If you are Christian in the workplace, you have a powerful calling to demonstrate the life of Jesus for those around you in your workplace.

Today we are talking with Jim and Martha Brangenberg who are passionate about activating followers of Jesus to live out their faith in their workplace.

After having run successful businesses Jim and Martha were challenged with the idea that your work is your ministry.

Ministry is not just something that pastors and missionaries do. Ministry is for every Christian, and your workplace is your mission field.

Join us for a breath of fresh air in talking about your purpose at work as well as learning about the iWork4Him nation and the Tapestry Project.

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business?

When you realize that you are a steward of your business, not an owner, and you take what has been given to you and use it to impact all levels of your business for Jesus and a closer walk with Him.

Understand that living out “love your neighbor” is loving your co-worker that you see every day at work. You don’t need a special crisis to show God’s love; you can be a witness for Jesus every day.

One challenge from today:

Start tomorrow. Start to pray and ask God how you can love those you interact with every day at work.

God needs you where you are. You have a powerful calling for those around you. You

may be the only Jesus these people ever see.      

 More About Jim and Martha Brangenberg

iWork4Him

sheWorks4Him— iWork4Him

iRetire4Him— iWork4Him

Tapestry Project — iWork4Him

 More About David Schmidt

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Transcript

David

[0:00]Well, today I brought Jim and Martha Brangenberg on the podcast. They are hosts of I Work For Him podcast. They've been doing that for over 12 years and have a few thousand episodes, and they've done radio before that. They have a passion to activate followers to live for Jesus and treat their workplace as their mission field. And they also have started the Tapestry Project, although I don't know how long that's been going, and I'll let them explain that to you later. So welcome, Jim and Martha, to the show. So thanks, David.

Jim

[0:30]Glad to be here.

David

[0:31]Yeah. You've interviewed lots of people, lots of business owners. And I guess, what is one favorite way that you have seen that these people honor God in their business that you've seen?

Jim

[0:44]I think the coolest part is when a business owner understands that they are not a business owner, that they're a steward and that the business was meant to do a lot more than just provide a paycheck, but that it was meant to impact a community, that it was meant to impact everybody connected, that the faith of the business owner was meant to not only impact the customers, but also the vendors and the employees and be a blessing to their family and also be a blessing to the community. When we see a business owner that gets that, that's the purpose. That's amazing.

David

[1:17]Okay. Very good. Martha, do you have one too?

Martha

[1:20]Well, I think very similarly, but also really in my heart, just when we see somebody living out, loving their neighbor and realizing that their neighbor at work is the person that they're rubbing shoulders with, that they are doing a project with, that they're serving in customer service or whatever they may be doing, that they look at it, that it's not just a nighttime and weekend neighbor that they live next door to. It's the neighbor in their workplace. And that's just powerful.

David

[1:49]Yep. And that's neat because most of us spend most of our time at work, you know, not even at home or asleep. Most of our time is at home. So, yeah, get that through our head. We can have great ministry. Very good. So take me a few minutes. How did you guys get into podcasting or the radio ministry? And you've been doing it for a long time. What started you on that road?

Jim

Jim

David

[4:05]That's neat. And that's what I've seen in life, too, is like God's the connection. I know one of my college students, not college students, college buddies, I saw him after and he was a youth pastor and we're talking and he goes, whenever I pray for God's will, I just say, God, be blatantly obvious because I'm really slow. Just be very obvious what God wants me to do. And yeah, God shows us what to do step by step.

Martha

[4:33]And day by day, sometimes hour by hour, we don't really know, but we walk that out in faith, trusting that we are being good stewards of the time and the talents that He's given us and the message, because that's really what this is about. It's about the message that we're learning on our journey and wanting to share with other people.

Jim

[4:52]It's about a paradigm shift, David, about shifting the mindset from work is work and church is church, but to the fact that our work is part of our worship. That's a big mind shift.

David

[5:06]Yep, you live for God all the time, not just on Sundays. For sure. Very good. So you guys still operate businesses as well as the podcast then?

Martha

[5:18]We actually do.

David

[5:20]Okay.

Martha

[5:21]I'm kind of laughing because, you know, it's funny on all of our journey, you know, when you said at the very beginning and you were asking, like, how did you get into this? I'm like, well, it's really God's fault. No, it's God's plan. We're just walking it out. But we are kind of finding ourselves back in the practitioner space of doing some stuff locally renovating buildings and starting businesses locally that help in the area flourishing. And so we are doing that. Again, not, we didn't really sit down and go, well, what's this 10-year plan? And what is this going to look like? But God just keeps opening doors, and we just keep walking through them. So for a long time, we were running a full-time business and doing five days a week, an hour a day of live radio, and that was not sustainable. So at a point, we had to say, okay, Lord, you're showing us that we can't do any of this well if we're doing all of it. So we had to surrender the consulting business that we had at the time and say, okay, we're all in. And went all in with I work for him and slowly have been moving back into some entrepreneurial stuff because it's in our blood. And there's no better way than to be a practitioner. When you're walking it out yourself, it's a whole lot easier to talk about it.

David

[6:39]Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because I understand that. You start struggling with the same things. I know there's people at work when I started my new job. They tell me this is how things are because of X, Y, Z. I believe them. But after about six months, I see why. Oh, yeah, they're right. It's kind of the difference between knowing in your head and knowing by experience. And it's the same way with God, knowing him in your head or knowing him by experience as well. Yes. Very good.

Jim

[7:10]And to know when God's in your wife's head, that's a real paradigm shift. So it used to be like, okay, what's God really saying? And now when I hear Martha say, you know, I've been thinking, and I'm like, okay, but let's do it. Because God speaks to our wives, and they listen a lot better than we do. So that's just one of those things.

Martha

[7:30]That's a lot of pressure, Jim.

Jim

[7:32]I'm okay with the pressure being on you and not me. It's way better.

Martha

[7:34]Oh, thanks.

David

[7:36]Okay. You said it was your goal to activate followers to live for Jesus and making the workplace your mission field. How's that going? Like today versus five years ago? Can you see progress in the workplace?

Jim

[7:50]So that's a great question. Because we're a radio broadcast on a podcast, we don't get a lot of interaction with our listeners. We do get interaction by download numbers, things like that. But you can look at the whole movement. We're part of what's called the faith and work movement, which is a movement across the country and around the world that.

Jim

[8:09]It's all about unleashing workplace believers on their workplace mission field. So what we could see is that when we first went on the air 12 years ago, there were two podcasts talking about this and there were two radio shows. I don't know of any radio shows today about it, but there are now at least 200 podcasts talking about this. There are a thousand books talking about this. There are ministries. There's at least a thousand ministries. That was a tapestry project you hinted at at the opening of the show. God is moving and more and more people are getting it. The next generation, so the kids that are 20, 30, they want their work to matter the minute they get out of college. Whereas a lot of us were satisfied with getting a job and maybe when we retire, our work could matter. And so what we're seeing is there's a real paradigm shift in Christianity in the United States to recognizing that there should be purpose in everything that we do. But it's a big paradigm shift because for hundreds and hundreds, if not 1,700 years, the church has pretty much said, hey, the highest calling is pastor or missionary. The rest of you, you're there to support the pastors and the missionaries. And that's what we're overcoming. 1,700 years of pretty bad theology.

David

[9:29]Yeah, no, that's good. Neat. Very good. So in saying that, what are some practical ways for me or somebody else to be a missionary in our workplace?

Martha

[9:43]Well, it's really not that daunting. I think for a lot of people, it's just opening up their eyes to realize that if Jesus Christ really is the Lord of our lives, then he changed everything, all 24-7, not just Sunday morning and maybe Wednesday night or whatever framework you want to put that in. But He changed all of us. No matter what we are doing, we are ambassadors for Christ. And so over time, we actually created something called the I Work For Him Nation that actually gives five very simple steps to help people kind of on their own, put it into practice. And so, Jim, why don't you list them off?

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