Episode 61 - The Scoreboard of the Monday Church with Tom Nelson of Made to Flourish
Tom Nelson is the visionary pastors of a multi-site church called Christ Community in Kansas City, and he’s been widely recognized in the Faith Driven Entrepreneur community for his book, Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work. He also serves on the board of The Gospel Coalition and is President of Made to Flourish—a network of pastors trying to establish what it looks like to be a Monday church. What we love about Tom, and why we had him on today, is that he is working on a replicable model for what it looks like for the average church to affirm and encourage entrepreneurs.
We are always looking at how faith and entrepreneurship go hand in hand, and generally, we speak to entrepreneurs about their work and how their faith is involved. On this episode, Tom helps us look at this same topic from the other perspective—he explains first about his faith and then how it affects his work. What he shares in the process is a helpful theology of work, reminding us that we serve “an entrepreneurial God.”
Even while providing a theological framework, Tom also shares what it was like starting a church from the ground up—an entrepreneurial journey all its own. He shares how this experience shaped him and how it informs the way he interacts with entrepreneurs as a pastor. He introduces us to the idea of workplace visits and what it means for us to be willing to step out of our own comfort zone to meet someone where they are. As he says himself, “It’s important to be conversant in the world of others.” In this podcast, you’ll see that Tom not only believes that, but he lives it out as well.
What Tom shared with us on the podcast was both illuminating and exciting. His work has the potential to impact the way churches approach work, and it also helps entrepreneurs understand how work and worship can intersect.
We hope you enjoy this episode and pray that it encourages you on your journey!
Useful Links:
Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry [00:02:25] Tom, I'd love for you to start us off with the podcasts and talking about the book, Work Matters. And tell us your forgiveness story. That's baked into that. You know, as business leaders non-surprise, I know sometimes it can be really hard charging and blazing trails and it's difficult to see where we've missed things and ask forgiveness. One of the things that I love most about the book in your story is just the humility that you bring into this. Can you just start off and there's so many different places we want to take this conversation. Let's start off with the forgiveness story and tell us more about the book.
Tom [00:02:56] Yeah, well, Henry and Khomeinist, great to be with you. And thank you for that. Yeah. I mean, my story is I was asked for several years. I went to seminary. I got a business background with seminary and started a church from ground up. So I had a faith, entrepreneurial journey. We started in our apartment now 30 years ago, which is a while ago. But five years into my pastoral work, I really came the realization that I'd missed something really important. And I called it. And I've written on this called Pastoral malpractise. What I realized was that God had called me as a pastor to equip people for the majority of their life and not the minority. And yet my scorecard, what I thought about, I was much more concerned about how well I did on Sunday than my people did on Monday. And this came out of theological conviction. I mean, studying Genesis, I, my Hebrew lover, the Torah reformer, I bring all my goodness, this is so long story short, as I realize our theological conviction that I was doing what I called the majority minority disparity followers, I was saying majority my time as a pastor, I mean, sadly, but true equipping God's people for the slimmest minority of our life. My scorecard was really how well I did on Sunday night while my people got on my bike and it hit me hard. I mean, over time and I realized that, hey, I've got to change. Our culture has got to change. Our church's mission has got to change. Our scorecards got to change. I really need to be about life discipleship. So actually, I talk to my elders and leaders. We were need to look at it theologically, but actually stand before my congregation one day. And you could have heard a pin drop. You can imagine when I said I need to make a confession. Right.
[00:04:30] Because tragically, often that moral propriety or financial office. That's right. It's like so you could hear a pin drop. And I paused.
[00:04:40] I said, I need to make a confession. I need your forgiveness. And I wanted it explained. They had trusted me not only to teach them and to lead them theologically and pastorally, but to equip them with my role was to put them and as I said, for the majority, their life, because of inadequate theology, I had an inadequate pastoral paradigm that led to poor pastoral practices and anemic culture and mission. I mean, a lot of good things. So we were a good church. They were really surprised, but they knew it came from a theological conviction and not sad, not a church growth. Sad that the latest thing it was built around the text of how God created us in this plan of redemption, so founded in work and the importance of work and calling. So anyway, all that to say is that I did confess that asserts forgiveness that I'd sell them to or cook them for the majority of their life. But my own vocation, I wasn't doing what God ultimately called me to do. I was preaching sermons. You're all that. So all that to say. Yeah. I mean, a pretty big shift. And the congregation was gracious. And I was grateful that my wife and I started price communities. We're just two of us. So we had a front row seat to this redemptive drama. And people trusted us because they knew we wanted to do what was right. But that made a major shift. That is a profound transformation in my life, our language, our culture, our mission, our priorities and our church over 20 some years. So I'm grateful. God was gracious. My congregation was gracious. And the before and after pictures like night a day. I mean, you like you think about, you know, the way ads, you know, this is someone who's struggling with weight and then they find this diet. Then there was perfect's in person well before and after that dramatic at Christ community, which is. First, I serve in Kansas City, so it's been profoundly transformational.
Henry [00:06:24] So tell us a bit about that. Tell us about some of the stories of transformation that came about. Tell us about some of the before and after.
Tom [00:06:31] Yeah. Well, before I think, first of all, when we ship culture, language changes. So I had inherited and communicated a lot of language that was dichotomous. Other words, we would talk about full time Christian ministry.
[00:06:46] We emphasized clearly those who are called in the five or twenty three world missionaries, pastors. We commissioned pastors, missionaries. We talked about all those kind of things which are good things and missions we support around the world. But we had a language that was unfaithful to the biblical text. We didn't have a seamless, integral language. We had a dichotomous language, our bifurcates language. And it's not up in lots of ways. We've talked about the turnovers, the temperature, all of which are over the. So the sacred versus the secular full time ministry. And that language begins a massively changed because language conveys culture and this language is problematic. So we shift that a lot of language making language police realize what are we saying, you know?
[00:07:28] So the language changed, our discipleship pathways changed, our preaching began to change. Our pastoral prayers began to change. Not only did we connect Sunday to Monday, we can talk more about that. We brought Monday back into Sunday. So the gather experience profoundly focused on the Monday scattering mission.
William [00:07:48] Interesting. Tell me more. So go one layer deeper on that. That's fascinating to me. And I feel like it's something that I hear a lot about, but I'm not sure I've ever heard a practical application of that. You know, how did that actually happen?
Tom [00:08:02] Right. It did. I mean, there was only language being a priest. Different, teach different, pray different. We here's some examples. One of the biggest shifts.
[00:08:10] This was 20 years ago. I mean, when I started as a pastor finishing seminary, I never imagined that a vital part of my pastoral Praxis was workplace visits actually going to my parishioners place of work, assuming the role not only of a shepherd but a sheep of being a learner, not just a teacher, of understanding people's worlds and connecting at that level. When I started Crace community 30 years ago, I would have never imagined workplace visits were as important as a hospital visit. Yet I still do hospital visits. That's part of being a shepherd. But in our culture, my mission, our congregation and many churches now around the country. Workplace visits are a vital part of pastoring the profoundly transformational.
[00:08:51] So not only of pastors do differently things during their week. And we want to give the other example is that Sunday changes one classic example.
[00:08:59] This is happening increasingly around the country as we made a flourish and other organizations as we celebrate Monday, colleagues on Sunday as a part of our literature. So one of things that would be hard to do is to have a thing called this time tomorrow. It's just a brilliant liturgy and it's woven into our list. We do singing, preaching any service every Sunday. But once a month where a clergy person or a pastor invites a congregant member or pressure depending on your tradition upfront and depend on your ecclesial format, there's an interview and the clergy person ask the questions. So the target could be a sound spouse, a retiree, a student or a CEO, a plumber, all the different kinds of colleagues. And they ask three questions. It's the most amazing thing on a Sunday morning because it celebrates our mission. People love this. And it distinguishes our church. By the way, some of us know that this church really knows my world. So these three questions are simply the first question the clergy person asked the parishioner or congregational member is. Tell us what God has called you to do this time tomorrow. Right. It's probably a Sunday should be Monday at 11:00 or something. And they'll talk about their world. Second question is, what are the joys and challenges of being a follower of Jesus where God has called you and they talk about that. And the third question is, how can we pray for you? So the clergy person then pray for that person, but as they do, they raise their head and cut their hand and commission them. And often they'll commission other people in the congregation to stand to in that same calling. But it is a profound liturgy that begins to bring Monday and The Sunday Times giving a couple examples that are really central and practical doubter or transformation of a church to truly a church from Monday and not for Sunday three.
William [00:10:44] And one of the things that you mentioned, as well as commissioning and even commissioning, quote unquote, full time ministry, you know, for a long time. Have you started doing that in your church with different professions potentially? Or just have you thought through that sort of commissioning and realizing that this is hard for me? You know, I heard a mentor one time say something similar, you know, hey, I said in the pews for 30 years, how would I not think those jobs are more important than what I do? I never saw one of me on stage and ever so that he write me say anything about how God was moving in my life or my work. And so I've been on this topic. While I am fascinated by it and seen a few churches start to move towards that, which is, you know, hey, it's accounting season, let's have all the accounts stand up and write Hadera. That's how you do something totally different. But love to hear how that works and.
Henry [00:11:32] How often you don't know you're doing it. Once a month.
Tom [00:11:35] Yeah, well, you know, again, we've been involved with this transformation for quite a while and churches are at different stages of their development. I think we started with, let's say 20 years ago, we started with Labor Day, you know, things that were natural, connecting points to celebrate important callings and priesthood of every believer and the Monday world's that we're in. So, yeah, we start with Labor Day. You know, it's a natural time to a message and talk about work and do some kind of conditioning for work. That's where we started. Then we went to like seasonal days, like, you're right, April 15th, you might mention your council appropriate tax accountants write or have a commission. But like in the fall, often we would do teachers because the school year lunches that we do that a little bit. But this time tomorrow, let's say on once a month, twice a month, covers that beautifully. I mean, we consistently not only care about people's worlds, we pray for them and we commission them in that this time tomorrow segment. So at Grace Community and some other services are doing that, that is both an understanding, a prayer, but also a commissioning for their vocation to make sense. So we will cover retirees, will cover students, dental spouses, CEOs, plumbers. We do that intentionally across the vocational spectrum, pain and non-paid work.
Rusty [00:12:47] That's great. So how did you get your self and your pastoral staff ready and confident? We have lots of pastors that listen to the podcast and there's this. I think one of the reasons that they listen to our podcast is because they're trying to become more well-versed in the language of entrepreneurs, the language of business. You must have been very intentional about that. Can you walk us through those steps?
Tom [00:13:12] Yeah. Can I walk you through some? First of all, I would just say, you know, as a pastor, they all of us who are followers of Jesus. So we're seeking that the holy scriptures matter from Genesis to the maps. And so a rich biblical theology is what animates this transformation. When I began to look more carefully at the biblical text, no central work is from Genesis to creation. That's where I did a message series and work matters. My first book on this topic came out. It was really driven by the importance of work in the field, logical story of the Bible, something for staff and leaders. Really, the depth of the foundation was to relook at the biblical story and how central work is in creation. Redemption and ultimate consummation wasn't a tributary. I thought it wasn't an add on. It wasn't a new program. It was a deep theological conviction that the gospel profoundly speaks into every nook and cranny of life. As I frame that because I am a theologian, I love biblical texts. I love Hebrew, I love exegesis. I mean, this is my love. But I'm just saying then to connect that with people's worlds requires not only a rich theology, but then translating and understanding. I think the next step would be apart from having a sense of this is a priority in the biblical story. Right, to really have a theological position. Then I realized with a pastor, I need to put on a learner's hat. I need to learn from my people as a fellow sheep, just a shepherd about their worlds. So I have a business background, but I began to read widely more and journals. I didn't ask questions in my workplace. I began to understand more of my people's worlds and that impact in my prayer. And it impacted my vocabulary. I became a learner. I became more curious of different disciplines. So I'm not an expert, let's say, in people's worlds. But often I'm conversant. I make sense. I'm conversant because I do my homework. I listen. I learn. I read in many different areas and disciplines. And that allows me to interface with them, respect them and their world, not be an expert, but then take theology to that world.
Henry [00:15:20] So practically is you're a pastoralist into this and hopefully this is one of those episodes that our listeners listened to and say this is something I absolutely have to recommend to my pastor. And when you talk about being conversant in that language is super important. Yes. Do what is it that you read? How do you educate yourself when you don't have that five years of business experience as you have? It's a completely new world where some practical things that a listener, a pastor might go ahead and do tomorrow. So they're a desk type drink on a Sunday. It's Monday. It's I'm at lunch. Who am I having lunch with?
Tom [00:15:54] Yes. So I would say a couple of things is begin to do asset mapping for the individuals in your congregation. We often in churches, we look at our communities where the resources right about are there. How can the church impact it that each individual you shepherd and encourage has an amazing story and they have a place of influence and they have incredible contributions. So I'm just saying, first of all, I think the biggest thing is to become curious, become a learner, become hungry, to learn from your congregation. And you know what I will do? Obvious. I read The Wall Street Journal, things like that's that's a regular diet for me as I read the biblical text. But if I know I'm going to go to meet with someone or want to learn about their world, I will ask them. A good book or an article I could read in their world. Right. I mean, you know, someone who has a specific area of expertise, medical or whatever. I will want to know a little bit about that. I mean, it's just taking the initiative. It's being curious. It's learning and it helps you be more conversant in that world.
Henry [00:16:55] Plus, you're validating them when you say give me a an article to read. Yeah, they're taking it seriously. This isn't about the past routine matter lunch because he is talking about a capital campaign.
Tom [00:17:05] Exactly. That is the last thing I talk about. I mean, there's a place after dessert at least, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
William [00:17:13] So we spend a lot of time, obviously with entrepreneurs as you think about some of these people that you've gone to lunch with. How many of them are entrepreneurs? Love just kind of know at the highest level how many entrepreneurs you run into at your church. But then secondarily, if you could share some stories of some from your church and how maybe their life's been changed through the way your church has changed, the way that they're viewing Sunday and Monday.
Tom [00:17:38] Right. Well, I think, again, you know, we're very much in process. So I wouldn't would say that the movie I'm working on this for 20 years and we have many more years to learn as a congregation. Couple of things stand out to me. One is a regular day.
[00:17:50] I mean, we don't have a center for faith and work at Christ. It is woven into our culture theologically missionary from cradle to grave from all that we do in discipleship. My point is in our preaching, teaching and our thinking, entrepreneurship makes sense, right? For several reasons. One is, is that we serve a great God. We can multiply loaves and fishes. We have a sense of faith and how we see reality. We have a sense of seeing a need and trying to meet it, a willingness and take risk. This is our story as followers of Jesus, entrepreneurial God. We sell it. God is an oxburgh if it brings risk into the system. We may say that. So I'm just saying theologically that story that rich diet frames and validates entrepreneurialism from an entrepreneur God on the biblical story. So the idea of entrepreneurship is not extra. It fits into our faith vision of the world and how we see reality as God sees it. So I just want to frame that. And then out of that, our church attracts controversy because we speak that language. We validate entrepreneurs.
[00:18:55] Those who are sitting in the congregation understand the importance of compassion, building of creativity, all that is encouraged.
[00:19:04] So, you know, you're a retiree and have a lot of energy after you're. What is my next entrepreneur endeavor? I'm not done. So I'm just saying culture. We also stoke it, you know, with good articles. We do conferences and we highlight entrepreneurs on stage. Right. I mean, we're building that out. But I would say a couple of things. Just a couple examples. It is a culture. It's driven by theologist and by culture. It's what you celebrate. And we are just after 20 years, beginning to see much of the fruits of this culture in the local church. I'm just saying, we're working on that.
[00:19:33] Recently, we have a wonderful young couple in our congregation, Jeremy and Tracy Foster and Tracy. Downspouts in this stage of her life has seen the need to address screentime and the adverse effects of technology. So she and a handful of people to try other.
[00:19:51] I've started an organization called Starts that no one told her to do this. You see the need. She's concerned about screen time. She knows a lot of the Sherry turkle's and others who are writing about the danger of this. And so she starts this group stand up and rethink technology. And she's doing an amazing work. Diane Sawyer just interviewed her, I think, the other night on TV. But it's a small little group of people in a church in Kansas City where I thank you entrepreneurially about technology. So she has the sense of that. And people around us, people in the church, she's got a couple of water board that are part of the church. We think that way and we celebrate that. Two years ago, another two young guys started a company called Crema and they were young guys in downtown Kansas City, but they tied into the constant foundation. Those who were entrepreneurs know the Kauffman Foundation is a major foundation in this area here in Kansas City. So we're an entrepreneur ozone here. And they helped start what is called a million cups movement. Two guys in our church, in our downtown campus. Young guys. Starting out an attractive place that has helped facilitate the connecting of venture capital ideas here in Kansas City. And it was multiplied around the country, called it a million cups. So those are a couple examples.
Rusty [00:21:06] It's really great, Tom. Can you take us through a little bit of the evolution? You know, you started with work matters. You then move to the economics of neighborly love. You talk about being made to flourish. Take us through that evolution and how you keep it all woven back to this idea of work in the church.
Tom [00:21:27] Right. Well, yeah, I'm grateful for that question because it is a growing learning process. You know, I'm in process and with lots of great people, we're trying to be fruitful and faithful. So, yes, I have made some adjustments.
[00:21:40] So when I began to think more deeply about work theologically, emotionally and practically and discipleship, my primary framework was helping individuals understand the importance of their work before God, right before others. So I had more of a me focus. So you read work matters. I try to make it very accessible Electoral College students. But it was more framing the biblical story of why my work matters. Right. And then that excluded me into a national conversation. I work quite a bit with the academy side of seminaries, and I also got involved with some economists. And a long story short is that in my learning with these economists and theologians, I was the lone pastor in this conversation. And we began to realize that most of the faith and work conversation, particularly pastors, was primarily on the individual fulfilling their calling. Right. It was very me focused. Long story short, we began to realize that the team, theologians, economists and myself like, hey, we have got to make the bridge not just for me, but the biblical stories about we just my work matters. Our work matters, which is really dealing with the economy, how we bring value to one another. So I was asked in conversation, Tom, we've got to find a scholarly kind of pastor who can make it accessible. We'll take good moderate economic theory, but go from scripture to modern economics and make the case from scripture. First, why we need to care so much about economic flourishing, local and global. So that's where I spent some time in University Press just published last year.
[00:23:21] The work called The Economics Neighbor Love It helps people understand from scripture the importance of connecting not only my work, but our work. So we're trying to build a case for why economics matters from a biblical standpoint and yet be responsible to moderate economic theory. So that was the bridge building and I built it around Luke Penn. So wrap it up here. But the thesis of the book and there's a lot of other theological background in the Old Testament, fruitfulness and all this builds a bridge to economic flourishing. But the basic idea that is so compelling is around Jesus teaching. And Luke, 10 and I'm not going to give all the details are basically a thesis is that Jesus teaches us that neighborly love involves both compassion and capacity. Noah's as humans, when we have compassion without capacity. We have frustration because we were created to be generous and to love others. On the other side, if we have capacity, but we don't have compassion, we have alienation. Think the risk. All right. He has all this stuff, but he is alienated from God in his community. But if we bring compassion, a price and capacity together, economic capacity, we have neighborly love, we have human transformation. So I'm trying to make the case that neighbor, they love matters. That was both the compassion of Christ to see the other as family, but also the capacity in tangible ways to love them, which deals with economic flourishing.
Rusty [00:24:48] It's great.
Henry [00:24:49] Thomas Zealousness, another initiative we have is faith driven investing. And we have a one day event that Ben McClain is providing leadership for. And when you look at scripture and its impact on what it says about economics, presumably in your study that you also look to what scripture had to say about not just economics, but invest in it, provide capital and opportunity in the field of economics. You know, we as crossfires have been trusted with assets and we've come to understand that God owns it on TV and that we really internalize the gift of grace. And we realize it got honest all we want to give it back as our main form of worship. That also impacts our investing pocket as well. What does it mean for you as you unpack scripture through the lens of economics? What does it look like for you as you counsel investors in your congregation about how to deploy their investment assets, whether it's angel investing, invest in a community, investing in stocks and bonds? Do you see any scripture, the guides you in those conversations?
Tom [00:25:48] Well, it's a great question. I would be a little bit reluctant to be too granular because that's not my area of expertise. I mean, that's your expertise. But here's what I do have conversations around the area in terms of this conversation.
[00:26:01] I will go to Matthew 25, which is a major tax to Jesus, teaches about the parable of talents, for example, major teaching. Right. And what's the challenge with that? I think most of us who have a background understand that Jesus in the context of the future means eschatology or the future kingdom coming in for what's going to be future like. He uses the example of three portfolio managers, right? Money managers. And again, Jesus was an economist. He was working in the workplace. The vast majority of his parables were in the workplace. Jesus was a brilliant economist.
[00:26:34] So, again, that's not incidental or accidental teaching. So he takes in the 1st century. Economy was a different than today, but it was somewhat sum in perspective. But he takes these three money managers and you know the story well, often people talk about the faithfulness. Right. You've been faithful much there for. I'll give you more in faithfulness is an important category. But here's the challenge with that. If we divorce faithfulness from fruitfulness, we have a perverse understanding of faithfulness. So, for example, I will talk much more about a theology of fruitfulness than Jesus when it grabs his disciples the night before his crucifixion and John 15- to buy this. This my father glorified, you mentioned. I mean, this is the bottom line that you bear much. What fruit, right. That you may prove to be my disciple. So much for. What did you have in mind? So if we understand the whole canon, the whole flow of scripture. Yes. Fruitfulness is intimacy with Jesus. Of course, that providing. That's right there. Fruitfulness is the character of Christ. Sure. It's come. It's people coming to Christ. But to understand the broader framework, Jesus is also understanding that truthfulness is a vital part of faithful and that involves our productivity. And that would tie again to the fruitfulness of our investing. So I'm just saying, I'm want to broaden the imagination for the investor that we are to bear much fruit. And when an investor invest wisely and multiplies that investment in any dimension of value, then they are being fruitful and they are representing being Jesus disciple. If they make sense, I can go to details. But I'm not the expert in detail implementation, but I can give a framework of why that investment matters. And if you are faithful, you are also fruitful, right?
Henry [00:28:18] You're introducing the framework that there should be a framework. If God is telling you how you have an opportunity, be fruitful. And it is very much tied into Matthew twenty five story, then it probably behooves us to have some sort of a theology or a framework to begin with. Now, what he doesn't say in that passage is where they invested it. What they did exactly.
Tom [00:28:37] Exactly, there seems to be freedom there right now. It was the media. Yeah.
Henry [00:28:41] So I like to do with the time we have. I have one more question that I want to feature in first podcast episode. I'd love for you to tell us a little bit more about made flaws. You are an entrepreneur. You're presiding over an entrepreneurial startup first. What is it?
Tom [00:28:56] Well, major flourish came out of this compelling need. There are a lot of conversations across the nation about faith and work. But David Miller has said he's the best historian of faith and work movement that up until made the flourish of conception and launch. Think of this thousand organizations. Most who are mom and pops, right? Nothing. Kids that are dedicated in some area to try to help people connect Christian faith with their work context, isn't it? But in David Miller's research. Imagine this in 40 years of the faith and work movement is at least 40 years old. There is not one organization focused on the local church and the pastors role in the change agent in this. Most of these organizations go around the church and the reasons why so made a flourish was birthed primarily focused on pastors and the church. We're not only about pastors were pastors first, but there's an incredible opportunity to help pastors on a theological conviction, help them connect Sunday to Monday. Meet our mission from the very beginning is to build this network across the country where we bring together ideas, practices and relationships. We're boots on the ground. We're not just a think tank. Ideas matter. Practices matter, relations matter. So our goal is to help pastors and their congregations integrate faith, work and economic wisdom for the flourishing in our communities. So we are deeply committed to a pastor's wholeness and the important leadership role pastors play. And we believe. I'm just saying, we believe God's kingdom is broader than the church, of course, but we believe that the local church is at the heart of it and that that's God's plan.
[00:30:45] A local church can be frustrating and difficult.
[00:30:48] But from our standpoint, the local church really matters a pastors matter. And so that's what we're committed to, is to really help pastors these first haul and grow connect together around the nation, but deeply invest in equipping people for the majority of our life to show the whole, like, discipleship. It's nothing new, but a lot of it's not taking place. So we're pretty jazzed about it. We're almost four years old for trusting God to have an impact across the country. And we have a growing network and a long ways to go. So that's our hope. We can put a dent in that, make a big difference across the church and kingdom and across our country.
William [00:31:22] Made the first step org for our listeners. And there's so many great resources, so many great blogs and articles and all kinds of things, as well as all your city leaders are listed there as well. If there's pastor less than one plug into someone or talk to someone. So definitely urge you to check that out. And Tom, as we come to is somewhat of a close here on what we hope is the first of multiple podcasts with you. We always like to bring you back to God's word. You've done that a lot in this session here. But just. Is there some part of scripture? Maybe it could be this week. It could be today. It could be over the last few months that you feel God's calling you to reach, revealing himself in new ways and maybe to offer some encouragement. Some entrepreneurs out there love that, obviously.
Tom [00:32:06] So here's where I sit. I have a split role, so I serve a wonderful congregation, is 30 years old. It continues to be entrepreneurial and grow in Kansas City and also serve as the president made to flourish. So I let slip role, but it made a flourish were almost four years old. You know, entrepreneurship, three to four years. There's a lot on the line. You know, we're really encouraged, but there's a lot going on. I would just say a text. It's really important to me today. I mean, it's always been important to me that people think of praying for me and the work we're doing. In any accident or there's fragility, there's lots of intensity.
[00:32:41] There's challenges. It's very taxing. It's choice. fault. But bottom line is Genesis 17 more than to some gods, just Abraham, you know, he's 86 years old. Isaac voices. I'm the Lord God Almighty. Walk before me. And the whole analysis from that, I will bless you. I will give you a name. So far I'll be making fruitful, but that's where I am. Thank God initially that it's all about God. Ultimately, God reveals himself to Abraham. And that's part of his entrepreneurial endeavor. I have faith. But he says two things. Walk before me. The and the Hebrew text walk before me literally means to walk in my face. It's a picture of intimacy that was lost in the garden that is found in the cross in the yocum. Jesus. That's right. So in my heart today and I have challenge that I work hard. It's to be intimate with Jesus first. And then right on the heels of that is just brilliant Hebrew word, Tom to me, which is behold the integral. So I prayers that in the midst of what I'm doing and all the listeners that you guys know this we do the work. Gods calls do that. First and foremost, we cultivate intimacy with him. And then out of that we'd have an interior life and out of that we'd have influence. So that's where I would just frame my conversation. It's really important today. Today's full challenging and I just need a breath.
[00:33:57] Like many times all of us do in the midst of our duties. And so Leard, you reveal it's up to me. I'm walking in here, you know, dromi cost yourself. So walk before me and Beeville.
Henry [00:34:07] That's awesome. You've blessed are listening, audience. You've definitely blessed me. If nothing else happens, if nobody else listen to this. You've change the way that I think about my work and I'm really grateful. So thank you.
William [00:34:16] Amen.
Tom [00:34:17] Thank you, guys. Great to be with you.