Today we'll be discussing management from a Christian perspective, and we're joined by Dr. Michael Kafferke. Michael is the Ruth McKee Chair for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics and Professor of Business and Management at Southern Adventist University. And prior to coming to Southern, Michael served for over 20 years in the healthcare industry and middle and senior management. And if you've been in business school, you know the val or really any field. You can appreciate having a professor that has not always been a student and a professor, but that has such a wealth of practical experience in the field that he's bringing to this show today. And in addition to serving in entry-level positions, he's also served as a marketing director, a chief operations officer, chief financial officer, and an interim chief executive officer. He's a prolific author of eight books, including the university textbook titled Management of Faith-Based Perspective and Business Ethics in Biblical Perspective. I've uh heard Michael in other interviews and I've read uh some of his material. He's uh an incredible thinker. It's an honor to have him on the show today. Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast, Michael.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01Well, so as we dive into this topic today, management from a Christian perspective, how would you define a Christian approach to management?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Well, uh there may be a difference between a Christian approach to management and a biblical foundation for management. I've heard some speakers talk about the Christian approach and what they basically, many of them have offered is not much more than a few popular secular management ideas couched in biblical phrases. And certainly the Bible does talk about some key and important management ideas, and I hopeful, hopefully, we'll get to talk about a few of those Bible verses and so forth. And I believe it's true that there is some overlap between the Bible approach and popular management ideas. But I think the key to understanding management from a biblical point of view is to realize the deeper purpose of management in terms of the central message of scripture, at least one of the central messages of scripture. And I like to express it kind of like this the great work of a manager and any human endeavor is really the to participate in the restoration of the image of God in human beings. The restoration of the image of God is a process that involves intentional guided imitation of God's character. And when we think about God's character as it's represented in scripture, we think of just a you know a couple of really big pieces of scripture that that tend to describe that. First of all, the Ten Commandments, which some people have said is the transcript of God's character, and then second of all, the Jesus Christ and his work, which is the most visible expression of God's character. And thirdly, and you don't have here too many people talking about this so much, but thirdly, we find the Bible writers as a group are employing a group of themes of scripture that collectively, they these themes describe God's character in a variety of human situations. They identify the work of Christ and they describe the ideal conduct for believers. So, in short, the the key management passages of scripture are not merely dozens of verses that that gives us gems of specific, like little nuggets of thought and so forth, but the key passages are those that represent the character of God. And I think this is really the true Christian approach to management is to see the work of a manager in the light of how does God manage the universe when some of his creatures rebel or resist or simply ignore his plan for flourishing life.
SPEAKER_01And what what that is one of the things that really stuck out to me in your writing is this concept of the the biblical themes and how those relate to uh our work in business. Um, what are some of those those themes? And you just give us an example of how you make that connection with business.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Well, I'll just pick one that comes to top of mind. Um, the theme of holiness. Now, some people are kind of scared of that word because maybe they've met a Christian sometime who uh talked a lot about holiness and trying to urge people to be holy, uh, someone maybe who talked a lot about becoming perfect in their behavior and so forth. And so some people kind of shy away from that strong language. But when you look at the the holiness talk in Scripture, it's a pretty wide spectrum of ideas that are discussed. And in the the book of the Bible that is sometimes called the Holiness Code or the Holiness Book, which is not read too often, by the way, it's the book of Leviticus. There's some very interesting things said there specifically in chapter 19 about the marketplace and our work in business and our work in the marketplace. And it says in Leviticus, it calls us to be holy, even as God is holy. And then it goes on to describe some of the ways that we can be holy. And in terms of business, like don't put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. When you're out in the marketplace, don't needlessly put a barrier in front of someone, right? Uh, another thing about holiness is that the technology that we use in the Bible times, the the business technology was using a scale to weigh. On the one side of the scale, you would weigh the the grain or the product you're purchasing and selling. On the other side of the scale, you'd put a weight. And when these weights, when the two sides of the scale balance, then the weight on the one side equals the amount of product on the other. Scripture in more than one place talks about the fact that the scales belong to God. That the weights that people use are his concerns. So the the if you abstract from that the principle behind that, any business technology we have and that we use, God owns that, and we are using his technology for the purpose of being fair and just in all of our dealings. Now, another theme of scripture, which is directly related to management also, is called the theme of truth, or the word in English, in the English Bible, is the word truth. And most often, not always, but most often that word truth is derived from an ancient Hebrew idea, uh, which means to be faithful when tested, to be faithful in action, the idea of truth. Um, it says in Psalms 89, 14 that God's throne is built on truth. Okay, now that image of the throne, where David is really referring to the seat of government authority, the management of government, if you will. And so I see it as directly related to the work of managers, to be faithful to your promise. David's son, by the way, who succeeded him to the throne, Solomon, and maybe we'll have a chance to listen to what some of Solomon says about management in a few minutes, but Solomon says that we ought to purchase truth and don't sell it. Now, if you think about the economics of that, he's kind of turning economics kind of upside down. Uh he's he's really saying try to be get a monopoly on faithfulness. Not that no one else can get faithfulness, no, in fact, that would undermine faithfulness completely. Everybody can have this, get this, have this chance of getting more and more faithfulness. And apparently, the more we have of it and the longer we keep it in our life, the more we use it in our relationships, the more valuable it becomes. And so the idea of faithfulness and truth, that's one of the scripture themes that is uh underlying the principles of management. We we could talk about several others, but probably have other things you want to talk about too.
SPEAKER_01I love that. And you talk about in your textbook, and by the way, for our listeners, is the management of faith-based perspective. I mean, it's it's uh peer-reviewed by uh dozens of scholars. I mean, it's a it's a phenomenal uh book. I obviously haven't read all of it, it's like, I don't know, a thousand pages or something like that. But in there, one of the central uh parts is the management pyramid model that you talk about. What is this management pyramid and how is the Christian faith integrated with each part? Right.
SPEAKER_02Well, let me talk about what a model is, first of all, just real real quick. Um, what this is is a simple, hopefully not too simplistic, but a simple conceptual model to help a person just put in their mind some basic ideas to understand. We understand and we use models lots of places. The architect uses a model to describe uh what a building is gonna look like. A basketball team draws on a little whiteboard when he calls times out. Time out, he puts X's and O's and shows where the players are gonna move. That's a conceptual model, also. Conceptual models are are limited in what they can tell about reality. So you have to be careful not to say, well, here's this pyramid model. This guy's trying to talk about everything in management and everything about life in three simple ideas. Well, life is more complicated than just three simple ideas.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you better give it you about to give us a pyramid scheme, Michael.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, a different kind of pyramid scheme than actually. If you if you visualize, though, a the shape of a pyramid, uh, you've got the base of a pyramid, it's kind of like a triangle at the bottom. And at the bottom of this pyramid is something that that I've called being and becoming. This is the foundation. I'm not the first one to think of this, by the way. Just in reading the literature on leadership and management, uh other scholars have uh said the same thing. If you look at scripture, you find the same kind of idea. Who you are and who you are becoming is the foundation for other things in our human experience. It's certainly the foundation of your influence with others, the foundation for the actions that follow eventually. In other words, in terms of management, management begins with who you are and who you are becoming. This includes your beliefs, your assumptions, uh, the process of your character being transformed over time. Uh it's what you believe to be true about people, what you assume to be true about organizations, maybe your industry or the marketplace. These things that make up the essential you, who you are. We might think in terms of calling also. What is your calling? But being and becoming is connected to how you think and feel. And so thinking and feeling, it's the next level up in the pyramid. Of course, ultimately, what you think and how you feel can't be separated from who you are. All right. So you've got to be careful not to make too rigid of a boundary between the different levels of the pyramid. It's just a model, after all. But how you think and feel as a manager really is important. How you think about people, how you feel about certain situations that you're in. Uh, the the kind of um things that that attract you for certain thoughts, and maybe you're doing strategic planning, or maybe you're trying to organize and you have certain ideas in your mind as to what works and so forth. Those are real important elements or dimensions of a manager's work. And I think for the Christian who sees value in the authority of God's word, the Christian will want to marinate his or her heart and mind so that we're constantly thinking about what is God's will, what is God's character like, and how would God's character relate to a particular situation that I'm in? What might faithfulness be to tap into that idea of truth? What might it mean in this particular situation? So, how we think and feel is really important. The top tier of the pyramid is the realm of action. Who you are is really important, which drives how you think and feel. But in an organization, ultimately it's what you do that is really important also. Action is necessary to move an organization toward its goals, to help the organization result in benefits to those outside of the organization for whom the organization exists. Action has to happen. Now, we have to think about this progression of influence as a two-way street, because ultimately who we are drives our thoughts and our emotions, which affect our behaviors, but over time, the things that we do and the impact of our actions has an impact on how we think and feel. And over a longer period of time, both of those things, our actions and our thinking and feeling, has an impact on and begins to change us as to who we are. So there is a process of becoming over the course of a person's lifetime. Uh, I'm quite a different person than I was 30 years ago, for instance, in terms of being a manager. Partly because of the experiences in action, partly because of changes of how I how I think about people and how I think about organizations, quite differently now. So that's kind of in a nutshell, the three levels of the pyramid, the base of it, being and becoming, next level up, thinking and feeling, and the third tier at the top, action. But then I always have to remind myself that it always goes down also that the actions affect the thinking, which eventually affects who we are.
SPEAKER_01I think a lot of our listeners are, you know, they're hearing about management, but we're so accustomed in our modern day to hear about these things uh specifically through the lens of leadership. You know, and I've I've actually done Google searches and counted up, well, that I didn't count it, Google does that for us, fortunately. But but the concept of Christian leadership is is literally hundreds, thousands of more times popular than the idea of Christian management. Um, why not call it the leadership pyramid? What why is it so important uh to focus on this as management?
SPEAKER_02Well, sure. Of course, the the the book you referred to is a book about management. And of course, there is one chapter in the book about leadership, and so in that chapter I do talk about the pyramid as it relates to leadership. Uh and actually every chapter in the book talks about the pyramid in terms of the various functions of uh the manager's work. So it's a book about management. But you're right, the Christian leadership, I think, is probably a more popular term these days. Uh I think you see more books about it, more articles about it, perhaps. Uh I think there's some reasons for that, perhaps. I mean, I'll a couple of things come to mind. These this is probably not the entire story, not the full explanation as to why it's more popular. Uh I think all of us, whether we're working in business or not, whether we are a frontline employee or whether we're a top-level manager or some maybe working for a government organization, all of us want people around us who are effective in leading us together to accomplish our shared goals. There are some authors, though, who have written pretty popular books about leadership, and some of these good folks, perhaps unintentionally, have subtly made a case that leadership is somehow more important than management. Some have even said some things like, you know, leaders are the ones who make a difference in an organization. They're the ones that help organizations change and improve. Uh sometimes leaders are seen as the ones who are at the top echelon of authority. These are the people who are over authority over the managers. Of course, that's not always true because even a frontline employee can be a leader. And in fact, they are leaders. Um it's sometimes thought that leaders are paid more. That it's the leaders who inspire the underlings to greatness. And in these kinds of conversations, the word management and managing and managers often don't come, except maybe sometimes in a negative light, because it's the leaders who to help managers learn how to do their work better and so forth. With this perspective, leaders are considered the thinkers who use their imaginations creatively to solve the big problems of the organization. It's the leaders who are important, right? And in contrast, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, managers are described in terms of being stuck in the humdrum, ruts of their own policies and procedures. The managers are the bureaucrats, sometimes characterized as plotting along, doing just enough, doing just what the leaders say, resorting to control and coercion, themselves being controlled by other managers. And of course, this is not necessarily the case because most managers must exercise leadership. And I might say the other way, most effective leaders need to do some managing.
SPEAKER_01And as a Christian, I mean, uh it's interesting looking at the parables of Jesus that the man the main character in nearly all of them is a manager of some sort. In many cases, a financial manager, resource manager. And so this modern idea of the uh the leader who is trying to get everybody to take the hill, you know, storm the beaches of Normandy, that that kind of uh image of the leader is not something that Jesus even really uh really talked about and as he is communicating the principles of the of the kingdom through uh through these uh through these parables. And you know, maybe is is it that as a Christian ultimately we are always managers because if you're led by the Spirit of the Lord, as as Paul says we you know in the in the Bible says throughout that we ought to be, isn't that the way that as a Christian we should really think of ourselves more as managers than leaders?
SPEAKER_02Well, certainly uh things won't get done in your own life uh in terms of change and growth, character development, and and other dimensions that we aspire to achieve. Certainly in organizations, things won't get done unless managers are. Involved or that people share in the management. And so I do resist a little bit the tendency to have such a stark contrast between management and leadership. To over-emphasize the distinction, and I'm aware of the distinction, and I agree that there is a distinction that can be made between these two ideas, but to over-emphasize the distinction, I think, creates an unnecessary adversarial kind of relationship between the two roles, which in practice are often inseparable. And this adversarial kind of idea, in that kind of uh thinking, sometimes managers are seen as stifling the leaders, and and yet the leaders are seen as ignoring the managers when in reality we all have to do both, some of both. And I think overemphasizing the distinction perhaps results in glossing over the fact that leadership and management is shared among many people in a community, in an organization. The frontline workers share in leading just as much as mid-level managers share as much as the top echelon leaders. Now, the the official leaders might be more visible, but everybody has to do some leading and following.
SPEAKER_01Right. And you know, in that in that unified organization, uh, where there is that that cohesiveness, it makes me think of what you emphasize about the concept of shalom and how that relates to management and efficiency. Um, what how does the concept of shalom relate to management and what role does the manager play in uh carrying that out in the world?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Well, the biblical idea of shalom is a wonderful, wonderful, inspiring kind of idea. It's a it's a complicated idea in the scripture if you look at the the full range of things that are talked about when the idea of shalom is used by the Bible writers. But uh, and and shalom doesn't really have a single word in English that is its counterpart. Perhaps that's why it's being popular on its own now. The Hebrew word shalom uh is being used quite a bit now on its own. If you think about the English words that would uh contribute to the definition or the translation, you know, we think in terms of physical safety, security, uh genuine happiness and joy, uh, emotional health, social harmony, even international harmony. And not to be forgotten in the scripture is also the dimension of economic security and flourishing. Perhaps the word flourishing is a pretty close uh translation of the Hebrew word shalom. The Bible talks about flourishing and well-being many times. And it's it's an amazing idea. And I think it's central to a manager's role and the managerial thinking. It's not always clear what a manager should do to contribute to flourishing, because what's flourishing for one group or one person might not be so for someone else. But even so, uh shalom speaks about a flourishing life in all dimensions. Uh without efficiency and productivity, we we could enjoy some, but not all of the dimensions of shalom. Uh, I think the scripture is pretty clear that that uh efficiency and productivity is a valued thing. When when we read stories of farmers in the scripture, the higher agricultural yield is always prized more than lower yield. Okay. I I don't think of any scripture story or narrative where lower yield is seen as more valuable. Uh, but somebody has to take charge of managing the process of planting, telling, uh tending to, protecting the crops so that the agricultural yield is uh the result. Management has to be a big part of that.
SPEAKER_01And there are there are so many great examples that you point out in management, a faith-based perspective, of companies who are who are demonstrating these principles uh in in a biblical approach to management. Uh what is maybe one or two of those those companies and what are the principles that you've really observed them applying in the marketplace that are biblical?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Well, uh a lot of companies have been have been named in articles and speeches and and presentations and so forth over the years, especially the last, I would say, 20 years, um, as Christian writers and thinkers and speakers have tried to give examples uh of uh scriptural ideas and what it means. You know, I some of these companies, uh if I mention them, some of the listeners might have already heard of these uh organizations. Um but I think uh, and when I mention a few of these, it's not because I think these are the most important Christian people or you know, the the paragons of virtue for all things Christian in the organization, but there are names that come to mind, like Don Flow Automotive in the Carolinas. Uh Flow Automotive has a uh network of um automobile dealerships and so forth. And uh that organization tends to emphasize the idea of covenant, which is a deep scriptural idea and principle. We could talk an hour about covenant and how important that is to shalom and flourishing. Uh, but certainly that organization has covenant as central in its policies and philosophy of managing. Similar to that, and the idea of covenant is the company Champion Trey in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Um, they also emphasize the importance of covenant with their workers, with their customers. And in a different way, uh, the organization, which has been talked about a lot by some, uh, Chick-fil-A, uh, the fast food restaurant, uh, chicken restaurant uh folks, they close their stores on Sunday. And other companies like McKee Foods, the makers of Little Debbie's brand of snack foods, close on Saturday. These companies close their business partly out of respect for a day of worship, which is a scriptural idea, and partly out of respect for families, that they value families and family time and they want their workers to spend time with their families, which again, one could argue that's there's a deep scriptural uh principle there of Sabbath keeping and how important it is to connect with your community uh on Sabbath and to lay aside the desire to get more stuff uh in the marketplace, which is a scriptural idea. There are there are other companies uh that we could mention. I think of Interstate Batteries and several other companies that that um probably your listeners are thinking of some companies in their own uh community.
SPEAKER_01And what what's maybe you mentioned the being you know closed on certain days, uh, you know, taking care of families. Generally speaking, what are some of those practices that that you see as as being uh best practices in terms of if I'm gonna take a biblical approach to management and I want to implement some of those practices in in my business, what are some of those best practices?
SPEAKER_02Sure, yeah. Well, I I think uh I may have mentioned a few minutes ago that uh there can be overlap between what we and what we might think of as popular uh contemporary management ideas and uh what the scripture teaches. I mean, after all, human beings have similar, we I would assume at least that human beings have the same kinds of drives and aspirations and hopes and fears uh these days as people did four or five thousand years ago uh when the Bible writers were at work and the prophets were at work. So maybe human beings are similar as they've always been, and our desire for certain things as humans in the workplace perhaps haven't changed a whole lot. Uh I think of a verse from the Proverbs written by Solomon. In fact, some some scholars think that the first few, maybe nine or so chapters of the book of Proverbs was written by Solomon for his son. Kind of the first management textbook, if you will. I don't know if it was the first one because there's an ancient uh Egyptian um book that we might consider to be a management book, also. But certainly King Solomon was writing some things to his son and things he was saying there to try to prepare him, his son to become king, uh following him. Uh he says in Proverbs 3.27, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it. Now that's a pretty fundamental idea, but I'll tell you, some managers find it difficult to use that principle all the time. You know, if someone undermines their authority, does some backbiting, you know, tries to grab some of the economic turf in terms of uh budgeting or whatever, it's not always easy to uh to do good to those to whom it is due. Um Proverbs 12, 15 says, a wise man is he who listens to counsel. Well, that's a pretty basic idea. But I'll tell you, it's sometimes very difficult for managers to listen to counsel. All human beings have biases, and we get biased, we we think our perspective is the correct perspective, right? But listening to counsel is perhaps one of the best practices, and it's such a simple idea, but sometimes very difficult. And by the way, in terms of listening, the scripture image of listening and the and use of the ears, this is the uh signal that the Bible writer is talking about intelligence. You are really smart if you listen. In fact, intelligence is centered not in the brain, but in the ears in the Hebrew way of thinking. Okay? You're really smart if you listen. And when you think about it, that's true. Um here's here's another one that Solomon wrote, which you don't hear quoted too often, at least I haven't heard quoted too often by Christian uh presenters and so forth. But in Proverbs 26, 10, Solomon says, Now you have to listen carefully to these words, how he phrases this, like an archer, like a bow and arrow archer, who wounds everyone. Now just think about that image, right? In today's parlance, we might think, we might say, well, that's like a loose canon, you know. Uh like an archer who wounds everyone is the one who hires a fool. So it's not the fool who wounds the people in the organization, it's the manager who hires the fool.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_02Now, the word fool in the scripture is a loaded term, okay? It's the person who is uninterested in following God's plan for a flourishing life. That's the fool. So here we have a simple statement the person who wounds everyone around him or her in an organization or in a community is the one who hires a person who is uninterested in following the principles of a flourishing life. Wow. Here's another one related to organizational culture, which is a really important principle. Proverbs 29, verse 12. If a ruler pays attention to falsehood, all his ministers become wicked. So here's the chain of command and how important the top-level leadership influence is, and how the top-level leader influences the culture of those who are in subordinate relationships to the leader. If the leader doesn't follow principles of right doing, if the leader is being untrustworthy, if the leader is telling lies using deception, the underlings, the subordinate managers, are going to become the same. Another way that a contemporary writer put it is that an organization's ethics will never rise above the ethics of the top-level leader.
SPEAKER_01So true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So these these are, you know, some of these are very contemporary ideas, but were seen in ancient times as well.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Well, thanks for pointing those out. Um certainly profound practical insights. Uh, Michael, as we wrap it up here, um, so I mentioned your books, Management, a Faith-Based Perspective, and Business Ethics and Biblical Perspective. Everybody can go find those on Amazon, and then you have several other books that are out there as well. Uh, is there another website where you'd like people to go and uh check out what you're doing?
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow. Well, um, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is perhaps a more scholarly um uh setting. Uh, but those uh listeners who want to dig perhaps a little deeper and think about some of the more complicated issues of uh what scripture says about business and how we understand scripture and its guidance in business, certainly can go to the uh Christian Business Faculty Association website, the CBFA.org website, and they can read uh all of the published articles. These are peer-reviewed articles that have been published over the last uh over 20 years now, or about 20 years, uh, by Christian business scholars who are attempting to think carefully and thoughtfully about the what does scripture say about business and a variety of topics, not just management, of course. Uh and so those articles are available. Uh one of the journals is called the Journal of Biblical Integration in Business. Uh and several scholars have contributed to that, myself as well. And uh the Christian Business Academy Review is the other peer-reviewed journal that is available to read on the CBFA ORG website. Uh, so those are the first things that come to mind. Um, there are a lot of good books and articles that are out there, and and they're pretty easy to find if you just Google or use Amazon and type in a few keywords.
SPEAKER_01Okay, excellent. Uh, we'll link up to that and uh put a link to your blog in there. I know you have a WordPress blog that I've benefited from, so I'll I'll put that link in there as well so people can get some of your other thoughts as well. But those those journals for biblical integration and business articles are are phenomenal. Um, Michael, as we wrap it up here, what would be a parting piece of advice you'd like to leave with our listeners?
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah. Well, wow, this is a difficult question because there's so much, you know, these kind of conversations, my mind and heart really gets filled. And it's like, okay, how do you pick and choose what to say and what not to say? There's a limited amount of time. But I would say that managers who want to be faithful to God's word will always have in their mind, or at least their desire and their goal, is to have in mind a larger reason for why they are involved in management, why they get involved with making plans, making decisions, hiring, firing, improving efficiency, doing strategy work, and so forth. There's a bigger reason why. I think they'll they'll constantly try to keep before themselves and others the deeper reasons for why they've chosen to take responsibility for an organization and for themselves, of course. And also to think that if you're a manager, this might be one of the most rewarding settings to express your calling. Maybe your calling is to be a catalyst, which sets the organizational glue in place for fostering ethical behavior. Maybe your calling is to be constantly anticipating what might happen tomorrow, next week, next year, next generation, and then to use this awareness, these insights to guide your organization. Other people have a calling to watch over the organization, like a parent with a child, or like a mother kitten with small kittens, to watch over the organization and care for the organization's needs, just as another manager might have a calling to watch over the needs of individual workers. Maybe your calling is to excel in communication or to advance the strategic goals of the organization. Or maybe, like mine was when I was a manager for some 20 years, maybe your calling is to take charge of monitoring the degree to which the organization is reaching its goals and then to lead in making adjustments. Maybe your calling is to be the leaven of influence which has an impact on the spiritual character of the organization. And finally, I think all of our calling can be to represent Jesus Christ and his character, no matter where we're at. Even if we're in a setting where we it's it's not acceptable to talk about Jesus Christ, when you promote the elements of his character in a work site, when you advocate on behalf of the elements of his character, when you integrate them into your own habits, you are in fact telling about Jesus Christ just as surely as when you mention his name.
SPEAKER_01Well said. And that's what we're called to do is the carry out the Great Commission and reveal Jesus to our world. And certainly business is a place where uh that that can and should happen on a daily basis for most of us, uh, because that's where we spend the majority of our waking hours. Michael, thank you for this uh phenomenal interview. And uh, I know you're teaching an MBA class this summer, but hope you get some time to relax before you get back into full swing in the fall. Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts, and uh may God continue to bless everything you put your mind to.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to be here in the conversation with you. Uh, thanks for the invitation. And and uh likewise, I wish you and God's blessing uh in your ministry as well.