Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RGW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Sheer, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate biblical values into business. Get more information about HBU's Center for Christianity and Business, and sign up to receive free access to all five issues of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at Christianitybusiness.com. Today we'll be discussing why Jesus likes business conference rooms, and we're joined by Scott Beebe. Scott is the head of My Business on Purpose, which equips, inspires, and mobilizes business professionals to live out their skill set to society as an agent of God's grace. And prior to working as a full-time business coach, he has served as a church planter, a sales rep for Pfizer, and as the International Administrator for Help Inc. And he's also a seminary grad, which is really interesting and has served as a church planter senior pastor. So he's bringing that theological perspective into the marketplace, which I really believe we need more of. And he's in the trenches with business leaders who are seeking to live out their faith in the workplace and uh has this powerful real-world experience he's gonna uh share with us today. It's gonna be uh transformational. So welcome to the Christianity and business podcast, Scott.
SPEAKER_00Darren, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01As we jump into this topic and and learn more about what you are witnessing, what how God is using you uh to equip and mobilize uh these Christian business professionals. Um, why do you think Jesus likes to spend time in these conference rooms with uh small business leaders that you're working with?
SPEAKER_00Darren, the conference room idea is a relatively uh new, kind of more modern idea of the meeting place, right? In in in old times, the meeting place was out on verandas, it was out in public spaces, and now the meeting place is in the conference room and uh even online, just like we're doing right now. And the reason I I think Jesus would love hanging out in conference rooms is because I think Jesus loved hanging out in conference rooms. And and and wherever people conferred, wherever they gathered, wherever they got together, that's where you see Jesus. In fact, this past week we were uh the our pastor was out and he asked me to teach for a couple weeks on something we call family on purpose. We actually have an online course of how to create a family vision. And so we took the second part of that, the idea of the family vision. And one of the things we talked about was mission and values within the family. And when we looked back, we looked at the Mark I passage, uh, and Jesus is in there, and he and and the uh the disciples are coming to him. He goes to a silent place, it's around, I think, verse 35, goes to a quiet place and he prays. And when he's praying, he's got his disciples that come up to him and they go, Hey, where everybody's looking for you, everybody's and he's in this quiet, dark place, and he immediately tells them, Hey, let's go to another town so I can preach, for that's why I came. And it says he went, so he loves traveling, he preached because he loves telling people about the kingdom of God, and he healed. So we immediately see what he values, and quite frankly, I think where we see him in shows us what Jesus himself valued, and what he valued was being in gathering places where other people were, and that's what the conference room is today.
SPEAKER_01Scott, this is such a powerful perspective. You know, often the sort of faith and work movement kind of takes on a different emphasis, and a lot of times when I hear faith at work talked about, it's doing your work is unto the Lord, but I get kind of this individual, individualized kind of pers illustration in my mind of somebody kind of hunkered down doing their task and honoring God, which is certainly the case, but such a powerful part of the opportunity that we have as believers in the workplace is what happens when we go to these staff meetings. And and I know everybody likes to talk about how horrible meetings are and all of this, but as a Christian, I mean nobody should be more excited about going to a meeting than we are because this is an opportunity to get people away from their desk and get people to engage and interact uh with one another and ultimately um that they would start to see the Jesus that's that's within us. So when did you first begin to realize that uh that this was the case, that God was up to something in the conference rooms?
SPEAKER_00So I've spent coming out of I was a bit of a fish out of water. I mean, you're from Columbia, South Carolina, so you you appreciate uh the culture of the University of South Carolina. So I was in very much a state public education type of culture, and I went from there with very little history in the kind of theological realm, and I went straight into actually and I went straight into seminary and moved to Fort Worth. And Darren, when I was in there, you know what I noticed right away was I I'm in a different culture, like I'm in a different country almost, is what it felt. So we've traveled around the world on a regular basis. We've been doing work in Nigeria for a decade, and when still to this day, I was just in Nigeria about three or four weeks ago, still to this day, when I land on the ground, it's still different. It doesn't matter how many times I've been, how many, how many uh people I know, how many friends we have there, how many times I've eaten red stew and suya and uh the ochre-based food that they have and all that, it's still different. And it doesn't even matter that their official language is English, it's a different English. And so understanding when I got into this culture of seminary, this was out, I was a fish out of water. In fact, I went straight uh after three months of working security on campus, you talk about total indoctrination into drinking the blue Kool-Aid, I I I decided I needed I need out. And so I wanted to continue to school because of the discipline, but I started working at a local company and really started gaining a love for business and appreciation for the commerce and camaraderie and all of those sorts of things. And so when as time went on, I I this has been a lifelong pursuit for me. Because when I graduated seminary, I went to work for Pfizer. When I was at Pfizer, I felt this emptiness. Okay, I'm in business, but where's the faith side of this? Then a buddy of mine called and I was on staff at a church back in Dow in Dallas, uh, in in between Dallas and Fort Worth for a couple of years. Then we went and planted a church for a couple of years. So about five and a half year swing, I was out of business in quote, ministry. And so I'd gone from kind of ministry business to business to ministry, and then uh uh we had a guy call us from Bluffton, South Carolina, say, Hey, I'm moving down to Bluffton near Hilton Head, South Carolina. I'm going to plant a church. Will you come plant with us? And after a long period of time, we finally said, All right, we'd love to come. I have no idea where Bluffton is, even though like I spent time in the state for a significant period of time. And we're going to come help you plant this church, but I don't want to be on staff. I want to go back into business because I miss business. So I jumped back into business. And so we were helping plant a church and we were continuing to do work in Nigeria. And so all of these things, it was like these buckets, and they were all in silos of faith and work. And I was struggling for years and years. How does my faith integrate with my work? And one of the key words you said that I just wrote down was faith and work. And I feel like what's happened is we have segmented those things into silos to where we have faith over here, we have work over here, we have family over here, and and and it's I'll tell you who busted that myth up for me. As we've been working in Nigeria, Nigeria, most people don't know this, is about 50% Muslim. And so we've got some very, very dear Islamic friends in Nigeria that we spend a lot of time with. The one thing that they've taught me greater than anything else is that all of life intersects. Faith, work, family, commerce, industry, um, connection, celebration, it all connects into one. And after starting to understand that a little bit, I realize and begin to change my mindset. And Darren, this is kind of what I've come up with. You mentioned faith and work. We actually have a core value in our business, the business on purpose platform. And the core value is this work is faith. That's one of our five core values. Work is faith. What in the heck do I mean by that? And this is where the realization started to hit me when I was in these conference rooms, I was in these one-on-one client engagements uh with real small business owners. If faith, if the definition of faith is a conviction of something we do not see, and that's literally the definition of faith, it's a conviction of something you cannot see and the uh the hope for something that are uh the conviction of something hoped for down the road. That's the definition of faith. Well, if the definition of work is the creation of something that does not exist, so you got faith, which is the conviction of something you can't see, and work is the creation of something that does not exist. Therefore, if I go to work from a conviction of what it is that I that uh that I can't see in front of me, then by definition I'm demonstrating my faith. And so work to us is faith. When I go to work, what I'm doing is I'm I'm I'm living out the conviction of what it is that I can't see in front of me, but I'm moving towards that thing. And so that's where it started to begin to click for me is about a year ago while we were running the business. And I'm Darren, I'm almost 20 years into this pursuit of how do I integrate work and faith or faith and work or whatever you want to call it. And then I realized, wait a second, work is faith. When I go to work, I am living out the faith that I have.
SPEAKER_01I love that. So go ahead and share with our with our listeners kind of uh some of the things that you've witnessed. In fact, give us uh uh a specific example of kind of what your what your business is doing with these business leaders when you're going into these conference rooms and what is a scenario that has played out that where you've witnessed and said God was totally all involved in that?
SPEAKER_00So the we don't do Bible studies, although the Bible is discussed. It's not a men's group, although I primarily work with men. It's not accountability group, although we hold a lot of people accountable. In fact, we hold everybody that we work with accountable. We go into these conference rooms with what we call the four steps to business freedom. Um it's not an ethereal kind of out there uh life generic idea. What it is, it's a very specific uh uh framework that we walk small business owners through. And we help them develop their vision, story, their mission statement, their unique core value set. We help them develop three customized business roadmaps around implementation, systems identification, and delegation. We then in the third step help them actually draw out their entire organizational infrastructure like an architect. So we're literally drawing out the org setup, the all the job roles that exist within there, their hiring processes, their accounting processes, um, their team meeting structure, all those sorts of things. And then finally, we help them walk through how to build out process and implement within their business. So we are dealing with very tangible, very real business items. And so we're uh we are entirely integrated into the strategic part of their business. And so it's not a roundabout Bible study, and this is one of the other points that I wanted to make. When we talk about integrating faith and work, Darren, I'm not talking about setting up a business that is a front for the gospel. I I it makes me very uncomfortable. So I've seen this happen both in the U.S. and around the world where somebody, let's say, for instance, moves to Istanbul, a largely Islamic population, they're Christians, and they say, hey, we're gonna set up a uh a yo-yo shop, but really what we're doing is we're doing Bible studies to Muslims. You know, we'll we'll manufacture some yo-yos, it's not a profitable entity, um, but it looks like one to the government. That, you know, Darren, it just doesn't feel right to me. Um and I realize Bible smuggling can be a good thing. I get all of that. I just in the modern day context with globalization and everything that we've got access to, especially as Westerners and especially as Americans right now, that feels very uncomfortable for me. Instead, what we want to do is take the skill set that God's given us, and in my case, it's how to walk small business owners through this strategic systematized process in their business. Through that, let me tell you some of the conversations that have come out. So this happened about three or four weeks ago. True story. Sitting down with a client in a conference room, and uh, within the last uh little bit, he had gone on a trip. And he was sitting down, and I'm kind of debriefing with him about the trip. He's struggled with some anxiety on stuff before. He's not a uh somebody who walks with Jesus at all. He's actually got a pretty adamant religious background and just walked away from it, uh, from a different kind of brand of Christianity and walked away from it. I mean, just about four or five years ago, flat out walked away from it and did everything in total antithesis to what his conviction was. And so he's walked away from that totally. And here was his statement to me. He said, Man, I uh I ate more food than I should have, and frankly, I smoked more pot than I think I ever want to smoke in my life. And you just roll with it. You know, if you're a seminary trained uh evangelical, you immediately go, Oh my gosh, oh my God, I can't believe you said that. I can't believe you said that. You have to roll with it and just go, all right, so let's let's talk about that. And all of a sudden there's your pivot point. And so you're pivoting within the same basketball court to a different subject inside the same conference room. And so that's what we had the opportunity to do is take this issue of his anxiety within the context of his business that he was playing out in his personal life with some dis is some decisions that were at minimal questionable. And we were able to go down on real deep life about that. Now, fast forward to a couple of days ago. This is all connected. So one of his team members calls me in a frantic the other morning, literally this week, and says, Hey, I don't know how to ask you this, but do you know a good therapist in town? And I said, Well, tell, you know, tell me what you're thinking about. My husband just gave me an ultimatum to either stay or go. And so both of those conversations happen within the last few weeks. And that is a customer who, when you drive down the road through our local community, you're going to see the product of their work. It's all over the place, and they are very, very successful. They run a multimillion dollar business. That happens, that sort of thing happens on a regular basis to get into real life, real scenario conversations with clients within the context of business because you're so excellent at the business side of what you do, and you've got to stand above that. So it's not just a front for the gospel to go forward, the gospel needs to go within the conversation that you're having within the context of these business uh discussions.
SPEAKER_01So how how is, you know, there's the term business as mission or business as ministry, how would you say at its core, how is business ministry?
SPEAKER_00So I had a mentor, Bob Roberts, still a mentor of mine. He's a pastor of a church up in Fort Worth, North Side, uh Northwood, uh church up in Fort Worth in Keller, Texas. And we were talking about this idea because about 10 years ago, bam, BAM, Businesses Mission, was a huge movement that was gaining and gaining and gaining. And it really hasn't seemed to gain a lot beyond the initial oomph. And I think one of the challenges is the idea of business as mission gives illusion to that front I was talking about. And so, hey, we're going to set up business, but it's really going to be mission. And what Bob told me is he said, we need to make one, a one-letter change. Instead of business as mission, business is mission. Period. And when you go out to do your business, when we go out to do our business, that is the mission that God's called us to. And so if you go back and and gather the marching orders from the New Testament to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, we always say it's the job of the church. Well, we are the church. And so what we're really saying is the job of the Sunday morning crew of church to equip the saints to the work of the ministry. And the reality is it's our job to equip the saints to the work of the ministry. We are saints ourselves. We need to be equipped for the work of the ministry. And the ministry happens in the conference rooms. It happens in cash registers, it happens in the auto mechanic shops, it happens at every one of these places. And so my view on the church is the church needs to be the supply house, the preparation supply house that I can pull my truck into, get it filled up with the supply of understanding God's Word so that when I go out, I can landscape my society through the skill set that I have with the gospel that God's given us through the church. And that's when business becomes the mission. It is mission rather than business simply serving as a platform for mission. So I don't I don't want to uh look at mission or ministry or whatever we want to call it and go, okay, what's the strategy de jour? Oh, well, right now, over the next three decades, it's gonna be business. That's where Jesus is really gonna, you know, kind of come through. And then after that, it's gonna be through, you know, um interplanetary exploration. Uh we're gonna get on spaceships, and that's where Jesus is gonna go. No, Jesus is gonna come through where you are, and wherever you are, that's where the gospel can go. And so if you're at business, which you are most of the time in your life, that's where Jesus needs to be right there with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's really good. It seems like there has been a great difficulty in attempting to understand how the Great Commission relates to business, because certainly that that is the calling is to go and make disciples, and there's there's been uh there's been a great struggle uh to to wrap our minds around how do you how do you do that? Because uh many would say just the fact that you are doing your work with excellence, that's what we mean by business as ministry. Or or that it means that you need to go have workplace Bible studies or pass out tracts and share your testimony around the water cooler. That's what carrying out the Great Commission looks like. Uh, but I I love what the perspective that you're bringing is and focusing on what happens in the conference rooms because it's what happens when when Jesus interfaces with people through us. I mean, that's what the ministry is, and and so much of that happens around these conference tables where where people are sharing what's going on in their uh not only what's going on in their in their department, but what's going on in their in their lives, hopefully. And and is it what are some of the other things, what's another uh favorite story of yours uh from what you've seen in these in these conference rooms?
SPEAKER_00So let let me kind of bring insight. I I don't have a strategy for how to do, quote, marketplace ministry. My um the insight that I have simply comes from the experience that we've been a part of and have seen. And and we've not arrived. Like we're we're not we're not at a destination. Uh we're still very much along a path. And so from where I stand right now, which is not very high up, um, I look back and I go, okay, this has been our experience to this point. I wish I could say there was grand strategy, uh, because I love strategy. It's a function of what we do from a business standpoint. Um but I look back and here's how God has worked it out for us and how we think about how you you you talked about uh you know, do you share the gospel at the water cool and all that stuff? I I get I don't know. It's it's for Steve, it's gonna happen this way. For uh Stephanie, it's gonna happen this way. For Alameday, it's gonna happen this way. And here's how it's happened for us is we put together a first-class service offering for our clients. We try to deliver it as excellently as we possibly can, um, in line with the vision that we've set out for our business. We've got a six-year vision uh that ends in 2021. And then uh within our mission to liberate small business owners from the chaos of working their business. So that's why that's what gets us up in the morning. And we try to deliver that with extreme excellence. And what has come out of it is about two months ago, and I just actually had another phone call today about this, but about two months ago, uh I was sitting in a conference room in one of the small businesses here locally, different guy, and he was talking to me. We just got done talking about having to terminate an employee. And then after that, he started talking to me about things going on at home. And so as we were having these conversations, he said, you know what, Scott, what I really need is I just need somebody to sit down with me and walk me through the Bible. Because sometimes when I give advice, I'll say, hey, there's a proverb that says X. And I'm I'm not just making stuff up to go, hey, let me throw some Bible in here. No, it like literally that is the wisdom I need to give. Um, and that's that's the thing that comes up. And so we give that wisdom, and then he said, I just need somebody to sit down and show me what this stuff means. And I kind of sat on that a little bit, and then he asked me again the next week, hey, can we start like Just meeting together on a regular basis just around the Bible. And now this is where I need to pause and say, this is where sometimes we get caught up and say, oh, there's the strategy. Now let's strategize that. Let's write it down. Let's scale it. And let's send it to all the churches so we can all do the same thing. I mean, that's, you know, uh, now I'll go write a book called How to Disciple Your Your Client. I'll, you know, I'll get it to somebody, we'll publish the book, and now we'll send it to all the churches and say, do this, this works. No, not necessarily. It it it that's what happened in our case, uh, but it may not happen in your case. And so now what we do is me and two other guys, and I'm uh we're about to add two others to that group, and that'll be it. We literally started in Matthew 1, and we're reading a section, and what I've encouraged them to do is ask the dumbest questions they can possibly ask about what they've just read. And I promised them that I would do the same. And the discussion that has come out of that, and the growth that has come out of that, and the other thing I told them is I'll start doing this with you if in six months you start doing this for a couple of other guys. That's my one contingency, is that you start doing this with a couple of other guys. And they're like, well, I don't know. And I'm like, you don't have a choice. If you want to do this, this is what we're gonna do. And so they're in, and lo and behold, I just got another phone call from a guy who said he wants to do the same thing, totally unrelated to the guys I'm already meeting with. And so God just starts to kind of build these things uh within regular day. Now, I've I've been at this for two years, right? So we're just starting to see like it's not even fruit coming off the tree. We're just starting to see fruit bud. That's it. And so we still got a long way to go and a lot to do. And it's not a strategy, it's just how God has worked it through us showing up every day and every week to these clients' conference rooms.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is certainly uh it it sounds like something that shouldn't be new to us, but it uh I'm sure there are people listening thinking that seems radical. That I have not heard of anything like that happening, like in a business setting, because such uh a large part of our culture is is hostile and resistant uh to any public expressions or public discussions about that are overtly uh uh expressions of the Christian faith in particular. And and so this is really reformational. And and you use this term reforming of the church, um and you say that it will happen in these conference rooms of of businesses. What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_00I'm uh I love words. Uh Darren, words really mean something to me. That's uh it's a little bit different, I think, in our modern day culture here at Recording Time of 2017, just because words are so prolific, they're everywhere, and so they they may be watered down. But um, through studying languages in seminary and then uh studying medical terminology with Pfizer and going through all of that, you really understand that words break down and they actually mean something. And so for me, as I was thinking about what's happening in the conference rooms, I thought, you know, this really is going to reform the church, or in our modern day kind of IT tech uh uh verbiage, it's going to re uh formulate or uh uh reformat the church. And the church is always the church and it's always going to be the church. The church inherently has got its own powers and embedded by the Holy Spirit and what Jesus left for us. And so whether or not the church is going to last, I don't I don't feel very comfortable saying that's up to me. Um that's that's Jesus' um kind of uh in invention, what he brought out to us. And so for me to say I've got any impact on the church, positive or negative long term, I it's I almost feel a little bit arrogant in saying that. What I do feel like I see is that as the church sits today, what you had is you had an era of what I'll call corporate church, top-down, think of the Catholic Church, very, very command, kind of command and control. Then what you had is you had more of the marketing church. So uh think of kind of uh audience, concert, um uh you know, uh common marketing, things like that. I think what's gonna start happening if it's not already, and we're seeing this a little bit, is that the church is going to be reformatted into a format that is uh that that is more um I think maybe a little bit more one-on-one, a little bit more personal. And I believe that a lot of that is going to be launched or trampolined from the conference rooms of small businesses. And the reason I believe that is because that's what I'm seeing. And so um I wish I could tell you that I had faith to believe that without having seen it. I didn't have a vision. The only vision I have is what's happening right in front of me. And the guys that we have the honor and privilege of being able to spend time with right now, both believers and non-believers, are showing evidence of driving closer to Jesus through the discussions that we're having in these conference rooms, thus a greater understanding of the church than those that are driving away from him. And so I believe that's gonna happen. Now, what I'm here's what I'm nervous about is, and I realize my voice isn't very loud, so I take comfort in that because I'm afraid if my voice was too loud, what would happen is if you took somebody on a national stage and said what I just said, again, we would turn it into a movement and we would have a bunch of people uh start to do things that are not within their skill set just so they can live out this idea so that they can see some statistics. And I don't want that. I believe it's got to happen very organically and within the context of which we work. So my question for each one of us is what drives you out of bed every morning? What is it that gives you energy in in contrast to what gives me energy? For instance, I tell people all the time, golly Darren, there's people in this world who actually love to wake up every morning and do QuickBooks accounting. I'm like, who made those people? You know, I mean that is not me at all. But there are some people who love to do that. Let them do that. Find that thing. Don't go be a salesperson, go be a bookkeeper. And when you're a bookkeeper, do it with great excellence and keep your head on a swivel. That's what they used to always teach us running downfield on punch snaps. Keep your head on a swivel or else they're gonna take it off your head or off your neck. And a couple times that happened. When you didn't keep your head on a swivel, you'd have a 250-pound dumpster running across the field and take your head off. And so as you're using the skill set that you have, keep your head on a swivel, stay in your lane, and that trust God that He's gonna bring people and be ready. Be ready with God's word, and that's why we need to have a steady diet of it. And frankly, that's why we need our churches to be loading our trailers up with the supplies of the gospel so that we can be prepped on a Tuesday afternoon when a client comes in for a bookkeeping appointment and finally breaks down and says their wife's about to leave them.
SPEAKER_01Powerful. Well, Scott, and we're gonna wrap it up here, uh, but tell us where people can find you and and learn more about what you're doing for business leaders and maybe they may even uh would like to have your services.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, if they want to find us physically, they can find us on the tidal creeks and rivers of the low country of South Carolina. We spend a lot of time, a lot of time there. And under the swaying lie books, we always like to brag on the uh on the geography in which we live. So uh but online, the best way is actually two ways. One, you can go to my businessonpurpose.com. That's our uh online headquarters for the business on purpose platform. And then also that four steps framework that I talked about, if you go to four steps to businessfreedom.com. And right now is at this recording on the front page of our uh business on purpose website, we actually created a simple little assessment. Uh, I believe it's a nine question assessment, and it's called, we're really bad at naming stuff, by the way, but it's called the Is My Business Healthy quick assessment. And uh for anybody who's a small business owner, uh mainly under 25 employees and under 25 million in annual revenue, uh, you can take that assessment, answer those nine questions, and it'll give you a quick uh feedback on how healthy your business is. So you can get that at MyBusinessonpurpose.com or you can go to Four Steps to Business Freedom, all spelled out in one word, four steps to businessfreedom.com.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. Scott, this has been uh phenomenal. Thank you for coming on to share your expertise, your passion, and uh these incredible testimonies of what God is doing. Why don't you leave us with a parting piece of advice?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my one thing is if you've never sat down to write out your vision story, that's what I would encourage you to do. I do, you know, we see Jesus all the time. He went to a dark, isolated place to pray. And uh James tells us, if any of you lacks wisdom, ask God. He didn't make it that complicated. I mean, if you if you don't have wisdom in a certain area, ask God. Two two words. And so to write down your vision story, to sit down and think X number of years down the road, maybe three or five, and just go, what do I see five years down the road? What do I see in regards to my family? What do I see in regards to my work? What do I see in regards to our finances? What do I see in regards to the people that I'm investing in and spending time with? Write that out. Vision story vision statements are short, pithy one-liners. Vision stories are detailed. A lot of the vision stories we write out for clients are two, three, four, five pages of detail. And so if if people haven't done that, the proverb really is true. Where there is no vision, people scatter. So you've got to start with your vision. And God hold God told Habakkuk, write the vision down so that those who read it may run. When you write that vision down, now you've given your spouse, your kids, uh, your colleagues an opportunity to see where you're going so they can decide if they want to run with you.
SPEAKER_01My businessonpurpose.com and four steps to businessfreedom.com are the websites, and those will be in the show notes as well. Scott, thank you for this. And may God continue to bless your business, bless your family, and everything you put your hand and everything you put your mind to.
SPEAKER_00You're doing great work, Darren. Thanks for allowing us to be a part.
SPEAKER_01We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you'd leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU's Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening and keep integrating biblical values into your business.