Today’s episode is inspired by a question I got over and over again in my audience survey last year because a lot of you guys are like me. You want to bring God into your business as a Christian business owner. You are a personal brand business or other type of business but you are not a ministry, and what you do may have literally nothing to do with your faith on paper, but you ARE a Christian business owner and your faith is an important part of who you are and how you show up in the world. It also informs the decisions you make in your business, both the big ones and the small ones.
But maybe you feel like your faith is a secret because you don't know if it's okay to share it as a business owner and you're worried you'll alienate clients or customers who disagree with you. OR - maybe you're feeling like God is calling you to share about your faith, but you're not sure what that looks like when you’re a photographer or a designer (for example!).
So in this episode, I'm sharing four ways to bring your faith in Christ into your everyday work life as a business owner. And stay tuned - we are also doing a part two of this next week where I'm sharing four more ways. Let’s get into it!
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First, I believe that we are not all called to ministry as Christians. But we are all called to be ministers of Christ in our lives and work, regardless of our literal career. I still remember being in high school in Sunday school and having our teacher ask us what we think we want to do when we get older, and I still remember so many of the other girls saying they wanted to be missionaries, or work at a church, or start a non-profit, etc.
At the time, I felt so alone in that I did not feel like God was calling me to overseas ministry or to work at a church or anything like that. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but didn’t feel like that was it.
Flash forward to today, I married someone who did work in ministry for over 5 years for a non-profit Christian ministry and I volunteered in that ministry for 7 years. So I’ve been in that world, intensely so, while running my very “not ministry” business. And while running this business, I’ve also known that I want to talk about my faith sometimes as I feel so called and I don’t want to hide that I’m a Christian. I don’t want my faith life to be separate from my business. I don’t want to live with parts of me in neat little boxes. Maybe you can relate?!
The problem is it can feel hard to figure out how to do it all. So that’s what I want to talk about today: 4 ways that you can integrate your faith and your business.
1. Tithing BIGGER as your business gets bigger.
This is a private way to integrate your faith into your business, but SO REAL when you want to bring God into your business. By tithing, we put money in its place in an industry where it is so easy for money to become an idol. With “6 figure this,” “7 figure that,” “become wealthy this way,” and “buy this course and you’ll make $100k in 6 months,” and so much other stupid (and dishonest) marketing, it’s hard to not let chasing money become everything.
By giving generously you can work towards putting money lower in your world (when it comes to your priorities). By tithing generously, you’re giving back to God what’s his, and really separating your money from “your worth”. Obviously, you're helping other people when you give money to different organizations and to the local church and things like that, but it also impacts you and your relationship with God and your relationship with your business. It is huge for your own personal health to give away money.
I think tithing is amazing, and I love that the Bible calls us to tithe percentage-based, so as your income grows, this number can change. There’s no set dollar amount, When you make more, you can tithe more. Or lower months, that number will naturally be less.
In addition to your local church, I highly recommend tithing to a non-profit that has a mission you feel like you can get behind and your heart feels drawn to (whether that’s foster care, or sex trafficking, or homelessness).
I personally don’t tithe from my business (unless I’m corporate sponsoring a non profit event). This is something I do from our personal finances. And again, you can give to multiple non-profits and organizations. But if you are not tithing from what you make in your business, I just encourage you to pray about this and see what God is leading you to in terms of places and ways to give.
When you are really attached to your money and in scarcity, you’ll probably never feel like you have “enough money to go around” to tithe. There is never enough when you’re in a scarcity mindset, so if that’s where you are, you’ve got to get out of that.
2. Being generous with a client/customer who is in a tough situation.
This generosity can come in a lot of different ways. I’m putting this one right after tithing because it relates! But as a Christian business owner, you can share your faith in a very subtle way just by being generous with your clients/customers when they’re going through something.
This could look like something little like when a client is having a bad day, you send a Starbucks gift card. Or you let a customer pause their payment plans as they get through a rocky time. We’ve had customers who are in rough situations and I don’t think they’re trying to just take advantage and we’ll let them pause payment plans. I had a customer about a year ago who was going through a tough divorce and I sent her a note and gift card to Target.
Read more: Why We Need To Share Boldly In Our Faith (And How Podcasting Can Help) With Brooke Jefferson
3. Pray for your customers and clients.
Similarly, praying for customers and clients can be a great way to bring God into your business. There are so many people that you probably frequently interact with through your business but they are not in your everyday life. It can be easy to “forget them” because you only communicate on zoom calls or over the internet. But one way to integrate your faith and business is to pray for your customers and clients often.
This can look like prayer journaling about them by name. It can look like a client of yours who is having a bad month, and not just sending them a sweet note, but actually praying for them.
Something I like to do is pray over customers when they buy. And you might be wondering, what do you pray for? That they’ll find favor with your product or service. That it will go smoothly, that they’ll have wins. I often literally pray that people will be able to customize their Showit template. With my new podcast course, I was praying over every new student that they would be able to have a HUGE WIN from the course, and learn something, and have the time/diligence to take action with it.
This will look different depending on what you do in your work, but this is something we can all do, and it’s something that YES sometimes it might make sense to pray with a client, but you can also do this more privately. Off the top of my head, I don't think I've ever prayed with a client over Zoom or anything like that. This can be private just for you.
Read more: Bible Verses To Encourage You In Goal Setting & Vision Casting As A Business Owner
4. See yourself as working for the Lord first and foremost.
Colossians 3:23-24 says: “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.”
In my personal opinion, this is not an easy perspective to keep in mind. I often will struggle with this, because earthly validation does feel so good. It also feels SO BAD when someone is unhappy with something you create.
But working for God to serve God first is helpful to remember. Plus, when we keep this in mind practically, I think what it looks like is putting our business in its place. It’s so easy for our business to become an idol and this thing we love so much and put before other priorities like our family, health, marriage, etc.
I think this verse and heavenly perspective on our work help to put our business back where it belongs. Tying it back to the first one about tithing, we are in an industry where it can feel really hard to keep that perspective. There is a lot of glorification of hustle culture. If you don't do all the things, then you're not all in on your business. Hearing that, I just want to tell you that you're allowed to work less, take the vacation, take the time off, have a longer quiet time and start work later.
Basically, I would ask God and pray about it. You can also just reflect on your own how you can put your business in its place and get your priorities straight. This is something that you have to do over and over again. It doesn't just happen and it’s unfortunately not a one-time thing.
Moreover, this also makes me think about asking when it comes to your business decisions — ”does this honor the Lord?”, “What reason am I doing this?”, “Is this what I’m being called to?”. These are all helpful questions to ask ourselves often. Another thing I would add is that you're not going to be able to get that clarity from God and get answers to things when you never have moments of silence and quiet in your life. You need quiet time to vision cast for your business. You can’t always be doing the next thing, listening to podcasts, or scrolling on your phone.
Read More: How To Bring Your Faith Into Your Business With Jena Viviano
Bringing Your Faith Into Your Business
I hope this episode has helped you start to think of more ways you can practically integrate your faith with your business as a Christian business owner. Ask yourself now, which of these resonates with you? Pray about which ones God could be calling you towards and DO IT.
Next week, I’ll be back with 4 more ways to bring God into your business that are completely different from these ones! Stay tuned!
Links Mentioned
Tune Into Episode 42 with Jena Viviano about Sharing Your Faith as a Business Owner
Tune Into Episode 236 with Brooke Jefferson on How We Can Share Boldly in Our Faith
Connect with Elizabeth on Instagram
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Shop Showit Website Templates (Use Code BBPODCAST for 10% off)
Join my FREE Breakthrough Brand All Access Facebook Group
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