Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast with host Darren Sheer, an initiative of the RGW Denham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. This is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate their local values into business. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business and fund up to receive free access to all pages of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at ChristianityInbusiness.com.
SPEAKER_00On this episode, we're joined by Helen Mitchell. Helen was an early adopter of faith work and economics in the local church and was the architect and visionary of the Saddleback at Work Ministry at Saddleback Church, Pastor Rick Warren, for those who might not be familiar, where she served as a licensed minister on the pastoral staff. And she is now the director of the Talbot Center for Faith Work and Economics at Talbot School of Theology at Viola University and an ethics leader, ethics and leadership professor in the Krohl School of Business at Biola. She teaches in both the business undergrad program and in the MBA program and serves as an MBA mentor. And she continues to stay connected to the business world. She had a significant career working for Lucent Technologies, right? As a vice president at the age of 30. And uh and continues to stay connected to the business world, discipling CEOs, um, as uh the the leader of learning initiatives or the excuse me, let me just edit that out. That was a that was a tongue tongue tie there. Uh she continues to stay connected to the business world as she oversees the leader learning initiatives for Convene Corporation. So if you're familiar with Convene Now, one of the amazing organizations that God has raised up to disciple Christian business owners, and you can check out more from Helen at helenmitchell.org. We'll mention that again here in just a little bit. But Helen, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast. Well, it's a pleasure. Thank you, Darren. Good to be here with you today. Yeah, well, it's always exciting for me as just being diving into this faith at work marketplace ministry movement, uh, to be able to talk to some of the pioneers of uh of this movement. So when did you first realize you were part of what we know now is referred to typically uh ecumenically as the faith at work movement?
SPEAKER_02Right. It uh for me there was actually no real flashpoint. Um uh it I just sort of fell into it in a way, unknowingly. Um when I lost my executive job in November 20th, 2003. So if we do the math, that's uh what 15 and a half years ago that I've been in this and on this journey unknowingly. And uh at that time I was uh trying to figure out where I was supposed to go with my life, what I was supposed to do, and being an out-of-work executive in Orange County, California was wow, there was a lot of us. And um and I uh wasn't sure. I I loved business, but I just really didn't really have the aspirations that I had once had. And at that time, there was really no books, no blogs, no conferences, no podcasts like what we're doing today. There was very little out there, and the Lord just started to seed my heart and my mind with this faith at work idea. And I call it, I have this where's Waldo journey journal, like what's going on? And I would make notes, and um, through a series of divine events, the Lord brought me to Saddleback Church. And uh, my husband and I and family, we started worshiping there, and then brought me to uh some pastors, and um then in early 2005, it just took off, and I put together a strategic plan and uh we went from there. And at that time, God gave me a vision that what needed to happen is that you know, academia, the business world, and uh the local church is really what needed to come together to really influence culture. But I would say I kind of found myself as an unwilling participant, not really understanding this journey that I was on. And um and so here I am today. And uh I've just this is what I want to commit the rest of my life to.
SPEAKER_00Well, I love how you took the initiative to start saddleback at work, uh, because I think a lot of people are waiting for their pastor to take the initiative and to kind of be the bastion of faith at work at their church. And just with the the demands on pastors, I don't I don't, I just don't see how realistic it is. Maybe I've gotten a bit jaded. Maybe you could speak to that, but there's just such a focus on uh, you know, pastor has to basically there's in the they're in the event planning business and have to be the keynote speaker every week and have to have a very strong production. I'm sure few churches do it at the level of of saddleback, but what do you say to uh to kind of the, I guess the typical congregant that is passionate about seeing their the people in their church get engaged in what God is doing in the marketplace in a deeper level, uh, but they they just feel maybe a little bit stuck.
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, gosh, Darren, right right there is uh is a perfect quandary, right? How do we get the pastors engaged, involved? How do we uh uh speak to them? And from a pastoral and church perspective, um we're just I think we're missing a sense of urgency and we're missing the fullness of the vision of what this could be. And uh we we kind of seem to keep going in circles, is where we get star where do we get started? Um the the business community, well, we talk about all work, whether it's in the home or in the marketplace or what industry you're in, whether you're a teacher or janitor or school teacher, doctor, or business leader, all work can have intrinsic value in part of our service to Christ. But it's traditionally the business community where this has really taken root over the number of years with groups like CBMC, Convene, uh FCCI, C12, and others that have really been discipling men and women in the business world for some time. And so unfortunately, this has kind of been really, I think we've kind of defaulted to this being a default to be a uh a business initiative or business movement, right? So we have that issue. Um, and Greg Leith, who's a CEO of Convene, uh, he and I and his leaders, we've intentionally worked together to partner to reach out and connect with the pastors. So a lot of the business leaders are the ones that do have relational connection with their pastors. I am a firm believer that if that the church must be in this conversation and must be in this conversation and involved at a greater level than they are. Because if they're not, we're gonna continue on the pathway of what we currently have, and that is where this becomes a para-church organization. The in Ephesians 4, 11 through 13, we see from scripture that the role for the apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists is to equip the saints for the works of ministry. Now, a lot of times we think that works is work in the local church or volunteer work in the community, and both of those things would be correct, but they'd be incomplete. That word works that the pastors and the churches to equip the saints for is ergon, which in the Greek means business, employment, anything done by hand. So the local church needs to very much be involved in this conversation to partner with. So if you are, I would say to someone who is uh a church member, just have some com have coffee with your pastor, meet with your pastor, invite your pastor out to where you work, and understand that your pastor may be very uncomfortable coming out to your place of work. I find that many pastors, it's a it's not publicly stated, but my opinion, my experience is that many pastors are intimidated by the business community. The power, the money, the wealth, the stewardship. And what I have witnessed is that when they're engaging with business leaders, it's they feel as if they have to be the answer man. And so what I say to pastors is this okay, you want to make a visit into the marketplace, but let's look at this way. Do you make hospital visits? And they'll, well, yeah, I sure do. I said, okay, good. What do you know about medicine other than say Dr. Oz and WebMD online?
SPEAKER_00That's really good.
SPEAKER_02They're like, nothing. So what makes I assure you that that business leader does not need your help to figure out uh trade issues, uh, improved accounts receivables, mergers, acquisitions, uh the debt consolidation, moving into new markets, HR hiring, whatever it is, they need you to be the pastor. And so I think that the first thing to do would be to extend the a bridge, a hand, and to just to begin to walk together. Maybe get a book to start reading together. Uh, there's plenty of books that you can start reading together. That'd be a great place to start to engage this pastor into the conversation. But there's so much more that needs to be done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And at Saddleback, we're also doing small groups. I just had a group of uh about 15 entrepreneurs from my church over to our house uh last night. And we're talking about what the Bible says about accountability and be and accounting and business, because we're trying to do a business for the glory of God. And it just seemed like the small group ministry was kind of low-hanging fruit for those of us that want to kind of bring this into the to the church. I don't know that our senior pastor has any idea about the this particular group happening because it's like saddleback, a very large church. But what is some of the the low-hanging fruit in terms of initiatives that churches could be uh doing to move this forward?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, I'm I'm hesitating because that is such a good question and it's such a loaded question, and it's back to what we were saying before. Where where do we start? We kind of get ourselves going back and around in the do-loop. First, let me say that that's actually how the Saddleback at Work ministry started there at Saddleback Church. Um, I had this kind of the somewhat vague vision for faith in the workplace, and Pastor Steve Glayton, who was overseeing small groups at that time, had this vision and idea to put small groups in the workplace. And uh, through another pastor at church, uh, there uh we were connected. And uh so 10 years later, the rest is history, as they would say, as I was a volunteer for three and a half years and on the pastoral staff for six and a half. And so um really learned a lot about the small group, not only a small group format, but small group, and we were specializing in small groups in the workplace. There's a lot you can say about it, whether you're gonna make a vocation group, whether you do it by industry, whether you do it by whatever. But our focus was to bring co-workers together over non-working hours to learn to become more like Christ in their work life. So these are co-workers, and typically the only saddleback member in the group was the host. And when I stepped off the pastoral staff in March of 2015, throughout Saddleback Church, we had 500 workplace small groups across Saddleback Church, with the average group size was eight to ten people. So that's a lot of people meeting together. And I did um for I have two master's degrees from Biola University, one in an organizational leadership and one in biblical and theological studies. And my uh final project and dissertation for the organizational leadership was how to effectively establish and maintain workplace small groups. I did primary and secondary research, and I, you know, uh called and spoke to groups that were still going and those that disbanded. And there were a couple of things that emerged. One thing that is important to your question, and the first of which is what I would say so we're gonna put small groups out in the workplace, is one, it is it is discipleship that's the tip of the spear, not evangelism. And then when we talk about theology of work and faith at work, work and our job is not a veiled or the an attempt or a means by which only we can uh preach the gospel or evangelize our co-workers, but that work in and of itself does have intrinsic value. And by focusing on discipleship of people in the workplace, right? Discipleship so that we are uh we are greater, more tightly aligned with with the Lord and with each other. What we found is that one out of every four of those 500 workplace small groups had one or more. Now, this is a fluctuating, rolling number, 25% of those groups had one or more people come to Christ as a result of their workplace small groups. And I got their names. This is not somebody's Aunt Edna, whatever, that lived three doors down from a coworker. I met them at church. I saw them get baptized. We had whole groups of people, we've had people come together uh at uh uh just praying for their company, and they they have uh people send prayer requests through. Very impactful. 50% of those groups had greater understanding of their work uh work life. Uh, 80% had an increase of peace, joy, and patience at work. It was a noticeable distinction to the bottom line. So the first thing that I would say is if you're looking at small groups in the workplace, it is about you need to have clarity about the vision and the outcome and what it's for. The second thing that I would offer to you is that one of the resistance and one of the fears is uh the are the legal issues. And if you go to YouTube, uh the Talbot Center for Faith Work and Economics, we have a uh YouTube channel. Uh, if you look on Talbot Faith Center, we have a number of videos there, some of which are legal videos, where I interviewed my friend Brad Dakis, who's the founder and president of the Pacific Justice Institute, on probably 60 or 70 questions. And so less than one minute video, I will ask him a question and he answers it. What's the difference between religious uh harassment, religious discrimination? I'm a business owner, can I give out uh religious materials? Uh, how as an employee, how do I opt out of these type of activities? What can I choose what to do with my union dues? I'm a teacher, can I put a Christmas tree in my classroom, et cetera, et cetera? So that would be the second thing that I would offer as a free resource uh would be those legal things. So those would be two real distinctions. The third thing that I would offer is remember that these people are doing it over non-working hours. And what we found is that the majority of the people that were doing this were not your your business leaders, but really were what you would consider to be middle and frontline and hourly workers. And um, 30% of these groups were meeting for 30 minutes, 60% of the groups were meeting within an hour. And so a lot of the content and the curriculum and the materials that are out there are just insufficient to be used in a workplace environment because they're just too long.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so now you're working with Convene, and Convene, for those who aren't aware, is focused particularly on CEOs of companies ranging what 10 to 50 million, something like on average, or uh a million, a million on up. A million on up, okay.
SPEAKER_02Multi, multi-million dollar companies.
SPEAKER_00Yes, multi-million dollar companies. And so these are not kind of your uh entrepreneurs of, you know, these are people that are very well established with employees and so on, which there's a a different type of discussion that must be had at that at that level versus like the group that was over at my house last night. These are people that are just trying to get their idea to market and trying to kind of break free from some mindsets that are kind of shackling them from being able to move forward with their entrepreneurial endeavors. And so what do you see as being uh kind of the the trends or maybe the future? Is it going more toward um kind of church affiliated groups or more toward uh these um kind of private sector type uh you know, pay for membership type groups?
SPEAKER_02So um I I think all have a place. All are good. Uh they are the question is, are they distinctly different or are they overlapping? Are they in essence competing with each other or are they offering different value propositions? And I think the answer, in my opinion, would be that they are distinctly different, offering different value propositions. So let's step back for a moment. When we're talking about, say, workplace small groups. I would have folks say, well, why do I want to be in a workplace small group and then be in a home group with, you know, as men's, women's, or couples group. And my answer to that would be is because we're talking about different areas and focus of your life. So you can be in a couples group, and yes, you may say, hey, could, you know, I've got this big presentation coming up, you know, fine, great, we'll pray for it. But you're talking about an element of the of our life, part of the calling of our life, of uh being an individual, being a parent, being a being a spouse. And so the focus is in the relationships are around there. That same person can thrive in their whole life discipleship and live the full Christian life by being in a workplace small groups, regardless of their their um their responsibility or their level, by coming together with coworkers, because those co-workers have been given a spiritual and uh authority as well as delegated management authority in their place of work. And as they come together to be more like Christ, to lift each other up and pray for their coworkers and pray for the company, change the atmosphere and to bring forth goodness for human flourishing through their employer, that is a type of work that they do as a co-worker as a result and an outcome of coming together to be more like Christ, to be discipled in their work life. Very, very distinct. Now, when you're talking about something like, you know, convene where you have, you know, one to five to ten million dollar business leaders and owners, these are people who are running companies and wanting to glorify God and feel the burden of the stewardship of what they're called to do. They want to build their business with an eternal perspective and make a difference. How do you fire somebody in a way that honors God? How do you develop people in a way that honors God? How do you uh reconcile uh things to uh just and hold each other accountable and hold up each other, right? It's you know the old saying it's lonely at the top. So it's like their own personal board of directors. Now, should they be in a small group through their church? Absolutely, different focus. They're they are the church is not competing, and convene is not convening, competing with small groups in the local church. Very, very different.
SPEAKER_00A lot of churches are intimidated. So you're not suggesting that churches go and start a convene type group. No, yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean it's it's kind of one of those buy or sell, right? I mean, is that is it does the church have the core competency in which to do that? Is is there the bigger question is why would you do that? You want to do it because you could put your label on it? Well, uh that's yeah, right? That's probably not good motivation. Are you doing it to further the kingdom? Well, somebody else is really doing it really well. God calls us, Jesus calls us into unity, and he calls us to work together in the body of Christ. And I think that part of the reason why this faith at work movement has taken so has been so slow in really getting moving is we have not worked well in collaboration. One, either we've worked in silos because we've not chosen to work together, but also the work that each group has been doing has just been pick and shovel work. And I think each key leaders have set foundations that it is now time to bridge those gaps and work together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What are so you are developing curriculum for Convene for these business owners? What are some of the topics that are the most in demand that they are wanting and needing to learn about in these groups?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so to be honest with you, the uh the suggestions are uh come at me faster than I can put together and can write, or what they can actually do in a forum uh group for nine or 12 months out of the year. Um, one of one topic that is in high demand that I just completed was conflict. Um, about how do we really uh I mean this topic is so broad and so deep, and even as I was researching it, I uh uh I was I I I fell into a well that I didn't realize even how deep it was. Uh, conflict is one piece. How do we do it? How what does it look like? So I I drew some diagrams and made up, came up with an across stick and for them to easily think about. So that's one topic. Another topic is a Emotional intelligence. I wrote a piece last week about how to effectively, or last month, excuse me, no, last year, how to uh scale up an organization based on Vern Harnish's book, Scaling Up, did that in four pieces: people, strategy, execution, and cash, integrated outside resources material, Harvard Business Review articles, scripture, and things like that. So those uh people issues, people matters, financial matters, uh, those are some of the things that um are high on their list. But we also look at uh their spiritual formation and development, and there's a devotional aspect that goes with the content.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's rare to be able to talk to somebody that has been so actively involved in this movement on the local church level, in uh the equipping, actually in uh working for a for-profit company, being in an equipping role as you are there with Convene, but also in teaching the next generation of business students. Uh I'm curious, how is the how would you define kind of the consensus view of business among your these next generation students as being different from previous generations? What are you what are you observing there?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I I think uh good good question. One of the one of the observations which we've been hearing much about, which I will affirm, and that is this next generation coming out is really looking to do purposeful work. And um it's it's important for them to, there's just something in them consistently to look at life holistically. So, for example, we were looking at uh we had in my ethics class, we were discussing um uh corporate social responsibility and to what degree should businesses be involved in society and not, and so we went through the conversation. I just said I stopped and said, let me just take a poll here. So if just real quick, this is for my own benefit. If uh you were offered two jobs, very equal title, pay, everything's the same, but one was more corporately socially responsible, involved in the economy and the environment and culture and human flourishing, and gave back um and and didn't just take from the land, but actually gave back in some way. Which company would you want to go work for? And clearly, without any reservation, they all said that they would want to work for a company that was more globally minded. And so the words that we'll use are more kingdom-minded. Um, they are very purposeful, but um, they're very eager. And um, but I think they are coming into a world that's far more complex than you and I had uh engaged in when we first came out of culture or came out of came out of our university experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, and that they've the previous generation, it seems like there have been such uh kind of low expectations of companies, but now the expectations of companies to be you know eco-friendly and inclusive and you know, everything else has really, I mean, that's gonna keep convene in business for a long time, helping to kind of uh stay, help these CEOs stay current with um, you know, knowing where the culture is going, but always making sure that um that you're equipping in in a way that's consistent with the scripture. Uh so that's um exciting to be able to kind of be able to step into all of these different uh fields, the church world, the academic world, and in the marketplace all at once.
SPEAKER_02It it absolutely is, and I think for me it's a it's a convergence. Yeah, and I I I just uh let me just give you a couple of other thoughts to your comment, if I could, briefly. You you talk about this next generation, the Gallup organization just released uh a work, uh a report on purposeful work. And um the highlights from their study were that four out of five college graduates, now remember I teach at a Christian university, at Biola University, but they through the they looked at um beyond you know a Christian setting, they were looking at all colleges, but four out of five college graduates say it's important or extremely important to derive a sense of purpose from their work. So I think what we see even beyond the Christian organization is that this next generation is really looking for purpose. And from a church perspective, um, we take it down to even defining what ministry is and how work is ministry. Ministry is nothing more than service. Um, you know, as a church embraces this at the college and at the high school and even at the middle school level, they can begin to start to see sow those seeds into those these young people because as a as a result, then they may look to do other things outside of the church to fill that that gap. And it's it's ever more important for the church to come to this conversation and to really be a practical source uh of wisdom, which unfortunately culture uh is not the uh the book Good Faith has indicated that four out of five uh adults don't see their pastor as a source of any practical wisdom. So we've doing some things with the Talbot Center for Faith Work and Economics, working with pastors to uh trial a few things um that has have had some good success.
SPEAKER_00Wow, there's a lot of out of five. Wow, and a pastor job is so difficult to to you know to to be practical because they're trying to speak across so many different stations of life and so many different demographics and trying to bring a message that is that is timeless and timely and and transcendent all at the same time. Absolutely. Not an easy thing to do. Well, Helen, as we wrap it up here, what would be a parting piece of advice you would leave with our Christian business professionals today? And maybe another let me ref reframe this. Um, what what would you say is not being emphasized enough right now in the faith at work movement?
SPEAKER_02Well, um, I I I think you know, historically, you know, when women have been underrepresented and the role of women in the marketplace, um uh blue-collar workers, um, uh, you know, we typically, like I said, we started this conversation conversation saying this is defaulted to being a business uh topic. I I think we're making some movement in both of those two particular areas, but I think I'd like to leave it with this, Darren, is that we need the local church. Absolutely. Um, the local church has the influence, the people in the marketplace have the authority. And when we can get to a place, we have understand that we have equal but different callings and that we are in this together to impact the world for the Lord Jesus Christ and to uh make his name and Jesus' name known. I think we will really uh see some incredible things begin to happen. And I would encourage those who are listening, pray for your pastor. It's a difficult job, as you indicated. They have a lot that they're thinking about. This is not an add-on, this is not another program. Take them out to for coffee, have start to have conversations with them, introduce them to their to your world, learn their world, start to build bridges together and uh start walking together and see where this is gonna lead.
SPEAKER_00Well said. Helen, thank you so much for being so generous with your with your time. You're obviously involved in a lot of different things that are making such a uh profound, important impact. And uh we we sure appreciate you. The best place for people to go, would that be helenmitchell.org? That would be and what and what what are you working on right now that you want people to uh you know go find out more about?
SPEAKER_02Well, you can find out what I've been up to there at uh at my website, helenchell.org, and some of the speaking and uh consulting that I've been doing. But as I've got a number of different writing projects in the works, uh and hopefully uh in the not too distant future we'll we'll see some of those things begin to emerge, some additional small group curriculum and a few other writing projects.
SPEAKER_00Excellent. Well, we'll look forward to that. Everybody go can can go subscribe at helenmitchell.com to org.org, excuse me, uh to get ready for that. So thank you so much again, Helen. We appreciate you.
SPEAKER_02It's my pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me. We 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 in Business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianitybusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.