This week's episode, How Businesses Are Transforming Nations for Christ, with guest Ken Eldred, who is named the Silicon Valley Entrepreneur of the Year. Welcome back to Theology of Business, the show that helps marketplace leaders to integrate their faith into their businesses to make a greater impact in society and in eternity. If you want to learn more about how to partner with God in your business, this show is for you. I'm your host, Darren Shearer, author of the book Marketing Like Jesus and founder of Hybridge Books, which offers professional book publishing services for inspiring thought leaders. Well, this week we're going to be discussing how business is being used to make disciples of Jesus internationally. We're going to be talking about how people around the world are using business as mission. And we're joined by an incredibly successful Christian entrepreneur, Ken Eldred. Ken is currently the CEO of Living Stones Foundation and chairman of the board of advisors at Paracletos Ventures. Did I pronounce that right?
SPEAKER_01Close enough.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Comes right alongside us. And that's what uh that's what Ken does. He comes alongside companies and helps them to grow. And he certainly did that with the company that he started, InMac, which he co-founded and built into a $400 million company during his 20 years as the CEO. And he's also assisted in the founding of several other successful companies, including Ariba Technologies. He's involved with ventures in the U.S., China, Europe, India, and advises various kingdom business ventures and ministries. He's got an MBA from Stanford and was a visiting fellow at Stanford's Hoover Business Institution. Ken is the author of God Is It Work, which is an incredible book that I'm actually reading at present, The Integrated Life, and he's co-editor on uh of the book On Kingdom Business, which was the winner of a 2004 Christianity Today book award. And uh and he's got uh a wife, Roberta, and they have three sons and spend their time in Northern California and Colorado. Ken, welcome to the Theology of Business podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Darren. Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00I just shared a short uh background about you, but tell us a bit more about you and how you got started doing business for the glory of God. And also I know that you discussed your background in your book, The Integrated Life. So if you would give us kind of a sneak peek into that book as well.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah, the Integrated Life really is a prequel to the book on missions, God, as it were. And that what happened for me was when I was about 30 years old, the Lord got a hold of me and changed my life. And I realized that one morning the pastor was talking about being weekend warriors. And I had to think about that a bit. I thought, I wonder if I'm a weekend warrior. Am I really taking what I believe to work on Monday morning? And that started me on a process of trying to understand what that meant. Uh, in the process, how do you how do you make business Christian? And it took me over a number of years to really learn the things I've learned in the book that I share with people, uh, particularly in the Integrated Life book. But in that process, I wanted to be obedient to God, to do the things that the Lord wanted me to do. And that meant putting having scripture in one hand and the business problems I was dealing with in the other, and trying to learn how to manage these things as a Christian. It became very clear to me that businesses are not Christians, but people are. And we need to run these businesses as people who care about other people from a Christian point of perspective. Uh as time went by, I got more involved with some of the international things, and uh you know it became clear to me that there's a real opportunity uh across the world for businesses that are Christian, and we can talk about that next. But that's sort of the background into my uh my revelation, if you wish, is God showed me on business as a Christian.
SPEAKER_00So, kind of at what stage did you really begin to invite God into your your responsibilities in the marketplace? Because some people I talked to, it was something that kind of happened midstream or uh or or even far down the road. Was it kind of at the beginning when you began to see this connection? Because usually there's kind of this uh this duality where there's my my work and then there's my spiritual life.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was in between jobs and trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself and at the time when I became a Christian and started walking with the Lord. And as this point came to me, I realized that the Lord really wanted me to include him in everything. And I was, as I was praying to receive Christ, I said, Lord, I really want to be a businessman. I'll do whatever you want me to do. But business is what I really would like to do. It just excites me. I said, Lord, if you could just sort of open the door for me to see an opportunity, I think I could do it with your help. Uh and it wasn't long after that when I was sitting in a room, we were kind of in between opportunities, and a friend of mine suggested we consider starting a business. Uh and I said, I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. I was really more interested in finding something I could get into or buy into. So we're sitting there and he's kind of going through all of these ideas, and the Lord says to me as as he's going through these, I hear his voice clearly. And I never heard it before, but it's that's it. And I and I'm kind of I'm I'm looking around to see who talked to me. My partner's talking to me. He didn't hear this voice, but I heard it, and I couldn't understand why he hadn't heard what I heard that interrupted our conversation. Took me a while to kind of figure out what was going on, and when I did, he'd gone on to a couple more ideas. So I stopped him and I said, wait a minute. I understand. I said, wait a minute. And I was thinking, that had to be the Lord, and he's talking about this idea, the one that we've passed. So I said, back up, back up, back up, there it is. That's what we're going to do as a business. And he kind of looked at me strangely and says, okay. So we we stretched and pulled on this idea, and uh we built a strategy for this business that lasted the 20 years that uh we operated the company and and then we sold it. Wow, this so this was in Mac, right? This was in Mac. Uh and we just we we didn't have any money, we didn't have uh, you know, I had no experience in this field, but the Lord showed us this what we wanted to do. So right from the beginning, we were partnering with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00Wow, I love that. And it's it's such a rare story. I mean, because usually the stories I hear, uh, you know, somebody starts the business kind of just for selfish ambition, and then they realize kind of down the road that wow, God actually wants to be a part of this thing. But but by the grace of God, you were able to partner with God from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01Right. Most of us tend to compartmentalize pieces of our lives. Yeah. And we tend to think of about four compartments. One is church, you know, one is home and family, you know, there's political things, and fourth is work. And in the work side, we tend to think it has very little to do with this spiritual side. So people start these things thinking, I'm a Christian, but I want to do a business and they don't have much to do with each other. In fact, the data indicates that young people from the ages of 19 to 29, about 84% of these young Christians, Christians, don't believe that the Bible has anything to say about their evocation. I mean, nothing. You know, they're just there's this total disconnect. Right. I didn't know enough to make that disconnect. I figured, you know, if God is God of all, he must be involved with everything. So uh it's kind of and that's how it started. And the first step was to commit myself to him and whatever I did. And then he began to honor this effort. And I think sometimes people sort of want to bolt the Lord and faith on the side of the business they have, as opposed to saying, look, it's a totally integrated package.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And NMAC was kind of the first of its kind, so it really was a God idea. It was it basically correct me if I'm wrong, but basically it was the first mail-order catalog for computer parts. Is that right?
SPEAKER_01Right. Actually, up until then, catalogs had never sold anything more complicated than a pencil. And uh, we were selling uh equipment for computers that tended to be for the outside world fairly complicated, and people had never purchased the way we were going to be selling to them. Uh, secondly, catalogs never really delivered very quickly. And even today, there are companies, Amazon, of course, it's next day or a few days later, but you know, for the for the most part, it was six to eight weeks or even twelve weeks before a product purchased by direct mail was delivered. Well, we had decided that we were going to deliver as best possible the next day or within three days, and everything had to be shipped the day we it was ordered because people needed this stuff desperately. Uh, and we started a number of trends. One, the complication of products. Uh uh Michael Dell uh told one of my partners that he actually used our catalog to start his own. You know, because that was later on in Piries. And there and we had built this catalog primarily around providing these products to you know small users of equipment. Uh up until then it had been the large IBM systems, and they were selling you know a truckload of paper, you know, uh half a car load of disk drives and things like this. We were selling one at a time. So it was relatively small order, and you couldn't afford to have a salesman make that call. So there were a lot of things that were going on that were new and different that the Lord showed us in the process of putting this company together.
SPEAKER_00Ah, what an exciting time. So that kind of gives us a background uh of kind of where you're coming from and your perspective and theology. So give us some insight into how business is being used today to make disciples of Jesus around the world.
SPEAKER_01Well, perhaps we should back up one step. Okay, and that one step is you know, what is really happening with respect to the money going into missions? The amount of money going into missions has continued to increase, but uh the number of people going into missions has dropped, you know, because the cost per missionary is going up dramatically. And it becomes a uh what's happening is the the world in 1900 was about 34% Christian. You know, today, fast forward, it's about 33% Christian, even though we've doubled the amount of money that's going into these communities. Furthermore, you know, it's pretty hard to get into a number of these countries. India is a good example. I mean, if you're going, you want to go as an evangelist, you can't get in. They won't give you a visa. They'll give you a visa to visit, but not to be to work there, you know, because you're an evangelist. But if you have a business and you want to start a business, there's no problem with that. Yeah. Furthermore, uh, you know, the biggest problem missionaries tell all of us is that they people need jobs. You know, the average in that part of the world in the 1040 window and in sort of the uh the the poorer countries that roughly you know, most of them don't have jobs and they make maybe $2 a day. You know, so how can you help these people actually change their environment, improve their situation, and share the gospel in the way that Jesus really shared it? I mean, he he lived with people and shared stories. He wasn't there to preach, he was there to show them in the way he lived how to live a faith. And that's what businesses can do. Uh there isn't a country that you can't go into as a Christian and start a business. You know, so you know that's what kind of got me excited about. I began to look at some of the ways that they were being done. Uh I looked at um at small business enterprise opportunities, the $150 things, you know, which it turns out is really the gift that keeps on giving. Uh and then small to medium-sized enterprises and then larger enterprises, and began to kind of work through what that meant country by country. There isn't a country in the world that can't have small to medium energy, I mean small enterprise model, which is the $150 model. But it's, yeah, you know, and you can do this as Christians. You know, uh there are some limitations, but you can almost go anywhere with that. Yeah. So I looked at that, I was looking at how people could actually go into these countries, and they look at Americans uh not as necessarily as Christians, but as people who understand how to do business. And if anybody can come and teach them, those are the people who can do that. Yeah so we don't have a tremendous thing.
SPEAKER_00I think you mentioned in I think you mentioned in your book that that there are more people graduating with business degrees each year than the entire amount of full-time Protestant missionaries in the world. That's correct. That's amazing. And that's it sounds like supply and demand. I mean, because like you're saying, these these countries, if you don't have something to offer uh more than just you're gonna come in and preach, uh, then we don't need you. But if you can come in and actually create value in our uh in our country, I mean, come on.
SPEAKER_01Right, absolutely. And you know, it has it ranges all the way from doing some consulting uh as a Christian, you know, with people that are in business. And the example in that would be something like what Regent University is doing at the RCE Enter, the Regional Enterprise Centers uh with John Mulford. And that uh they invite actually uh folks from uh Chick-fil-A who are managers of stores, and Chick-fil-A sets it up so they can spend a week over there. And these guys originally went over to say, well, you know, what can we teach them? I mean, we know basic business, but we run a store. We simply manage a store. What can I teach them? Well, when they got there, they found that these folks know very little, and they had lots to teach them. And not only did they teach them a great deal, but they they really learned a lot about what's required and what what the issues are and what faith is all about. So you know, people can actually do that. Then there's even deeper going into a country and being involved financially, you know, or helping people from a distance, you know, to create jobs. And we can talk about those when we wish.
SPEAKER_00So, what are some some actual companies that are that are getting it done that are really make doing business as mission?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh let me tell you a story about one of my companies. It's it's uh in India, it's a call center. Uh it's partly owned by me, and it's partly owned by two uh by a family of Hindus. And I'm not gonna bring up the name of the company because I don't want it out there necessarily. But the company uh we started as a call center, it's a business uh or or back office processing center as well, doing all of these things. We have about 1,300 employees. And the agreement I had with the person that started, who was a Hindu, I said, look, I'll help you start this company, but you've got to hire young Christian kids who can't get jobs uh if they're equally qualified as anybody else. And he said, I don't have a problem with him. So we began hiring, uh we connected him with a school, Christian University, and we were hiring college graduates. And we brought, as we brought them in, we brought in uh roughly, I mean, roughly 70% of our employees were were Christians. And we, you know, over the years, uh, you know, people stay in that job. It's a first-level job. And they get a good reputation because we have an outstanding reputation for training. And when they get really good at about a year or less, they go to a higher paid job, you know, which is tough on us on the one hand, but on the other hand, we're infecting an entire community with young Christians who before could not get a job, but now because they're really good at what they do, they ignore the fact that they're Christians and hire them anyway.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh. So that's And these people, they have a worldview where they don't make that separation, where because they've worked in your company, they see that my faith is relevant to my work.
SPEAKER_01Right. And they would meet on a regular basis in the company, the Christians would, and they'd pray about the company and about where they were going. Uh, we went through a uh there have been a lot of changes in the company these days, but just recently I was in India, I mean two weeks ago, a week ago, and uh we were working with, we've now set up to work with a pastor because we're doing a lot more what I would call Indian business. We're doing back office work for Indian companies. I mean, that's which is just amazing to me. Right. But uh that represents huge opportunities because people in India are asking us to do more and more of this back office work for them. We can get as much work as we want there. Uh the the key is getting people that are capable of working on phones appropriately, and we've now connected with a church leader who has over 4,000 churches, a number of which are in the Mumbai area and across the nation, because we'll build more locations across the nation. And he's going to help us find young Christian kids who are not necessarily college graduates, because we don't always need college graduates in some of these jobs, and put them to work because they're looking for jobs too. It's even tougher for them because they're not college graduates, but they need to work. They're high school leavers, but not college graduates. So, you know, the whole idea of this company, while the objective is to make money, and my Hindu partners are happy about that part of it, uh, we're really training young Christian people to be able to come into the company, learn about business, learn, you know, actually get a job, and then take their faith out into the community. So we've literally sent out tens of thousands of young people that are Christians into the Christian into the community in the business world.
SPEAKER_00If I was to kind of look as an outsider at your call center and maybe a call center that isn't necessarily dedicated to that purpose of making disciples, uh, what would I notice as being different in terms of the the way that the that the Lord is is being given access into what's going on in the company?
SPEAKER_01Well, um the I guess the if you were on the phone as a customer, you probably wouldn't notice a great deal. Right. Because uh but you would notice that there's an excellence about the firm. Uh we're actually better at processing work than even the companies that give us the work. They always keep a small crew to keep a comparison. Yeah we do credit and collection as part of what we do, and uh one of our customers who has and all of our customers have their own credit collection activity in the United States, they have what we they with us, they have credit and collection. And uh I just think there's an attitude, a spirit about all that so that when when we collect for these people, you know, there's a sense of concern, you know, because people are in trouble. I mean, that's why they're having credit card problems. And there's this sense of concern, I suspect, because we actually do a better job collecting more money for the company than they do themselves in their own shop. And it costs significantly less. And they look at this and they just you know, we keep them because of the incredible quality of the work that gets done. Uh within the company uh people know that uh a lot of our employees are Christians, and there's there's a sense, you know, they all seem to get along reasonably well. Uh and it's you know, there's some speaking about faith, but it's not typical in Indian companies to talk a lot about that. So you wouldn't see as much there. Although, you know, we're intending to step that up. I I'm hoping that in this next year I'll be able to put a pastor actually in charge of these young people as that as that organization grows and show them a couple things. Number one, I'm convinced that as we put a pastor in there, our attrition rate will be less because people begin to understand the value of what they're doing, the value of what they can do. Uh secondly, the idea is to get them to leave with a serious purpose. If they go, we want to encourage them to go. But we want to encourage them to go with the purpose of bringing that faith into other people and giving them first an area where it's safe to be environment to do that.
SPEAKER_00So I remember reading that the percentage was relatively high, but what is the about what is the percentage of Christians as a percentage of the employees in the in the company?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's down a little bit now because we're hiring high school leavers and they are graduates, if you wish. And uh and we have not had a connection with a church to find those people. So the college kids are still relatively high. And if in that group, we have about 70% of the people our college graduates are Christians. You know, compare that to Mumbai, which is probably four or five percent Christian. So it's a relatively high number compared to the local community. But in these lower jobs, we haven't had that connection. So it you know, as I've been back there, this is the first time I've been there in two years, we're now um creating that connection, and we just finished creating that. Our CEO is a uh interesting Lenuf is Hindu. He was raised in a part of India where he went to Catholic and Christian schools, uh, and fully is you know on board with me, and I'm praying about his conversion, you know. So it's it's a little bit of a mixture of things here. Yeah. But he's very open to what we're doing, and he's very encouraging about what we're doing. And it turned out that he and the pastor come from within you know a couple of miles of each other from their birth and their rah-rah about that relationship. And this was the first time I've kind of put those two together because I've been looking for years for the right pastoral relationship. So I'm very encouraged about what we're going to be going there. But but the idea of uh building an organization where you can actively involve and create and encourage Christians is something that uh we we really need to be doing, and there are lots of different ways. This is one. Uh there's another, and maybe I should talk about China here for a minute.
SPEAKER_00Sure, absolutely. And and by the way, I just love the picture of the partnership with the local churches, you know, because this isn't just something that you're doing out there solo, but it it really is in uh I think one of the criteria that you laid out in your book of what it is to do business as mission, is that it would be for the advancement of the local church and and to be able to do business in partnership with the local church where there is that synergistic relationship, I just think is beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's well that's the whole idea, exactly. And as you understand what kingdom business is, it's the idea of strengthening the church locally, both spiritually and financially. I mean, it's it's not enough to give people spiritual food and walk away and they're still starving. You know, we haven't solved their problems. In China, went to China with um with a friend of mine, and we went to a small company at the time, and the the owner, the the president of the company, a fellow named Daniel, uh, which we gave him an English name. His name was Zhang, uh, but we called him Daniel. And we told Daniel, Daniel wanted me to come and help him architect a new business concept that they were trying to model. He was a software engineer. And uh this was back in uh '98, 1998. And he asked me to help him with this model. Uh and I said, yeah, I'd be glad to. Uh, and we'll also invest in it. And he said, Well, why would you want to help me? Why would you want to invest? I said, because we really believe that, first of all, you are highly connected in the country. And he was. He was actually the head of the communist brigade, youth brigade. But he was not, he was, and he knew everybody in the top of the party, not a Christian. But we said to him that, first of all, what's going to happen is you will become a Christian. And you are going to impact your country with Christ. And you're going to know a lot of the people at the top of your country, and you will impact them because they're going to look at you and go, you know, you really have something, and you are successful, and your desire is to change and improve that country. Well, when we told him this, he got a big smile on his face. And that smile was not one of I'm really excited about that, but great cynicism. Yeah. That's he says, okay. He says, if that's what you want to believe, you go right ahead. He said, but you know, that's not what I see. I said, no problem. We're we're we're faith, we have we believe that God will do these things and we don't need to worry about it. It's not in your hands, it's in his hands. So he kind of smiled and he said, fine, just help us. So we architected this business for him. And we put in a bunch of money along with some other people. And the the the the company idea was a great idea. It's in fact it's something we should do in the United States. It's never been done. But the, and I need to get back to him to talk about this, but he he began to try to show the technology of what, I mean the capability of what we did for stores by founding a couple of stores. One was a big box store, and the other was a small, sort of 7-Eleven type store. Well, these stores were doing so well, and they were growing so fast that he took all the cash from this other activity, which wasn't growing very fast because we were ahead of our time, and he put it into the stores in exchange for shares of this company. The company grew rapidly, and he was he knew all the people at the head of the country. One of them was a vice mayor of Beijing. And the vice mayor uh was uh he got in got crosswites with a business guy who accused him of using government money for his own gain. Well, that was probably true with most of the communist leaders in the country, but they decided this was too obvious and they needed to clean this up. So the Communist Party arrested him and they began going through all of his relationships. The last relationship they went through was with my friend and our business associate. And they went to his office one morning, they picked him up and they said, We have checked all of his relationships, we know you're the guy that is causing him to cheat the system. And, you know, we don't need to go into what happened because it's very technical. But you're going to jail until you tell us what happened. And he said, Well, I never did that, and I'm not going to do that, and I'm not going to sign a confession that he did something. And, you know, this was really for his own skin because once he signed that confession, they kill him and the vice mayor. But they had no basis on which to uh to do that. So he spends two years in uh in a hotel which is really detained. He hasn't seen his wife for two years. She just can go home that day. Uh at the end of the two years, they sentenced him to 18 years for uh for a crime which he didn't commit. Uh so off he went to prison. And uh a couple of years into this, we were able to, amazingly enough, get lawyers who could went before the the judges in the Communist Party, not the country, Communist Party.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And they said uh they showed them, they proved to them that what they uh had arrested him for wasn't wrong. I mean, what he hadn't done anything wrong. And they looked at him and said, we don't care about the facts, it's changed from 18 years to 12 years. And he was still so uh, and he was afraid to appeal to the top nine guys in the country, all of whom he knew, because one of them he knew was harboring somebody else and protecting him. And he thought, if I go to that guy and I get the wrong one, it's one out of nine, and I get the wrong one and I get the one that's harboring people, I'm dead.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So there he is in prison, and uh, you know, prison in China is horrible. But while he was in prison, he had time on his hands. And while he was in prison, a friend of ours gave him a Bible. And while he was in prison, he committed his life to Christ.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01And while he was in prison, his team, he got on such favorable terms with, he was the wealthiest man in China in prison. He because of his relationship with Jesus, you know, he was the warden, he worked with the warden, the warden liked him a lot, the prisoners liked him a lot, the guards liked him a lot, he would share with them because they'd come and they ask him about financial things, and he was well respected because he's a great businessman, and they all knew it. And he shared with them humbly to a point where when his mother was dying, he the warden put him in regular clothes, did not handcuff him, sent him with two plain clothesmen to spend a week at his mother's bedside in the hospital, you know, so that he could say goodbye to her. He had huge favor with them. Uh and I I when I found out about his conversion, I sent him a copy of the book that you're talking about. And in the end, we talk about how China could have businesses all over the country. And uh that and this would work really well because his stores were getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And he should have in his store uh what we call um you know private labeled products, and they could all come from Chinese companies that he could start and put in villages, which the government would like to see happen. Sure. So I sent the book to him, he read the book, and through his management team, who met with him now regularly every month, they'd come down to the prison and meet with him. You know, he's sent back through his CFO that he read the book, he agreed with everything that's in it, and that's what he wants to do. So uh a year ago, they let him out of prison because the change of regime, immediately he was released. And now his objective is to change his nation by impacting the country with new businesses, new opportunities. They happen to be today the largest retailer in China. Wow. Very, very, you know, one of the major U.S. companies, which is not a Christian organization, uh, very famous investment firm, put $200 million into his company because they said it's so well vetted by the Communist Party that we know there's nothing wrong in here. So God used all of this for his purpose. And this man is now serving the Lord, and he's gonna have a huge impact on the country over time.
SPEAKER_00So he was just he you say he just got released last year?
SPEAKER_01Just last a year ago, February.
SPEAKER_00Wow. And what type of retailing is he doing? It's big box stores.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Like uh like, well, his firm, so give me an idea. Originally he called it Walmart, which means good market. You know, and if it sounds like something you know, it's because it is. Uh-huh. It's just like Walmart. Except it's some very interesting things. I mean, they actually make money in Walmart, and Carrefour have not made much money in that country, but that's another story, you know, because of his business acumen. Wow. It's kind of interesting. The Communist Party said to him, look, because he was well liked, well inspected before the Senate of prison, he said, you know, Walmart, I mean Walmart and Carrefour want to own over 51%. We don't like 51% ownership in companies in China. What do you think we should do? And he said to them, I'll tell you what you do. You give them 51%. But you require them to have unions in their shops. That way you control the company. And they said, Great idea. And so they gave him 51%, required they have unions. He does not have a union shop. His costs are lower. He's not stuck with the kind of issues that they've got, and he's growing and making money, and they're not. So kind of an interesting twist.
SPEAKER_00Wow, what an incredible story. I mean, it sounds like uh like a Joseph story.
SPEAKER_01It is, it's very much a Joseph story. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wrongfully imprisoned and just promoted, like, I mean, in a way that only God could do.
SPEAKER_01Now, what this required was that I go to India, that I go to uh China, that we spend time building and creating and developing these things, and not everybody can do that. But there are a lot of CEOs out there and people that run businesses that are looking for ways to help countries. Uh and one of those was a fellow who called me. He had heard about me, and he asked if I could go talk with him. And he said, Look, I have a catalog company. I said, Great. He said, We're growing rapidly, we're about 50 million in revenue and growing about 40% a year. It's all internet-based. And he said, I'm looking for somebody to buy 10% of my company. Uh so I said, Well, you know, why? And he said, Well, I'm a Christian and I want to sell 10% of my company so I can join the people in my church who want to buy land in Central America, in Costa Rica in particular, and where they can buy land for local coffee farmers, give it to these local coffee farmers who will then plant coffee trees and uh sell it on a fair traded basis into the United States. So I asked him, well, that's interesting. What do you know about coffee? And said, Well, besides drinking it, I know nothing. He said, Okay. What do you know about agriculture? Well, nothing. I said, What do you know about land in Central America? Well, nothing. I said, Why would you do that? You're a business guy. Why would you ever think that you could take 10% of what you own and be successful accomplishing this sound? Well, the church is working on this. Forget the church. I mean, think about what you have. What if, you know, when God said to Moses, what do you have? And he's he said, He said, What's in your hand? So I said to him, What's in your hand? He said, Well, I have this company. And I said, Well, what do you sell? And he said, Well, we sell clothing and things like that, sports goods and stuff. I said, Well, look, why don't you go down to Central America, look at some of the produce that's made there. It could be sweaters, it could be clothing, it could be shoes, it could be a lot of different things that are craft kind of things. I mean, beautifully manned hand-knit sweaters with alpaca or something like that. And sell these on your in your system and show people how they're made and who the people are that are making them, because you know, it costs you nothing to have that space that people want to follow deeper into the story. And this is a story about not only buying a great product, but buying, but helping people start businesses in South America. And as the business grows and these products that you're having them build, then you can go off and build, you they can start having jobs that are paid for. Yeah. And you control it. It's right in your area. You know exactly what's going on. That's a great idea. And off he went to accomplish this. I haven't caught up with him recently to see how he's doing, but but that's the kind of thing that we can do. I mean, look at what we have. You know, you don't have to leave your office to be a kingdom builder internationally is the point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you said in the book that investment has soundly overtaken aid as the preferred method for assisting developing countries. And I think there's a case in point because the way the church, to my knowledge, has has thought in recent history is just we'll just send donations down there. And and that that doesn't necessarily uh that's not a long-term strategy for success and truly uh helping the people in a way that would help them the most. And I mean, business is is is such a key part of what God seems to be doing uh in missions today, as you're describing.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, you're right. And I mean, you've heard the old saw that give them a fish and they feed, they eat for a day, give them, teach them to fish, they can eat, they can feed themselves. So we'll give them a business and they can change their nation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So uh, you know, and all those people around them, that's that's really the key. And if you look at the numbers, I mean they're startling. Uh, you know, I haven't gone back and researched them again, but by 2005, I think when we did the research, there were you know, the amount of money going into business investment was $150 billion, up from $50 billion, where the amount of money going into that kind of aid is roughly $30 million. $30 billion. Now, here's the problem. Uh, and people have a tough time getting this. And I hear this all the time. I said, you know what, we really want to build a well in such and such and give it to the people. And I said, well, that's really altruist. That's wonderful, that's really great. But who owns the well? Oh, nobody owns the well. It belongs to the people. Yeah, isn't that great? I said, no, that's terrible. You should sell the sell them the well. What do you mean, sell them the well? Yeah, charge them for it. And give it to sell it to one person. I mean, give them 100% credit, but sell it to somebody. Well, that's not fair. He'll monopolize it and he'll charge high prices. And no, you can limit the pricing in terms of the well that people use it. Because what happens at the end of the day, people say this wonderful well, everybody uses it. And everybody uses it, and then it breaks, and nobody fixes it because it's not theirs. You know, so that well sits there for years doing nothing because a part broke on it. You know, when you put it in the hands of somebody to make it into a business, they earn some money, they get paid, people say, yeah, this is worth it to me. And you can prove over and over again, I show it in the book, that you improve people's lives, even if they pay for the water. You know, you improve people's lives, they can do more work, but they don't have to travel as far, they don't have to boil the water because the water's better. You know, there are a lot of reasons why this works for them. But what's important is that you start creating savings, you start creating investment, you start, you know, with the idea that you you have to find the right person, the man of peace in the village. I mean, you don't find some guy who's a you know crook. But you know, as you find this kind of a person, then that's what company, what spiritual groups are doing. You know, even if it's the pastor of the village, put him in charge of it. But you know, where the money is used for various purposes. But if there, if there isn't a capital component, there's a capital component without the capitalistic commitment. You know, so there's no force of market here. You haven't created a market. You've just simply provided a solution, which is back to the fish.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, and one of the things that I love so much about this concept of doing kingdom businesses and businesses mission is that that's where discipleship happens. I mean, because the typical person, at least in America, is in church for maybe two hours a week, but out of the marketplace is where we spend most of our lives. And it's the same when we're doing missions work in another country. If you can help them set up a business, that's when they can really begin to work together toward achieving something. And that's such a context for discipleship. You know, you just think about Jesus on the boat, they're out there doing fishing, you know, they're they're bringing in revenue, but at the at the same time, there it's a context for teaching and discipleship.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Uh, and and when uh with my uh company in India, we we went through some very difficult times. I mean, our largest customer walked out on us, boom, and not only didn't pay us for the period that we've been there, they were really unscrupulous. Uh they left us holding the bag with a million dollars worth of software, and the company almost went under. And we were probably uh 30 days away from going under. We needed a customer desperately. And so I said, look, Raj, we're gonna have to pray about this. I mean, it's gonna be a miracle. We need a miracle from God if we're gonna survive. And he says, Yeah, I have to admit, we do need a miracle. So we began to pray that God would give us a miracle and that he would provide somehow. I mean, normally the process of getting a new customer takes months. You know, they check you out, they come check you out again, they they spend a lot of time with you because it's really critical. I mean, you're taking their business, you're handling their business. You know, and he and he heard about an opportunity with LG, the appliance people. And he said, uh he said, I think I'm gonna write a proposal to do this. So, well, do we have any experience in that area? No, none. But I'm gonna write the proposal. Well, he wrote the proposal, and less than 30 days later, We got a response from LG saying, we'll do it. You've got five days to get ready. And we were up and running in 30 days with 300 full-time employees. And the best part is the most amazing thing is that people in our organization are so incredibly dedicated, so committed, so excited about what was happening was that we made the transition from where it had been to us without skipping a beat. We didn't miss one thing. And not only that, but immediately the service went up from where they had been before to where they came. And they're in love with us. The reason they left the last guy was because he asked for a price increase. We just told them we needed an 8% price increase, etc. You know, so you know, he's seen these miracles. You know, and that's that's the upside because you know God will use these partnerships and show people things about himself through its miracles. So I've had people say to me on the other side, well, what happens if they go in and they talk about Jesus and they talk about building a business and it fails? And so that's when you have the greatest opportunity to show who you really are and what you really believe and what really makes you different because of who Jesus is. You know, of course businesses fail. But when they fail, you know, you can be that person that people look at and say, how can you do that? How can you, and I know this has hurt you more than anybody else, how can you be so calm and at peace and joyful about all this? It's because this isn't about me, this is about the Lord, this is his, always has been. So there's lots of reasons why you know going for it and try to make this happen. And you don't have to go that far from what you're already doing. It's simply sitting there thinking about what people do today, what I do today, and how can I use that for the glory of God. You know, so how does it fit in?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, you know, I've got a small uh publishing company and and I had some books that um weren't weren't really doing anybody any good, just you know, sitting in my my little warehouse, and and the Lord just spoke to me, why don't you send a couple cases of books to a local prison? And I mean that's that's mission work right there. And and so now these guys, there were 104 guys in the prison, and now each one of them has a copy of the book, and it's it's a book that can change their life. And and so you you don't necessarily have to go overseas. Uh there's I mean, there's so much missions work that can be done through a business in a way that it can't necessarily be done um otherwise.
SPEAKER_01Right. I mean that's a wonderful thing, Darren. I really that's exactly the kind of thing that people can do that can make a huge difference. You know, oftentimes you don't even have to go out of your office. You sit there and just there they're as and how do you find out what these things are? I mean, it's simply praying about them and saying, Lord, I'm here, use me. What do you want to do with me? What do you want me to do with what I'm already doing? And that the the why I wrote the other book, the God is at work first, was because I thought as we get Christian men and women into international business helping others, they're going to recognize the importance of having their faith in their work because they'll see it overseas in a way they've never seen it before. Well, you've got to get them over there first, you know, and unless people are really prepared to do that. And that's why I finished by going back to the first book that got it, you know, the integrated life, second, to get that done so that people can start thinking about how they do it in their lives first and then go overseas. But there are just so many great things that people can do uh to impact the kingdom, you know, even in this country.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, I I wish I could sit here and listen to stories all day long. Um I'm just eating it up, and I'm sure you could share them all day long because you're you're living it. You're seeing what God is doing all over the world. Uh tell us uh what's something that you're working on this month that you're excited about, and uh where can people connect with you?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh the best way is to connect with uh the integrated life.org. You know, and you know, we uh there's an author site there, which I I get on a regular basis, that's the best price. You know, what am I working on? Well, there are a lot of things happening uh that I am working on because it's not simply in the business world. You know, we Christians have a responsibility in this country as well. If you think about what is the greatest source of revenue for the kingdom going overseas, it's the United States. The United States, because of the great generosity of American Christians, you know, we give more than all the rest of the world combined. It's an incredible number.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We need to think about that, more than all the rest of the world combined. We're a giving country. There are very few of those. Europe doesn't give that much, it's not that big a issue in India and Asia, they don't, that's not part of their culture. They just have never done that. You know, so we're a big giving country. Now, if I were trying to stop the development of the growth of faith in Asia and the sending of missionaries, and I was Satan and I wanted to do that, what would I do? I'd cut off the supply route. If I cut off the supply of funds, it dries up and dies. Yeah. Okay. So the the the there's a huge effort afoot, and most Christians understand this: that in the United States the effort is more and more to limit our faith and reduce the amount of faith that's going on. It's been said by one politician that look, I don't mind if you worship or if you pray, just do it in your houses of worship. Don't do it publicly. And we're getting more and more of that. In fact, they're saying the law says we're not supposed to say anything about Christianity outside of our church or our home. Well, that's just not true. You know, and how do you change that? The only way you change that in this country is by getting Christians to vote. Now, how are we doing on that end? Well, roughly in the evangelical community, 50% of the evangelical Christians are registered to vote. 50%. That's it. And now how many of those vote on a regular basis? 50%. Wow. So you're down to 25%, which in the United States is roughly 18 to 20 million Christians voting. Well, out of 120 million people voting, they're probably the third largest voting block. We have no impact. And as a result, you know, politics is all about a vacuum and who steps in when something steps out. And so we need to get more Christians voting. We need to help people understand that they need to register, they need to vote. And I'm not talking about partisan politics. I'm talking about making your voice be heard so that people say, I'm voting by faith. And I don't care who the person is that's running, if they don't have your faith on issues of the right to worship, the right of life, the importance of life, the uh importance of a relation, monogamous relationship. And you know, it could be no matter what it's adultery or anything else, or homosexuality. I mean, these things are wrong before God, and they are going to take our country down a wrong path. And the only people can stop this is the Christian community. And it's not that we're about saying no. It's about saying yes. We believe in these things. These are right. Why are they right? And helping people understand these things. Because in the in the secular world, they don't get any of this stuff. I mean, God does not hold them responsible. He says he'll heal our land only if we change, according to 2 Chronicles 7.14. So I've spent a lot of time in that area. We've designed an organization called UnitedandPurpose.org, and it's about raising up Christians to vote their faith. You know, uh, you know, apart from business, but it's still part of the integrated life issue. Sure. I've created a couple of companies. Um I'm working on a company that is called Jonathan Park, the adventures in Jonathan Park. I don't know. Do you have children, Darren?
SPEAKER_00I do. I have uh a one-year-old. Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_01You're not ready for Jonathan. When he's eight, you're gonna love those adventures. They're on radio, they're they're audio adventures, and they're all about adventures and creation. You know, knowing about the creator and what he has done and how he's created the world. They're very well done, and we're you know, we're building that community uh of subscribers. And that company I'm very excited about because it's gonna make a huge difference. I mean, if you believe the first two chapters of the Bible, you will believe the last 22 chapters of the Bible. You know, uh, and then there's one last area, and that is social media. Started a company in social media, uh, and we're doing a lot of work in social media for very for entertainment, uh, and that would be Christian entertainment uh and Christian books, so that you know they pay for the support of these books, but we can get them to specific customers at a relatively low cost. You don't have to broadcast on television, you don't have to newsprint, you have to do radio.
SPEAKER_00And they're really What is that company?
SPEAKER_01It's called Strategic Media 21.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And and it's uh but long range, so how does that fit the gospel? Well, besides getting Christian material out, if you think about it, it's a great way to talk to people that have that are close but haven't made a decision about who Jesus is. And using big data, we can begin to talk to people and talk to them about areas that they believe, but they haven't quite got enough of those areas in place to say, okay, I I think I'm there. You know, right? So helping them move along in that area, helping them move along in their faith, you know, and all of that would be a prolono part of what we attempt to do in this corporation because we have huge numbers of people that that we are communicating with. Anyway, so those are some of the things I'm working on, Darren.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's uh it's a lot, but it definitely sounds integrated because it's all based on you know getting the gospel message out and making disciples, you know, which is ultimately what it's all about. It is. Amen. Well, as we uh wrap it up here, can would you pray for us, pray for our listeners that that God would just help us to go to another level of of inviting him into our business and that he would just completely take over and just uh just increase our faith to believe him for what he can do in the marketplace?
SPEAKER_01That's a great prayer. I need that myself. I mean, all right. I think we all do. I mean, this you know, Paul was still saying at the end, I strive on to meet the measure of faith. You know, and we we're we're all in that that boat. That's right. Let's do it. Father God, we do thank you for men and women uh not only in the United States but around the world who are committed to you. And Father, those that are listening now, I ask that you would uh encourage them, increase their measure of faith, Lord God. Uh you have prepared the plans for us to walk in according to Ephesians 2 10. And Father, we we want to walk in those plans that you prepared. You have specific purposes for each one of us. Father, I pray that uh as all of us are on this uh uh time together, that you would uh show us what it is that you have for us to do, what your purpose is. You know, give us a clear understanding of what our life goals should be, Lord God, that you have instilled in us, that you you have created us uniquely for this time. And these times are troubled times, they're too uh tumultuous times, and yet we are the image of the one that you created for this particular time. And so we thank you for that. And I ask that you would bless every hand, uh, you'd prosper them, and you'd give favor to every person that is attempting to not only walk in in your way, Lord, but to understand your purpose. Father, give them inspiration, give us uh direction in terms of things that you want us to do. Show us how to do it. Father, help us to understand that you are absolutely in charge of everything and that we are simply your vessels. Jesus said that he didn't do anything apart from what you told him to do. Help us to be like that. But help us to hear your voice, Lord God. So many of us need to hear you. We need to understand. Father, I pray that in uh in our next prayer time, uh, individually by ourselves, Lord, that you would speak to us in ways that are encouraging and developing. You are a loving God, you are a merciful God, you care about us deeply. And Father, we ask that you would do this for each one of us uh as we attempt to bring business into uh the kingdom of God and use the king, the business program, expanding the kingdom. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
SPEAKER_00Amen. This integrated life.org is the website. Ken, thank you so much for taking the time to share your the extremely valuable insight and expertise and and just really sharing your heart with us about uh about your passion for kingdom business and just continue to go forth and do great things.
SPEAKER_01Darren, my pleasure. Thank you so much. I'm glad we got this guy working here.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. All right, take care, brother. Bye, brother. That's all for this week. Our question of the week is what are some companies around the world that are using their businesses to transform their communities for Christ? You can leave your response to this question in the show notes for this episode at theologyofbusiness.com. And thanks so much for Sati8U and Be Positive for taking the time to leave a review for the Theology of Business podcast on iTunes. Your multi star reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening and keep partnering with God in your business.