3 Essentials to Growing a Successful Christian Business by Dave Kahle

The world is full of advice for businesspeople. If you are a Christian, the challenge is to sort it out – to discard the superficial and worldly while grabbing onto that which will make a difference. In this post, I share three essential paths that will keep you focused on the right things. Striving for these will keep you on track, harnessing your power to continuously stimulate your efforts in a way that will eventually bring you to the best that you can be.

I’ve been a Christian and a consultant/author/speaker for over 30 years. In that time, God arranged for me to have worked with over 500 different organizations. Regardless of the size, the age, the type of industry or the location, successful Christian businesses have somethings in common. With the same God, and the same focus, they can be energized and directed by incorporating powerful initiatives. These three initiatives are essential for a Christian business to reach its potential.

First, note that these are paths to pursue. Each of these is a commitment to a lifetime of growth. They are not events for which you can check the box and then move onto something else. They are paths on which to journey, continuously evolving and developing. These three paths will keep you focused on the things that are essential to success.

Adopt the right mindset
Your mindset colors everything you think and everything you do. It’s the basic framework through which you view the world, and it influences every decision you’ll make.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of Christian businesspeople have been misdirected into an erroneous mindset. A recent study found that only 6 percent of Christians had a biblical worldview.

The most common mindset is this: “Christianity is about what I do on Sundays at church. What I do during the week in my business or career has nothing to do with being a Christian.” This compartmentalization of Christianity and business is one of Satan’s greatest lies. When people accept that lie and embrace that mindset, they take themselves out of the great struggle between good and evil, and effectively seat themselves on the bench.

As a result, millions of people, across time and geography, have never been exposed to the power of the love of God through interaction with a committed Christ-follower on the job. And the Christian businessperson who embraces that erroneous mindset spends his/her life focused on the wrong things – effectively living a life of less consequence than God had in mind.

There is a better mindset. One which is in sync with God’s word and his plan: “My work and my business is my ministry. God has put me in this position to shed his light into the lives of the people whom I, and my organization, touches. “

Colossians 3:17

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

When you embed that set of beliefs into your heart and mind, you prepare fertile soil out of which will spring all sorts of blessings for yourself and others. It will help you sort through the noise around you; and it will be a measuring rod by which to evaluate the people, ideas and decisions you’ll confront.

As I researched the scriptures while I was writing The Good Book on Business, I was struck with the role that business plays in God’s work with mankind, and the role it plays in His relationships with us. Before Eve was created, before scripture, before prophets, before church, before pastors, God created work and indicated that he would use it as his first venue through which to create a relationship with mankind.

You’ll probably not hear that message from the pulpit. Unfortunately, many of the other Christian businesspeople you’ll encounter will be more interested in maintaining a comfortable lifestyle enabled by that compartmentalized separation of business and ministry.

Remember, it is a path on which to journey, and you can be bumped off it and misled down other paths. So, in order to nurture the business is ministry mindset, you’ll need to continually expose yourself to content that supports that idea and connections with like-minded folks.

As your resolve grows, you’ll become ever more effective in the marketplace, growing your impact for the Kingdom.

Invite the Holy Spirit into every aspect of your business/job.
Once you accept the reality that your business or your job is your ministry, you’ll understand that God is interested and engaged in what you do. In the first moments of creation, when God gave Adam his first job – name the animals –God established a precedent. You’ll recall that God brought the animals to Adam, and then Adam named them. God gave Adam a task, and then worked with him to complete it. They worked together — teamwork. He’ll work with you in the same way.

God wants to work with you. So, you should seek his input into the decisions you make and his intervention in all of your efforts.

That manifests as prayer. While you might begin your journey with an occasional prayer for God’s direction and blessing for your marketplace efforts, staying on the path should gradually morph into prayer before every meeting, for every decision, for every hire, for every employee, for every customer and every vendor.

As you proceed on this path, you’ll find yourself become closer to God as you bring all your anxieties, plans, dreams and decisions to Him. You’ll see his hand in your marketplace life in ways that you never thought possible. That’s one of the reasons business is so important to God — it is one of his preferred venues through which to interact with mankind and draw you closer into a relationship with Him.

Like each of the three paths, this one requires discipline to stay the course and commitment to keep you focused.

Strive for Excellence and Influence
A Christian business is a special entity. It exists in the world and is judged by the world on its accomplishments. Yet, it also exists in the Kingdom, and is charged with the challenge to bear fruit.

Excellence is the measure of worldly success. Influence is the summation of its Kingdom impact. Remember the verse about being salt and light in a dark world. As. we gradually attain higher degrees of excellence, we earn the world’s respect. Excellence exposes your light to more people and adds creditability to it. Influence speaks to the impact that light has on those around you.

These two words provide the strategic direction for every Christian business and every Christian career. Every initiative should be measured by the degree to which is promotes excellence and influence. Every effort and every decision should be colored by these two overriding concepts.

They provide the rallying cry for the balance of your career. They will shine as a distant destination just over the horizon. You, and your business, will never reach the degree of excellence that it could. Nor will it achieve the amount of influence that lies within its potential. Yet, striving for these two elusive expressions of perfection will keep you on track, harnessing your power to continuously stimulate your efforts in a way that will eventually bring you to the best that you can be.

Being a Christian in the marketplace is a special, God-anointed ministry. No one else has the same opportunity that you do. Pursue these three paths to build a successful business, lead a fulfilled life in the marketplace and achieve a “Well done, good and faithful servant.

Dave Kahle
The Kahle Way
sell better, manage better, lead better
(616) 451-9377