It's 5th there's been free access to all five interviews of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at ChristianityBusiness.com. Today we'll be discussing the topic of what the Bible says about economics. And we're joined by Jakobs Bickett. Jakobs is Business Administration Department Chair and Associate Professor at LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania. So it is uh early in the morning here in the U.S. And I believe Jacobs is finishing up for the day there in the late afternoon, all the way in Lithuania. So just amazing how this uh what this technology affords us the ability to do. And uh and so LCC was formerly known as Lithuania Christian College. So this is uh this is a school that really has a Christ-centered uh biblical worldview at its at its core and at its founding. Uh he has a PhD in public policy and political economy from the University of Texas at Dallas. Uh and so he did spend some time here in uh actually 18 years in Texas. He has an MDIV in theology from Baylor University, an MBA in international business, and also a BBA in finance from Dallas Baptist University. He has a wealth of experience that we're gonna benefit from here today. Among his areas of study and expertise, he's a global expert in the subject of preconditions for economic growth, teaching business principles to a post-Soviet audience, and also on the positive role of business and human foraging. Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast, Jacobs.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Darren. Thank you for that uh overly generous introduction. It's it's a pleasure to be here. I've enjoyed the uh the ministry uh uh uh uh uh that you and uh and Houston Baptist does, um, especially through these podcasts uh that I've gotten to know.
SPEAKER_01Well, we're really excited to bring more of these international perspectives on the show. And we we joked earlier about how I've got a lawnmower running outside of where I am, and Jacob said if you're hearing a noise on his end, it's probably a snowblower. So we have some climate differences, but certainly we have our common ground in Jesus Christ, and we're looking forward to hearing your perspective. And one of the reasons Jacobs has such an interesting perspective on economics in particular, is because he's lived within three of the world's major economic systems capitalism, communism, and a mixed economy. So, Jacobs, go ahead and tell us a bit more about your background and how that shaped your economic perspective.
SPEAKER_00Um, sure, I was born in communism, as you um alluded to um here a second ago. I was born in the Soviet Union, in the Republic of Latvia, um, although it was relatively close to the end of the Soviet Union. I was born uh about 13 years before the Soviet Union uh collapsed. But um living my my school years, my early school years and middle school years in the Soviet system definitely um impacted my perspective on the career field that I would subsequently choose on economics. Um so it certainly was a system that did not encourage very much uh work effort, I would say. Uh the Soviet system um can be summarized maybe by saying that that to all according to their needs and from all according to their abilities, uh that's how it should work in principle. So um so people um didn't have as much choice in their uh in how their career would be shaped as uh people in the Western world are familiar with. Um the the the monetary rewards, the incentives weren't quite there. Um looking up salaries there in the Soviet Union, uh you can see that the average doctor's salary was maybe about 130 rubles per month, uh, which was actually slightly less than a uh full-time bus driver's salary. So people didn't quite have the same incentives to to develop, to use their talents uh as they do in the Western world. And so growing up in the Soviet system, um I saw the the uh the effects, although I didn't really know that at the time, I saw the effects of a system that that doesn't have private property, that doesn't really have uh the same kind of incentives to work effort that we are used to in the West Um, and uh and that's what I what I took for granted. So uh how did that work out? It worked out in in a way that uh many people did not invest themselves quite as seriously in their careers. Uh they might uh they might have talents or abilities in, for example, in medicine or in law uh or or in engineering, but they might not see it worth their while to to invest the extra years of schooling for that when they could have a uh a more blue-collar job that pays the same or in some cases even more. And so as a result, the economy suffered. Um I also grew up in in the uh very much the Soviet type housing, uh which fascinates me as somebody who thinks about political economy, uh probably more so than other people, but um the Soviet housing, the the i imagine the standard Soviet uh square apartment blocks that perhaps um you might have seen uh on travels through Eastern Europe or uh something that people tend to associate with Eastern Europe and Soviet Union, uh apartment blocks that are owned by the state, uh that are built by the state, owned by the state, given to people at very low uh rates, uh so people can occupy them for for a very small fraction of their income, but nobody really owns them, and so any kind of common spaces, common areas in the housing, but also in a city, a city at large, were very much run down. The maintenance was lacking, the roofs uh would not be good, the common stairwell areas would not be taken care of. So um so I got to see from a childhood childhood perspective how the society around me operated in this in the Soviet system, in the Soviet uh communist system.
SPEAKER_01I'm curious, Jakobs. I'm assuming you attended a church there in Latvia growing up. How did the church leaders and your church approach the subject of economics? I mean, were there certain scripture passages that they would use to prop up this uh communist economic philosophy?
SPEAKER_00I would say that the I was certainly blessed to grow up within a Baptist church, and Baptist church in the Soviet Union was very much subversive to the system. It wasn't really uh seeking to prop up the system. It was definitely um declaring the system as as as evil uh for many uh for many reasons. And so um the the way that perhaps the church preached or or uh or cited scripture with regard to economics um was something that's very much not materialistic. So as Christians we we knew that my parents certainly knew and their parents did that that their economic prospects are very, very limited. So they were not in church, they were not seeking God so that he would bless them with material things, if that makes sense. They were they were there for deep reasons of faith. And so many of the Christians in the Protestant churches in Soviet Union uh would attend church, but it would be very, very different, different church, I would say, than what I've experienced when I was living in Texas. It was not at all tied to any kind of economic um outcomes or economic prosperity. So scripture verses like um uh like Matthew 6, you know, where uh where we hear that uh we should seek first other things, uh that we should not be concerned about material goods. Um those would be probably much more common. Verses having to do with reliance on God, uh on reliance for uh on him, on not storing up for ourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy it, or where thieves break in and steal, from Matthew 6, 19. So those would be the kind of verses that I heard. Um and speaking of church, it's uh it may be interesting that my uh actual my earliest memories from church were from my Baptist congregation meeting uh across the city in a different Baptist church's building uh on Sunday nights instead of Sunday mornings. And the reason was that the Soviet Union had actually uh taken away or expropriated my congregation's building and made it into a TV studio back in the 1950s. So there was an old established Baptist church where my my parents um eventually attended, uh, and the Soviet Union saw it fit that that church building would be uh expropriated and made into a TV studio to shoot propaganda films. So they chopped off the steeple, uh closed the windows, and so the congregation itself was allowed to keep meeting, but they had to meet in a neighboring Baptist church's buildings. And that was a common experience for many Christians there.
SPEAKER_01Wow, and so they did that because they didn't like that your pastor wasn't promoting communism and as you said, was really subversive to what they were trying to do?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. In the Soviet system, uh people had to only uh serve the state. Any other goal, any other purpose was not really tolerated, especially early in the Soviet system, uh when when when my country, Latvia, was first occupied by the Soviet Union uh in early 1940, uh and when Stalin was in charge of the Soviet Union, uh being a Christian was was really uh quite dangerous. People were sent to uh labor camps in far uh far east in Siberia, uh just if they dared to to serve someone, something other than the state. And so many many church churches lost their buildings because of that as well.
SPEAKER_01So it seems safe to say that if it wasn't for your church, your economic worldview and the path that you've been on all these years would be very different.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Uh I Christ has uh impacted my life in every single dimension. Uh living in the Soviet Union, uh I was 13 when the Soviet Union uh came apart. This was in 1991. I had been 11 when I gave my life to Christ. And so um after becoming a Christian uh at age 11, very young age 11, I started seeing these different opportunities in the in the thaw of the Soviet Union uh to learn English, to translate in different youth events in my church. And so uh through that I got to sense a different perspective on life, and I got to know people from Texas um as well as from England, uh from some other parts of the United States, so from various Western uh countries who would come in primarily to speak about God, to evangelize, but also I could see a little bit of their backgrounds, I got to know them. Some of them were business people, some of them had um were serving uh as bivocational ministers, perhaps, who were simply traveling to to preach uh to this new, still dangerous area of of post-Soviet Europe. But I got to see uh what drives them, perhaps what motivates them, how they see their lives as service to God through their particular talents. And yes, that that impacted me uh more so than anything. And and eventually that led me to come over uh from the transition economy of post-Soviet Latvia to come to Texas for 18 years and then to to study there and to really to see how a uh more or less democratic capitalism economy works.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Well, anyone who has this idea that the church should just stay out of politics or stay out of business or stay out of economics, I mean, to hear your story and the positive impact that was made by your church on the way that you approach the marketplace, which is where 85% of the Christian workforce spends the majority of their waking hours, you know, here is a testament of how critical it is for our Christian leaders to step up and disciple people in these areas, not just regarding our private life matters, like our thought life and our marriages and our you know devotional life, you know, all these things that are so vitally important, but also in the way that we approach the public sphere as well.
SPEAKER_00I I couldn't agree more. Um I think as uh as as someone who spends uh my days working at a Christian business school, I I always think about how it is that uh my business students, when they once they graduate, how they will go out and impact uh how they will impact the world for Christ through accounting, through marketing, through management, um, uh, and through their churches, uh, through what they do on uh Wednesdays or Sundays or or hopefully throughout the whole week um this the kind of service that they provide through their churches. So I couldn't agree more that we have to uh be the salt of the earth, and we as Christians have to find ways to be involved and to shape our communities, our society, um the best that we know how.
SPEAKER_01And then you transition into an experience with capitalism, and obviously you got that economic philosophy embedded into you growing up uh even in Latvia through your church. But at what point did you first come in contact with capitalism as the economic system for an entire society? And what has been your experience with capitalism?
SPEAKER_00Yes, so um I I came to Texas in 1995, and I have to say that one of my um I mean on the very first day in Texas, uh I noticed how many lights there were. I know I was I arrived at night, it was uh sometime in July, uh, but it was already dark, it was a late flight. And so as my hosts were taking me from the airport to their home, um, I noticed how many lights there were, how bright the dealerships were, how light the down downtown Dallas lights were. Uh and that was a uh sort of a maybe assault on the senses, I might say, of the capitalism, but it differed so much from uh what I had just left. Um there is something about about capitalism and and the kind of uh maybe materialism that it creates in both the bad way and good way, and that perhaps we can get into it a little bit while later, but that was my my first uh my first uh interaction with it. Um but yeah, I I arrived in uh in 1995 and uh and had a true chance to compare the two systems uh living there for 18 years. Um you know, we in some of my first classes in economics uh that I teach now and at the beginning of semester, a lot of times I'll show the students the photo of Earth from uh from the space at night, uh where we can see the illuminated cities in various parts of the globe. And a lot of times we'll spend some time uh talking about the Korea, about South Korea and North Korea, about the Korean peninsula, and seeing the tremendous difference in light that exists on the on a peninsula. Uh perhaps uh you and listeners have seen the picture. Uh, but it gives us a great chance to talk about, yeah, on one hand, the materialism that is a temptation in capitalism, but also the good that it does. Because when we talk about the lights that illuminate these cities, and we talk about what is behind those lights. Well, uh some of them may be uh street lights and so on, but some of them may be schools where where a young person is learning how to read, uh maybe a hospital where a premature baby is kept alive, uh kept alive by by some machine. So in places where the development has taken hold, uh we we can see these lights, right? We can see these lights as evidence of man's activity, uh of man's maybe stewardship of resources in a particular way. Um and that was certainly what I saw when I first came came to Texas. Um yeah, but I came and I spent spent 18 years there. Um I got to observe a system uh that was built more or less on on free uh on certain sense of economic freedom. Um I noticed that people are more free, they're more responsible for their decisions, they take ownership for their career choices. Uh in some cases they developed uh better habits, maybe, although not in all cases. I was really surprised by something. I was quite surprised that the many people with whom I spoke as a student, when I talked about their life ambitions, they would put it in very simple material terms. You know what we call the American dream. Uh my goal is to to have a house by age X and to have two cars by age y and maybe have a particular income by by age Z. So that was not I I didn't expect that that could be a dream for a person. I didn't know that you could that one could talk in those ways when I when I left uh the Soviet Union and then the transition economy of Latvia. Um and that was very normal for many of my peers in Texas to talk about very material goals, to talk about this this American dream. And so then I got to think later, especially when I study theology and political economy, I got to think about whether that's desirable for society or undesirable, and really seeing both sides of it. Um I think that's I I personally uh growing up in a Soviet Union, I really came to value the idea of freedom. Uh that God created us with a with a free will, with a free choice. Uh right off the way, uh right off the bat in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, we see that that Adam and Eve could choose, right? And they uh they make the wrong choice, and yet God didn't preclude them from choosing. So so I think that a good economic system has to start out with the right kind of anthropology, has to understand that uh as human beings we we value freedom. I think part of uh Imago Dei or the image of God, image in which God created us, has to do with this fact that we can choose, right? He gave us free will. But then that we fell. So we also have to, I think, understand in any kind of economic system that uh we're dealing with fallen human beings, that we're dealing with people who uh who make choices and yet who a lot of times make mist mistakes in their choices. And so we have to create a system uh which acknowledges that and uh and one which which maybe even harnesses that. Um from an economic perspective, you know, I think the goal of economics, uh, the study of economics is simply a study of how people work together to transform goods and resources uh to satisfy their wants. Right? They transfer goods and uh transform resources into goods and services to satisfy their wants. And then we we we can think of good ways to do that and bad ways to do that. We can think of ways that uh that that uh create abundance of goods and services so that people's needs and perhaps wants are satisfied versus systems that don't do that. Uh we can also think categorize systems which which uh produce this abundance uh while taking care of the environment, the nature, and other systems perhaps that don't do that. So those are the sort of ways that I think about uh about economics, and then I look at uh what we as Christians should should strive for and should do. And uh as a Christian economist, I see I try to think where these two ideas come together. So so in in Christianity, I think that we're we're called to do multiple things, to uh to have no idols, for example, right? One of the commandments, Exodus 23, thou shalt have no other gods before me. So so in a system which creates a lot of prosperity, like the capitalist system, with all of its benefits, we have to be very careful that we don't create idols for ourselves, that we don't start idealizing that that that first house and that's that second and third car and so forth. Um we have to we have to know where to draw the lines, and we have to also recognize that we will always be tempted in that direction.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_00So that's one of the dimensions I think of a Christian economics is that we I like the system that creates abundance for people because it it it uh it takes care of needs that people have, right? Uh we were called to take care of the orphan and the widow, the least of these, and the capitalist system does that much more than any other system. And at the same time, we have to moderate this abundance, this this presence of material well-being uh by constantly reminding ourselves that we cannot elevate those material goods to be the number one priority in our lives. So we have to uh focused on beh we have to be focused on God uh as the ultimate prior, not on our skills or abilities. Sure.
SPEAKER_01You know, when we approach uh particularly looking at the life and ministry of Jesus and the subject of competition as it relates to capitalism, what would you say to someone who would try to argue that competition is not Christ like? Because Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many, God still loved the world. That he gave, so there's this idea of sharing and just this idea of the generosity of God that you see, for example, in the book of Acts, where there was no need among them because they were sharing everything. But it seems like competition is such a high virtue in capitalism that inevitably there's uh competition that can result in this sort of dog-eat-dog approach to business. How do you understand competition from a biblical perspective?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. Um I I see competition most often in the sense uh of uh sort of as iron sharpens iron, man, uh you know, man, man sharpens man, so in a way that makes uh people and businesses stronger in in an economic sense. So again, again, I always keep the goal in front of what is the goal of economics, it's thinking about how resources can be transformed into goods and services, right? So if I think about a system that will provide goods and services for those in need, then I understand as an economist that competition will help us do that. Now, in any competition, there are some winners and some losers, even if people in training and in competition both become healthier and stronger as a result of it, somebody's going to win, somebody's going to lose. And then as Christians, we are called to take care of those who fall behind, take care of those who perhaps are unable to win the competition. You know, uh under the stewardship mandate uh in from Genesis, be fertile and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, um, under that mandate, I think it's it's crucially important for us to really compare systems and and and seeing which system allows us to be good stewards of our resources. And uh, you know, what we currently see in the world is that the poverty, uh the destitute poverty rates around the globe are falling tremendously. And actually, maybe maybe it's surprising, but I think it competition has a lot to do with this fact. Um now only 14% of global population lives in extreme poverty, and that's down from 35% of the global population in 1993, and that's a fall of about a billion people. And that to me is huge. That is a huge um good, if I could put it that way. It's simply um it's simply a good thing that people from different faith backgrounds, from different parts of the world, are now less exposed to destroyed poverty than they were before. I think if if I could point to a particular part of the system which is responsible for this fall in poverty, I would try to replicate that. And most economists thinking about what has led to this drastic fall of poverty, really a surprising fall of poverty. Uh it this this drastic fall surprised the United Nations, which set the Millennium Goals uh that made a lot of news, and you know, we are we we have beaten the poverty rates that they were projecting. So I think it has to do with globalization and with competition, uh, and in some extent also with urbanization, that white white poverty has fallen as drastically as it has. So now we have to take that good, I think, and then we have to see, okay, who has fallen behind? I think as Christians, as a church, we have to say, who is unable to survive this competitive environment? What about people who cannot move to the cities? What about the ones who cannot learn English or whichever language opens the doors for them? What about people who cannot get the education they need uh in order to uh operate in this kind of society? So I think that's what we have to do as Christians. Um so I don't I think from an economic perspective, competition is a certainly a driving force for good, and it does create losers, and then as a church, we have to s we have to we have to think about how do we put people in a best position to succeed. Um and how to not fall in a materialist trap.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Right. And I think one of the only ways to do that, because you know, all here are some of the the titans of industry, some uh some very famous uh management gurus, successful CEOs throughout history, and they would they're notorious for just how competitive they are and how you know they wake up every morning thinking about how they can beat out their competitors and and are kind of even braggadocious about it. But I think that really lacks the the Christ-like approach, which is not that you that you try to uh water down your success or you try to water down your ability or performance, but that you're discipling others in the process, meaning you're not leaving people behind, but because we are on this journey uh toward becoming who God, as you said earlier, the emigode, the image of God, uh reflecting Jesus, that because this is a journey, we're not leaving other people behind on on this journey. And and and so even though competition, as you said, it does create the winners and the losers in terms of somebody is gonna have most of the market share. Somebody is going to have you know, somebody's gonna be in second place in the market, third place, and and and so on. But that's no reason to not from what I hear you saying, that's no reason to uh to to back down and water down the performance, but to reach out to those who uh maybe are do seem to be being left behind in order to help them uh make sure their needs are met, not in a not in a uh kind of uh a handout sort of a way, because that's not discipling anybody. That's not helping them to become who God has called us to be. So the goal is to go into all the world, not to just make a profit, but to make disciples. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I think that that there's maybe several dimensions here. One is the state response and one is the individual response. I think that uh thinking from political economy perspective, which is where my doctoral work is, the state response should be, in my opinion, to encourage and promote competition because of the kind of positive economic consequences that it has uh for the least of these, for the people at the bottom of the um of the income distribution, especially, uh even globally speaking. So I think the state should promote competition because that has positive economic um uh outcomes. But then on the individual perspective, I think that we should exhort our brothers and sisters in Christ uh to do what Galatians 5 13 recommends. It you know, it says, You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another humbly in love. So we can be tempted, again, a capitalist system which has so much abundance, to indulge the flesh, right? To to to to seek for that to chase after that next uh next to keep up with the Joneses. And yet the the Bible exhorts us to serve one another instead, to serve one another humbly and in love. That's it.
SPEAKER_01And just a few verses later in chapter six it says to bear one another's burdens. And and I think that's what that's what you're getting at here in terms of the competition, is not compete so that you can be number one and uh just forsake everyone else, but so that you can so that you can lead, so that you can set the example, which is really what discipleship is about. It's hard to disciple somebody if you're not in a leadership uh position in some way.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And also I think what we see through competition is that um the services and goods improve, and that's definitely something that I like to stress with my business students, is that a business will be profitable and successful in a free society when? When it figures out a way to serve the customer. And a business that does not uh operate in an atmosphere of competition, which is what was the case in a Soviet system which I grew up in, simply does not produce the same kind of quality, simply does not know how to meet the needs of the of the person. And for Christians, this sounds paradoxically, but the business doesn't really know how to serve its uh its consumer very well uh when it does not, um when it doesn't face competition. It's just it's not it's not pushed to do that. Many people, when they travel to the Soviet um uh universe or Soviet part of the world in the early 90s, were so surprised about the lack of the customer service in the stores. Um, they might come into a store uh wanting to get a loaf of bread, but the attendant would simply sit behind a counter and read a newspaper. And the person would stand in front of them for for half a minute, especially from Texas, people are very nice, so they wouldn't say anything at first. But but but eventually they would they would have to ask, and then the attendant would look at them angrily. Why are you bothering me? Why are you disturbing my newspaper reading? The customer service idea simply wasn't there. Uh many companies that came out of the Soviet Union had to go through multiple years of learning to figure out how to compete, which meant how to improve the quality of their goods so that they could be competitive in the global markets. Many companies didn't learn that and went out of business. Some that did became very successful. So I think that one aspect of competition is that it helps us produce better goods, better services. Uh, and if we operate in a free society and believe that businesses serve others, then it's it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01Beautifully said. Well, Jakobs, as we're wrapping it up here, I know that our listeners are wondering where they can get access to more of your thinking along these lines and on some of the other things that uh you are passionate about researching and writing on. Um, where can people learn more about you and what you have going on?
SPEAKER_00Uh they're welcome to uh come to LCC website, uh, which is www.lcc.lt, uh, and uh see a few uh of the links of me and other faculty that do work here. Um also uh back when I was living in Texas, uh me and a few of my colleagues from Dallas Baptist um hosted a blog, Terminal Degree Curiosity. Uh that was the name of the blog, so people are free to look that up as well and see our some of our dialogues there. Um and then um yeah, we we at LCC we love people from different nations. So if you're ever in the area, uh you should stop by. We we educate people from over 30 countries currently, and uh in our small business department, there's people serving from eight countries on staff. So it's a great international place, and we would love to have uh more uh more visitors as well. Wonderful.
SPEAKER_01Well, lcc.lt uh is the website there, and also Google terminal degree curiosity, and it sounds like a fascinating blog. Uh Jacobs, is there a parting piece of advice you'd like to leave with our listeners here today to help us to uh those of us who are wanting to approach economics from a biblical perspective, what what advice would you leave?
SPEAKER_00I would uh just encourage those thinking about economic uh topics to to always stay true and sincere as as Christians, taking the stewardship uh the stewardship mandate very, very seriously for personal lives, also for how we treat the environment and so forth. When I think about what it's like to have a Christian idea of economics, I sometimes think of what it's like to have a Christian idea of dentistry or a Christian idea of chess playing or something like that. And uh or Christian idea of carpentry. I had a chance to go to Sepphoris, the city um uh which is not very far from Nazareth in Israel, where many scholars think that Jesus practiced his craft of carpentry before he uh went into ministry at age 30. And I wonder what was it like for him to set carpentry standards? What would a good carpenter do? And and I can't help but think that a good carpenter would simply try to make sturdy tables, uh functional chairs, etc. And so then I think about what is it like, what should a good economist strive for, what should a good political economist strive for? And I think we should strive for the kind of policy that provides, that uses our resources wisely, that uses them so as so as to take care of the least of these, to use New Testament's language. Um and so that's I think the the measure of a good economic policy is one that that that it that practices good stewardship of resources and that it provides for needs uh of those uh who can least take care of themselves. And so I think that's what uh we ultimately as sincere Christians have to do. And we're gonna disagree about some public policy choices, we're gonna uh disagree about how some institutions operate. But as long as we focus on uh on respecting each other, uh as long as we realize that each person has been created in an image of God, uh, that each person has property over their own lives and uh and their time and their uh abilities, then I think that we can uh create and sustain a society that will function well.
SPEAKER_01Well said. And we'll pray that our legislators get a hold of this uh these principles as well. In fact, you may even want to send this interview over to your congressman or to your legislator uh there in your in your area, whoever's making those uh economic policy decisions, but certainly we all, it really starts at the grassroots and you know, going back to the beginning, you know, and just thinking about uh your church there uh growing up and and uh how counter-cultural that was. And really that's what we're called to be as believers. Uh Jacobs, thank you so much for sharing your time and expertise and your uh your heart uh for the for the kingdom, and may God continue to bless your work in discipling these students, discipling uh people to have a more Christ-centered uh worldview uh concerning their public life as well as their private life.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, guys.
SPEAKER_01It's been my pleasure. We 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 HP for Christianity and Business at Christianity in Business.com. Thanks for that and keep integrating local values into your business.