. That's gonna change the way medical offices are built, that's gonna change the way uh people access healthcare. That's gonna have implications on um all the IT companies that support those things, and the cybersecurity companies support those things. Um there's for each company, whether it's uh food service companies, restaurants are becoming grocery suppliers, to um we just found a uh a marketing company in Florida where they they found out that the ICU nurses were afraid of contamination when they were intubating, you know, putting a trach tube in a patient in a hospital. And they went, oh, we could create a solution for that. And so um local plastics company are making medical solutions, and that's gonna breed a whole new set of uh ways we look at healthcare and hospitals and community health. So um the story is still unfolding. There's some good analysis around um kind of sector by sector space development, but for the right entrepreneurs to be in a circle saying, what can we do right now? Um there's a lot to be done.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And going back to what you were saying and what Buck Jacobs has said about um, you know, whatever can be shaken will be shaken, and there's a there's a lot of shaking happening right now. I wanted to get your take on what's going on with the institutional church right now, and and what I mean hopefully our conclusion is not that um, you know, the church is collapsing right now because we can't meet for an hour and a half on on a Sunday morning. Um, what how do you think the church is is gonna be different? And and what are you I mean, do you like how the church is is handling things by and large? Because you've been on staff at uh at churches in the past. Um what are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is a radical uh a number of denominational leaders that anticipated a a coming church shift in 2030, and coronavirus in some ways just pulled that forward to 2020. And the uh the toll of this is gonna be pretty substantial because you've got increasingly Will Mancini is a Houston guy, and he would say that you've got the giga churches, these mega, you know, these online churches that are doing a really great job of creating community with digital tools, you got mega churches with great programs, but increasingly this this helped highlight the fact that in this digital age, teaching and worship are really commodities that anybody can access at any point, anytime, anyway. And so if your local church is not fundamentally about disciple making a community and advancing the gospel, it's anywhere you're you're so connected you couldn't, you wouldn't want to not be part of it. If its greatest value prompt is not what happens outside of Sunday morning, you just had a death blow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you probably got so much debt on your balance sheet from sustaining the old model, you may not be able to pivot economically. And so that's gonna be pretty rough. And when has America ever had people essentially legislated to not meet together? Like we can access teaching and worship right now, but that's not the commodity of the church. And so if the country goes six weeks or seven weeks and people not actually having community and living in missional pursuit of following Jesus and making disciples of Jesus, um, I think there'll be a there'll be a a a pretty sizable shakeup there, which back to the the work we do in the marketplace, we are so I believe you know the church, you get local congregations and institutions, we are the church, the church is us, so we don't get to I don't get a point at it. But increasingly uh the world, America, is going to be at work, and the way they view church, think of church, and how churches look is gonna be really disrupted for the next few years. Um and all the more critical that these outposts of workplaces are vibrant and effective places where they see the gospel lived out, believable, authenticated, winsome, and have a chance to see continuity of that thread. Um this is yeah, this is an epic time for church disruption.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And it it seems like one of the other things that's gonna be coming about more and more are mergers and acquisitions, you know, in in the middle of all this. I mean, churches consolidating, um, companies consolidating. Do you is that something that you're seeing on the horizon?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. I also I also don't think that most churches are prepared for what um Great Depression era unemployment will mean in terms of benevolence needs, compassion needs, care needs, the need to um be like they're gonna have to reposition staffing and programming, and how do we participate based upon and it'll be worse in different markets. Brookings Institute did a great analysis of which cities in America will be most tragically uh wrecked by unemployment based upon their industry mix, their job profile mix. And so there's some that are gonna bump and go, and some are gonna have a really rough time, and that'll the church will have to learn to love and care at an intensity level we've not had in a bull market, right? We've not had this kind of widespread need. Um yeah, some churches, just like businesses, some businesses are gonna go away. Some churches as a local entity, as a nonprofit corporation will probably go away. Others will come together. Um, hopefully, there's some beautiful, breathtaking, emerging um um innovators and and great best practice embodiers that effectively take forward the Great Commission of Jesus and the gospel into this new reality. Um and hopefully this is severe enough. The church will have to realize just what businesses are. I can't be banking on when we get to go back to 2019. Like we're not. So if I don't get real excited about the 2021 I'm building, I'm on a slow death anyway. And some churches have not like not been great at that.
SPEAKER_00Right. Um these these members of C12 groups, I mean, I would imagine they have a lot of uh a pretty strong voice in their churches in terms of maybe they they uh step up to that opportunity, maybe they don't. Uh, but there is um there's gonna be a pretty tremendous platform, I think, that they will have, especially on the just even the the business side. Like, how do we how do we rebound from this? So it'll be interesting to see what uh how they're how these pastors are are coached through this process and uh what the rebuilding looks like. I mean, because the the the payroll protection plan, everything that that is, you know, we're so blessed to have here in the United States. I know not everybody around the world is you know gets these these programs, but you know, that's covering payroll. That's not not covering your you know that that big fat mortgage for your church building.
SPEAKER_02Um I mean the pre- the Pay Tech Paycheck Protection Act will help churches if they choose to take it, get a little band-aid, right? A little 90-day boost to mortgage utilities and payroll. Um, but it for businesses, churches, schools, universities, it does not solve your strategic issue of how will I survive in the new reality. I do think, I hope it brings more collaborations. I just got a thing last night from up in Dallas. A bunch of business owners partnered together with a local church. They didn't all go to this one, but they went to uh Lake Point Church and said, let's create something they're calling the 7740 plan. They get they targeted seven community hospitals most burdened by coronavirus care, where people work in double shifts and you're dealing with nurses and doctors getting sick themselves and they've been quarantined. So you have a diminishing workforce. They identified seven restaurants that are uh large employers of at-risk families where where uh low-wage earners and single moms are cannot afford to be not employed, and said, could we get seven hospitals, part of seven restaurants, have 40 businesses do a sponsorship program where we're gonna buy meals for the healthcare workers from these restaurants and run it through this church and have the church be the agent of it. And it's not a uh permanent thing, but it literally will feed 500 healthcare workers and will save 500 jobs and leverage $1 to kind of have triple and quadruple impact in a community. And so where there are churches that begin to lean in, I've been talking to some pastors across San Antonio reaching out and saying, hey, we're realizing we've got to lean into the business community on this. And if there's not a connection there, uh we're gonna be, it's gonna be sitting on top of us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Wow, and and thanks for mentioning that about the the need to prepare ourselves and to really engage more in benevolence ministry instead of just um the event planning ministry for Sunday morning, because that that's really the core value proposition of our our local churches is you're basically gonna have a concert on Sunday morning with uh, and I've been to some great Christian concerts, and you know, it's it's a lot like that. Um, just not always as high quality in terms of production value, but now I think the world is gonna want to see what is the what is the difference that your Jesus makes. You know, what is the Jesus factor in your company and how you're responding and helping your and treating your employees through this? And and so there's uh it's a great time of shaking, but also as you're as you mentioned, uh, and given us so many examples, a great, so many opportunities uh to reveal Jesus and to capitalize on some of the opportunities that are they're there for the taking right now. Um, Mike, as we close it out, uh, and I want to point everybody to c12group.com. There's a lot of great content right there on the website for people to to check out, whether you're a member or not. Um but Mike, would you would you pray for our listeners? We got a lot of Christian business leaders, managers, professionals, and then we have people on staff at churches, but uh people that want to that are involved and want to be involved with what God is doing in the marketplace. Would you just um pray for us right now?
unknownSure.
SPEAKER_00You know, we don't always do this, but especially at this at this time, I think we need prayer um more as as much as we ever had.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Uh Father, I uh thank you. Um I think you that in James you talk about if anybody lacks wisdom, if we ask, you give freely and you don't you don't condemn or um condescend us, but we have to ask and listen then with faith. And it quickly can makes it conditional that if we're not trusting you, that it won't work. And Father, I think but later we uh you also say in your word that it's impossible to please you without faith. And Father, we are guilty, particularly in America, of making faith a set of statements we make or doctrines we claim, and rarely have we actually had to live in dependence. We've rarely had to find our our security um circumstantially in faith. And yet we're facing a time where we will get to actually find out if our faith is real. And Father, I I praise you, you've given us your word and human history full of moments that show that your strength is absolutely made perfect in our weakness, and that the church is most brilliant and glorious in times of suffering and hardship when there's no other way that makes sense but God. And Father, I pray that as a people we would uh we would be deeply anchored in your word and counseled by your spirit to be a but God kind of people who in this time know what it looks like to grieve with those who must grieve, because there's real suffering, there's real losses to rejoice. But Father, to be able to look forward and have leadership and vision and to see what are you building? What what good do you want to bring from this? And that we would be uh speakers of truth, livers of truth. That those of us in the in the business world would would be stewards of our opportunity to show the reason for the hope we have, uh, to create and innovate to your glory, to partner and demonstrate love and compassion in a time where the world is going to be hurting. Father, when the world cries out, I pray that we would be part of your answer to those prayers. And that we would look back on this painful time, and while it's expensive and we don't like it, that Father would look back and actually be able to in faith say it was worth it.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02We see what you did, it was worth it. So, Father, you are you are good and you don't change, and you say we get to anchor our souls in your kingdom that is not shaken and not affected by the stock market, our portfolios, or our uh income statements. And so, Father, from that kingdom, I pray that we would get to go forth and that uh your name would be on the lips of many people weeks from now because of how we do it. I pray this in the name and name and power of your son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that, Mike. Sure appreciate you. And um I mentioned c12group.com is the website. Is there a certain place you want them to go on the site?
SPEAKER_02I'd say in this season, if you go to the website and go to the blog, um, we've actually made that dedicated to weekly updates of free tools, resources, stories, analysis around how to navigate and lead through this coronavirus. And it's all no paywall, no email. It's literally meant to be kind of a community service that we're putting out every week. So check that out, share that with your church, your friends. Um, it could really make a difference this time.
SPEAKER_00Excellent. Well, thanks again, Mike. Thank you for your time. Thank you for uh just pressing into the Lord and and the way he's leading you, leading us uh in the as marketplace Christians in in a time like this. And I'm I'm just I'm excited to see how God continues to use these C12 companies uh to reveal himself. And um I I think he's just gonna continue to magnify his name through what you guys are doing. So appreciate you. Likewise, Darren.
SPEAKER_01We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.