Bill English
Thank you and welcome back. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. We’re in the series on chapter five of my book from a Christian Theology of Business Ownership. That’s the title of the book. The chapter is Advisors and With System, and today we’re going to be looking at the 7th of this eight part series titled Churches and Mentoring Entrepreneurs.
Bill English
But before we get started today, I just like to ask you to head over to check out my site, Bible, andbusiness.com where I have well over 150 articles and over 200 podcasts now. And you’ll be able also to download the slides for this video series in a PDF format. So today I just want to spend a few minutes talking about churches mentoring new business owners. And the idea here is that if business ownership is a ministry, if it is a calling that God can give us in life just like being a missionary or a pastor or a Sunday school teacher or maybe working. In another nonprofit.
Bill English
If a calling to business in the marketplace is real, then perhaps our churches should consider in some way supporting the development of new business owners and new business leaders. And do that from a Christian perspective. In order to really get something like this going, you’re going to have to get the support of your pastors and your elders on board. You’ll also want to spell out the purpose in the audience for a ministry to new business owners. You’re going to be working with a lot of entrepreneurs, and that’s going to pose some of its own challenges that we’ll look at here in just a moment.
Bill English
But you also want to be able to say in terms of starting this ministry to business owners and business leaders, here’s our milestones, here’s our measurements that are going to be helpful to us and be helpful in gaining the support of your pastors and your elders. You don’t want this to be a lone ranger. If you’re excited about this idea, but nobody else is, it’s probably not the right idea for your church. So you want to make sure you have, I think, at least two, maybe even upwards to five like minded business owners who would like to be involved in this kind of a ministry. And then, of course, you’re going to have to procure some teaching materials.
Bill English
You could use my book, or you could use a plethora of other books and materials that are on the market. As I just referenced, there might be some dangers to avoid here on something like this. And I’ve listed out a number of things here. A business deal between two members goes sideways. So you have two entrepreneurs in this ministry and they think they have a great idea and they go into business together and the deal goes sideways.
Bill English
Doesn’t work out that way they wanted it to. What happens to their relationship? What happens to their other relationships within the ministry, do those relationships get poisoned? That kind of thing. You certainly want to avoid any social clicks or you want to make sure that you avoid a situation where maybe you have ten people in the Ministry and five of them are going to go into business together on this really new idea, but they don’t tell the other five about it, and the other five end up feeling alienated and kind of out of the loop and we wish we’d had a chance to be in it, that kind of thing.
Bill English
So I think overall, you’re going to need a contract that says, here’s what the ministry is and here’s what it does, and here’s the purposes and the directions and the goals of the ministry. And I would just recommend for the first year of anybody’s participation in the ministry that they not be allowed to do any business with anybody else in the ministry. Period. Just end of conversation. I think that would eliminate a lot of dangers that I’ve listed here on this slide.
Bill English
And I would just say that you guys make sure that you handle those dangers. So I realize this is kind of a quick video here today, but in review, I think churches should consider building a mentoring ministry for new business owners. They could partner with outside groups like C Twelve or CBMC, but I know C Twelve is going to say, it’s our program or no program, it’s our way or the highway. You may get a little bit farther down the road with a CBMC or somebody else, and that anytime you bring a bunch of entrepreneurs together, there’s going to be this natural desire to network and do business together. I’m just going to ask that you consider mitigating risk before getting started.
Bill English
Now, what does that ministry look like? What does the mentoring ministry look like? What you’re trying to do is to find people who want to go into business, and they really feel like that’s their call. God has called me to ministry, and so I want to be in ministry, and the ministry that God has called me to is business. He has called me to be in business.
Bill English
He has called me to generate wealth. He has called me to lead in business. I think those are really valid calls, and you can certainly consider building a mentoring ministry around that. So for our next episode, we’re going to take a very brief moment and take a look at self care and how taking care of our physical bodies is really important if we’re going to be around in the later years in our life in order to pass along to younger business owners that which God has poured into us. So until we meet again, I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business.
Bill English
By the way, if you want to get a hold of me, you can do so just by sending me an email at bill at bible, andbusiness.com I’d love to hear from you. And a number of you have already reached out to me and said, what can I do here? Just let me know what’s up, and I’ll be sure to dialogue with you. So, like I said, until we meet again. I hope you go out and make it a great day.
Bill English
Take care.