This week's episode: Four Steps to Making Your Industry a Disciple of Jesus. Welcome back to Theology of Business. I'm your host, Darren Schear, author of the book Marketing Like Jesus, and this is the show that helps marketplace leaders to partner with God in business to change the world and make a difference in eternity. You can comment on this episode and give more information about how to partner with God in your business at TheologyOfbusiness.com. The Theology of Business Podcast is sponsored by High Bridge Books, which provides professional book publishing services for inspiring thought leaders. You can take the next step toward getting your leadership, business, or personal growth book published by requesting our free three video author training course at highbridgebooks.com forward slash course. Although the Academy Awards ceremony, which is also known as the Oscars, is usually an entertaining show for any moviegoer. The ceremony doesn't primarily exist for the enjoyment of moviegoers like myself. Instead, it's it's really more of an opportunity for the members of the film industry to honor their own people. It's to honor those among their peers who they feel have made the greatest contributions to their own industry. It's really not about the general public. It's not about entertaining the masses. It's really just more of a let's pat each other on the back type of uh type of a ceremony. So each Academy Award nomination is a vote to shape the culture of the film industry, which then affects the broader cultures of nations in which those films are watched. And the Great Commission, which of course is in Matthew chapter 28, Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations, not just individuals, but nations of people. Making disciples of nations means helping nations to reflect the glorious image of Jesus. That's what it's all about. As part of our mandate to disciple entire nations, marketplace Christians are responsible for discipling entire industries, which ultimately will cause them to reflect this glorious image of Jesus. Business industries wield more control over the overall cultures of nations than any other human institution. If we don't disciple our industries where we work in the marketplace, they're going to be discipled by people who have godless value systems. And this is especially true in the United States and Europe where the religion of secular humanism currently dominates many industries. Secular humanism, if you're not familiar with what it is, it's happening all around you. What it does is it attempts to replace God and his kingdom with cleverly marketed godless worldviews. And you see this in the way that HR offices have been put under pressure to really drive out God, drive out Christians from being able to share their faith in the marketplace, from even being able to talk about religion. That would just be one small example of what this looks like in the way that secular humanism is infiltrating the marketplace and has infiltrated the marketplace. So how would you describe the prevailing culture of your industry? In other words, what are the worldviews of the industry's leaders where you work? What are the ethical norms? What gets celebrated in your industry? How are the customers treated? How is your industry being perceived by the public? And what are some of the dominant beliefs concerning politics, religion, and other more sensitive topics in your industry? Are you actively shaping the culture of your industry? And in other words, how are you helping your industry to reflect the glorious image of Jesus Christ? Because ultimately that's what discipleship is all about. It's about knowing him and then making him known. It's about becoming like Jesus. And that happens not only on an individual level, but of course, as the body of Christ, the church on an organizational level, and ultimately our calling to make disciples is to a calling to make disciples of entire nations, not only individuals. And part of this is of course making disciples of in business and specifically in industries. So I'm going to share four steps today. Four steps to helping you disciple your industry. Step number one is to apply your spiritual gifts in your industry. And this is something that I've been talking quite a bit about over the last several weeks and months. You can get more posts, you can read more information about this particular topic at theologyofbusiness.com. But step number one is to apply your spiritual gifts in your industry. Your industry needs your spiritual gifts. It needs you to minister with your spiritual gifts in your marketplace, in your sphere of influence. Your spiritual gifts are channels for the supernatural power of God that is essential for transforming your industry for the glory of God. And this is how lasting change can happen. And I'm not talking about just the flaky kind of change that went viral on the internet last year but is now forgotten. I'm talking about change that is lasting. For example, a Christian business professional that I interviewed a few episodes back named Paul Williams uses his gift of discernment in the cybersecurity industry, helping businesses and government agencies to defend themselves against cybersecurity attacks. And I want to share just a quick story of what happened actually on the day that that interview was released, a few several weeks back, this happened in a very elite government intelligence agency. If you remember, Paul's supernatural effectiveness in profiling people and solving complex problems has caused several business leaders and elite government agents to ask him, what's your secret? How do you do what you do? We've gone through the classes, we've gone through the training, but you seem to have an ability that goes beyond what we're able to acquire. There's a talent, there's a gift there. So when he was asked this question at the end of a training class, he led, again, this was on the day that that episode released. If you listen to his Paul's interview, at the end of that training class at one of the top government intelligence agencies, he responded to the class. He said, All right, I don't know if you're going to like my answer, but he they they pushed him. They they they said, We've got to know what is your secret. How do how are you able to see these things about people and situations that we're not able to see? And so he said, All right, I'm a servant of the Most High God. And then Paul went on to share his testimony of how he became a born-again Christian. And in front of this room full of elite government agents, he's testifying about how he came to know Christ. And then he explained to them how when you become a born-again Christian, the Holy Spirit will give certain gifts to those who are the sons and daughters of God. And he shared that one of his primary spiritual gifts is the gift of discernment, which helps him to glorify God through upholding justice as a cybersecurity expert and practitioner. And after he finished sharing his testimony, the entire room, all of these government agents erupted in a standing ovation. And individual agents were coming up to him personally asking more questions about God. So that's just an example of how to use your spiritual gifts in your industry. Step number two is to align your spiritual gifts with your industry. Here's what I mean by that. Are you passionate about the industry you're working in currently? If you're not passionate about it, it's going to be hard to activate your spiritual gifts. If you're not passionate about the industry you're in, it might be the season for a change. Because fortunately, your spiritual gifts are transferable into almost any industry that you might be passionate about. For example, let's say that you love music and you want to be in the music industry. This doesn't necessarily mean that you should become a recording artist. One of your dominant gifts, on the other hand, may be the gift of administration. And if that's the case, you'd probably be most effective in transforming the music industry if you were working in an administrative role within the industry. So don't despise the potential impact that can be made by your spiritual gifts in your industry. Because your role is vital to the disciple making operation of the church in the marketplace and specifically within that industry that you're called to. Step number three to making a disciple of your industry is to love your industry. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 2, if I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. So no matter how spectacular your spiritual gifts are, they're going to be useless for changing your industry for the glory of God unless they're motivated by love for your industry and for the people who work within your industry. Here are a few examples of what I mean by loving our industries. Loving our industries requires that we, for example, pray for those who are operating in our industries, even our competitors. It requires that we speak life-giving words about our industries instead of bad mouthing what's happening in the industry. Speak life-giving words. And again, that means also speaking life-giving words about even your competitors and not trashing them and trash talking them. It also requires that we learn all we can about our industries. Because if you truly love your industry, you're going to want to learn all that you can. Subscribe to the publications that are your trade journals, your uh maybe podcasts in your particular niche. I mean, I'm I'm in the publishing industry. I listen to several book publishing and book marketing podcasts to help me serve my authors more effectively and to stay current on what's happening in the industry. It's just one example of how we can love our industries and also to make our spiritual gifts fully available to ministering to the people in our industries. Instead of just reserving our spiritual gifts just for serving our local churches, if you truly love your industry, make your spiritual gifts available to minister to them. And then the last example here of how to love your industry is to innovate and challenge those in your industry to improve, to serve people better. Step number four of how we can make disciples of our industries and how we can help our industries to reflect the glorious image of Jesus is to partner with other Christians in your industry. Because discipling an entire industry is a job of all Christians working in that particular sphere of influence. It's not something that can just be accomplished by one person standing behind a pulpit. Because the body of Christ can't function with just a few parts. We need the arms, we need the legs, we need the fingers, we need every single part of the body of Christ working together for it to fulfill its purpose in the marketplace. Every person and every spiritual gift is essential for discipling industries. And when we disciple industries, that will ultimately result in discipling nations. So here's our discussion question: which Christians are you partnering with to disciple your industry? And what are some other ways that industries can be discipled to reflect the glorious image of Jesus? That's all for this week. You can comment on this episode and get more information about how to partner with God in your business at theologyofbusiness.com. And you can also connect with me personally and Theology of Business on Twitter and Facebook, and you can email me at Darren at hybridgebooks.com if you have any questions or comments related to the Theology of Business. Thanks for listening and keep partnering with God in your business.