Lead Time
Lead Time
Are We Using Too Much Secular Language?
What happens when we apply biblical language to modern business concepts? Attorney Colin Hoffman joins Tim and Jack to challenge how Christian leaders use marketplace terminology and offers a refreshing biblical perspective on leadership development.
• Integrating faith in the marketplace through daily devotionals and Christ-centered business practices
• Using biblical language instead of business terminology – how "name" in Scripture relates to modern concept of "brand"
• Name changes in the Bible (Abraham, Israel, Peter) represent divine identity transformation similar to baptism
• John 17 as a perfect model of project management and leadership handoff from Jesus to God the Father
• Implementing Christian principles in legal practice through mediation clauses based on 1 Corinthians 6
• Creating high-trust business relationships by applying biblical wisdom to contracts, client relationships, and conflict resolution
• Christian business leaders serving as shepherds to employees and missionaries in places traditional ministry cannot reach.
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We are honored when people have a difference of opinion and would love to come on and talk about it, because every time we do, we find way more things that we agree on, namely Christ and Him crucified, than we disagree on. This is Lead Time. Welcome to Lead Time. This is Tim Allman, Jack Kalberg also in the house. Jack, you're loving life, feeling good, Are your allergies? Everybody worries about your allergies, Jack. You bring that up all the time. You're so high maintenance. I know, I know.
Speaker 3:It's a season right now. The good news is I've been going through this immunotherapy. They give you these allergy shots and it's like 2%, 3%, better every time I get a shot. It's just really slow, though. So you know, notice it when you look at like a six month period of time. So I would say like right now we're in probably the worst season for allergies and I don't feel like I'm going to die anymore. So that's really good.
Speaker 1:It's just very uncomfortable.
Speaker 4:Yeah, all things considered, I've been sorry. I paid attention to your progress a little bit over the last couple of weeks and I was thinking about getting allergy shots myself, and so this is the real reason why I tune in really, of course is to get allergy relief help.
Speaker 1:Good for nothing else here at Lead Time other than allergy support. Anyway, I want to introduce our guest, Colin Hoffman. Colin is an attorney, a Christian business leader. He is in church law and we're going to get into his vocation in the marketplace in probably the second half of our conversation. That'll be super fun, but Colin reached out to me via text. I'll let you know where I was when you text me.
Speaker 1:I was watching the Denver Broncos play this past fall on a Thursday night game with my son. Past fall on a Thursday night game with my son, or Monday night game, I think it was. And I get this text from this guy and he was very, very kind, very cordial, because I put out my text on my cell phone on the On the Line podcast with Brian Stecker, who's going to be on the podcast here soon. And you sent me a super kind email but you had one kind of point of clarification. A super kind email, but you had one kind of point of clarification.
Speaker 1:You were concerned that I was using secular leadership language to explain theological concepts and that was. I was like, oh, that's fascinating, let's, let's get together and talk. And you said, hey, I'm a part of the Wells congregation in Wisconsin, Evangelical Lutheran Synod congregation and I was like, wow, this guy sounds, sounds, fascinating. And then you told me that you me that you're an attorney and man, this is. And then I understood why you care about language so much, which it really matters, Right, so good stuff. Say more about that, Colin. Welcome to the podcast man, Thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much. Yeah, I found out about you guys from on the line and I've listened to you guys ever since. But yeah, I was actually a little bit dismayed when you were like, oh yeah, come on and talk about language usage, because I feel it is actually kind of pedantic and I, even though I'm an attorney, I don't really love to talk about pedantic topics. But, all things considered, this is actually something that is important to me, and I think it's whether or not somebody takes this discussion and changes the way they talk. I don't really care too much, but I just want to give some perspective on some of these things.
Speaker 4:So, as an attorney, I was actually drawn into contract law. I had a background in computer science and so I found contracts to be very fascinating because they're kind of programming for human relationships, and so it's actually fascinating to me in contracts. People think of contracts as onerous and kind of an enslavement to certain terms, but if it's done right, it is actually setting up boundaries in a relationship. It is actually setting expectations for how a relationship is going to progress. And the most important thing with a contract is actually it sets up conflict resolution before conflict takes place, which is really important because once conflict begins, agreeing on how to resolve that conflict goes down the drain right with all of the goodwill, and once insults start getting thrown, it's so hard. I got into contract law. I learned a lot about contract law and in contracts language is everything and, most importantly, it's, like I said, it's expectations. If the parties understand the language of the contract well, they won't need to go to court over it, because they understand what's going on and they, especially Christians, try to abide by their word. And then, of course, language is important to the courts because the courts understand language to be something else. The courts will generally try to understand what the intentions of the parties are, but they fall back upon legal understandings of certain words.
Speaker 4:So after I became a Christian I'm in the middle of law school I started realizing that so much of what I had learned about the world was wrong, obviously. And God introduced me to this wonderful. Well, I, you know, I started reading the Bible and everything, but I was reintroduced to what God was saying and I was like fascinated. I was like this is all, like this is incredible wisdom and just applying to like every facet of life I mean, as a lawyer, I loved Leviticus. We don't need to get into all that, but even I actually learned health law, and so Leviticus was.
Speaker 4:I was shocked at how good the health and sanitation laws were in Leviticus and Leviticus Deuteronomy Numbers they had criminal laws that I think were simpler and better than our criminal laws, but anyway. So I wanted to. I was interested in language because I think you guys are developing Christian leaders in a very you guys are intentional about that and you're doing a lot of great things, and so I think just a little bit of cherry on top or actually more than that, it's a lot of foundation here is using the words that God gives us in the Bible to reinforce biblical principles in your leaders and also draw upon what we learn in the Bible to essentially abide by business principles that are pleasing to God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's good. Very good, that's good, I agree. Tell me that's good. Very good, that's good, I agree. Tell me, tell the story. How'd you come to faith at law school? Like what was that? Can you tell that in kind of a condensed-ish version? Like that's wild, that's awesome, praise.
Speaker 4:God. So I am a recovered alcoholic and let's so you know the, you know the prodigal son. Well, god had given me a great job with Epic and I was a software developer project manager and so I was making a good amount of money. And then I ended up going to law school because I had seen that there were some issues. I originally wanted to help patients developing software tools. Anyway, I found that while I was there I wasn't actually helping the patients as much. So I thought, well, maybe if I'm a lawyer I can help guide these laws and regulations to that, but I'm still living the life of the prodigal son, all things according to the prodigal son.
Speaker 4:And then I got really badly injured due to really bad missteps in my walk as a prodigal son, ended up with a concussion that I think probably should have, maybe should have killed me. God would. I felt that God was. So. I had short-term memory loss for over a month and I the doctors told me it could last weeks or years and I was actually in a recovery group with a guy who had was on like year two of short-term memory loss and essentially I knew that if this persisted I would have to drop out of law school and, frankly, I wouldn't be able to do very much intellectual work at all. And so, and I don't know, I really think God stepped into my life at that point and so I started.
Speaker 4:Just, I couldn't listen to music because of the head trauma. I couldn't watch TV or stuff on my phone, so I was supposed to, I had to, like, stare at the wall. So in staring at the wall I would sometimes pray, like I hadn't prayed seriously in a while, and so I pray. And then I once I started being comfortable listening to things, I started listening to the Bible, and God had put some miracles in my life, you know. And then, oh yeah, short-term memory loss, my memory came back like fully about 10 days before finals started, and in law school, back like fully about 10 days before finals started, and in law school, finals are the like all of your grade. So it was, it was a real miracle what happened. And so I was originally planning to be a health law attorney, a business law attorney, and still still am. But I, but you know, god has called me in a direction and I, you know, I just feel like I gotta, I gotta go where he calls me.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so is there someone that discipled you, told you the story, or is it solely through just listening to the Bible You're like? I think Jesus is the way the truth and the life I grew up.
Speaker 4:I grew up in the LCMS church, so I grew up in the. In the LCMS church I fell away in in undergrad, where a lot of people, probably for the same reasons as other people, and so I was very familiar with the stories or the accounts. So I had actually even started reading the Bible again in 2018, before I started law school, just because I was wrestling with my alcoholism and trying to figure out what was know, what was going on in the world. And there, between that and when God started really moving in my life, I had some bizarre experiences which is a story for another time that had convinced me that evil, like evil, was real, like you know, some experiences with, like you know, like, probably demons, so anyway, you know. So once those doors start opening, you're like I got to, I got to figure out you know I got demons, so anyway, you know.
Speaker 4:So, once, once those doors start opening, you're like I gotta, I gotta figure out. You know, I gotta figure out what the truth is here, what's going on, and clearly we know that that God is real and that that Jesus is our savior, and yeah, so, and that, yeah, amazing bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, welcome back. Welcome back home, man. We celebrate and welcoming you back and now using your vocation, I should have asked are you married with children or anything?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was one of the miracles God blessed me with. You know, when the prodigal son comes home, he puts a robe over his son and puts a ring on his finger. Well, god, you know, god gave me the woman who is my wife. So, yeah, we're, we're happily married. We got a two year old daughter. She's well. She's turning two in a couple of weeks. So congrats, man. Yeah, that's. That's been a huge blessing.
Speaker 1:What a what a celebration. And now getting to use your, your newfound Holy Spirit inspired passion for the gospel to change your community and to change families. And we're going to get to that. But let's go into. You wanted to make sure we talked about Jesus as leader connected to John 17. Want to take us into that and we'll use that as a launching off point for our conversation. So I don't know exactly what I said on Brian. I said a lot of things. It was like a two hour. We just kept going.
Speaker 4:But if you even remember some of the things that I had said, they were like, I don't know if I'd there were a couple words that I think could be discussed a little bit better. And not that it's your fault, you know that you've done anything wrong. I just, you know, let's sharpen the saw a little bit, you know. So you were discussing brand. At one point you guys were in the middle of a rebrand or you guys had helped someone with a rebrand or something like that. And you know I studied a lot of IP law. Brand is really important Trademarks, trade names and you know that it's important to maintain your creative works. If they're under your brand, you want to make sure that they're represented well and things like that. But you know, as I read the Bible, god actually seems to have a different way of discussing brand. So God does talk about brand a lot, as you guys know. You know the word he uses for his brand right, oh, it's name. He says his name, yeah and so and so he. I mean, and of course that's. You know there's the Hebrew word for name and the Greek word for name. But you know, you know the new king james version, um translates it to name, as well as the most of the other translations do too, and so we say in the lord's prayer hallowed be your name. You know, essentially your name is holy and um, I think brand is. Actually. In modern english, brand is actually a closer approximation to name than than what use as name. We consider name to be like a label, whereas brand is so much more. It is a reputation, although brand usually comes with a little bit of artistic thing, and it usually I don't. The reason why I think Bibles don't use the word brand is because brand is also associated with like changing a lot. Like you can change your brand, like oh, we're this brand today and then we change our brand, et cetera. So name is, you know God's name is permanent, but it is good, and you know we, if we just swap out the word name for brand, like your brand is holy, you know your brand is good, you know we trust in your brand. You know things like that. It's like if you go to the store and you're trying to choose between, let's say, the most important toilet paper of your life, and you know that there's one brand that is like you know they have always done good, you're like, well, yeah, we'll pick that brand. You know your brand is good, your brand is holy. But then where this comes in and being really important is you can start reading how God uses our brand, our name, in the Bible.
Speaker 4:So I'm going to read really quickly Psalm 23. You guys are probably familiar. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want he makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. So that last verse there, he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Speaker 4:I'm going to just read one other thing here Jeremiah 14, verse 19 through 21. I'm just going to kind of pull half of 19, half of 21. We look for peace, but there was no good, and for the time of healing and there was trouble. We acknowledge, o Lord, our wickedness and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against you. Do not abhor us for your namesake, do not disgrace the throne of your glory. So they're saying there do not abhor us for your namesake. And in the previous one he said he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake Place, the name name with brand for his brand's sake.
Speaker 4:Why is brand so important here is because Psalm 23, david is the head of his brand on earth at this point in time. And in Jeremiah, the people who Jeremiah is lamenting over are the people who are under his brand. So what they're saying is like God, this is your brand, we are part of your brand. We have messed up, but we still want to see your brand glorified. And so, because we're part of that which they're not giving, they're not, you know, giving into any judgment of how God has chosen such awful brand bearers. But you know, god chose me as well, so it's like, you know I'm. I'm not looking that deep into that either, so, but you know says, for your brand sake, you know, for your name sake. And so as we read the Bible, we can see how even Jesus talks about God's brand, god's name, and so as we pursue branding in our churches, christian businesses, you see how God sees name Also really quickly on that, brands change.
Speaker 4:So we say, well, god's name doesn't change. However, god changes the names of those who he calls. So Abram, his name is changed to Abraham. Jacob, his name is changed to Israel. Jacob was a deceptive, wily guy. Israel was the father of Israel, of course, and God had changed him after wrestling with him and changing who he was. So, actually, jacob's brand literally changed when he became Israel. And then, of course, people know, simon became Peter. Jesus is like oh, you're not Peter anymore, we're going to call you the rock. So Saul becomes Paul, exactly. And, yeah, james and John become the sons of thunder. And so Jesus does actually change our brand when we, when we come into business, into living with him.
Speaker 1:Well, I would say, baptism is where we get a brand new name. Right, god places his name upon us, that's. That's the audacious reality of our brand change from sinner into saint by grace, through faith, jack any response A baptismal name to go along with baptism, right?
Speaker 3:That that's really when we think of the time of that name being applied to us. So this is fascinating, you know, when you, if you think about the petitions of the Lord prayer, you say hallowed be thy name, that makes sense. If you said hallowed be thy brand, that would seem terrible. But if you say hallowed be thy reputation, that actually makes a lot of sense. That now you, now you have basically a very similar meaning in that, and I think that's really what we've always hoped to press in on with the concept of brand is that brand is not about logo per se, although logos can communicate a lot, right, really, what it is brand should be almost all of the times. Thought about what your reputation is. The way that we measure brand is by what people say about us, right, and how Jesus measured it. He actually measured it, he asked the disciples what are the people saying about me?
Speaker 3:Right, and now you hear all these stories. Some people say you're Elijah All these, you know. Some people say you're John the Baptist Right, so there's this brand floating out there and Jesus actually is is revealing that through the conversation, what this current brand is. And then he asks them what do you say? So, what is the brand now of the disciples? Right, what is it that they're saying about him? Right, that you're the Messiah, right? So I think that's a really fascinating way to think about brand and maybe actually does help us as church leaders know that brand is actually a type of reality that the early church dealt with, that Jesus dealt with as he was discipling people and you know, starting the very beginning of his church, his ministry on earth, and what we deal with as church leaders. The church has a brand, right? You could say that the global church has a brand. Certain denominations have a brand.
Speaker 3:It's interesting hearing people talk about like our own, our own, like the LCMS. What is our brand? Right? There's people who are very conservative Bible believers that have a very, very high view of the LCMS. This is fascinating. I've heard it represented this way A very, very high view of the LCMS and its view of preserving the inerrancy of scripture, but then also, like kind of questioning maybe, some of our hospitality with how we deal with people online. Right, well, and that's that's, that's part of our brand now, right, because that's what sometimes people are saying about us, right, well, so interestingly enough, you said it would seem weird to say hallowed be your brand or brand.
Speaker 4:Interestingly enough, you said it would seem weird to say hallowed be your brand or hallowed be your brand. But think about so. When you say hallowed be your brand, it's very weird because it creates this corporate language. But here's the thing is you, we are under God's brand, just as the Israelites were, just as David was, and he says for your namesake, and so you know something to consider. Is you know you? He says for your name's sake, and so you know something to consider. Is you know you? You were obviously talking about your church's brand, your denominations brand, and you know how you, as a leader in that, represent that. But you have to remember you know how it'd be your brand in the Lord's prayer. It's like we have to recognize that we represent God's brand on earth and it's kind of saying, like God, we are striving to keep your reputation holy in our lives and as we represent ourselves to the community.
Speaker 3:And the early church had a brand and it had two simultaneous brands at the same time. One brand was these are the people that are failing to glorify the emperor, and the other brand is here's the people that love each other. Isn't that interesting that both of these brands existed at the same time and society was wrestling with these two things? That was part of the church's brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, going back to Jesus, what got Jesus killed is he connected his brand, his name, so intimately to the father's name, to Yahweh's name. That's the audacity of the dual nature of Christ. At the very same time, how can a man claim to be God? Well, this man came down because the brand of Israel, carrying the message of God's love to the nations, has been compromised. They've taken on the brand of other gods when there is only one, when there is only one God. So I'm curious, colin, and you can quote me, I'm always learning. So what did I say on the line that led you to say we could be a little tighter? Did I just not make the logical jump from what people say about you, your reputation, when you're not in the room, back to back to the Old Testament, because I agree with everything we've said up to this point.
Speaker 4:No, actually. So that wasn't actually the thing that got my gears turning. That was something that I just think we could sharpen the saw Okay cool.
Speaker 1:What did I say? That got your gears going.
Speaker 4:So the thing that you said that got my gears turning is when you talked about your leadership accelerator that you had put together, and that was a while back, so I don't know if you still call it a leadership accelerator.
Speaker 4:But, having been in the startup space, I w, I was I in law school, I was working for the law and entrepreneurship clinic, which worked with a lot of small businesses and especially works kind of in collaboration with an accelerator slash incubator out of Madison, and so you use the term accelerator and and I didn't know if you were using the Silicon Valley term accelerator or if you were using what you thought accelerator meant. But essentially, long story short, accelerator. So in Silicon Valley, like the high tech space, you've got incubators and accelerators. Incubators are the things that help a new business bring a product or service to market, and an accelerator goes from entry into the market to expansion of the market or into the market. So when you said a leadership accelerator now I don't know a ton about it I kind of said to myself does he actually mean something that is like an accelerator for people bringing their leadership to market or something, or is this just an accelerated leadership course?
Speaker 3:No, it's actually we are deriving the Silicon Valley model here. Now, when we started using that, the term incubator wasn't as common. It was kind of like just the it was. We were using accelerator as the blanket term, but you would probably say that there was a combination of incubator style learnings as well as accelerator style stuff. Depending on is very contextual, because we would get cohorts of churches together and they're all in different levels of their leadership, development, maturity in terms of their systems and culture and structure, and some some people are starting from zero and they're learning from the more mature churches. Some of the more mature churches already have something in place and they're doing refinement work on it. So we just generically use the term accelerator because we're using a lot of the techniques that they would use in the Silicon.
Speaker 3:Valley accelerator to do that methodologies.
Speaker 4:But I guess you know I this struck me because I am, like I said, I'm familiar with those and the thing that always, you know, I was taught when I started learning Scrum, you know, essentially it said your management, the tools and the management style should align. So if you change your tools, the management style needs to change. If the management style changes, the tools need to change as well, and so tools are always changing. So you think management style changes a lot too, and so I guess. But from my perspective is, you know, these things change a lot, and I just think I don't have a super clear answer on this and I was really praying about this to try to bring the answer. I don't have the answer, but I have a lot here which I want to go over. But you know, when we, when we rely on Silicon Valley terminology, techniques, while they are generally better than you know, there's a ton of things that the church just doesn't understand, like a lot of times in these development spaces there, yes, they're reading the Bible, but their understanding of things is like pretty minimal. So you know they they're the things that are in the Bible that should be instructing them on how to lead are just absent. So you know, silicon Valley techniques are better than nothing, but I think we can do better in developing Christian principles that meet the same goals, meet the same principles.
Speaker 4:And actually, one thing that you guys were talking about with Brian Stecker or Tim you were talking about with Brian Stecker is he was talking about OKR objectives and key results. Right, and there are other terminologies for this, like when we were doing some. Like one time in the conversation they used the STAR method, situation, task, action, results. But what I'm highlighting here is there's a bunch of different words that are used, a bunch of different principles and stuff, and if we lean on biblical principles, it's like the wise man building his house on the rock. Right, these words are going to change the world is going to change the way that they use their terms accelerator and incubator. You're saying incubator wasn't widely used at that time, but you know it is. Maybe it is now, but in 20 years it will be something else and if your name stays as an accelerator, they're going to be like what, yeah, yeah, the brand of it.
Speaker 3:you know we have to well that.
Speaker 3:That gets to the point of it. I would say the most important thing as a principle that we teach people in our accelerators, or whatever we choose to brand them in the future, is the we call it the build measure learn mindset right. And so the whole point is that within the scope of ministry, you have a lot of freedom to build programs, to understand what are the most effective ways that the church can collaborate to reach people, be able to share the gospel with more people, build relationships with more people, engage with people more effectively. These are all areas of adiaphora and a lot of times, a lot of the times, the way that things used to work in terms of how we build fellowship and reach communities and communicate about certain topics. They work for a season, they don't work for another season. And with the change in culture, the change in technology, it seems like things are changing dramatically and we have to build churches and ministries that are dynamic enough that the eternal, unchanging word of the gospel can be applied in a more flexible way to people, right?
Speaker 4:So Especially around that where there is flexibility, because God puts different gifts and different people in different places. I actually want to go to one of the answers that I found was John 17. Okay, john 17,. Jesus is praying at the Garden of Gethsemane, which is it's amazing that we were given this time to talk over Holy Week, given this time to talk over Holy Week, but because this is Jesus praying at the Garden of Gethsemane Thursday night after his last meal, so I'm just going to read it. Actually, let me just give a little bit of background. So what I found in John 17 is Jesus, in John 17, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Speaker 4:He is doing a project handoff to God. He is doing a lot of things here, but one of the things he's doing is he's doing a project handoff to God. He is doing a lot of things here, but one of the things he's doing is he's doing a project handoff to God, and I'll highlight these points. But in this project handoff that he does, he does an executive level summary over his mission and you'll see that he starts off with resources and objectives and goals and he goes into results and then he goes into goals and future goals big picture goals as well. And of course people don't see it like this, and it's best you don't need to see it like this. It's only important for people who would find value in it. But let me just read it and just kind of go through it here a bit.
Speaker 4:And this is the New King James Version. Jesus spoke these words, lifted up his eyes to heaven and said Father, the hour has come, glorify your son, that your son also may glorify you, as you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him and this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Hold on right there, I'm just going to pause quickly. So this is him. The hour has come, you know. Glorify your son. That your son may glorify you. You know he's saying the hour's come, I move on to you know, being the sacrifice and starting on the next part of this ministry, this thing that you have for me. And so he just kind of gives an opening there and then he says I have glorified you on the earth, I have finished the work which you have given me to do and now, oh, father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me and they have kept your word. Now they have.
Speaker 4:So this is objective starting resources objective. And he says you know, I am successful, this objective has been completed. So he then says I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. Just going to stop right there, he says I pray for them, really quickly. Pray also means request. I pray for them, I you them, I seek blessings for them, I pray. He says I do not pray for the world, but for those you have given me. So he's saying specifically right now, I'm just talking about these guys. All right, now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world and I come to you, holy Father, keep through your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we are, while I was with them in the world. Wait, hold on really quickly. So, um, let's see, okay, no, I'm going to keep going, sorry. Okay, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me, I have kept, and none of them is lost, except the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Speaker 4:So there, he's actually going more into the results there and actually, as you would see, in a high level or in any executive summary, you say, okay, there seems to be a little failure here. I've delivered all of them to you. But he's saying but whenever you do a summary, whenever you're doing these accounting, you say, okay, there is something, there's a blip in the results here. Let's explain that. He says there's one person who was not delivered. That's the son of perdition, that's Judas, and it was because prophecy said that. So it's actually fulfillment of prophecy. It's not actually a failure, and that's what you do in project management. You say there's a blip here, seems like it may seem like a problem, but we're actually blah, blah, blah. This is why it's not really a problem, it's being taken care of. So he's doing that there. He's giving more discrete results. So all right.
Speaker 4:But now I come to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves, I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world and for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. There he is saying. He is saying, okay, next steps for them. I'm sending them out into the world. God, they've done a great job so far, which just a kind of a side note there.
Speaker 4:This is Thursday night, after the Passover meal. They have not done a good job and in fact they are not going to do a good job the next day either. You know, there's a little bit here in terms of leadership, where Jesus is saying he is nonetheless praising his subordinates here, his disciples, even though they're still a mess, but they're a mess in progress, and he's praising them to the higher up, to God, the Father, but anyway, he says here, even though they've done good work, god, their time's not done. Don't snatch them out of the world. I just pray that as you guide them, you keep them from the evil one. I'm sending them out into the world and I pray that you bless them in that mission. All right, so then he goes on and says so.
Speaker 4:Then he continues praying for the big picture goals. He says I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, father, are in me and I in you. That they also may be one in us. That the world may believe that you sent me and the glory which you gave me I have given them. That they may be one just as we are one, I in them and you in me. That they may be made perfect in one. And that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me, father. I desire that they also, who you gave me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous father, the world has not known you, but I have known you and these have known that you sent me and I have declared them. I have declared to them your name, your brand, of course, and will declare it that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.
Speaker 4:So that last couple paragraphs there he says okay, beyond these next goals and objectives, we're broadening. And I'm now praying, I'm now requesting God that in these future goals, that you also carry out this blessing with those who come after them. And he says you know, the mission was that these people that come to know me come to know the Father, that they be with us in heaven. And so you know. He says you know, as a result of that, I ask for that as well. And so, essentially, this last part here is he talks about bigger goals and the bigger, wider next steps. So, anyway, that's the end of John 17. I think it is a. Really. You know, I was praying about how are we going to? What is a? Is there any good role model in the Bible about you know how to give account of projects or do project management? And I think John 17 is is a really great, perfect model, perhaps Very good.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks for the devotional, colin. I was just like taking that in on Holy Week. I'm going to be telling a lot of people that story and the thing that always strikes me about John 17,. Jesus talks about joy and Jesus talks about love. Those are the postures of the heart of the disciples and Jesus who, for the joy set before him, we were his joy and those who would come. And Jesus talks about love. Those are the postures of the heart of the disciples and Jesus who, for the joy set before him, we were his joy and those who would come after us because of our proclaimed word would find that joy as they believe in what Jesus came to do.
Speaker 1:And I sometimes struggle with and we talked about it a lot, you've heard us, if you've listened to us at all the confession of the word disconnected from the sending nature of God. And I think we can tighten up our language as confessional Lutherans who confess a pure doctrine and the purpose of that pure doctrine. And I think John 17 is a wonderful, wonderful place for us to unite because that's Jesus's word. Right? This is a podcast of Unite Leadership Collective and we.
Speaker 1:He's made his outcomes clear of what he sees. The outcomes are very clear and there's more people who need that. They all may be one Like what's the? What's the end goal? It's that every person would come to know the saving love of God. Who did Jesus die for? He died for the sins of the entire world. And so, as our posture is as Christians all of the baptized, in all of our different vocations is it for one more, one more multiple families coming?
Speaker 1:And you see this engage in the book of Acts 3,000 in one day, whole households being changed, like the vision that Jesus left in John 17, inspired by and, I would say, accelerated by, the Holy Spirit, moved the people of God in mighty mission to make him known, even at the loss of life. And we see that very early in the story Like, this is life and death stuff here, and the Christians are like, yeah, exactly, eternity is on the line and God has come and he has spoken, and all we want to do is get his word in all of our different vocations out into the world. This is the charge, and it's not just 17, right, it's at the very end, or the new beginning in the Great Commission and in then Jesus's words right before his ascension, you will be martyred, witnesses, jerusalem, judea, samaria, to the ends of the earth. Like the vision that Jesus left was so profound, and I guess, if you're going to summarize one of our points of emphasis on our podcast over a long period of time is leaders need to be aligned by the Spirit's power to the mighty mission vision of God who is going out into the world to make him known.
Speaker 1:There are so many Collins out in the world right now, bro, that are wondering is the church for me? Does the church have a place for me? And obviously the answer is yes, because Jesus has a place for you and we are his living manifestation on the earth. Hopefully, our posture is love, and the outcome of the love of God for us is robust joy that nothing in this world can steal from us. So thank you for taking us through that devotional call and response.
Speaker 4:Yeah, actually you got me really fired up on that, as you do when you get on a roll there. You got me really fired up. You were saying that you know that we must proclaim Jesus Christ, and one thing that has been interesting to me is how much we can harvest in our normal jobs. And when we talk about that people think, oh well, I can just bring my coworkers to church and stuff like that. But there's actually a different thing we can do here is if we are working for Christian organizations, then church doesn't end on Sunday. It actually I do with my paralegals and other attorneys in collaboration. We do devotionals throughout the week. We do Monday, wednesday, friday devotionals in the morning and we kind of make it some homework that the leaders will try to bring a passage for every devotion and God speaks to us through those devotions and then when we start our day with that, god's mission for us in that day becomes a lot clearer. And there's a lot more you can do in professing Christ to the marketplace when you have the full support of your institution, your company, your organization to handle money the way Jesus wants you to handle money organization to. You know to handle money the way Jesus wants you to handle money to, you know, be able to give your clients the treatment that Jesus wants us to give them. And then, especially when you're serving Christians, having the biblical clarity to not just serve the client but serve the client according to what God wants for them. Because you know there are so many.
Speaker 4:You know when we're talking with our brothers and sisters in church, you know there are so many. You know when we're talking with our brothers and sisters in church, you know if they start talking about something that they want to do, that they really want to do, but you're like you know what that sounds dangerous or like that doesn't seem like a good route to go, we would say hold on, why don't you do this instead? And so you know something that I think has been awesome, for what God has called me into is when is as I, as I counsel Christians in their legal struggles, I can tell them, like I know, that this is what you say you want. But you know, let's talk about it, let's pray about it and let's consider what God wants. And you know the Bible says that this is what he wants us to do in these roles. This is how he wants us to relate to others, what he wants us to do in these roles. This is how he wants us to relate to others.
Speaker 4:And and you know, in and when you start doing that, then you say you know, you see that, oh, there's a big trial coming up and it looks awful, and you don't know how you're going to get through it. And so you know you. Then you can pray, you know you pray with the clients as long as you need to, and just you know. Pray God, deliver. Deliver us, because according to your brand, according to your name, according to your brand, why are you setting us on this mission? Why do you have this in our lives? You clearly aren't just setting us up for failure. That's not your brand. You're setting us up to do great things. And so deliver us God, because this seems treacherous. So having that Christian business, that in the marketplace Christian, whether it be nonprofit business or, you know, church as well it gives you a lot more. It gives you all the arrows in the quiver to proclaim Christ into the marketplace.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, in the law right, there's opportunities to cause harm to another person through a legal process. There's opportunities to take advantage of other people through a legal process. There's opportunities to take advantage of other people through a legal process, and I think it's powerful that there would be Christians serving in that role, saying wait a minute, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do something.
Speaker 4:Right. Well, I mean, think about. Think about this you, if you're getting into a contractual relationship to take advantage of somebody, right, it's clearly not a long term relationship, because once you take advantage of them, it's clearly not a long-term relationship, because once you take advantage of them, you are going to destroy the relationship and you're going to take from them in a way that is detrimental to them. So it's not when you have mutually beneficial relationships, both parties grow beneficially and actually develop more business and more business together.
Speaker 4:So one thing that we actually do, you know, reading the Bible, I see 1 Corinthians 6, brethren do not sue brethren. And it says why don't we sue brethren? Well, it's because God has given you all the wisdom, like he has given you the purest wisdom, the best wisdom. Why do you think that a judge will be better to resolve your conflicts than somebody in your church? The judge hasn't been given the word of God, he hasn't been given wisdom. It's your church. So why do you think a judge is going to solve your problems better than somebody I've given you in your church?
Speaker 4:So just really quickly on that, in my contracts that I craft between Christians, I put a mandatory Christian mediation clause in there I mean, of course, assuming that's what they want. But mediation is not. The outcome of mediation is not mandatory. But it is mandatory and it's held by law that if you agree to that then before you can take matters to courts you must go, in this case, before a Christian mediator under we specify certain Christian mediation standard. But yeah, forces them to abide by 1 Corinthians 6.
Speaker 3:There's an attorney I work with. You know, obviously the institution of the church has to deal with legal documents and all that kind of stuff, just like any other business does, and he's a very devout Christian and I remember I was working on the topic of liability waivers and he gave me some really wise counsel because he said, hey, you could write a waiver and something could happen to somebody and they're just completely out of luck. But you guys have wonderful insurance. Wouldn't you want to at least let them be able to submit against your insurance? You know, like that's what it's there for. So we wrote it that they had the ability to claim against our insurance and that liability waivers were above what we've provided insurance for. And that was, I don't know, that a person apart from a Christian worldview would have maybe put that as the priority when they're thinking about that type of stuff, and I really appreciated that he had that mindset in there.
Speaker 4:There was a yeah, go ahead, colin. Response. I don't have a ton of response to that. I think that that's really good though.
Speaker 1:I'll pivot us just a bit to double down. There are a number of business owners right now in the insurance space and think of Marty O'Horn Jack in our world right With great business practice, ethical business practices. I partner as a coach with a man, john Carlson, who runs Christian Brothers Automotive and it changes the way they collaborate. Which that business has exploded across the country. All of their owner operators are like Chick-fil-A Christians and when they get together at their conventions there's robust time in the word.
Speaker 1:He just returned from his national conference and he said it was so spiritually. Jesus said it was unbelievable. He said Mazda down the road, not that Mazda corporate, but the Mazda dealer down the road that we just got a car for my son, but the Mazda dealer down the road that we just got a car for my son. I heard that they have a business owner that's doing all the things that you're talking about with all of his folks. He has a story. He was a prodigal at one time, came through a recovery journey and is now doing daily devotionals with his staff Not mandatory, not everybody comes, but if they want to come, come talk about Jesus and that's going to govern the way we treat our employees treat our customers and the deals that we make are going to be fair and ethical, and that's all that we experienced. And praise, praise be to God, jack. Any follow up?
Speaker 3:on that. Yeah, one. One more thing I'm going to. I'm going to recommend a book by a non-Lutheran, so just be careful, but I would say it's written very, very well. Jd Greer talks about empowering business leaders. There's places in the world that missionaries cannot go, that business leaders are able to go, and they bring their faith with them when they go and do business development is to see Christian business owners and business leaders as missionaries in the workplace and really think that God is calling you to be able to share the gospel within these areas of influence that you have that we may never have. Right? God has made those people your neighbor, and they're not the pastor's neighbor, they're your neighbor, right. And so now he's called you to care for those people. And how does the church then? How do Christian leaders, how do pastors, think about equipping those people so they can enter into those circumstances? Really well equipped, right?
Speaker 1:Well, jack that's the yeah, we don't think that way often, and that, to go back to land the accelerator plane, and we can definitely look at language. What I love about our accelerators is one bringing churches and leaders together to learn with one another as we try to go on mission. And then we've identified a framework, which is the church engagement model. You can come up with a number of different frameworks and whatever, but to not have some sort of a way in which we're going right now about it, and I've made the case that because I would say the evangelical world, and again, we agree on Jesus.
Speaker 1:We don't agree necessarily on the sacraments, and that's a significant, significant disagreement, right, but we in the marketplace, as it relates to brand and brand awareness, they do an exponentially better job than a lot of our churches, and so the five jobs of the church that we teach are attract, get retained, disciple, multiply. And on the other end of multiply, this is where we can cast a bigger vision for those that are in the marketplace, not just to partner with us, to serve, but to be a leader, to explore creative ways that the church can partner with them. This is discipleship, right, to give them more of the words, more training, more. What does it look like potentially and I've done this with a number of different business leaders for me to gather to have what is, in essence? I'm not a pastor, I'm not ordained, but I'm pastoring these folks who are on the way to Jesus or following Jesus and things. So how does the church leader start to partner with them as they start to lead people in the word?
Speaker 1:So anyway, I just love the accelerator because we're bringing churches together for shared learning and the outcomes have been extraordinary for the advancement of the gospel Colin.
Speaker 4:Well, ultimately, you know, a pastor is a shepherd, right, that's what the word means. And whenever you're a leader in the marketplace or, you know, in your mission nonprofit church, you are a shepherd to those who God has given you to lead. You know we, you know anybody who leads other people needs to be grounded in the word and driven by the Holy Spirit, because that is how people see what the kingdom of God is and is like. And so when you talk about, you know what things we can do in the marketplace I know that. You know that you said there are these disagreements with other evangelical churches and things like that.
Speaker 4:But so many people in the world Christians and people in the world lament that there was this time in America when you could trust one another, that people wouldn't just rip you off here and there and stuff like that, and they say, well, we should just get back to that. And they come up with all these different ways and how you can accomplish it. But that comes from Christianity and it comes from Christianity in the marketplace. So, you know, if you know, when, when you have people who are lamenting how everybody seems like they're trying to rip them off, like, yeah, that's the way the world is like that. Like what do you expect? The Bible literally tells you this.
Speaker 4:Anybody who's been in the world. You go in there. You see that the world is like this. He's got these great artists under his label. Like, listen to good Christian music. Like, work with and support the Christians in the marketplace and like, and you'll see God's kingdom the way the Bible talks about it, the way that you know. You hear the rose tinted glasses of the, of older people saying you know this high trust society. Like you can have that high trust society with Christians. You know resolving conflicts in the church according to biblical principles. So I just think that's really important too, especially for people who aren't called to be leaders.
Speaker 1:And I agree, and it's going to be messy, you know, because people are very. It's not going to be perfect. No, and and when you hang out, I love your. Your point about the disciples were still kind of a hot mess at the end of John 17. They needed the Holy Spirit to come and to reveal all truth to them. Until that point, all they care about is safety and self-preservation and they just didn't see. It's fascinating, closing comments. Here Jesus helps us see the world clearly, and then he helps us see the world clearly, and then he helps us see that there are many lost sheep, there are many prodigals waiting for a father to run to them with arms open wide and to celebrate Welcome home, son, I've been waiting for you to come home and I'm hoping that in all of our different circles of the Christian expression we can unite around that.
Speaker 4:Go ahead, colin. There's also a lot of older sons who have seen these prodigals. Maybe they've seen them, maybe they haven't. And they said you never slaughtered the fattened calf for me. And the father says all you need to do is ask. So there are a lot of older sons who are here saying the world doesn't look the way God promised me it should look and all you need to do is ask. You need to step up, you need to ask and step up and seek that in God's kingdom, I think.
Speaker 1:Colin, I'm so glad you reached out to me and I loved getting to know you and I knew it'd be a fun conversation today. I knew I'd learn something and hopefully we clarified some things. I think your conversation around brand and name is very helpful for us moving forward and you have our word. We're word people here, colin, you know. I mean everything should be baked in the word and if you can't defend it, connect it to the word in the way of Jesus. Like, what are we doing? And words really matter and words can be a springboard. Jesus uses words that were in the culture to tell a higher story or a grounding or meta story, right, the greatest story of all time, the love of God for his fallen, rebellious creation. And so I think there can be freedom in using words to tell a story, but the ultimate story that is told better be God's story, connected to his never changing words. So praise be to God. Colin, if people want to connect with you, how can they do so?
Speaker 4:Well, let's see they can connect with me on LinkedIn, I think would be a good place to start. I am not going to give out my phone number or email. That's all right.
Speaker 4:As much as you do that and I love that you do that. I think you are a very courageous person and I think, like I said, I love your podcast. I'm flattered that you even, you know, had me on. Hey, man, I don't usually get I don't get asked to come on after I, you know, send people criticism to their podcast, but they can connect with me on LinkedIn and I really appreciate what you guys are doing, and so it's just been an absolute honor to be a part of this and look forward to more content and leadership development from you guys.
Speaker 1:Hey, let's go. Let's go Always more to learn and praying for you and your mission and your congregation, and for our Wells brothers and sisters as well. This is lead time. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in these podcasts, and we are honored when people have a difference of opinion and would love to come on and talk about it, because every time we do, we find way more things that we agree on, namely Christ and Him crucified, than we disagree on. I'm always looking to learn. It's a good day, go and make it a great day. Wonderful to meet you, colin. God bless you guys.
Speaker 2:You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week.